Page 8 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

Riley’s clowning around, arms outstretched, standing on one leg and pulling a face. My grandmother prevents him from toppling with a hand on his elbow. My parents hold hands, my mom’s head tipped onto my dad’s shoulder. Haley and Eleanor have their arms around each other and their cheeks pressed together, wearing matching floral swimsuits and twin grins. Louisa’s on my dad’s shoulders, laughing, with her hands gripping his hair like reins. I’m standing in the middle of the photo, gangly and awkward, wearing a gingham bikini top and cutoff jean shorts, with a pail in one hand and a trowel in the other, frowning like Wednesday Addams at her surliest.

My grandmother loved this photo, hanging it in a place of honor where she’d pass it often, though it always made me a little sad. Everyone in my family looks so happy, so at ease with themselves and each other. Smiling, touching, playing, glowing in the sun. I look like I’m in a completely different world, lost in thoughts that have nothing to do with anyone around me, as though I was wrangled for the photo under duress and the instant someone gave me permission, I’d run back toward the water to dig uselessly for clams.

As I shift my stance, I catch my reflection in the glass that protects the photo. I look notably similar at ages twelve and thirty-four, even though I wear my long hair in a tidy ponytail these days, I haven’t had bangs in over a decade, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in gingham.

But the frown? It’s almost identical.

Ditto with the sense of aloneness.

I’ve often gravitated to aloneness, though I never meant to cultivate it as my default state. It’s a fine line between alone and lonely, between needing to be away from the noise, the bustle, and the judgment of others and not wanting a life built on silence and solitude. I chose to spend my summers with my grandmother, here on the coast, where she let me read for days on end, uninterrupted, or hang out on the boat, perfecting my knots, rather than nurturing friendships by going to pool parties and barbecues. Similarly, I chose to move away from my family and build a life in Chicago, where “building a life” meant sequestering myself in my office or apartment, reading papers, planning courses, prepping lectures, and writing books and articles, as befitted my career. I’ve used work as an excuse to avoid social gatherings or put time and energy into dating. But I often wonder, did I make these choices because they were what I wanted, or were they what I wanted because of the choices other people made? And what if both are true, plus something else besides, something that’s simply me, who I am and who I was always going to be? How do I reconcile my need for aloneness with the growing sense that I’ve been missing something that would prevent the aloneness from becoming a place I can’t escape?

Again, the thought comes unbidden.

If my grandmother was still alive . . .

Again, I shut it down, this time with more effort than the last.

I can practically feel the house sighing with me as I head up the rest of the stairs to the second-floor landing. Light seeps beneath the door from the room at the top of the next flight, the room Dylan’s using. Rhythmic footfalls echo quietly in the hall, accompanied by the occasional creak of a floorboard. It sounds like he’s pacing, slowly, thoughtfully, not in anger, but I worry I’ve stressed him out with my presence here. How could I not? He’s been residing in this place uninterrupted for more than half a decade, accustomed to his routines. Now he has to share with a total stranger, one who could overturn everything he’s grown comfortable with. I might not want a life of constant solitude and silence, but maybe he does.

Or maybe he doesn’t.

With a bracing breath, I pad up the stairs. I’ll ask about the grocery list. Or thank him again for sharing the place with so little notice. Or I’ll say a quick and polite goodnight, offer a few friendly words, just enough to make sure we’re not establishing weird patterns of completely ignoring each other. That’s what someone who is good with people would do, right?

The tread beneath me creaks ever so slightly as I reach the second-to-last stair.

The sound of pacing stops, and a shifting shadow beneath the door goes still.

I wait, second-guessing my plan as I picture Dylan frozen midstep on the other side of his door, the way a deer freezes when it’s startled and trying not to be seen. Of course he doesn’t want to be seen. He doesn’t want to talk, either. If he did, he wouldn’t have fled to his room and shut the door. Also, he already told me not to buy him groceries. His signals were clear. I’m not being friendly. I’m being pushy and invasive. Two things I never want to be.

I count to ten. The hall remains silent. The shadow doesn’t move.

Slowly, slyly, reluctantly, I turn around and return to my room.

The bed, as predicted, is as lumpy as ever. I barely sleep a wink.

Chapter Four

For five days I throw myself into cleaning. I scrub floors and windows. I scour bathrooms. I box up dust-collecting trinkets. I launder curtains and pound out rugs. I move the pigeons’ nest and scrape the bird shit off the fourth-story window, leaning out to chip away at it with a kitchen towel tied around the lower half of my face. I watch YouTube videos about wallpaper removal and DIY demolition techniques I can use on the collapsed carriage house. I contact glaziers for estimates on window replacement. I research dumpster rental and use the Flynn-sibling group text to solicit advice about selling collectibles on eBay so I can afford said dumpster.

This is obviously the “keep stupidly busy to avoid a breakdown” plan I relayed to Amelia last month. At some point I have to make a real plan for what I’m doing with my life, but I have a week before my sister’s engagement party, I won’t solve my career crisis overnight, and now that I’m here, surrounded by memory triggers I’ve conveniently avoided for the last six years, I need to make this house feel less neglected and more like a place someone lives.

I buy groceries and a large backpack in which to carry them. The two-mile journey to and from the town of Blue Hill is gorgeous, following a simple footpath that runs along the coast, but it’s less gorgeous with twenty pounds of groceries in my hands. I make stir-fries and salads with plenty for two. I even manage a decent batch of chocolate chip cookies. I tell Dylan to help himself anytime, and he thanks me for the offer, but he continues to eat pasta, only pasta, other than the protein shakes he makes each morning after he returns from a daily run.

As the week passes, he gives me the Wi-Fi password (ZephyrsRevenge, the name of Zane Scarlett’s ship), he tells me what’s in his protein shake (protein powder, frozen bananas, almond milk, end of conversation), and he answers my question about how far he runs (“as far as I can,” end of that conversation). That’s pretty much the sum of nearly a week’s worth of discourse.

By day six, I can’t stand it, so I consult the Flynn-sibling group text again. I may not be socially intuitive or conversationally adept, but I have four siblings who are.

Philippa: Ways to get to know someone that aren’t intrusive or offensive. Go

Louisa: Is this about Sterling?

Haley: Of course this is about Sterling

Eleanor: I thought his name was Dylan

Louisa: Mom and Dad call him Sterling

Haley: Mom called him something else the first time she met him