Sarah Dessen - The Rest of the Story

I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I’m about to spend three weeks in a place that for all intents and purposes I’ve never been to before. Gotta say, the world seems pretty wide right now.”

“Yes,” he said, “but with your license you’d be free to see even more of it. Like Lake North, for example.”

“Where I’d probably back Mimi’s car into another, more expensive SUV. Is that what you really want?”

This was a good point. I’d hit a Range Rover in that fender bender: it hadn’t been cheap. “Okay, fine. But once I’m back, we discuss. Deal?”

“Deal.”

That resolved, he got to his feet, coming over to join me where I was standing by the window. “So, look,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Be honest: You okay with this arrangement? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I’m fine,” I said, although now that his time left here was dwindling, I was feeling a slow simmer of anxiety I could only hope wouldn’t reach full boil. Did I want to change my mind?

The panic, now hitting medium high, said yes. But I had learned, over time and with various therapists we’d consulted, that it did not get to speak for me. I could do this. And I would, for my dad and Tracy first and foremost, but also, in some small way, for my mom. I worried so much about forgetting her as the years passed. Maybe spending a month in the place she came from would help me remember.

We walked downstairs, back into the kitchen, which was now empty. Peering down the hallway, I could see Mimi outside, talking to the pregnant girl out by the cleaning cart over at the motel. As they conferred, a car zoomed past on the road, beeped, and she waved her hand.

“Still the same table,” my dad marveled as we passed the big wooden one against the windows. I, of course, could only see all those dirty dishes, still untouched. “But that toaster’s new.”

“Toaster?”

He gestured at the corner of one counter, by the sink. Sure enough, sitting there was a huge shiny silver toaster, the kind with multiple bread slots and various dials for settings. “In a place like this, you notice change,” he said to me, starting down the hallway. Appliances, too, I thought, before following behind him.

“Leaving already, Matthew?” Mimi asked when we got back outside. “You just got here!”

“He has a plane to catch,” I told her. “The honeymoon awaits.”

She stepped forward, giving him a hug. “Have a wonderful time. And don’t worry a thing about this girl, she’ll be fine.”

She said this so confidently, as if she knew me, as well as the future. The weird part was how much I wanted to believe she was right.

“Thanks, Mimi,” he replied. “For everything.”

She smiled at him, then gave me a wink before turning and pulling open the office door. I felt a blast of cold air before it closed behind her.

“Still feel weird about this,” he said when it was just us again. “It’s not the way I planned to be leaving you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Go. Sail. Honey that moon. I’ll see you in three weeks.”

He laughed. “Honey that moon?”

“Just go, would you?”

Finally, he got in the car and started the engine, backing out slowly as I stood there. I made a point to wave at him, smiling, as he pulled onto the main road. Then I turned around to face the house and the lake, taking a deep breath.

As I started walking, the pregnant girl was still outside the last unit, now sitting in one of the plastic chairs, looking at her phone. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her watching me, so I picked up my pace crossing the grass, as if I had a solid plan. No matter where you are, home or the strangest of places, everyone wants to look like they know where they’re going.

“Well, shit.”

I opened my eyes at the sound of voices, the first I’d heard since crawling into my bed after my dad left and falling asleep. It had still been morning then: now the clock on the bureau, analog with tiny numbers, said 3:30. Whoops.

“Why is there no bread in this house?” a woman was saying in the kitchen, the question accompanied by the banging of cabinets. “I just brought a loaf over here two days ago.”

“I’m not hungry,” a voice that sounded like a child said. “I told you that.”

“You’ll eat something if I make it.” Footsteps, then a door—the screen one downstairs, I was pretty sure—slamming. “Mama! What happened to all my bread?”

“Your what?” That was Mimi.

“My bread! I’m trying to make Gordon a sandwich.”

“Honey, I don’t know. If there’s bread, it’s in the regular place.”

“But that’s not my bread, that I bought with my money, for my family to eat,” her daughter replied.

“I’m not hungry!” came again from downstairs.

“I’ll remind you that we are all your family,” Mimi hollered, “and if you want to get picky about it, then you can stop drinking all my Pop Soda and not replacing it.”

Silence. But the heavy kind. Meanwhile, I thought of my mom, who was the only person I’d ever known who had heard of Pop Soda, much less drank it. It was like a generic Diet Coke, heavy on the syrup. It had been years since I’d had one, but I could still remember how it made my teeth hurt.

“Mama, all I am asking is where is the bread,” the woman said, sounding tired. “If you have some other issue with me, let’s get into it, by all means, the day hasn’t yet been long enough.”

Mimi responded, although at this point they were apparently close enough not to be yelling, so I couldn’t hear it. But I was up now, so I grabbed my toothbrush and navigated the way to the tiny bathroom at the end of the hall. Once rid of nap breath, I finger combed my hair, took a deep breath, and went downstairs.

At first the kitchen looked completely empty. Only when I’d started to the cabinets for some water—again noting all those dirty dishes, how could you just leave them like that?—did I notice a little girl standing just inside the opening to the hallway. Until she reached up, adjusting the glasses on her face, she’d been so still I’d assumed she was part of the wall.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “Hi.”

She studied me, her face serious. While her appearance—dark hair in a ponytail, denim shorts and thick plastic clogs, a purple T-shirt that said #AWESOME—was young, the expression on her face reflected the world-weariness usually seen in a much older woman. “Hello,” she replied.

I glanced down the hallway, to the screen door. “Are you looking for Mimi?”

“No,” she said. “Are you?”

“No,” I replied. “I was actually trying to find a glass for some water.”

Another beat as she studied me. Then she turned, crossing into the kitchen and standing on tiptoe to open an upper cabinet. She pulled out a plastic tumbler with a gas station logo on it, holding it out in my direction. “If you want ice, it’s in the bucket in the freezer.”

“I’m good,” I said, taking the glass. “Thank you, um …”

“Gordon,” she said.

“Gordon,” I repeated. “I’m Emma.”

She nodded, as if this was acceptable. Then she watched as I went to the sink, filled my glass, and took a sip. “My real first name is Anna,” she said after a moment. “But nobody with two names ever uses the first one.”

“I do,” I said.

This seemed to intrigue her. “Really?”

I nodded. “I’m Emma Saylor, technically.”

“And you get to be just Emma?”

“Well, yeah.”

She looked wistful for a second. “Lucky.”

The door banged again, and I heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, a woman in jeans and a polyester uniform top that said CONROY MARKET entered the kitchen. She had long blond hair pulled back in a headband and wore tall wedge sandals of the sort Nana would call ankle breakers.