Page 62 of The Glass Dolphin

Then, all Eloise had to do was hang on. Alice smelled like cotton and a slow, summer day where no one would ever have to face such heartache. Life was easy inside the circle of Alice’s arms, and Eloise clung to her and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.

Alice said nothing, and Eloise would never be able to tell anyone about the roiling, boiling turmoil inside her. She hadn’t told her friends she was pregnant yet. She and Aaron hadn’t told the girls either.

She hadn’t meant to keep secrets; she’d simply wanted to be sure.

As she finally quieted, Alice asked, “Do you need a ride home?”

Eloise nodded, and Alice lovingly led her to her car. Kristen and Jean waited in the back seat, but no one asked her any questions. She’d wrung herself dry, but when she cried that hard, she sniffled and hiccuped for a while afterward.

Alice got behind the wheel and started the car, going about everything perfectly normally. She buckled her seatbelt and adjusted the volume on the radio. In the back seat, Jean’s baby babbled, and that only made a hot streak of tears silently flow down Eloise’s face.

In that moment, she realized that Jean had been in situations like this. She hadn’t been able to have any children either, and she’d suffered miscarriages. Eloise could potentially talk to her.

But she didn’t want to, not right now. She didn’t want to talk this through, not with as raw and as immediate as it was.

“Clara said she’ll get a RideShare,” Kristen said quietly from the back seat.

“I can go,” Eloise said.

Alice reached over and punched the door locks. “No,” she said firmly. “Clara can get another ride.” She looked at Eloise. “You don’t have to talk to us. Just let me take you home and make sure Aaron’s there to take care of you. Or I’ll stay until he gets home.”

“The girls,” Eloise said. “I have to pick up the girls.” She loved Billie and Grace, and they’d given her so much purpose. She couldn’t fall to pieces in front of them. They’d go through so much pain and heartache in their lives, and Eloise had to show them a good example of how to deal with it.

“I’ll get them,” Alice said. “Kristen, you and Jean are going to the lighthouse?”

“Yes, please,” Kristen said, and Alice maneuvered out of the parking space. Eloise didn’t even remember walking over to the car.

The radio played merrily in the car as Alice drove, and she even sang along with the lyrics. Eloise kept her eyes out the window, everything blurring into one smear of color. Alice stopped; Kristen and Jean got out of the car, and Eloise watched Jean labor under the weight of the car seat that held her baby as they walked up the sidewalk to the dark blue door of the lighthouse.

Alice backed out and the ride continued. Eloise and Aaron lived up the beach from the lighthouse, and she watched the cliffs roll away into the flatter grasses and sand dunes. She thought about the first time she’d met Aaron when she’d first come back to the cove. It had happened on this beach that ran behind his house. He’d been running with his dog, Prince, and the canine had knocked her right into the waves.

“I still have Aaron,” she whispered to the glass. She turned toward Alice. “I…”

Alice cut her a look out of the corner of her eye and said, “El, I don’t know why you’re upset, but it hurts my heart. I don’t need to know right now.” She gripped the steering wheel. “I’ve been there, whatever it is.”

Eloise nodded, her emotions quivering through her whole body. They shook her chin, and she said, “I don’t want anyone else to know right now.”

“I would never tell them anything,” Alice said.

“I lost…” Eloise couldn’t even say it. Alice made the turn off the highway that circumnavigated Diamond Island, the car slowing as she entered the neighborhood. A few moments later, she pulled into Eloise’s driveway.

With the car in park, Alice faced Eloise fully. “What time are the girls done?”

“Billie’s done at the high school at two-fifteen,” Eloise said. “Grace at the junior high at—”

“Two forty-five,” they said together. Alice nodded. “I’ll get them and bring them home.”

Eloise suddenly didn’t want to be in the house alone. She didn’t want Alice to show up and pick up the girls. Then they’d know something was so wrong that Eloise couldn’t do it herself. They’d worry, and the fact that Eloise might cause a problem for Billie and Grace tormented her.

She shook her head. “You know what?” A long drag of oxygen cleared the cobwebs that had come into her mind. “I can do it.”

“El.”

She started to crack again, and she still didn’t want to be alone. “Will you come inside with me? We can have some tea, and just…I don’t want to be here alone.”

“Have you talked to Aaron today?”

Eloise nodded, but she reached for the door handle and pulled it open. Aaron struggled in his own way, and she’d never seen the strong, capable, smart cop cry about anything except his girls. He maintained a level head during a crisis, and Eloise had relied on him so much over the past few years.

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