Chapter 10

Mae leanedagainst her car and pulled her coat closer around her neck.

Shelly's Café was up the road from downtown Greyfin Bay, at the edge of the long, marshy inlet that held the national wildlife refuge. The small restaurant's gravel parking lot sat next to a wide, open expanse of reeds and seagrasses, and the unimpeded breeze cut through Mae's clothes, whipped her hair around her face. It was quiet, other than the wind and the caws and songs of the birds that the refuge helped protect.

Until a crunch of gravel announced the arrival of Liv's Volvo.

"Hey, Mae." Both Liv's voice and her smile seemed softer than normal. Maybe because it had been clear on the phone, how pathetic and alone Mae was feeling. "Let's head inside."

Shelly's was warm and humid. The sweet and salty smell of breakfast food was cut through the middle by the bitter scent of coffee. Mae's joints finally began to relax as soon as they crossed the threshold.

"Thanks again for meeting me," Mae said as she flipped open a menu. "And for bringing me here."

"Haven't been here before, I take it?" Liv pushed her menu to the side, like she didn't need it. Mae smiled at the idea of Liv already knowing her Shelly's order. Liv seemed like the sort of person who was born to be a regular.

"No." It was close to 101, but not directly off it; Mae still mostly only knew the places she'd driven by before. And she hadn't honestly been driving many places other than Dell's house, 12 Main Street, and Oregon Coast Community College.

"Hmm." Liv crossed her arms, rested them atop the table. Like she had thoughts about Mae not knowing about Shelly's.

But the server returned before she could share them.

Mae ordered the french toast; Liv ordered an omelet and coffee. Mae took a sip of her water and glanced around at the decor. Like a lot of places on the coast, it seemed trapped somewhere between making an attempt to modernize—the logo and design of the menu had seemed new, current—while mostly being stuck in the 1970s. But the wood-paneled walls, the old picture frames comforted her. She liked being in a place that Liv Gallagher trusted.

"So. Something happen with Dell?"

Mae blinked back at her. She hadn't mentioned Dell on the phone, but it made sense that Liv would guess it. What other connections did Mae have here, after all?

"Yeah." Mae breathed out, wondering if being here at all, processing this with Liv, was a betrayal to Dell.

"C'mon, go ahead and spill it." Liv made a brief gesturing motion. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Kellerman."

Mae's lips parted.

"That's it," she said. "That's exactly what it looked like."

Their server returned with Liv's coffee. Liv stirred in two sugars, spoon clacking against the inside of the mug as she raised an eyebrow at Mae.

"Sorry." Mae shook her head, clearing some of the cobwebs. "So, today is my one month anniversary of moving here."

Liv's mouth tilted at the corner.

"Has it been a month already? Congratulations, darlin'."

Mae felt a rush of a half laugh escape her throat, a smile curve her cheeks. She thought Liv was maybe making fun of her, a little. Or maybe she wasn't, but suddenly Mae wanted to be made fun of. For making such a big deal out of thirty measly days. There were so many things she wanted to be able to laugh about.

"Yeah. So, I went over to Dell's, to see if…he wanted to celebrate with me." A blush crept up Mae's cheeks; she stared at the tabletop to avoid Liv's eyes. "And he didn't answer at the workshop door, where you were the other day, so I walked around and knocked on the sliding door by the deck. But after I knocked, he came out and he…" Mae bit her lip. "He was so angry, and yelled, and threw this mug at me, and…"

Mae leaned back in her chair and met Liv's eyes again.

"When you just said that, about seeing a ghost, I realized that's exactly what he looked like. I could tell he wasn't himself, but it was still…disconcerting."

Liv leaned back too, bringing her crossed arms to her chest. A serious crease lined her forehead.

"And what happened then?"

"Oh, I ran away," Mae said with a shrug. "And then I called you."

Liv nodded, thinking this over. "Right. Good call there."

"Was it, though?" Mae turned her head to look out the window, which looked over the wetlands. "Do you think he's okay?"

