CHAPTER ONEBEFORE
REBECCA
There is nowhere else to start but with Ethan.
Ethan with his golden-brown eyes and teasing grin. He was my first friend, my first kiss, and the one person I trusted with all my secrets even as he held back so many of his.
We were kids that first day I saw him. Or I was. I’m not sure Ethan was ever a kid.
My dad scratches at the thinning part of his blond hair and bends over the griddle. “An eggplant?”
“Dad!”
“What? It looks like an eggplant.” He reaches to rotate the griddle, burns himself, then yanks his hand back with a hiss. “All right, then what is it supposed to be?”
Trying not to laugh, I hand him the lobster-shaped oven mitt I got him for Christmas. “It’s obviously an ice cream cone.” And I obviously need to work on my pancake shapes if he guessed so wrong. Normally he always knows what I’m trying to make with mine just like I always know he’s going to make his shaped like Mickey heads.
Dad—with his oven mitt on this time—turns the griddle this way, then that before shaking his head. “Sorry, sweetie. I just don’t see it. Maybe if we—” He reaches past my perch on the counter to the cabinet by my head and pulls out a tiny jar of sprinkles which he shakes over half the pancake. “Yep, there it is. Ice cream cone.”
I grin. “It would look extra ice cream coney with some whipped cream.”
Dad snaps his fingers at me before turning to the fridge then speeds up after glancing at his watch. “And I am going to be late.”
My grin slips. Summer is usually my favorite time of year because Dad is home with me all day, but since he’s teaching summer school this year, morning pancakes together are all we have. Once he slips out the door with a peck on my forehead, I get to be bored—and quiet so my mom can work from the dining room table—for hours until he comes home. Sometimes I go next door to visit Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, but my mom doesn’t like me going over there too often since she says retired people like to be by themselves and not entertain energetic nine-year-olds every day. When she repeated that to me just last week, I asked her if she was retired and my dad snorted coffee all over his pancakes.
Dad’s been gone for hours now and our tiny house feels extra tiny and extra dull. My mom has already told me to keep it down three times and since she only allows me two hours of screen time a day, I end up standing on the pillowed window seat in our front room, playing a game I just now invented called Ceiling Slap. It’s very complicated and involves leaping to try and brush the ceiling with my fingertips and stealing glances at the hallway to the dining room between each attempt in case my mom comes out and catches me. I’m setting so many Ceiling Slap records that I don’t notice the car pulling up next door until a woman gets out tugging this scrap of a boy from the back seat. He’s clutching a half-full garbage bag like everything he cares about in the world is inside it.
I immediately stop jumping thinking that the only thing I would ever hold that tightly is my dad’s hand.
Mr. and Mrs. Kelly hadn’t said anything about expecting company when I went over to help bake snickerdoodles yesterday, and my confused frown only deepens when they meet the newcomers on the porch and I hear the woman introduce the boy, Ethan, to his grandparents. I jerk back at that announcement, eyeing the boy anew with a stab of jealousy.
All I har ve left of my grandparents are photographs and wisps of memories that grow more indistinct the harder I try to grasp them. The Kellys have been honorary grandparents to me since we moved in two years ago and the sudden idea that I’ll have to share them isn’t exactly a welcome one.
I knew they existed, Ethan and his mom, but up until now, they’d been confined to a couple of old framed pictures on the Kellys’ walls. Whenever
I asked about them, they only said their daughter and grandson lived in California and they didn’t get to see them often. So what are they doing here now and why isn’t anybody smiling?
From my window I watch the woman hand over the garbage bag to Mrs. Kelly and try to hand over Ethan too. In the end, she has to pry his hands from her. He’s skinny but strong. His mom runs her hands through stringy hair, her chin quivering so much that her entire face shakes as she says something I can’t hear but makes my heart start pounding all the same. She starts to move away then, but just her, not him. And that’s when my jealousy evaporates as I realize his garbage bag is a suitcase, and not the kind you pack for a weekend.
