“Yes?”
“Are you going to be my mommy now?”
My brush halts halfway through her tresses as a cave forms in my chest, so deep there’s no visible bottom. Pure darkness.
I’ve had months to wrap my head around the fact that no one will ever call me mommy. No little boy will ever rush me not to be late for baseball practices. No daughter will ever ask me to do her makeup for prom. My fridge will never be covered in peanut butter-stained fingertips. I will never breastfeed, never attend gymnastics competitions, never sing crappy songs in the car during road trips to the beach. There’s a new thing to grieve at every corner, and while I haven’t accepted it yet, I’ve gotten used to theidea. But to hear those words coming from her mouth… It feels like someone dangling a carrot in front of me, and the worst part is, I know she wants me to grab it. There’s so much hope in her question.
I don’t even think this comes from her seeing me and Eli together and imagining we’re a couple. This feels like it has everything to do with all the time I’ve spent withher.
I lean over her so she can’t look away from me. “No, honey, I won’t. You already have a mommy.” I think back to the devastation I saw in Liz’s expression when I saw her at the park. I’m certain I’m not lying when I say, “And she loves you very much, even if you don’t see each other a lot.”
Her lower lip turns down, and I wish I could’ve lied to her, if only not to see that instant disappointment.
“But you know what? It doesn’t matter what you call me.” I squeeze her neck where I know she’s ticklish, and even if it’s artificial, the giggle that escapes her loosens some of the tension in my shoulders. “I’ll be your Cassie as long as you want me to.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Even as I say it, I know some of me is lying. I’m leaving once summer ends, and as much as I want to be here for her, doing so from a distance will make it difficult, especially on her part. Still, I’ll do what it takes. I’ll visit. I’ll call. If Eli allows me to stay in her life, I will be, in whatever form I can.
I take her hand in mine and dust a kiss to her palm, hoping against all odds that I’ll be able to hold on to my promise no matter what.
Chapter 29
My first job interview was at one of the many local ice cream shops in town. I was fifteen and Lick It sounded like the only place I could possibly get a call-back from, even with my name. The place was falling apart, looking more like a dilapidated cabin than a shop, and it constantly smelled like mildew and curdled milk. I remember rarely having felt this nervous in my life. Changed my outfit three times, rehearsed answers for hours in front of the mirror, the whole deal. I needed the money to buy a car to feel like I wasn’t entirely trapped in this town. I’d feel better knowing I had a way out. Of course, the person who interviewed me had to be Ashleigh Wright; one of the girls in my class who was particularly nasty to me. She didn’t even pretend to ask me the interview questions, instead texting on her flip phone until I gave up and left the shop. I didn’t get ice cream there all summer, even on the hottest days, and while Eli’s dad was able to afford me a few hours every week at the food truck, I was never able to buy that car.
By the time I interviewed for my job at Brooklyn Hospital Center, I was slightly more confident. I’d had more practice over the years from small jobs I was able to land. I still vomited the morningof, but at least I was able to remain composed during the interview. When I left and was told by Sariah with a firm shake of her hand that she’d be in touch, I thought to myself, this might be my last ever job interview.
It might still be the case. I’m not planning on applying anywhere.
But…
It was curiosity that got me to type “nursing jobs near me” on my laptop. Curiosity that got me to click on the link of the small hospital two towns over I visited when I broke my arm at eleven by falling from a tree Eli and I had decided to climb (he’d fainted afterward and needed to be checked out, too.) Curiosity that made me look at their vacant positions.
When I hear the patio door of Ruth’s house open behind me, I snap my computer shut so hard, the sound could be heard throughout town.
“What are you watching on there?” Eli asks as he comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my torso, his lips pressed against my neck. I feel his grin on my skin.
“None of your business,” I say, not denying what he’s clearly thinking. Better he believes I was watching porn than looking—curiously,just for fun—at available nursing jobs in Maine.
“I think I’d very much like to know,” he says, his voice deep and low.
“Yeah?” I turn in his arms to find him dressed for work, with his hair tucked behind his ears. He had it cut when we got back from the cottage, the strands now curving at the base of his neckand falling across his forehead. It’s somehow made him even sexier than before. I brush my fingers through it.
“Should I cut it more?”
I shake my head. “I like it like this.”
“Good.” He smiles, and even though I still have no idea what it is we’re doing, I bask in this feeling of rightness. Like here, for a few weeks, we can pretend this is real.
He leans down to kiss me, but just before his lips land, he freezes, looking around the house. “What happened here?”
“What?” I turn around, realizing how strange the empty house must look to him. “Oh, yeah. I sold everything before the cottage trip.” I was sitting on an Adirondack chair I pulled inside before he came in.
“So where have you been sleeping?” He’s worked the past two evenings—and days—so I haven’t seen much of him, except for when he came back from work and liberated me from my babysitting duties. Apart from a few make out sessions on the couch, we’ve been tame, mostly from lack of time. Every time I leave, I feel a rush of nerves because I know we only have so much time, and we’re wasting some of it by not being together, but there’s not much else we can do.
“Air mattress in the guest room.”