Liv released a small puff of air.

"I think it says something about you that a person throws a heavy object at your head and you're here wondering if they're okay, but…" She leaned forward again. "Listen, Mae. It's not my place to reveal Dell's confidences, all right?"

Mae quickly shook her head again.

"No, of course not; that's not why I?—"

Liv held up a hand. "I know. I know. But if you're living up there—and I do think it's a hell of a thing, that Dell McCleary is allowing you to live on his property—then you should know that something awful happened to him before he moved here."

And Mae remembered, then. Liv telling her, that first day at the IGA, that Dell had been through something. But?—

"Wait." Mae frowned as the extra detail Liv had just mentioned slotted into her brain. "When'd he move here?"

Now that she thought about it, the fact that his mom lived elsewhere, that he didn't seem to have any family around, already signaled that maybe his roots weren't directly from here. But he seemed like such a local that she'd never really considered it, the fact that he could've lived somewhere else.

Liv took a sip of her coffee.

"Few years ago now. Three, I think. Give or take."

Mae's jaw hung open until she snapped it shut. It made sense, when she thought about it. Lord knew the ADU looked brand new. So did his house. Had he built that, too? Three years ago?

"Where did he move from?" She knew she was contradicting herself, being a nosy Nancy, but couldn't stop the question from escaping.

"Where does anyone move here from?" Liv brought the mug to her lips again. "Portland. Same as you." And then, after a second's consideration, "Well, at least he wasn't from California."

Mae's mouth unhinged again.

"Dell is from Portland?"

Liv laughed at Mae's expression.

"And let me tell you, he fucking hates it when you give him a hard time about it. One of my life's greatest pleasures. Except…" A frown passed over her features before she sobered back to neutral. "Maybe it shouldn't be. Because like I said, some bad shit happened to him there before he left. Even I don't know the full details. I doubt even Luca knows the full details. But I know it was bad. There's a reason he doesn't like the city. As opposed to, you know"—Liv waved a hand again—"most of the assholes around here who just want to be assholes."

Mae clutched her plastic water glass, trying to wrap her head around all this.

"Who's Luca?"

Liv winced. "Ah, shit. I'm really saying more than I should, here. I thought you might know…" She held up her hands. "Nevermind. Please don't tell Dell I mentioned him. Luca's not the point here. What is?—"

And then their food arrived.

There were fresh pears sliced on top of her french toast, and between that and Liv's cursing—Mae always felt more comfortable being with someone she knew she could curse around—Mae almost wanted to cry in gratitude.

Once she got over the fact that Dell was from Portland. What neighborhood had he lived in? God, he'd probably had some gorgeous house on the west side. Or Westmoreland, maybe, Sellwood. No, that'd be too hip for him. She had so many fucking questions.

"What is important," Liv continued as she reached for the hot sauce at the end of the table, "is that I believe Dell might have a fair bit of PTSD, and I'm only telling you this because if you're living five yards away from him, you should know. Think loud noises bother him. He always takes the dogs to somewhere in the middle of the woods on the Fourth of July. New Year's, too, I believe."

"So he was in the middle of a trigger," Mae said, mostly to herself, trying to push Portland to the side for now. And shit, she'd done it with her over-enthusiastic knocking. "I think I already almost knew that. I worked with people in crisis, sometimes, back in Portland. I was a social worker."

"‘Course you were," Liv said easily, before shoveling in some of her omelet. And then, "Man, Nova really would've loved you."

Mae looked up from her French toast. "Nova?"

"My wife."

"Oh." Mae was still navigating how to do this. Talk out loud about the dead. Eventually, she decided to go for honesty. "That makes me feel really good."

Liv smiled back at her. "It should."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Mae's mind drifted back to Dell. How she was still a little shaken, a little pissed at him, even if it hadn't been his fault. How she was worried about him. If he was coming down okay.

"So about this month that you've been here now," Liv said when Mae was halfway through her French toast. She looked up to see Liv waving a fork at her. "How's that been going for you?"

