Chapter Twenty-Four

KAT HAS JUST LIT Acigarette when she hears the squeak of the back door opening.

"Hey," Kat says as Ellie emerges.

"Hey." Ellie sits next to her mom in an ancient aluminum armchair.

Kat flicks ash off her cigarette. She always gets a tiny buzz on the first inhale. It's fading now. "Want me to put it out?"

Ellie hasn't said much since Kat picked her up from the police station. But Kat did notice the way Ellie sat in the car, still and quiet, wringing her hands. When she'd asked Ellie how it went, Ellie had said "fine," then disappeared into her room. Disappeared; Kat thinks of the word. All the different meanings it has. The way someone can be right in front of you but still be missing.

Kat checked on Ellie all day, pressing her ear to the door. The noises behind the wood were strange, sometimes a cry, sometimes a muffled bang. Maybe Ellie was angry again? Many mornings, Kat has woken to find that Ellie has destroyed some part of her bedroom—ripping up photographs, upending the mattress, and once, breaking a glass. But now Ellie seems calm.

Ellie shakes her head. "No. It's okay. I kind of like it." A pause. "It reminds me of the Fourth of July."

They'd had barbecues, back when Ellie was little. Kat invited the ladies from the beauty shop, Jimmy grilled. Once, this house had been a gathering place. Once, so many lives had been lived here. So much laughter shared. Kat smiles at the memory. "Maybe we'll have a party this year." Summer is right around the corner, but you wouldn't know it with the wet weather. There is the slight smell of ozone in the air. The scent of a storm brewing.

Ellie shrugs and plays with the zipper on her jacket. "That'd be nice."

Kat studies Ellie. This folded-up version of her daughter. She'd always thought Ellie was a touch dramatic. Howling when she skinned her knee. Screaming when she burned her mouth on a bite of macaroni and cheese. Acting as if the sky was falling. Ellie lived with such intensity. Why had she wanted to drill it out of Ellie? Why had she shushed her and told her to be quiet? But now she sees. She sees. The laughter. The fighting. The crying. It had all been a gift. All of it.

Kat drags on the cigarette again. "When Sam was pregnant, she refused to sit in these chairs because she was afraid they'd collapse beneath her weight. Your dad thought she was being silly. ‘These chairs were built before you were born and will be here long after you're gone,' he said." She exhales. Smoke winds its way up, a vine curling into the night. "Anyway, he was sitting in one a few weeks later, and the legs gave way."

Ellie chuckles. Kat does too, but then her smile wavers. "It was the first time I laughed, really laughed, after you…" Another head shake. Her eyelids are hot, swelling warm with familiar tears. "I felt so guilty."

"It's okay for you to be happy." Ellie whispers the words like a final wish.

Kat nods vacantly, gaze lost in the brown grass. "I always wanted girls. Just daughters." She has said this before. Too many times to count. "They never leave you. Boys get old, have adventures, and then get married, and they're not yours anymore. Girls do all that, too, but they always come home."

A fat tear escapes Ellie's eye. "I'm sorry."

Kat's expression softens. "I wish there was something I could do. I want to fix things for you. When you were a little girl, all it took was a kiss on a scraped knee." She smashes her cigarette out.

"Mom," Ellie starts, then seems to reverse course. "You think I could borrow your car tomorrow?"

"Oh." Kat frowns, thinking about it. Thinking about letting Ellie go. Maybe before, Kat might have thought, What is the harm? What is the worst that can happen? Now, she wonders how to live with all this uncertainty. How to help her daughter dig out from where she is and not bury herself at the same time. "I could take you." Today she pretended to run errands when she dropped Ellie off at the police station, but really, she'd driven down the block and parked, waiting.

"I thought I'd go see Sam." Ellie stares at Kat.

Kat's features flare with surprise, and she immediately softens. "Yeah, sure, okay," she says. "That would be okay, I suppose." It is all she has ever wanted. For Sam and Ellie to be friends. The older she gets, the more worried she is about what she will leave behind. She'd like Ellie and Sam to be close, to have each other when she is gone.

