Page 43 of The Someday Daughter
“We’re not ailing,” Mick says, and everyone turns to him. But GG’s looking at Sadie, and I think,Maybe not all of us.
“It’ll heal you anyway,” Silas says, reaching for a mug and passing it to me. I breathe it in, feel the steam all the way down to my lungs. I watch him take a sip and close his eyes, lashes fluttering just once before he opens them again. “GG’s been pushing this stuff on us my whole life. Cut to me being the only seven-year-old asking for herbal tea at his birthday party.”
Cleo snorts, but then she lifts the mug to her lips and I watch her eyes go comically wide.
“Oh my god,” she says, putting it back down. “This is amazing, Ms. G.”
GG shrugs, but the little smile on her lips is proud. She sits, wrapping tan hands around a mug of her own. “Well,” she says, looking at Silas. “Tell me all of it.”
His eyes flick, almost imperceptibly, to me. And for some reason I think of that first night, of counting my fingers in the back alley in Los Angeles, of Silas unzipping my dress.All of it.I keep quiet, let Mick and Cleo and Silas fill the silence. Listen to Silas tell GG about his freshman year at American, and Cleo regale her with the tale of their night out in San Francisco that Ispent alone in my hotel room. Listen to Puddles lap at the water bowl in the kitchen.
And I think about my summer: studying for a class I’m not even taking, staring into the pixels of Ethan through my computer screen, sending one thank-you email after another to doctors who might not even remember me enough to write recommendation letters down the road. The word comes to my mind unbidden, all on its own:waste. A waste of the precious few months before college. I bite my lip, and when I start counting my fingers under the table I feel Silas look at me, like maybe he knows. I just have to get through these next few days, get to the ICU acceptance, get to planning.
“Sadie,” GG says, reaching to put a hand on her forearm. “What do you say you and I visit in the garden while the kids go have their fun at the lake?”
Sadie nods quietly, and we all stand.
“We’ll see you in a bit,” GG says, already guiding Sadie toward the back door. “I’m making meatballs for dinner.”
“Time to lake it up?” Cleo asks, raising her eyebrows and looking between us.
Mick points a warning finger at me. “You’re not getting in this time.”
As if I need a reminder.
30
Maren’s gone by the time we get to the lake. When Silas texts her, she says they left to get ice cream. The beach is small, not quite Chicago’s North Avenue—just a sandy stretch along one little blip of the waterline, busy with spread-out towels. We brought some from GG’s house, a mismatched collection she seems to have acquired at Disney World. When Mick unfurls his towel, it has a giant cartoon ant on it.
“Just my style,” he tells Silas, who shrugs.
“Everything in that house is for the grandkids.” He shakes out his own towel, two tigers in a jungle. “Seven older than me, eight younger.”
Both my parents are only children, both the parents of an only child. I don’t have a single cousin or sibling. The only family I have that’s not on this tour is essentially Dad, who’s been so busy since Austin I’ve hardly heard from him—and Fallon and Ethan, if they’re allowed to count.
I pull out my phone and take a picture of the water, debate sending it to both of them before opening a text to just Fallon instead.Not our Colorado, but close, I send.Miss you.
“Can we all picture Camilla on one of these for a sec?” Cleosays. She sits on Rapunzel’s face, crossing her legs. “Imagine her dismay, if she were here.”
“The opposite of her aesthetic,” I agree, tucking my phone back into my bag. “All of her towels are neutral Turkish cotton.”
Cleo shudders. “The opposite ofmyaesthetic.” She’s in the same blue bikini from Chicago and a bucket hat covered entirely in rhinestones that makes it almost impossible to look at her—the sun’s reflection in it makes her blinding.
“I’m going in,” Mick says, and before I can even get my sunscreen out of my bag he’s hoisted Cleo over his shoulders and started running toward the water.
Silas shouts, “It’s cold!” But there’s no way they can hear over Cleo shrieking. When they plunge into the water her bucket hat flies off, floating on the lake’s surface like a beacon. I glance at Silas to find him shaking his head but smiling, Puddles bookended between his knees.
“I think I messed up,” I say, and he turns to me. His eyebrows draw together, head tilting to one side. He’s got hisGG’s Gardensharehat on and a pair of dark swim trunks and no shirt. I draw a steadying breath. “I kind of snapped at Sadie during our obstetrics visit and she’s been acting really weird ever since.”
“You snapped at her?” he says, and I fight my body’s urge to fold into itself. “About what?”
I bite my lip. Worry it between my teeth until it stings. I could lie, but I don’t. “My mom’s book. How she’s been writing notes in it.”
Silas hesitates, glancing at the water before turning back to me. I get the sense that he’s weighing something, that maybe he’ll push me away now, too. “What did she say?” he asks finally.
“Nothing,” I tell him. “That’s the problem. I think—I think I hurt her feelings? Or embarrassed her, maybe, about the notes? Do you know what she’s been writing in there?”
His eyes find mine, sun glancing across them. And for a moment he looks like GG when we arrived at her house. Like he’s searching for something in me. “Audrey,” he says quietly, but suddenly Mick and Cleo are back, and he’s standing to contain Puddles, and the moment is over. I curl my fingers into my palm.