"With the store, you mean?"

Liv shrugged. "Sure."

"Great." Mae smiled, and without being able to stop herself, launched into a monologue about the shelves Dell was making, and the work the Gutierrez boys had done, and Gemma's murals, and how the heating and plumbing even worked now. How many followers she'd gained on social media. Liv chewed and drank coffee and listened, with a politely amused look on her face.

"So anyway," Mae finished. "I'm feeling really good about it all. I actually can't believe how it's all coming together already."

Liv took another slow, assessing sip of coffee before she spoke again. Mae distinctly felt like she was about to be graded on a presentation. And even though she'd worked really hard on it, the outlook wasn't good.

"You talk much to Marty yet?"

"Marty?"

"Martinez. Head of the Small Business Association."

"Oh!" Mae smiled in recognition. "I've emailed him a few times, actually." See? She knew stuff. She was doing her homework. Literally, emailing Austin Martinez had been part of her OCCC homework, but she wasn't going to tell Liv that.

"About that." Liv adjusted her mug on the table until its handle was just so. "Marty never checks his emails."

"But…" Mae tilted her head. "He's the president of the Small Business Association."

"Yeah, and he can barely turn on a computer. You have to email Olive if you want anything to actually get done. Or, no, I shouldn't say that. Marty gets stuff done. But if you want your emails read, you gotta send them to Olive."

Mae wracked her brain for a second.

"Olive Young. She's the treasurer. And the woman who's real pumped about my gay flags."

Liv shot her a finger gun. Mae's chest puffed with the approval.

"What small business does she run again?"

"An antique store slash kitschy odds and ends place. Called This and That, right on Nehalem, behind the hardware store."

"Ohh," Mae said in recognition. "Right."

"Yeah. Most of her customers are conservative old ladies, while she's like, the most radical person here. It's a weird existence she lives, that Olive, but I don't question it."

"But she's good at checking her email. As…the treasurer."

Liv lifted a shoulder. "That's what I'm saying."

"Huh. Okay. Thanks for the intel."

"Sure. But actually." Liv pushed her plate aside, leaning forward on her forearms again. "What I'm really trying to say is, maybe you have to cool it on the emails."

"Do you also have intel on my Gmail?"

"I just mean you've been here for a month. And the town's barely seen you."

"Hey, that's not true." Mae stuck out her lower lip. "I go to the IGA all the time."

Liv laughed. "And I appreciate the business. But even I don't see you that much. You're like—" Liv zigzagged a finger through the air. "Zoom, zoom. In and out. You haven't stopped to get a coffee since that first day."

Mae heaved a dramatic sigh.

"I have to admit to you now that…I don't actually love coffee that much."

Liv rolled her eyes.

"One of those tea queers, are you?"

Mae honked out a laugh that felt so real, so genuinely sparked from her gut that it almost left her breathless. "I am."

"Regardless. What I'm saying is…you have to talk to people, Mae. I'm sure you're doing all kinds of networking online, and you've met some contractors. But if you really want the trust of Greyfin Bay, you have to be present in person."

"There's just been so much to do at the shop. To get 12 Main Street ready."

"I know. I drive by there at night and see the lights on behind those flags all the time. I'm sure you're working yourself to the bone. Just…" Liv took another sip of coffee. "Say hi, sometimes."

The server stopped by to freshen up Liv's mug. A thread of anxiety needled into Mae's stomach as she attempted to take Liv's words seriously.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. But…what if people don't want me to say hi? I know…" She thought of some of the nastier comments on her social media posts, the ones she tried to delete and block out of her mind as soon as she saw them. The Millers and their hateful candy store. "I know some people aren't thrilled about my presence."

Liv made a neutral noise.

"Some people aren't thrilled about my presence, either, but they've had to put up with me for fifty-odd years anyway."

"So youare, in fact, born and raised Greyfin Bay?"

Liv gave a smug tilt of her head as she sipped her coffee. "Born and raised."

"Was Nova, too?"

