Page 7 of Sometimes You Stay

“But I didn’t even ... You weren’t ... I didn’t see you there.”

“I didn’t see you either. Until it was too late.” He tried for a smile. “Maybe we’re even?”

Marie harrumphed. “Not likely, mister.”

Yeah. He knew she was right. “What can I do?”

“First things first.” Marie ran a towel over Cretia’s dripping hair. “A shower and some dry clothes.”

Cretia’s eyes flashed wide and fearful. “My carry-on. Did you see it?”

Finn cringed. “It’s in the harbor. Somewhere. But if it had any sort of buoyancy, the waves could have carried it halfway to Newfoundland by now.” Maybe not quite that far, but their only real hope of recovery was if a lobster boat crew mistook it for a buoy. Not real likely. Though she did not need to hear that at the moment.

“That’s ... that’s everything...” Cretia struggled to find her words and her breath, which came out in quick pants. Her wide eyes turned even more wild. Her smeared eye makeup had been funny at first, but combined with the unhinged look in her eyes, she was more than a little bit terrifying.

Marie shot him a look that seemed to ask just who he’d brought into her home, and he could only shrug. He had no idea.

“Do you have another suitcase?” Finn leaned in, offering a reasonable solution. Surely, she had some other clothes somewhere. “Did you leave it at your hotel in Charlottetown? I can help you get that back.”

Little lines appeared between her gently arched eyebrows as she began to shake her head. “No. That’s—Everything I own is in my carry-on and backpack.”

Marie sucked in a quick breath, and Finn backed up so fast that he bumped into the white-tiled counter that ran the length of the wall.

“Everything?” he asked slowly. He had to have misunderstood. No one carriedallof their earthly belongings in two bags. Next to large bodies of water.

Cretia merely dipped her chin, her gaze dropping to her folded hands in her lap.

“I’m sure we can find you something to wear while wewash your clothes,” Marie said. With a hand under Cretia’s elbow, she guided her toward the back stairwell.

“Please. Can you rice my electronics?” Cretia thrust her phone at him.

Finn accepted the metallic blue device and glanced toward the front yard where Joe Jr. had dropped her bag, but it didn’t help to make sense of her words. “Rice?”

“Put them in uncooked rice. Cover them all the way. It might pull the water out.”

“Sure. Yeah. I can do that.” He nodded toward Marie. “You go clean up, and I’ll ... rice your electronics.”

Cretia’s features pinched tight for a moment, but finally she allowed herself to be ushered away, limping with each step.

Finn flipped the phone over in his hand a few times. It looked fairly new, one of those ones with a fancy camera and a huge screen. Then again, he didn’t have much to compare it to. He still used a flip phone that required old-school texting techniques. Not that he texted much. Or did anything but take business calls and reach out to his parents every now and then.

He was certainly no expert, but one of the guys in town had dropped his fancy phone in the harbor once. Brandon had complained for weeks that the so-called water-resistant feature was a scam because his phone never did turn on again. The screen on Cretia’s was mostly black, save for three small patches that flickered neon colors and two horizontal cracks that it had probably sustained either going into or out of the water. He had a feeling that elaborate features wouldn’t save this phone from the trash bin. Rice or not.

Still, he set the phone down and jogged toward the front yard to find Jack and Joe Jr. playing a game of tackle tag, Joe’s happy barks mixing with Jack’s squeals of laughter.

“Jack, can I leave Joe with you for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

Jack looked up as Joe Jr. pushed him to the ground. “Sure, Mr. Finn!” he said from somewhere beneath the furry beast, who looked up with a dumb grin.

“Be good, Joe.”

The dog answered by letting loose a big dribble of slobber.

Finn could only laugh as he picked up the squishy backpack and set it on the porch before jogging down the road toward the town grocery. He made the trip past the harbor in half the time it had taken with Cretia in his arms and crossed the street at the three-way stop. In the store he picked up six bags of white rice.

Jasmin Brandy, who had been in the same grade as him, raised her eyebrows when he plopped the bags down at the checkout. “The church having a potluck I didn’t get invited to?”

“No. I have toricesome electronics.”

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