Page 7 of The Breakaway

"Mind if I sit here, Mol?" Ella asks, sweeping her long, flowing shirt around her and settling in on the chair next to Molly's before she can answer. But of course she can sit there--what is Molly going to say,No, you aren't allowed to use this chair? She likes Ella well enough anyway, even if she's entirely unconvinced that the woman has the ability to speak to the dead or to predict anyone's future. And yet, who is she to say what's possible and what's not?

As if a bell has gone off at school, the rest of the women take their seats, balancing plates of food on their laps as they sip wine or sparkling water. Ruby sinks into her own chair as she smiles at the new group members.

"Oh, I'm so excited that our little book club is growing!" Ruby says, holding a book in her lap and her sparkling water in one hand. "Ella and Phyllis are joining us, and I hope you all had a chance to finish readingEat, Pray, Loveso that we can talk about it--amongst other things."

"Can I just jump right in?" Ella leans forward in her chair. "Because this is one of my all-time favorite movies--I mean, Javier Bardem in Bali? Please and thank you, I'll take one of those," she says, laughing as the other women nod and chuckle. "But the book just took me all around the world in a way that felt so real. So visceral. Did anyone else feel that?"

"I've never been to India," Heather says, nibbling another biscotti. "But I've been to Italy and Bali, and I have to say that it's incredibly hard to capture the magic of either place in words. It's almost impossible to do it without visuals."

"The South Pacific is one of the most magical places in the world," Molly says plainly. "I lived near a waterfall in Fiji once, and I could have stayed there for the rest of my life." She is dipping a samosa in the green cilantro chutney sauce that goes with it, and when she looks up, nine pairs of eyes are watching her inquisitively.

"You lived in Fiji?" Tilly's interest is clearly piqued.

"Yes, child. I wasn't born in a tide pool here on Shipwreck Key." Molly shakes her head. "I sailed there after my husband died and I liked it so much that I stayed a while."

"You sailed there with...a group?" Sunday asks. Her wine is poised like she's about to take a sip, but she pauses as she waits to hear more.

"No, I went alone."

"From where?" Sunday's eyebrows shoot up.

Molly exhales like she's not sure she wants to embark on this journey. "Well, girls. I left Hawaii in October and got to Japan just before Thanksgiving. Rodney's grandparents lived there, and though he'd never met them, I knew in my heart that taking him to meet them was the right thing to do."

"You took him?" Ruby is now hanging on Molly's words, looking as interested as Sunday and, well, as interested as the rest of the women at the mention of a solo sailing journey.

Molly's eyes graze the circle. "Rodney and I had planned to sail around the world together before he died. We had a list of places we both wanted to see--what the kids call a 'bucket list' these days--and I realized that nothing was stopping me from taking that trip. Nothing but my own fears."

"So you..." Ruby trails off, waiting for Molly to fill in the blanks.

"Yes, I bought a boat that could be sailed solo--we call that sailing short-handed, or even single-handed, since I was alone--and I took my husband's urn with me. There were days on the open water when I found myself talking to a bucket of ashes, and nights I spent tossing and riding the waves with one arm and one leg over that urn to keep him safe." Molly looks around the circle again, and every woman is staring back at her, unblinking. "This might all sound crazy to you now, but it's been forty years since I set off on theMollycoddlefor the adventure of a lifetime. My heart was broken, I was alone, I had no idea what the future held, and all I knew was that I wanted to do right by my husband and to find myself again."

"It was your very ownEat, Pray, Love," Vanessa says with reverence.

Molly nods. "I guess it was."

"I don't think I've ever asked," Ruby says, "but how did you and Rodney meet?"

It's clear to Molly that she has the floor here as well as the attention of everyone in the room, and while this isn't a position that she naturally gravitates towards, she's kind of enjoying it. It's rare that she talks about Rodney anymore, and she misses saying his name.

"Where did we meet?" Molly lifts a hand and lets it fall onto her denim-clad knee with a slap. "Well, the majority of you ladies here weren't even born in 1963, but we're going to have to start there..."

* * *

"Rodney Kobayashi?" the second grade teacher asked as she stood at the front of the room in a pencil skirt and a blouse with a tight little bow at the neck. Behind her was a green chalkboard with a sentence about a dog sleeping under a chair written in cursive. "Can you please come to the front of the room?"

Molly Kimble sat on the carpet, her legs criss-crossed beneath her, knees skinned from playing on the playground. Her elbows rested on her thighs as she watched the new student get up from his spot on the carpet. He looked nervous and ill at ease.

"Rodney," Miss Chambers said, offering the small, black-haired boy a piece of chalk. "I want you to write on the board in perfect cursive,My name is Rodney and I am not American."

Rodney stared at the chalk in Miss Chambers's hand, and the other children stared at him, open-mouthed.

"But, Miss Chambers..." he said softly, looking up at his teacher. "IamAmerican. I was born in Pomona."

Miss Chambers took a long, slow blink like she was summoning patience from some hidden reserve. Molly had seen her own mother do this every time Molly or one of her brothers came home with a stray kitten, a collection of dirty rocks, or a rip in their clothing from playing too hard with the other neighborhood kids.

"No, Rodney. I don't mean where you were born. I mean your family is not American. They're not from here. They have been allowed to stay in our country in spite of the history between our two countries." Miss Chambers pursed her lips and made a face that revealed exactly what her personal opinion was on this particular topic.

Molly looked around at her classmates, half of whom were picking at loose strings on dress hems, tugging at the hair of the girl next to them, or looking glassy-eyed and tired. But instead of losing focus, Molly stayed with the conversation. This felt important to her, and she wanted to make sure she understood what Miss Chambers was saying.

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