Liv placed the mug down on the table, did her finicky adjusting game with the handle again. "No. Nova was…" She cleared her throat. "Canadian."

A shocked guffaw exited Mae's mouth.

"Liv," she said. "You fell in love with a Canadian? Damn. That's sexy."

Liv smirked, still staring at her mug.

"Gave up socialized health care for me, for this place. If that ain't love, I don't know what is."

Mae wanted to know more about Nova, about her and Liv's love affair, but she wasn't sure how much Liv would divulge. And she was still feeling vulnerable, even if the French toast had helped. So she went with the selfish ask, the pathetic cry for help.

"And you and Nova…living here, being married here, you didn't feel…"

Mae trailed off, letting the silence fill in the words she assumed Liv understood. Lonely. Unsafe. Angry.

Finally, Liv looked at her.

"Look. It's not always easy, no, but I venture it's not always easy anywhere. Some folks are plain ugly people, like the Millers. You have to learn to just live with that, or the mad will eat you right up. A majority of folks here, though…they might disagree with you on what feel like pretty important things, but they've just been surrounded by different viewpoints from you their whole lives, and that's a hard thing to change. They're decent underneath. Something connects you when you know your grandaddies went fishing together. They'd come rescue me if I needed help, as I would them. I try to remember that. At least…"

Liv frowned, squinting into the distance.

"It used to matter, anyway, your grandaddies fishing together. Things have been different with some folks since Trump. Bein' mean takes precedence, now. It's more popular, powerful, to show your ugliness on the outside." She swirled her coffee, staring into its depths. "But it still matters to some folks. And you've got your spatterings of Olive Youngs. And then…then you find your people. And there are your people."

Mae was trying to take Liv's words to heart. Trying to adjust her mind so the mad wouldn't eat her up. Adjust to a life, a future, where she had to survive here.

But the thought came to her immediately, unbidden, at Liv's last sentence.

I did find my people.

And then I left them.

After a few seconds went by, Liv must have taken Mae's silence for doubt, because she went on.

"You got me, obviously, and I'm important. And then there's Freya, who owns Greyfin Winery, just up those hills a bit"—Liv gestured out the window—"who's almost as old and almost as much of a dyke as me. Down the road, there's a bartender at a brewery outside Lincoln City who's as flamboyant as Fred Astaire."

A smile cracked across Mae's face, easing the ache of her fading group chat.

"So you're saying the queers have the alcohol industry of the central coast locked down."

"Not quite," Liv said. "But we do have a bit of a history there, as a community."

"For better or worse," Mae agreed. When the queer bar was the only place in town you could be yourself for a good century or two, it had an effect on things.

Now that Mae thought about it, even Liv's IGA—through a door to a separate little room at the back—was the only place in town you could buy hard liquor.

"For better or worse," Liv agreed.

"Hey." Mae brightened. "At least I'm adding books to the mix!"

Liv cracked her own grin. "And thank Christ for that. If we were at the brewery right now instead of Shelly's, I'd cheers the hell out of that."

Mae smiled down at the table.

"But you know," Liv said after a moment, voice serious again, "truth is, I know it's easier for me, living here, because my roots arehere. My family's here, and they've always supported me. I mean"—she tilted her head again, raised a shoulder— "my siblings have spread out a bit, but enough of my kin are still here. To ground me, make me feel safe, you know? I imagine what you're doing—and doing it as loudly as you are with those flags, and bless you for that—has to be a lot lonelier, and a lot braver. Whereas for me…"

Liv leaned back, casting her eyes toward the window, drumming her fingers on the table.

"I have the keys to my parents' place, the house where I grew up. It's sitting empty at the moment, but I own it. And so I always know that, even if the Millers took over the entire town council—hell, even if a civil war breaks out across this whole country—I could go bunker down in my mama's kitchen if they came for me." Another one-shouldered shrug. "I think I'd be all right, if it came down to it, dying there."

"Jesus." Mae blinked. "That got dark fast."

