Chapter 24: Found by the Sea

My mother was sitting at Winnie's kitchen table in her travel coat with a cup of tea she had not touched.

She stood when I came in, and I stopped in the doorway, still wet to the knees.

"Mom."

"You're so brown," she said, and then her face broke.

I crossed the room, and she held me hard enough to hurt.

She smelled like the same lavender soap as always.

"I saw you on a pier," she said into my hair. "A friend sent it to me."

"The stream?"

"A thousand strangers were watching my daughter hold a phone up to six men. I thought, who is that girl?"

"It's me."

"I know it's you. That's what scared me. I'd forgotten what you sounded like when you said no."

"I'm sorry I didn't call."

"Don't you dare apologize." She pulled back and held my face. "I should have asked why you only ever called from the car."

Winnie, at the stove, pretended to stir a pot that was not on the heat.

Eli stood in the doorway behind me, with sand to his shins and his hands in his pockets.

My mother looked at him over my shoulder for a long, level moment.

"You're the one with the boat," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Winnie says you fed my daughter and asked for nothing."

"I asked for a few things," Eli said. "She said yes to most of them."

Winnie dropped the spoon.

My mother's mouth twitched.

"Good," she said. "I like a man who admits it."

She opened her small suitcase on the table.

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