Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (27 page)

The wake spread out behind the ferry, and I thought this was how it should be. It was my life. This Nora Hargrove’s stories were tragic. There were no happy endings, just too many endings to count.

The shuttle was full. I was the last passenger to board. The other foot passengers and I rode to the transportation center in Cape May and then exited the shuttle without a word to each other. I walked down Lafayette Street toward the woman who’d raised me. The woman who’d ruined me.

At Congress Hall, I stopped and had a drink in the Blue Pig Tavern. I started to order the lemonade because it was the first thing on the menu, and the old Nora would have ordered it so she didn’t have to think, but everything was different now. I got the Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and wished Tank were here to drink it with me.

As I sipped it, I realized I hate lemonade. I’d hated it my whole life. I surveyed the plates of the customers next to me. I also hated red meat. I hated arugula, pinot grigio, and mayonnaise. God help me, I was full of hate.

I paid for my drink—okay, I had two . . . three—and walked the five blocks to my parents’ rented shore house.

I climbed the six steps of the front porch and rang the doorbell. My mother answered the door. Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun with wooden sticks poking out of it, and she wore a tropical-colored kimono. She looked like she’d been raised on a Pacific Island rather than in Ringwood, New Jersey.

“I still hate you,” I said and didn’t smile. “But I miss you, too.”

“Well, of course you do.” She pulled me inside and hugged me. “I was horrendous. My behavior deplorable. But you can’t give up on me. I’m your mother.”

Her words echoed inside me. My reactions to her had been buried long ago. My arms remained at my sides. I didn’t know what I needed from my mother, but a hug wasn’t the solution. She released me, pushed the hair off my face, and kissed my forehead the way she had every night before putting me to bed when I was little.

“How are you, my sweet Nora?”

“I’m not sweet. Everything is fucked up.”

Her expression was kind and generous. She was expecting me, but that was impossible. I hadn’t expected myself. “Come in. I’ll make us some tea.”

I followed my mother into the most magnificent house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean I’d ever been to. Unlike the house I’d spent the summer in, there was nothing but room here. An enormous kitchen spilled into the great room that had windows on three sides with breathtaking views everywhere I looked. I turned around in it, knowing Jack and Rob and all the others were staring out at the same ocean today. Tank’s parents should have scattered his ashes into the sea.

I shook my head to dislodge the thoughts of him.

“What’s going on?” my mother asked as she placed the kettle on the back burner of the stove.

“I’m confused.”

My mother fell into her kind I’m-listening stare that always made me want to hug her when I was a child. I knew she wouldn’t say another word until I contributed more.

“A lot’s happened this summer.” Still no reaction. “I fell in love, and someone died.”

“Oh my. The same person?”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. I fell in love with a lot of people.” I stared out the window at the churning sea. It was rough today, and the lifeguards had yellow flags up on either side of their stands.

“Who are these people? Where are they from?”

“Outer space.” I laughed a little, and my mother stayed still. I lowered my head, unable to face her judgment, but I needed to defend them. “They’re the wealthy and the poor, the lost and the enlightened, and I love every one of them.” I thought of Heather and Blaire, and sometimes Rob. “Some of them.” My mother still didn’t move. She was better at this than I was. I inhaled deeply. “But now one’s gone, and nothing is how it should be.” My mother poured hot water over the tea bag in the cup in front of me. “And I think I’m never going to see them again.”

“If you love them, you can’t throw them away.”

I shouldn’t have come here for advice. She was a horrible person. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I never threw you away. You or your father. I’ve loved you both every single day.”

“Why then, Mom?” The last word was foreign leaving my mouth. She hadn’t been a mom in years.

She sighed and put her teacup safely on the counter. “According to my therapist, I was professionally unfulfilled and resented your father and . . . my life.”

“Your life? As in me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You know, it really pisses me off you’ve talked to a therapist about this.”

“My God, why? You should see someone.”

“Do you know how many people with
real
mental illness, not boredom, are suffering without the proper access to health care?”

She was regrouping, calming herself with one of her patented deep breaths. “You should talk to someone, Nora. You never do. You never
have
. Do you remember Joey Rivello?”

“Mom.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. She was ridiculous. “Please.” I didn’t want to talk about Joey Rivello.

“You loved him. For years you loved him. If you could have seen how much work you put into his valentines every year.” She shook her head reminiscing. “And then one day, in third grade, he pushed you down on the playground.”

“Mom, I know.”

“And you never spoke to him, or about him, again.”

“I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Yes, you should have. I’m your mother, and just like Joey Rivello and these people from the summer, you cannot just throw me away because you’ve been hurt. Life is hard, Nora. You can’t hide from it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She’d hit a nerve, and I was going to slap her across the face with it. “You dragged Dad and me through the ringer! We’re vegans. No. We’re learning Greek this week. Remember the year of teeth whitening? My gums still hurt. Pilates, ceramics, meditation, essential oils, and dog walking. I didn’t know if I was a Quaker or a witch’s daughter from one day to the next. You can’t stick with anything! You fall in love depending on the day of the week.”