"Well," Liv said. "We're living in dark times. There are a lot more angry men with guns in this county than there are me. I have to make my peace with that reality somehow."

Mae stared over Liv's shoulder, where a pastry case sat by the front counter.

"I think," she said slowly, "if I get my store to the place I want it to be…I think I'd be good dying there, too."

A sad smile tilted Liv's mouth.

"There you go," she said.

Mae pictured it, for just a second. The righteous revolution coming for her. She hoped she'd have enough time to put on Jesus's death party playlist. She hoped she'd go out dancing.

"And hell," Liv said, breaking Mae's morbid reverie, "sometimes, if I'm really feeling wild, I'll take myself on a trip up to Seaside or Astoria. More and more places up north these days to be loud and proud, if I want to be."

Mae grinned again, putting the revolution behind her.

"I'd love to be invited on one of those trips, one day."

Liv raised a brow.

"Show your face in town a little more, and I'll think about it."

Mae put a hand across her heart.

"I promise to make you proud, Liv."

Liv reached into the back pocket of her jeans for her wallet.

"See that you do."

* * *

After waving goodbye to Liv, Mae drove back to 101, turned south.

And then she kept on driving. Past 12 Main Street and Ginger's, past Freddy's and the hardware store. The Millers' candy shop and the tourist shop next to it, the one full of whale stuffed animals and baskets of polished agate. Greyfin Pizza Junction and The Bay Diner.

Country songs by artists she didn't know filtered by on the radio; it was the only music station that came in here. It had slowly grown on her, the guitars and strong voices and nostalgic melodies. A nostalgia, perhaps, for a world outside of her orbit, for places she had never touched. But sometimes the sweetness of the feeling was enough.

Without fully thinking about it, Mae kept listening to songs about small towns and driving along the coast, the cliffs and the forests and, the further south she drove, the dunes. Toward Newport. Toward Jodi and Felix.

Enough of my kin are still here. To ground me, make me feel safe, you know?

Unlike Liv's roots, Mae's parents had only moved to the Oregon Coast a few years ago. Once Mae had left North Carolina for college in Wisconsin all those years ago, Jodi and Felix had drifted, too, as Felix picked up guest university teaching spots: to Massachusetts, as Felix had long dreamed of moonlighting as a New England professor, to St. Louis and Austin. Until finally, they both retired, and decided, somewhat to Mae's surprise, on fucking Newport, Oregon.

"We're ready to be lazy!" Jodi had explained with glee, throwing her hands in the air. They'd apparently been researching senior living communities around the country for years. And their apartment in Newport—on the fourth floor, with a balcony facing the ocean—was close enough to their only child that it was easy to visit without breathing over her shoulder.

And then here Mae was, breathing over their shoulder instead.

"Hey, Mom," she said into the phone once she'd reached their parking lot. "I happened to be in town and I was just wondering…" She looked out the windshield of her car to the waves in the distance.

Was Dell okay?

Maybe the dogs were taking care of him.

What were the people who had taken her and Jesus's jobs at the center doing right now?

She missed the dogs she used to see in her neighborhood. She always made up little stories about their owners.

She hoped her old favorite baristas were well.

She missed the bus.

She'd planned, on the drive down here, to collapse on her parents' couch and have a little cry. She'd been wanting to have a little cry ever since Dell yelled at her and threw a mug at her head.

But now that she was here?—

"Would you like to take a walk on the beach with me?" came out of her mouth instead.

"Oh!" Shuffling in the background. "You're here? Right now?"

"Yeah. In the parking lot. Sorry for the complete lack of notice."

"No, no, it's fine! I'm just down here getting a drink with Phoebe. Here, let me go upstairs and get your father."

Mae smiled. Phoebe was her mother's favorite gossip partner.

"No rush at all, Mom, seriously. You can finish your drink. I'll just be sitting on the bench out front; you can come meet me whenever."

"What a wonderful little surprise. Okay, see you soon, Mae."

And Mae had just settled on that bench, had just taken in a good deep breath, when it was whisked out of her again with a hug from Felix.