She leaves him without another look, not even when Ethan tries to run after her car and Mr. Kelly has to hold him back.
Something soft smacks me in the back and I nearly lose my balance on the window seat. I turn just in time to see my dad home already and arming himself with another pillow.
This has been our latest game for months now, impromptu throw pillow fights, and he’s about to win a second point before I’ve even gotten a first. But instead of diving for cover behind the couch and gathering up my own ammo, I wave him off and press my ear harder against the glass, futilely trying to hear what Mr. Kelly is saying as Ethan continues raging in his arms. “Did you know the Kellys’ daughter is back?”
Dad’s gleefully triumphant expression fades from his softly rounded face. “What?”
I nod, my cheek squeaking against the glass. “She was just here.”
Dad leans forward to peer out. “Joy was here?”
I nod. “And she left her son.”
“She what?” he whispers, mirroring my position with his nose just inches from the glass. The fading sunlight turning the wavy strands of his hair to sparks of gold.
“You don’t have to whisper.”
He gives me a look, so I fill him in on what I witnessed. He slowly sits down when I’m done, then draws the curtains shut, blocking the Kellys and their grandson from my prying eyes. I start to protest but he cuts me off. “Would you want our neighbors spying on our personal family moments? I don’t think so.”
I plop down beside him. “I’ve never seen her here before. There are barely even any pictures of them in their house.”
“Pictures of who in whose house?” Mom comes out of the dining room with paint swatches in one hand and fabric swatches in the other. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Dad bounces up off the window seat to her. “I was just on my way in to find you.”
Like always, she stiffens the tiniest bit when his arms come up around her, but he just waits until she relaxes before kissing her.
“Good day?”
“Mmmm,” she says, resting
her head on his shoulder. “You?”
His arms tighten. “Better now.”
“Now what were you saying about pictures?”
I start to tell her we aren’t talking about interior decorating so she won’t be interested but Dad’s words beat mine.
“The Kellys. Joy was just here to leave her son with them.”
Her arms lower to her sides. “Oh.”
Dad nods and releases her so they can have one of those silent adult conversations with just their eyes. I hate those.
“What?” I shoot glances between my parents. “What are you eye-saying?”
“Sorry, sweetie, but some things are grown-up topics.” Dad stares at the closed curtains instead of me.
“But—”
“Rebecca.” Mom pauses after saying my name, a sure sign that I’m irritating her. “It’s none of our business.” She walks over to the window and pulls the curtains closed even tighter than Dad did, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles as she does. “And I don’t want you spying on the Kellys anymore.”
It’s not like I’m sneaking around in their bushes, but I keep that point to myself. There is one thing that I can’t stay silent about though. “But his mom just left him with people he doesn’t even know.”
My mom, who is already moving back toward the dining room, stops. “I’m sure she didn’t want to.” She looks back at Dad to take over with me. He doesn’t even need her prompting to pull me into his arms.
“Left is maybe not the right word. She brought him to stay with his grandparents because she might need some help.”
Mom shifts from foot to foot, pulling at the light brown curls spilling over her shoulders. “I don’t think we should be talking about this.”
“Help with what?” I ignore Mom’s protest, glad that my own lighter, looser curls are twisted back in a braid, and look at Dad, waiting. He’s never believed in keeping things from me.
Dad considers his words. “Parents sometimes need help for different reasons. In Joy’s case, she’s been sick for a long time, and if she’s bringing her son to her parents, then maybe she’s ready to get better.” Then he hugs me and after another silent-eye conversation between them, Mom sits on my other side and hugs me too. It isn’t that she never hugs me, but usually, I see them coming, like on birthdays or winning a soccer game. This one catches me by surprise, and it takes me a second to hug her back.
“Just leave them be, alright?” she says. “And it’s probably a good idea for you to stay away from the boy too.”
My gaze travels back to the closed curtain. My fingers are itching to reopen it.
