Page 90 of Mourner for Hire
“Do you like your job?”
“Being a vet is far less unconventional.” He laughs, but I let the statement hang in the ocean breeze. “So you’re from here?”
“Yep!” I sort of shout over the beach breeze.
“When did you leave?”
“When I was eight!”
“Eighth grade?”
“Eight years old!”
“Oh! Did you like it here?”
“I don’t remember it!”
The wind continues to whip through my hair and create a vortex-like vacuum around my ears. I can hardly hear him. We’re shouting just inches from each other. I’m shifting all over the saddle, gripping his flannel tightly.
“Can you slow down?” I ask, but when I say it, I can hear a much younger version of my voice.
“Slow down, Mommy!” I’m saying, racing toward the water—my mother’s blond hair whipping in the wind.
She whirls around. “Never!” she teases, but she does slow down, and I jump into her arms.
My toes break the surface of a wave as she spins me around in circles.
I’ve never remembered her face. The lines around her eyes when she smiles. The beauty mark next to her mouth. The yellow in her eyes. The softness of her hands as she holds me close. The very few pictures I have of hers are not very high-quality. Looking at them always felt like being told a memory, but this—whatever it is that’s happening in my brain—is like experiencing it, knowing it, and remembering it all at once.
“Gotcha!” I declare in her arms.
She gives me a butterfly kiss and squeezes my arm.
Wait, no. That’s Connor squeezing my arm.
“You okay? Sorry, I didn’t mean to spook you,” he says, twisting in the saddle as he holds my arm and covers me with a look of concern.
I clear my throat, realizing how deeply I was lost in a daydream—a memory, I guess.
“Sorry, I just got a little dizzy—I haven’t been sleeping well,” I lie, exhaling.
“Renovating can really take it out of you,” he reasons, and I nod.
We spend the remainder of the hour at a slow walk while he does most of the chatting. He points out several deer eating the tall grass along the dunes, a small cove that is best for tide-pool hunting, and shows me the line of coast that took out Sully’s home during the storm of ’03.
Fifteen minutes after returning Elsa to her owner, we make the short trek through the sand to Something Sweet and order apple cider donuts and two hot chocolates. My second donut of the day. There aren’t many coffee shops in Shellport, but it’s clear this one, and Marylou in all her pashminas, is a port favorite.
Cupping the hot chocolate between my hands reminds me of just how much my body temperature dropped while out on the beach.
Connor wraps an arm around me, rubbing my arm. “Fall has arrived, hasn’t it?”
“It has,” I agree.
There isn’t anything wrong with Connor or the way he converses, but it would seem all my earlier anticipation about this date has fallen flat on its face. It’s comparable to a work lunch with a co-worker, and I’m desperate to clock out.
“You feeling better?”
I know he’s referencing my space-out on the horse ride.
