Chapter 19: The Ocean

I took my shoes off on the sea wall.

The wind came off the water in long, cold pushes, and the sky over Seaview City had gone the color of pewter.

Maud stood beside me with two paper cups of coffee.

"You've been here before," she said.

"Last month. For the photos."

"Then why are you shaking?"

"Because last month I came to prove something to Hugh."

I looked at the water coming in.

"Today I came for me."

I didn't say anything else, and Maud didn't ask.

The tide pulled out and came in again.

I stood barefoot on the stones for ten minutes, and I thought about the girl who had begged for this view at twenty-three.

She had cried in a parked car because he said maybe next year.

I wished I could hand her this wind.

"Okay," I said at last. "Let's go get dressed."

"Finally. I've been holding a garment bag for three hours."

The gala was in a glass hall above the harbor, with a string quartet and a line of black cars at the curb.

I wore the red dress.

It was the same one from the Anchorage. Maud had pressed it in the hotel bathroom with a hair straightener and a prayer.

My ankle was almost healed. My heels were the red ones.

At the door, a young man with a clipboard looked down his list.

"Name?"

"Joelle Brandish."

"I don't see you, ma'am."

"I'm not on it."

"Then I'm afraid..."

"She's with me."

I turned.

A woman in her sixties stood behind us in a long navy coat, with white hair cut close and a cane she plainly did not need.

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