One More Thing

The next day, something is bothering me, but I can’t figure out what. As my parents read the paper and drink coffee on the porch, I realize what’s been nagging at me.

“Okay, I know I said the story of Susan James is officially closed, but there’s one more thing we have to do before we leave the island.”

My father’s head drops like he’s been hit in the back of the neck with a basketball. My mother ignores me and keeps reading.

“We have to go to South Beach. It’s where it all happened.”

“Too many memories,” Dad says. “Not to mention crowded.”

“How about if we go early?” I ask. “Just for a few minutes. Please?”

My mother puts down her newspaper. “Does it ever end?”

“Yes. Today, I promise.”

Margot’s way of visualizing a book as if it’s a movie, my flip-o-rama drawings, and Michael’s animation of my vocabulary words have sort of changed the way I think about stories. Not seeing South Beach when we’re on Martha’s Vineyard seems like a missing frame in the life of Susan James.

My mother is silent for several minutes. “I actually think it’s a good idea. Let’s go now before it gets too hot.”

“And crowded,” my dad says again.

I ask if Bodi can come, but Mom says dogs aren’t allowed on the beach during summer hours. Lucky for me, Susan James disregarded those rules ten years ago.

We pack water bottles, sunscreen, and snacks, and head across the island.

Dad parks along the side of the road and we walk to the right where Lauren said she and Susan went that day. Walking so far in the deep sand is difficult, so we move to the shoreline, where the packed wet sand makes it easier.

After we pass the last lifeguard, we go on for several minutes more. The waves are bigger than other beaches we’ve been to on this trip; I actually jump at the noise one of them makes when it crashes beside me.

My father grabs my mother’s hand, and we keep walking. After a while, my parents stop and face the water. The landscape is beautiful, but it’s hard not to think about what happened here. I take a deep breath and say good-bye to Susan James. Mom grabs my hand; the ocean view is infinite.

“Next stop, Portugal,” my father says.

I throw some rocks into the water and think about Mrs. James struggling to go through daily activities like weeding her garden or taking out the trash because of a bad decision her daughter made all those years ago. I’m certainly not the only one who’d want to rewind back to that day and make some different choices. Thankfully, I’m spared from all this thinking when my mother’s cell goes off with its Pink Panther ringtone.

She turns away from the water to take the call, and I can tell by her face something’s wrong. Has something happened to Bodi or Grandma or Matt or Michael or Pedro?

I jump in circles around Mom when I hear her say, “I’m so sorry.”

She holds out her hand for me to stop disturbing her so she can hear. I turn toward the ocean where the postcard view seems ominous again.

“What happened?” I ask when my mother says good-bye.

“That was Carly’s mom. They found Ginger dead in her cage this morning. Carly feels terrible—she’s very upset.”

I’m relieved it’s the class hedgehog instead of someone I love. Then I realize Carly probably feels awful even though she only had Ginger for the summer. When a giant wave comes, it hits my legs and I feel the tug of the riptide, the same undertow that pulled Susan James away from her life. I borrow Mom’s phone and pull up the number of the last call received.

When Mrs. Rodriquez answers, I ask if I can speak to Carly. I can tell she’s crying when she finally comes to the phone.

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I sit in the sand and listen, caught between the waves and Carly’s sobs.