Mom starts picking up the pillows Dad threw at me, brows pinching together at the sight of a burst seam in one corner. “I’ve asked you so many times not to roughhouse with these pillows. The fabric is vintage and—Rebecca Ann James!” My mother’s sharp voice causes me to jerk back from the window and plant my feet firmly on the floor. “I know you weren’t standing on my custom cushions with your shoes on.”
I glance down at my untied red sneakers and the Rebecca Ann James–shaped footprints
on the cushions behind me.
Mom’s lips clench around her words. “Cleaning bin. Pantry. Right now.”
I start to move but Dad gestures for me to stay put, taking Mom by the shoulders and steering her back to the dining room.
“No,” she says to him, her voice dropping to more of a frustrated whisper. “I can handle this.”
This meaning me. I watch curiously to see how this will play out, but there aren’t any surprises. Dad wins and Mom gives up. She allows herself to be gently pushed back to the dining room with one final warning to Dad to leave her pillows alone and another to me to stay away from the window, which I obey for about thirty seconds. Unfortunately, the yard is empty when I sneak a peek.
It isn’t until later that night that I get another glimpse of Ethan Kelly.
The window to his room—formerly Mrs. Kelly’s guest room/sewing room—is right across from mine on the ground floor. There’s a monsoon thunderstorm that first night, and the rain on the windowpanes makes it seem like he’s crying as he sits small and huddled on the bed.
Remembering Mom’s admonition to stay away, I throw open my own window after my parents go to bed, heedless of the rain blasting into my room and soaking the floor—something I’ll definitely get grounded for the next day—and tear across our connected yards in my faded peach nightgown. I tap on his window, then tap again. He finally looks up and sees me in all my drowned-rat glory.
He opens the window.
CHAPTER TWONOW
ETHAN
The room looks...different. Last time I was here there were little steamer trains on the wallpaper and a stuffed bear sitting on a tiny white bed. Now a bookshelf filled with thick, well-read classics stands beside a modern desk with what looks like a new laptop on it.
My grandmother, barefoot in her uniform of faded jeans and a Good & Green T-shirt, hovers in the doorway behind me, tugging at her reddish-brown braid as she waits for my reaction.
I move toward the full-sized bed and try not to look at the large black-and-white framed photos of LA on the slate-colored walls.
“We can change the colors, of course,” my grandmother says. “You always loved blue, so I thought...”
“It’s fine. I’ve got some cans of spray paint in my bag, so I’ll fix it.”
She twists her hands into her braid. Tight.
Look at that, I surprised my grandmother. “Grandma, I’m kidding. And I still like blue.”
She exhales and then brightens at my small gratitude, the first sign that the little boy she remembered isn’t completely gone. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled. Dinner is at six.” From the corner of my eye, I see her turn to leave then hesitate. “Ethan?”
My grandmother’s tone is all but ordering me to look at her. I consider ignoring it. She hasn’t seen me in years, and size and inches are the least of the things I’ve gained since then. I’m still deciding when my cat pops out of my open bag and yowls at me. I rub the nearly bald patch on the top of his ancient head. “Hey, Old Man. You ready to stretch a bit?”
“Ethan, is that...a cat?”
“Well, it’s not a can of spray paint.”
Her expression says she doesn’t appreciate my humor at the moment. “Does he have a name?”
“Probably. I just call him Old Man.” I’d been rereading a lot of Hemingway at the time and when I found him on the beach losing a battle over a dead fish with a pelican, the name seemed fitting.
“You should have said something. We don’t have any cat litter. Or a litter box.”
I walk over to the window and push it up, then lift my cat onto the sill. “He’s fine. He’ll come and go as he wants.”
“No, that’s not a good idea. And food, we’ll need to get food. I can go to the grocery—”
“Grandma, we’re fine. I’ll take care of his food—I always do.” I take care of a lot more than just a cat or I did until my grandparents intervened, a fact my grandmother knows all too well.
She falls silent after that and when she starts eying my bag as though she’s about to unpack for me, I scoop Old Man up and move toward the door, forcing her to back up.
