Page 1 of Since the Day We Left

Prologue

Thirty-Six Years Earlier

Aglassvaseshatteredagainst the wall, exploding into jagged shards.

Wilting wildflowers bobbed in the spreading puddle.

“This ain’t working, June! Your part-time job ain’t paying the bills!”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now? You’re the one who—”

“I don’t wanna hear it! We need money, not excuses!”

Her dad stormed down the hall, leaving her mother in the middle of the living room, hands trembling at her side. When she turned to Wendi, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Go play outside for a while, sweetheart. I just ... I need to rest.”

Rest meant crying. Wendi knew that by now.

She nodded, grabbed her sketchbook, and slipped out the back door, the screen clattering shut behind her.

The wind tangled Wendi’s hair as she nestled into her favorite spot on the beach. At nine, her little alcove, hidden between weathered rocks and scraggly dune grass, felt like it belonged only to her.

She had stumbled upon it last summer, fleeing from girls who had made fun of her clothes. And now, this was where she always came when her parents’ fights got too loud for the thin walls of their house.

A fiddler crab darted sideways, vanishing into the sand. Wendi smiled—even the tiniest creatures had their own places to hide.

Waves lapped at the shore while seagulls wheeled overhead. A feather drifted down, landing near her foot. Wendi picked it up, tucking it into the spiral binding of her sketchbook.

“The world is full of hidden treasures,” her mom had told her once, during a rare beach day, gathering seashells. “If you’re willing to look.”

Wendi spotted a familiar lump in the sand. Reaching over, she brushed away the top layer and unearthed the small metal tin she’d buried a few days before. After shaking off the remaining grains, she pried open the lid and tipped the tin, letting her treasures tumble into her palm: a piece of sea glass the exact blue-green of her mother’s eyes when she was happy; a perfect sand dollar; a shark tooth; and her prized possession—a spiral shell with bands of cream and caramel. She’d found it after a storm, half-buried, waiting just for her.

For a moment, she cradled them, then set them next to her. She pushed strands of hair away from her face as she focused on sketching the waves. Motion was the hardest thing to capture—waves never rested, just like her thoughts.

She paused, tilting her head, before shading in the foam where it touched the sand. Mrs. Abernathy had called her drawings a “genuine gift” last week.

She shifted on the sand, erasing a small smudge.

Dad didn’t even look at my last art project.

A familiar knot formed in her throat, one she’d learned to swallow down while keeping the tears at bay. Her grip tightened on the pencil as she looked out toward the water.

“Not now, Wendi,” he’d snapped, barely noticing the watercolor of a lighthouse she’d held out. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Go show your mother.”

She’d left without another word, tucking the painting into her folder. It remained unseen.

Wendi let out a slow breath, pushing the memory aside. She turned back to her sketchbook, tracing the faint horizon line where the sky and sea blurred together.

A shadow moved along the shoreline, and her pencil hovered mid-stroke.

No one ever came here. This place washers.

But now, a man and a boy trudged along the shore. The man wore a dark suit, his tie flapping in the wind, and shoes dangling from one hand. The boy—her age, maybe a little older—had his hands shoved into his pockets. His dress pants were rolled at the ankles.

Something about them made Wendi’s chest tighten. Maybe it was their slow, careful steps, or the way they seemed disconnected from the beauty around them. They reminded her of the somber faces, the organ music, and the flowery scents at her grandma’s funeral last year.

They stopped.

The boy flinched as the waves lapped his toes. The man placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

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