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“No,” I said quietly. “Fortunately, Noah had my dad as a father figure. I don’t know what we’d have done without him. Without this whole town, really. They truly rallied around me whenI decided not to go back to school. And if you asked Noah, he’d tell you he has hundreds of aunts and uncles even though I’m an only child.”
She smiled. “I can only imagine the offers to babysit.”
I laughed. “Don’t think I didn’t take people up on it, either. Noah was only six months old when I took over running Magpie’s.” I looked at the clock. “Estrelle, of all people, was probably the biggest help. Noah adored her. Still does. She’d sit in a corner of the coffee shop and rock him or play games with him or read. It was all kinds of sweet. No doubt, babies bring out the absolute best in her.” I smiled at the memories. “Now that I’ve talked your ear off, did you eat? I can make you a quick grilled cheese. Or a PB and J? The mom in me needs to feed you.”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
I leaned a hip on the table. “You’ve barely eaten since you’ve arrived.”
“I haven’t had much of an appetite since what happened to Alexander. I’ll be sure to grab something later on, though.”
“If you ever want to talk about him, I’ll try to be as good a listener as you are.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” Standing, she stretched, then walked to the door to slip on her shoes. “I should probably get ready to go. Estrelle warned me not to be late.”
“I’d take that to heart.”
“No one really believes, like truly believes, she can give someone body odor, do they?”
“The question isn’t really if we believe it to be true. The question is do you really want to risk it?”
“I’m not going to lie, she scares me.”
I laughed. “She scareseveryone,but under her gothic exterior, there’s a good heart. She’s always the first to donate to a fundraiser, the first to send a gift to someone who’s ill or newly engaged or pregnant.” I didn’t add that Estrelle often knew of those events before they were announced to the general public. “She always seems to know when someone needs any kind ofhelp, whether financial, emotional, whatever. If she can’t physically help, she finds a way to get it done. She makes things happen.”
“Has she always lived here in Driftwood?”
“No, like a lot of people, she came here on vacation and ended up staying. I remember clearly the first time I saw her. It was on the beach when I was eleven.” I swallowed hard, searching for the right words. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened to my mother, not tonight. “She was there, dressed in a black bathing suit straight out of the forties, the kind with thick straps and full skirt. She had a swim cap on, too. It was covered in puffy black flowers. Mind you, this was in the nineties. She stood out. Way out.”
Ava smiled. “I can picture the outfit so clearly. I’m surprised the swim cap didn’t have a veil.”
“Me too. There’s rarely a day when she doesn’t have it on.”
Thinking of that day always brought tears to my eyes. I turned toward the sink to hide them. That afternoon on the beach, amid the panic, I’d raced into the water to swim out to where the manta rays had gathered, hoping I’d find my mama with them. Estrelle had gone in after me, hauling me straight back out.
“No,” she’d said firmly once we were safely back on shore. “It’s too dangerous. There’s another way.”
She’d guided me to the end of a fishing pier, where we sat down. The magnificent manta rays had swum over to us, gliding around the pilings, their movements almost ethereal in their beauty.
My mama hadn’t been with them.
Still, Estrelle and I sat there a long time that day. We watched the manta rays swim while search teams scoured the water, the beach.
“Does she have family nearby?” Ava asked.
“Not that I know of. For as much as she meddles, no one knows all that much about her. But one thing we do know is not to cross her. Unless you enjoy getting boils. Or pox. Or bad breath.”
Deep lines formed between Ava’s eyebrows as she frowned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I dropped a couple of flakes of fish food into the goldfish bowl and watched Mac and Cheese swim about for a moment, grateful as always that Noah hadn’t taken them to school with him, since they were technically his pets. He’d won them at a fair a couple of years ago. Having them here made my empty nest just a little less lonely.
Ava stretched again, reaching her arms over her head. She groaned slightly, then yawned. “I didn’t realize how out of shape I was until I lugged those boxes around today at Dez’s. I wore myself out.”
When I had finally joined her and my dad at his house, they’d already cleared half the guest room and had taken two trips to his storage unit. Both of them had been filthy, absolutely covered with dust and dirt, and I’d declined the bear hug my father had so generously offered.
“You’ve had quite the day. Are you settling in okay? Here in town?”
I could only imagine how overwhelmed she must be. New town. New people. New jobs. It was a lot, even though she seemed to be taking it all in open-armed stride so far.