“I’m going to take him out back, make sure he knows the best places to crap around the pool deck.”
My grandmother’s mouth opens. But then she closes it, considering me. “Hmmmm,” she says.
“That’s it?”
“For now.” She retreats to the hall so I can pass with my cat. I feel her watching us though so I’m not caught off guard when she calls after me. “Oh, and Ethan? Don’t you dare spray-paint my walls without running the colors past me first.”
I laugh at the teasing smile on her face. Look at that, my grandmother surprised me.
The yard outside is blooming with bright, warm colors and the soft scent of the flowers my grandfather painstakingly tends. I’m not worried when Old Man takes off in murderous pursuit of a butterfly. After all the different places we’ve lived, I know he’ll find his way back to me.
I head farther down the smooth brick path that has replaced the gravel that I remember, beneath a trellis of dripping orange petals, to a bright oasis in an Arizona desert. I stop to pull out my notebook and nub of a pencil to sketch it when something else catches my eye.
It’s a credit to my grandfather that the flowers are what I noticed first and not the girl floating lazily in the pool straight ahead.
She’s on her back, eyes closed, light-skinned face lifted up to soak in the warmth of the sun as her wavy hair floats around her head. She’s humming but I’m too far away to make out the tune. There’s a dreamy half smile on her lips, an ease to her expression that I’ve never even imagined, much less experienced. It has me grinding my teeth before I can recognize the sudden burst of resentment that pulses through me.
But then she lifts one arm to skim her fingers across the surface of the water, and I see the scar on her forearm. I have its twin on my arm from when I let a girl talk me into playing catch with lit fireworks...
My jaw unlocks as her name, warm and radiant as the sun, drifts up from some buried place inside me. “Rebecca?”
Her head turns in my direction, her eyes, somehow bluer than I remember, going wide. “Ethan?” The huge, joyous smile she gives me has me catching my toe on the brick as I stagger toward her.
She strokes over to the side of the pool and lifts herself up to sit on the edge, leaving her legs to dangle in the water. “I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”
Of course, my grandparents would have told her. “Yeah, I—um, got here early.” With a mental shove, I force all my thoughts about why I’m here away and let my mind fill only with her.
She scoots down a bit to make room and urges me to sit beside her, leaning away the second I do, not because we’re too close, but so that her gaze can drink in every inch of me. I do the same, noticing the new curves hidden behind her simple navy two-piece. Her lower lip is fuller than the top and the prominent dimple on her left cheek flashes at me. Her hands, more graceful but with the same always-chipped polish, lift to tug at my hair. She quirks an eyebrow at the added length brushing my collar.
“It’s been a while since I cut it,” I say, feeling the need to explain in case she doesn’t like the change.
“I like it,” she says, as though she’s surprised by that fact. “I think.”
I laugh, ducking my head.
Her returning smile is soft. “It’s stupid, I know, but I kind of wanted you to still be thirteen.”
The age we were the last time we saw each other.
I don’t think it’s stupid at all. There were so many nights when I wanted to go back to that time with her. I guess it’s been the same for her. That’s the general line of my thoughts until her fingers drift to the stubble along my jaw and my breath catches slightly.
“This is really too much though,” she adds, grinning. “And what are you, six foot now?"
“Six-one,” I admit, like it’s a crime.
She bites both her lips. “I really want to hug you right now, but you probably don’t want to get wet—”
I wrap her in my arms, feeling the water from her swimsuit soak through my T-shirt, but more than that, I feel the warmth from her sun-kissed skin, the soft sigh of her breath against my neck. And her scent, that forgotten but familiar mix of sunscreen and honeyed sunshine. The ache in my chest relaxes.
When my arms tighten, her voice half breaks. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
I stiffen. I don’t want to think about the reason I’m here, but when I open my eyes, still holding her, I see the proof of how much we’ve both changed behind her.
She releases me and follows my gaze over her shoulder to the empty wheelchair on the other side of the pool. ...
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