True Colors

“More than once, actually.”

He smiled ruefully, looking like a kid again, caught red-handed. “I guess my soul mate had itchy feet. She went to the store one day and didn’t come back. We signed the papers last week. The worst part is that she doesn’t even want to see the girls.”

“Oh, Luke. How are they doing?”

“Not so good. At four and six, they can’t understand all this; they keep asking when she’ll be back. It isn’t good, maybe, to stay in a house that holds so many ghosts.”

“Or a town,” Winona said, wondering how long it would be before she stopped thinking about Dallas every time she drove down Shore Drive, or into Water’s Edge. She leaned back, staring out at her yard. In the falling night everything looked silvery and a little surreal. “Maybe you should go see Vivi Ann. She could use a shoulder these days.”

“You’re the one I came to see,” he said quietly, and the whole of their past was between them suddenly, the light spots and the dark. He reached over and took her hand. “I was proud of you today.”

“Thanks,” she said, surprised by how much the simple compliment meant to her. In all the emotion and loss she’d stirred up recently, she’d forgotten how much it meant that for once, she’d done things for the right reasons. Too bad that only made it hurt more.

I never even got to talk to him. It all happened so fast. One minute we were sitting there, listening to that bitch lie about my dad and then it was over and everyone was moving and they were taking him away in chains.

Mom said don’t worry Noah, you’ll get through this I promise. But how am I supposed to not care that he’s in there alone?

My mom was right. I wish I’d never started all this. It hurts too much.

“How is she?” Winona asked.

“You know Vivi. She’s being extra quiet and not going out much. I hear Noah is getting in trouble at school again.” Aurora paused in her work. She was busy creating a counter display for the store. “But they’ll be fine. It’s only been a week. She??ll get better again.”

Winona turned away from the gentle understanding in her sister’s gaze. She walked idly around the empty store, pretending to study the pretty trinkets for sale—the blown-glass wind chimes, mother-of-pearl earrings, pretty stained-glass windows that depicted the Canal and the mountains.

“Maybe we can get her to come to the Outlaw this weekend,” Aurora said, coming up behind her.

That was how it would be done, the reparation; they would go back to their routines and in time, this failure, too, would be forgotten. Almost. “Sure.”

Behind them, the tiny brass bell above the door made a tinkling sound.

Aurora elbowed Winona in the side, and she turned.

Mark stood beside a glass display full of local pearls. He looked exactly the same—touristy clothes, balding head, broad shoulders—and that surprised Winona somehow. With all that had happened lately it felt as if they all should look different.

She saw surprise register in his eyes and she didn’t move, didn’t even smile. An awkward hesitation seemed to fill the tiny gift shop, and then Mark moved toward her, smiling uncomfortably.

She met him halfway, forced a smile, and said, “Hey, Mark.”

“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said. “You never come to the beach house anymore.”

“I’ve got it up for rent.”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Aurora, then back at her. “Can we talk?”

“Sure.”

She caught Aurora’s quizzical look, shrugged a little, and followed Mark to the door.

Outside it was a beautiful day. They walked down Shore Drive to the beach park and sat on an empty picnic table. Normally Winona would have filled the silence with nervous talk, saying anything to avoid nothing, but in the past months she’d learned a thing or two about words. Sometimes you needed to wait for the ones that mattered.

“I was wrong,” he said at last. “I still think you should have warned my mom and me, but I should have known you had to do what you did.”

“It didn’t end up meaning anything.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“I appreciate this,” she said.