"Thanks. I'm going to head up to bed." The chair's aluminum frame scrapes on the concrete as Ellie pushes it back to stand up. "Good night."

"Night."

Ellie pauses at the door. "See you," then even lower, she says, "Love you."

"Love you too," Kat says, but the door is already shutting. Ellie is already gone.

Jimmy makes a whistling noise when he sleeps. He is dreaming of the ocean and his girls—Kat, Sam, Ellie, Valerie, and Mia. They're on the deck of Turmoil. The day is clear, bright, and cold. Their cheeks are wind-blown, noses pink and smiles wide. They cast lines and laugh. They listen to Motown. The Beatles. A flash, and it's the same scene, only Ellie is younger, and it is the two of them. He's teaching her the fine art of gutting a fish. Another flash, and it's evening and he is drifting off on the deck, sun ripe and happy. Ellie is still there. Still with him. He feels her lips graze his cheek and opens his eyes.

He is awake now. At home. In his favorite chair and Ellie is a teenager. No, not a teenager. She is almost twenty. He keeps reminding himself that time has passed. That he needs to wander from the cave in which he's been living. "I didn't mean to wake you," she says. "I just wanted to say goodnight."

"Good night." His voice is gruff. "Where's your mom?"

Ellie jerks her head. "Follow the smoke."

Jimmy might say something about how those things are going to kill Kat, but he doesn't. He holds his tongue. He doesn't joke about death anymore. Ellie clicks off the television, folds a blanket, fluffs a pillow. "You want to go out on the boat tomorrow afternoon?" he asks.

Her brow furrows. A shadow passes over her face. "Yeah, I would. I'd like that."

He nods once. "It's a date, then." He stands. "I'm going to go wrangle your mom. Don't stay up too late."

He finds Kat in the backyard. She's lighting up another cigarette. Her tits are saggy under a thin sweatshirt. Knuckles warped and knobbed. Hair wiry and gray. She still looks like a dream to Jimmy. As beautiful as ever.

He sits, shakes a cigarette from Kat's pack, and clamps it between his teeth, lighting it.

"You see Ellie?" she asks.

"She's going up to bed."

Quiet then. They smoke together. "You never told me," Kat says. "That you went to see Detective Calhoun while Ellie was gone. I would have gone with you. Why didn't you tell me?"

For some reason, he remembers the schoolyard, the boys who made fun of his lisp, the budding terror that he eventually stamped down with stoicism. Then Jimmy wonders what makes a good husband. A good father. A good man. Sometimes he is not sure he knows himself. But he knows Kat.

"I wanted to spare you," he says. He thinks about how he loves Kat now. How he will always love her. More than the ocean. More than Turmoil. He makes a decision. "I've been doing some thinking." He curls his hands in. "I'm wondering if it's time to sell the boat and license."

"Yeah?" Kat asks casually, but there's a sheen in her eyes—hope.

"Yeah," he replies. "I'm sorry, Kat. It always made me feel like shit, you working when I couldn't earn enough." Inadequacy and anger rises in Jimmy again. Sometimes he feels like he missed out, that the world owed him something.

"I never minded that," Kat says.

He gazes at his wife. "You didn't?"

"No, Jim. We're a team. I was embarrassed, maybe, back then, but not now. Remember that Christmas with Sam? When we could only afford a box of crayons and a pad of paper from the dollar store. I was sad, but now when I think about it… I'm proud. We made it work. You understand?" she asks.

He does. If he is honest with himself, he hadn't loved Kat when they got married. And he knows it was the same for her. They'd only been dating a few months when Kat got pregnant. Jimmy was nineteen. Kat eighteen. It was a matter of practicality. Two against the world sounded better than one. But he'd fallen for Kat over the years, especially after having children. Yes, they'd been a team then. Operating on little money and less sleep. They'd earned each other's love.

He stares up at the stars. Even in a small town like Coldwell, there's too much light pollution. It would be clearer on the ocean. A part of him will always want the water. But he'll sell the boat. He'd sell everything he has for Kat, for Ellie, for Sam. His family.