What Happened to Goodbye(78)
Author: Sarah Dessen

Connor ran back past us, bumping against my hip. “Beach!” he yelled, his small, high voice echoing around the vast room.

“Peter says hello,” my mom told me, dropping her phone back in her bag. “We don’t usually spend nights apart, if we can help it. I keep telling him that most couples travel separately all the time, but he still worries.”

“Worries? About what?”

“Oh, any- and everything,” she said. “He just likes it better when we’re all together. Let me just bring in a few things, and we’ll go. Would you mind watching the twins for just a second? It’s easier without an entourage.”

“Sure,” I said, as Connor ran back the other way, now spreading his palm prints across the row of glass doors that led outside. She smiled at me gratefully, then started back down to the car. A moment later, I heard a garage door cranking open, and the SUV disappeared beneath the house.

Which left me in this crazy huge living room with my half siblings, one of whom, like a one-man wave of destruction, had already smudged just about every glassy reflective surface in sight. “Connor,” I called out as he banged his baby fists against a window. “Hey.”

He turned, looking at me, and I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. Or do with him. Downstairs somewhere, a car door shut.

“Let’s go check out the water,” I said, trying to put Maddie down again. No luck. So it was with her still on my hip that I crossed the room, unlocked the back door, and put my hand out to Connor. He grabbed it, holding tight, and we went outside.

It was dark, the wind cold, but the beach was still beautiful. We had it all to ourselves, save for a couple of trucks parked way down at one end, headlights on, fishing poles stuck in the sand in front of them. As soon as we hit the sand, Connor pulled loose from me, running to a tide pool just a few feet away, and I scrambled to catch up with him. He bent down, tentatively reaching out to touch the still, shallow water there with one hand. “Cold,” he told me.

“I bet,” I said.

I looked up at the house, seeing my mom pass in front of that row of windows, carrying some reusable cloth grocery bags, lights on all around her. The houses on either side were dark, clearly unoccupied.

“Cold,” Maddie repeated, burrowing into my shoulder. “Go inside.”

“In one sec,” I replied, turning to look at the water again. Even at night, you could see the foam as the waves crashed, moving forward then pulling back again. I stood there beside Connor, who was still patting the tide pool, the wind ruffling his tufts of baby hair, then looked up at the sky overhead. My mom didn’t need that old telescope here, clearly. The stars seemed close enough to touch, and she’d never have to look very hard to find one. She’d never want for anything. And even though I knew that for her, and even Connor and Maddie, this was a good thing, it made me sad in a way I wasn’t sure I even understood.

“Mclean?” I heard my mom call. When I turned back, I saw her framed in the open double doors, one hand on her hip. “Are you out there?”

It was so strange, but for a moment, a part of me wanted to stay quiet, for her to have to come look for me. But just as quickly, this thought passed and I cupped my hand over my mouth to be heard over the waves.

“Yeah,” I yelled back. “We’ll be right in.”

After doing an eat-and-run at a local diner—the twins were weary of being contained and lasted about ten seconds in their high chairs—we walked down the boardwalk in the cold to the boutique my mom had mentioned earlier, only to find it closed.

“Winter hours,” she said, checking the sign. “They closed at five.”

“It’s no big deal,” I told her. “I probably won’t swim anyway.”

“We’ll get you a suit tomorrow, first thing,” she told me. “Promise.”

Back at the house, we unloaded the rest of the car, using the elevator (elevator!) to move the luggage up to the third floor. I was in a room with a coral pink bedspread, wicker furniture, and a block sign that read BEACH in big letters hanging over the mirror. It smelled like fresh paint and had a gorgeous view. “Are you sure?” I asked my mom as we stood inside, the twins scrambling up to jump on the bed. “I don’t need a bed that big.”

“They’re all that big,” she explained, looking embarrassed. “I mean, except for the twins’. I’ll put them at the other end of the house, so they won’t wake you up at the crack of dawn.”

“I get up pretty early,” I said.

“Five a.m?”

“What?” I just looked at her as she nodded. “Wow. No wonder you’re tired.”

“It is exhausting,” she agreed, this thought punctuated by Maddie and Connor, leaping with abandon across the bed in front of us. “But they’re only little once, and it goes so fast. It seems like you were just this age, I swear. Although when you were a baby I was so worried about work, and the restaurant . . . I feel like I missed a lot.”

“You were always around,” I told her. She looked at me, surprised. “It was Dad who was gone at Mariposa.”

“I suppose. Still, though. I’d do some things differently, given the chance.” She clapped her hands. “All right, Maddie and Connor! Bath time! Let’s go!”

She walked over to the bed, collecting the twins despite their protests, and hauled them off the bed, nudging them to the door. They were in the hall when Maddie looked back at me and said, “Clane corn?”

I looked at my mom. “What did she say?”

“Mclean come,” she translated, ruffling Maddie’s hair as Connor took off in the other direction. “Let’s let Mclean get settled, okay? We’ll see her before you go to bed.”

Maddie looked at me. “Do you need help, though?” I asked.

“I’m fine.” She smiled, and then they were gone, the sound of their footsteps padding on the carpet gradually getting more and more distant. How long was that hallway anyway? Honestly.

After checking out the view for a fewinutes, I went back downstairs, where I now had the main floor all to myself. I walked to the overstuffed red couch, sinking into it, then, after a few minutes of feeling moronic, figured out how to turn on their flat-screen TV that hung over the fireplace. I channel surfed for little bit, then flicked it off again and just sat there, listening to the ocean outside.

After a moment, I slid my phone out of my pocket, turning it on. I had three messages.