Page 74 of The Backtrack
He still wore his helmet, but she angled herself to kiss his lips, then flipped the face shield back down; as simple as breathing.
Damon put the kickstand back up, revved the engine of the bike and then took off down the street. Sam watched, and when the sound of his motorcycle faded, she turned to find Pearl and Jessie smiling widely at her.
“Enjoyed the ride, did you?” Grandma Pearl asked with a knowing smirk.
Sam tried to hide her own smile. “I did,” she eventually said. Jessie let out a wolf whistle.
A man in a hazmat suit carrying an animal crate came out the front door and onto the lawn. Which was when Sam noticed the rather large white van parked on the street just ahead of them. “Rodent Rick!” was emblazoned over a massive cartoon smiling rat.
“Tell it to me straight, Rick. Did you catch her?” Pearl slid her sunglasses down her face, and Rick lifted the hat part of his hazmat suit.
“Oh, I got her.” He held the cage up. “And you’re lucky you called when you did, because this mama is about to give birth to a whole litter of pups.”
“Pups?” Pearl gripped the plastic armrests of her chair. “Thank God for you, Rodent Rick.”
Sam tried to hold back the bile rising in her throat. “Yes,” she finally said. “Thank you, Rodent Rick.”
“You cool if I keep this little lady?” He patted the side of the cage. “I lost my gal Rosie the Rat recently, and it’d be nice to have some kids around.”
“By all means.” Pearl waved her hand in some kind of blessing. They all watched as Rick lovingly carried the rat cage toward his van, like the odd proud new father he was.
“I thinkIneed a beer now,” Sam said.
Jessie reached into the cooler next to her, popped the top and handed one to Sam. Sam sipped the beer and glanced around the lawn for signs of life from her mom, but saw nothing. “Where’s Bonnie?”
“She’s at my place taking a shower,” Jessie said.
Sam’s gaze drifted over to Jessie’s single-story cottage next door, almost identical in style to their own, but with a hot orange door painted to match Jessie’s nails. Somewhere in that house was the person she’d dreamt about seeing for years, and now she was just a short walk away.
“She didn’t sleep well,” Pearl added. “Why don’t you go over and make sure she’s all right?”
Sam wasn’t sure if the women were giving her an opportunity to be alone with Bonnie, or just politely telling her to leave, but Sam decided that she might as well take them up on the offer, either way. She didn’t owe Bonnie anything, but she did owe it to herself to try to get the closure she needed.
“Speaking of my place...” Jessie told Pearl as Sam walked away. “I think you Letos will be bunking with me until the roof gets mended.”
“But you hate my sound machine, and it’s the only way I can sleep through your snores,” Pearl said.
“Well, the insurance isn’t covering the cost of a hotel, so I’ll just have to invest in earplugs,” Jessie said.
“Or get those nose strips I keep telling you about,” Pearl chided. “I saw them again on the Home Shopping Network.”
Sam bit the corner of her lip as the voices of Pearl and Jessie faded. She hadn’t been in Jessie’s house in years but wasn’t surprised to find that it still smelled like the watercolor paints she liked to use. Jessie was an artist who not only specialized in nudes, but also painting scenes from Tybee—the rolling waves, the lighthouse, the row of colorful beach cottages that were protected from development. Jessie’s art hung in simple wooden frames throughout the home, and Sam stopped to stare at a new painting: a woman with bright purple hair in an Adirondack chair, flanked by two empty Adirondack chairs. She recognized this to be Pearl, and a little ache in her chest rose at the idea that her grandma would be remembered as alone on the beach and surrounded by the ghosts of the women who’d left.
Bonnie stood next to Sam and looked at the painting. “I miss sitting out there with both of you,” she eventually said.
Sam turned to Bonnie. She could say something mean like,You have a funny way of showing it, but held back. Fighting wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t answer the questions Sam had for Bonnie. And, ultimately, what was done was done.
“I’m ready to talk, if you are,” Sam said instead.
They walked along the wet sand of the beach, and the smell of seaweed and suntan lotion surrounded them. The beach wasn’t soothing to Sam the way it was for Pearl, but in some ways this scenariodidfeel safe—they could walk without having to look at each other so Sam could say exactly what she wanted to.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Bonnie asked. “You were so out of it the other night. It was weird. I’d never seen you like that before. You’ve always been such a light sleeper.”
This little reminder that at one point, her mom had been amomand noticed things about her was a little unnerving, especially as Sam had squarely filed Bonnie away in the land of people who didn’t deserve nice things.
Sam deftly changed the subject. “What I want to talk about is why you really left.”
Okay, maybenotso smooth of a transition.
