What Happened to Goodbye(80)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“So I heard.” She smiled, looking down at the baby. “Thisbe here and I can’t stand the idea of anyone being in the vicinity of a heated pool and hot tub with no bathing suit. It just goes against everything we believe in.”

“Right,” I said. “Well . . . thanks.”

“Sure.” She leaned a bit to the right, looking past me. “Plus . . . it was an excuse to get over here and see Katherine, and not have to wait until the party tomorrow. I mean, it’s been ages! Is she around?”

Party? I thought. Out loud I said, “She’s upstairs. Giving the twins a bath.”

“Great. I’ll just run up super-quick and say hello, okay?” I stepped back as she came in, bouncing the baby and making her laugh as she ran up the stairs. I heard her take the next flight, followed by a burst of shrieking and laughing as she and my mom were reunited.

I went back over to the computer, sliding into my seat again. Above me, I could hear my mom and Heidi chattering, their voices quick and light, and as I scanned all my alter egos I realized that my mom had one now, too. Katie Sweet was gone, but Katherine Hamilton was a queen in a palace by the sea, with new friends and new paint on the walls, a new life. The only things out of place were that car, covered up and buried deep, and me.

My phone rang, and I glanced down, seeing my dad’s number. As soon as I picked up, he started talking.

“You don’t walk away from me like that,” he began. No hello, no niceties. “And you answer when I call you. Do you know how worried I’ve been?”

“I’m fine,” I said, surprised at the little flame of irritation, so new, I felt hearing his voice. “You know I’m with Mom.”

“I know that you and I have things to discuss, and that I wanted them discussed before you left,” he said.

“What’s to discuss? ” I asked him. “We’re moving to Hawaii, apparently.”

“I may have a job opportunity in Hawaii,” he corrected me. “No one is talking about you having to come as well.”

“What’s the alternative? Moving back to Tyler? You know I can’t do that.”

He was quiet for a moment. In the background, I could hear voices, Leo and Jason most likely, shouting orders to each other. “I just want us to talk about this. Without arguing. When I’m not up to my ears in the dinner rush.”

“You called me,” I pointed out.

“Watch it,” he said, his voice a warning.

I got quiet fast.

“I’m going to call you first thing tomorrow, when we’ve both had a night to clear our heads. No decisions until then. Okay? ”

“Okay.” I looked out at the ocean. “No decisions.”

We hung up, and I closed my browser, folding all those Sweet girls back away. Then I walked up the stairs, following the sound of my mom’s and Heidi’s voices. I passed one bedroom after another, it seemed, the new-smelling carpet plush beneath my feet, before finally coming up on them, behind a half-closed door.

“. . . to be honest, I really didn’t think it through,” my mom was saying. “And with Peter not here, it’s that much more complicated. I think it was too much to take on, even though I thought it was what I really wanted to do.”

“You’ll be fine,” Heidi told my mom. “The house is finished, you survived the trip. Now all you have to do is just sit back and try to relax.”

“Easier said than done,” my mom said. Then she was quiet for a moment. All I could hear was splashing, the kids babbling. Then she said, “It was always a lot of fun in the past. But we’ve only been here a couple of hours and I’m already . . . I don’t know. Not feeling good about the whole thing.”

“Things will look better tomorrow, after you get some sleep,” Heidi said.

“Probably,” my mom agreed, although she hardly sounded convinced. “I just hope it wasn’t a mistake.”

“Why would it be a mistake?”

“Just because I didn’t realize . . .” she trailed off again. “Everything’s different now. I didn’t think it would be. But it is.”

I stepped back from the door, surprised at the sudden, stabbing hurt that rose up in my chest, flushing my face. Oh my God, I thought. Through all the moves, and all the distance, there had been one constant: my mom wanted me with her. For better or worse—and mostly worse—I never doubted that for a second. But what if I’d been wrong? What if this new life was just that, brand-new, like this gorgeous house, and she wanted to keep it fresh, no baggage? Katie Sweet had to deal with a moody, distant firstborn child. But Katherine Hamilton didn’t.

I turned, walking down that wide hallway, toward a foreign staircase in a house I didn’t know. I felt scared suddenly, like nothing was familiar, not even me. I grabbed my computer, stuffing it in my bag and taking the steps two at a time to the garage. I had a lump in my throat as I pushed open the garage door, cutting behind Peter’s massive SUV, over to Super Shitty. I pulled the cover off and threw my bag in the passenger seat, then realized I no longer had a key. I sat there a second, then, on a hunch, reached down beneath the floor mat, rooting around. A moment later, I felt the ridges on my finger, and pulled out my spare. Waiting for me, all this time.

The engine cranked, amazingly, and as it warmed up, I popped the trunk and got out. It wasn’t easy fitting all three bins in the small cargo space, but I managed. Then I found the garage door button, hit it, and climbed back in.

The street was dark, no cars in sight as I pulled out into the road. I had no idea where I was, but I knew how to get where I was going. I put on my blinker and turned right, toward North Reddemane.

Fifteen

Twenty-five minutes later, I was unlocking the door of room 811 of the Poseidon, feeling around for a light switch. When I found it, the décor, achingly familiar, jumped into place. Faded bedspread, shell painting over the headboard, slight tinge of mildew in the air.

The entire drive, I’d been leaning forward over the wheel, peering at the road, worrying that somehow everything I remembered would just be gone, wiped clean. I had a scare when I saw that Shrimpboats restaurant was boarded up, but then, over the next slight hill, I saw Gert’s, their OPEN 24 HRS sign visible. The Poseidon, same as I remembered it, was just beyond.

I thought the manager might ask questions, considering my age and the time of night, but she barely looked at me as she took my cash, sliding the room key across to me in return. “Ice machine’s at the end of the building,” she informed me, before turning back to her book of crossword puzzles. “Drink machine only takes bills, no change.”