Page 17 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“No.Mitchell wouldn’t lie like that.”
Sudden tears were hot in Beatrice’s eyes. “I’m so angry at him, I can barely think about him, even for a second.”
“How could this—no, your father is the best man I know. He’s the best mananyof us know.”
It was true. Everyone loved Mitchell. Honestly, it was probably why she’d fallen for Grant. Both men’s friendliness was flavored with the same exuberant kindness, the attention to detail, the ability to listen wholeheartedly. Beatrice’s stepmother had often begged him to just thank a checkout clerk once in a while instead of getting their life story and inviting them over for barbecue.He exhausts me, Beatrice, he really does.When Naya died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder two years before, it was the first time Beatrice ever saw her father unable to smile.
“Well, it turns out he’s a pathological liar.”
“There has to be something you don’t understand. Maybe hethoughtshe died? But no, not if you have a twin—Jesus. Maybe your mother survived the cancer and then stole your twin sister away from him, and he could never admit—no, that would be fucked, too. Holy shit. What’s shelike?”
Beatrice described Cordelia’s knitting and Minna’s cat shoes and Astrid’s crimson lipstick, and all the while, her father’s betrayal twisted, knifelike, somewhere in the region of her solar plexus.
“I wish I still smoked. This is a such a cigarette conversation, isn’t it?” In the background, Beatrice heard Iris open what would be her seventh or eighth Coke Zero of the day. “Are you scared? Do you want to talk about it?”
Beatrix, you’re going to die. Soon.
“I don’t believe any of it.”
“Except for the two miracles.”
“I think they’re more like coincidences.”
“Mmm. What are you going to do next?”
The words came to her quickly. “Hide in my room until I leave.”
“Sure. Okay, yes. And see your sister again? And your niece?”
Holy shit.“Or… I could leave early!”
“Aren’t you there for just two nights?”
Somehow, impossibly, it was still only Friday. She had tomorrow and tomorrow night, and then on Sunday morning, she’d leave. She and Dad were courting one of their biggest client prospects ever on Monday morning, which was something she refused to think about now. “Yeah.”
“So you see them tomorrow.”
“Or I just sleep all day.”
“Sleep in if you need to. Then see them.”
“I really can’t stand you sometimes.”
“Irrelevant. Tell me more about how it felt to see your sister.”
Beatrice did, and then, exhausted, she did her best to convince Iris that she was okay. Because she was. If okay meant still awake and breathing. And true, she wanted to keep breathing. The awake part, though…
So she got into bed a good two hours before she normally would. Her Kindle held nothing she wanted to read, so after flipping between the pages of four different books, she let it drop from her hand to the lavender-scented sheets.
The dark room filled with the violent sound of crashing waves.
Sleep felt impossible.
In one day, Beatrice had somehow lived through an accident that should have killed her. She’d found blood relatives she’d never known about. Someone had told her she was dying. And she’d learned that the man she had loved most had betrayed her, utterly. (Grant’s betrayal could have felt like practice for this. But it didn’t.)
In travel bag of daily vitamins was a blister pack of sleeping pills. They were Grant’s, left in her bag from their last trip together. He rarely took them, and she never had, not before tonight. She cracked one of the blisters and popped a pill into her mouth, letting its bitter promise dissolve under her tongue.
If she hadn’t caught Grant and Dulcina, they would have all come to the island together. Still in blessed ignorance and not wanting Grant to tease her mercilessly, she never would have talked to Winnie on the ferry. She’d have been so busy organizing the trip details, she wouldn’t have gone to the general store at the exact right time to meet Minna. She wouldn’t have met Cordelia. It was totally possible the men would have golfed while she and Dulcina found somewhere to get a massage, and then theyall would have gone home on Sunday. She would have walked the short distance from her house to Dad’s. He would have hugged her before making her a cup of tea and telling her about the latest financial scandal he’d picked up from watchingBloomberg.