"Mae! I know you didn't move to the coast just for surprise visits to your folks, but I have to say, this is working out splendidly for us."

"Hi, Dad." He was wearing a cardigan buttoned over a blue button-up and khakis. In other words, what he had worn almost every day of her life.

"I hear we're taking a stroll on the beach?" He turned toward the path to the sand, mobility cane in hand, already walking away when Jodi jogged out of the doors behind them.

"You two!" she yelled. "Always running off without me."

"Hey, Mom." Mae slid an arm around her waist as they walked, an in-motion half hug.

"What brings you here in the middle of the day on a non-class day?" Jodi asked. Mae had taken to having dinner with Jodi and Felix every Thursday, after her business class.

"It's my one month anniversary of being in Greyfin Bay. Thought I'd take the day off to celebrate."

"How lovely," Jodi said.

Mae didn't respond.

She bent over to take off her shoes instead. Balled her socks inside, rolled up the hem of her linen pants.

She stood, wiggling her toes in the sand. She thought, that's better.

It was funny. She had pictured, as she'd packed box after box in her apartment, morning walks on the beach. Sunrises and sunsets.

But in practice, her feet had barely touched the sand at all over the last thirty days. The ocean had still settled under her skin in a way she'd never been able to experience before—the constant awareness of it, subtly saturating her senses—but it simultaneously became easier to ignore.

She looked at the water in front of them, and couldn't quite picture the last time she'd truly seen it.

"I can't believe we both live here now," she murmured as they moved closer to the waves. It was chilly out, even colder the nearer to the water they moved, but nobody complained. "Next to the ocean, I mean."

Felix let out of a hum. "You always loved it so much," he said, voice fond.

"So you've told me."

They walked along the waterline.

Mae wondered why she'd asked Felix and Jodi to walk with her. What she wanted to tell them. Why she was truly here, on the coast, at all.

She wanted the walk to soothe her. To tell her how small and unimportant and weightless she was, like the ocean always used to make her feel.

But god, why was she here?

She came to a sudden stop. She stared at a partially crushed clam shell.

"Mom," she said. "What if I don't actually know what the hell I'm doing?"

"Oh, honey." Jodi put an arm around Mae's shoulder. "None of us do."

"That can't possibly be true."

Jodi shrugged.

"Maybe. But as an example, twenty years ago, I didn't know Newport, Oregon even existed. Wouldn't have guessed I'd be retired here."

She looked at Mae.

"But now that I'm here? I'm pretty glad life worked out this way."

"Yeah."

"Sometimes you just have to go where life takes you. I've always been proud of you for doing that."

It was true that Mae had moved a fair amount in her life. From North Carolina to Wisconsin, from Wisconsin to a brief stint in Brooklyn, from Brooklyn to Portland, and now to Greyfin Bay. She should understand these little aches. The love you still held for those you moved away from. For those who moved away from you. She had chosen this.

Mae stared at the ocean. And feeling suddenly like a small child, she blurted, "I miss Jesus." Her vision blurred. "Steve, too. I miss them so much."

Quietly, Jodi pulled Mae into her. Mae shuddered into her mother's shoulder.

Because it wasn't just the little aches. It wasn't just Greyfin Bay.

None of it was Jesus. Someone who had known and loved every part of her.

"Why did he have to go, too?"

"I don't know, honey," Jodi whispered into her hair. "I don't know." And then, "We never do. We just have to keep going on, for them."

"I know." Mae pulled away, embarrassed. She wiped at her eyes. "I know."

It was what Jesus would have said, too.

But knowing that wasn't the same as actually hearing him say it. She was so lucky to have two healthy parents, alive and loving and here, right next to her.

Yet even they didn't fill the Jesus-sized hole inside of her. She wanted his arms around her. His laugh and his rough cheek against hers.

And she couldn't have it. Ever again.

They kept going. Mae and Jodi and Felix walked until the wind grew too cold, and they turned for the slow walk back home.