The Patchwork Hearts

Chapter SIX

Maya

We are sitting in my sister's car again, but now we are back at the Ocean Point, in the parking lot. We just spent over an hour at the mall, standing at the Mobile Phone Kiosk with a young guy named Frank. He was helpful and knew what he was doing, but the process too much longer than I'd hoped. In the end, my new phone was in hand - set up with a new SIM card and new number. It didn't feel as good as I thought it would, but I realized quickly that my brain was telling me that just because I got a new phone, doesn't mean Ryland won't find me.

   I'm staring straight ahead, out the front window. Nella's looking at her phone, for the first time in awhile. She makes a noise that is sort of a grunt, then looks over at me.

   "Willow's being difficult for George," she tells me, but is smiling now. "She should be getting in the bath, but she's convincing him to let her play longer."

   I smile, too, because I'm glad for the distraction. It's hard sometimes to remember that my sister is a completely different person now. She's not that twenty year old who yelled at me for being angry with our father. She's not that girl who took on too much, who carried the weight of our family on her shoulders. Now my sister is light and happy and a wife and a mother. All in those four years that I'd stayed away, hoping to somehow become a new person.

   "Thank you, for today," I tell her, really looking at her now.

   "Of course," she says easily. "It wasn't the day I was expecting, when I left early this morning to go to the market. I was just going for eggs, and cheese."

   "I know."

   "I've had every emotion you can imagine today, Maya. But overall I'm really glad you're here," Nella says, then gives her real, true smile.

   "I... I think I am, too," I admit.

   "You think?" She raised an eyebrow at me, her face neutral now.

   "I thought maybe I'd go somewhere else, you know? It wasn't my first reaction to come back to Boothbay. But I kept thinking about you and Willow and how things are different now."

    "They definitely are different. But four years will do that."

   "I'm not different," I tell her, and it feels like defeat. "I wanted to be. But I'm not."

   "I think you are. You went through a lot of shit, and you have to be stronger because of it," she answers.

   "But I'm still angry, Nella. That's the problem. I hated who I was four years ago, because I was so angry. At dad, at this place-"

   "It's okay to be angry, but at some point you have to let it go," she tells me, then shrugs. "Especially since you're planning on staying in Boothbay."

   I know she's right, because Boothbay is a small place. Everyone will know I'm back, soon. People I went to high school with, their parents, anyone I ever dated. I think I struggled so much as a teenager because of those very things. Our mom didn't just get cancer, when I was sixteen. She didn't just end up in the hospital a year later, unable to breathe on her own. She didn't just die, a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. Everyone knew.

   Both sets of my grandparents still lived in Boothbay. My parents were both born here and met in grade school, went to school together all the way up to high school. They dated in college and got married before either of them graduated. They were young. They had two girls, not even two years apart, very soon after marriage. Dad got a good job after he graduated from law school. The main law office in town had someone recently retire and he filled their place, as if it was meant to be. Mom stayed home and raised us, her little girls who everyone thought were twins. They were happy. We were loved. And everyone knew us.