“And you love nothing!”

We stared at each other, hatred and love suspended between us. She was wrong about almost everything, but she was right about that. At least she was before this summer. Everything was different now.

“Do you remember how much you loved to read when you were little?” Her voice was gentle again. That of a mother parenting her daughter. “How you’d sit for hours and read all kinds of books? Mysteries, memoirs, those awful romances. You read
Gone with the Wind
in fourth grade. I’d never seen anything like it.”

I thought back to the Nora Hargrove novels I’d snuck past her, knowing they’d only make her crazier. Stephen King, James Patterson, I’d torn through novels that adults were reading next to me on the beach. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You preferred the make-believe to the real world and you were willing to hide inside those books to avoid it forever. You scared us. The only thing more terrifying than seeing your child struggle is watching her shut down all together.”

I was losing this argument and losing my mind. If she were anywhere near right, what did that make me all these years? “I liked to read.”

“You liked to hide. Your father and I did everything we could to pull you out of it. We signed you up for every club, sport, and activity. We were convinced that if you were busy and around everyone, you’d
be
with everyone else, and it was finally starting to work. Until . . .”

“I really do hate you.”

“We’re talking about you now.” She raised her eyebrows. “You shut down completely. You didn’t read. You broke up with your boyfriend, quit the play. I don’t even think you’d have gone to college except it was your only way to move out.”

I lowered my head, remembering the day they’d dropped me off at the University of Delaware. It could have been any school as long as I didn’t have to watch them together every day. I’d stopped living my life because I didn’t want to share it with her, but what I hadn’t realized was it was a hard habit to break. Being alone.

“Nora, you’ve got to be willing to write your own story,” she continued to say words. I raised my head and stared at her. I wanted to believe she knew what she was talking about. There was a time I would have taken every word from her mouth as fact. She was my mother. “And you’ve got to be brave enough to let someone else hear it.”

LIFE IS DEEP. DIVE IN.

I’
d just turned my ringer on as I stepped out of my office when the bells went off. It startled me in my hand.

“Hello.”

“Nora, it’s Janine. From the shelter.”

“Is Rufus okay?” I stopped walking and pressed the phone against my ear. He had to be all right.

“He’s better than okay. He was adopted today.” Tears overflowed from my eyes. “And he has you to thank for it. You did a great job with him.”

I choked back the tears. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“The family’s great. He totally won their twin girls over with his personality.”

“He’s such a sweetie. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Thank you. I’ve got a new dog I need you to meet. When are you coming back in?”

“Soon. I need to get back there soon.” I hung up and smiled through my tears the whole way to my car. He did it. He really did it.

I could hear the knocking on my apartment door from inside the shower. I’d just turned off the water, and the pounding on the door reverberated through the miniscule bathroom as I slipped into my robe. No one ever came to my apartment unless they were delivering food.

With the light step of a cat, I walked to the door and peered through the peephole without making a sound. Jack stood on the other side. His left hand rested on the doorjamb above it. His other held his motorcycle helmet, and he was gazing down at his feet. He was beautiful standing near the dust bunnies surrounding the staircase of my townhouse.

“I know you’re in there,” he said and banged again, making me jump from behind the door.

I reached forward and unlocked the two padlocks and the chain on the door. Jack turned the knob and opened it toward me. I was three feet inside the apartment with my wet hair dripping down my back. “It’s Friday. Why are you not at the beach?” I asked.

“I’m here.”

“I can see that.” A lightness followed him into my apartment. The week of crying and hauling hatred with me everywhere I went was pushed to the past as Jack smiled at me.

“Why aren’t you at the beach? I waited to see you all day.”

“I have to work tomorrow.” I paused, too tired of sharing grief with him. “And I don’t really want to be there anymore.”

Jack pulled me close to him. I rested my head against his chest and let his warmth engulf me. “You should have texted me.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” I admitted and pulled myself closer to him.

“How about I miss you?” he said, and made me want to cry. I was tired of crying. My natural instincts were to pull away, but I stayed in his arms and let his warmth fill my wet body. I inhaled and exhaled with my eyes closed until we were no longer in mourning, until we weren’t even here. We were someplace warm and sunny together, lying on the beach and laughing.

“I miss you,” I said and I could have floated to the sky.

“That’s better.”

I laughed, but only a little, because anything really funny wouldn’t register in my mind. I relocked the door behind him out of habit as Jack scrutinized my dismal abode.

“Nice place.” I assumed he was joking. “How many apartments are in this building?”

I turned from Jack, who was running his hand over the navy corduroy couch that had been much cooler in my apartment at the University of Delaware. “Three. The whole first floor is mine. Two above me.”

He looked from my kitchen counter to the family room with the ancient fireplace and into the dining “area” next to the large bay windows that I had to keep closed and covered at all times for fear of being watched or robbed, or worse. He was inspecting everything. It was the first source of information he’d ever had about me besides me. “This is nice,” he said, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it. My apartment was more of a cave than a residence, but I could pay for it myself.