From what I know of you already, you have quite a reputation for providing customer satisfaction."Julie's cheeks burned. For Kate's benefit she said, "I try." "Oh, I'm certain you do more than try. You go all out." He paused for several beats. Then, "I've driven past the gallery thousands of times and always admired the works displayed in the windows. But I haven't had a reason to stop.""And now you did?""Now I did."She drew herself up. "Well, I'm sure Katherine will find the perfect piece for you. She's very knowledgeable.""He came to see you.""That's right, Ms. Rutledge. Not that Ms. Fields isn't perfectly charming and, I'm sure, knowledgeable." He shot Kate a smile over his shoulder, which she returned before he came back around to Julie. "But I'm placing myself in your very capable hands.
My God,” she says. “I feel like I’ve gone through a car wash.”I laugh, or force myself to, because it’s not something I’d normally laugh at.“What about you?” she says to Scottie. “How did you make out?”“I’m a boy,” Scottie says. “Look at me.”Sand has gotten into the bottom of her suit, creating a huge bulge. She scratches at the bulge. “I’m going to go to work now,” she says. I think she’s impersonating me and that Mrs. Speer is getting an unrealistic, humiliating glimpse.“Scottie,” I say. “Take that out.”“It must be fun to have girls,” Mrs. Speer says.She looks at the ocean, and I see that she’s looking at Alex sunbathing on the floating raft. Sid leans over Alex and puts his mouth to hers. She raises a hand to his head, and for a moment I forget it’s my daughter out there and think of how long it has been since I’ve been kissed or kissed like that.“Or maybe you have your hands full,” Mrs. Speer says.“No, no,” I say. “It’s great,” and it is, I suppose, though I feel like I’ve just acquired them and don’t know yet. “They’ve been together for ages.” I gesture to Alex and Sid. I don’t understand if they’re a couple or if this is how all kids in high school act these days.Mrs. Speer looks at me curiously, as if she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t.“And boys.” I gesture to her little dorks. “They must keep you busy.”“They’re a handful. But they’re at such a fun age. It’s such a joy.”She gazes out at her boys. Her expression does little to convince me that they’re such a joy. I wonder how many times parents have these dull conversations with one another and how much they must hide. They’re so goddamn hyper, I’d do anything to inject them with a horse tranquilizer. They keep insisting that I watch what they can do, but I truly don’t give a fuck. How hard is it to jump off a diving board?My girls are messed up, I want to say. One talks dirty to her own reflection. Did you do that when you were growing up?“Your girls seem great, too,” she says. “How old are they?”“Ten and eighteen. And yours?”“Ten and twelve.”“Oh,” I say. “Great.”“Your younger one sure is funny,” she says. “I mean, not funny. I meant entertaining.”“Oh, yeah. That’s Scottie. She’s a riot.
Akinli, this strange boy whose life at the moment seemed to be hanging on this, pushed himself from the bed.Julie gasped, watching as his arms trembled under his weight, even as thin as he was. He crushed his eyes together in concentration, willing himself up.I heard Ben whisper to himself, “Come on, come on, come on.”When Akinli, breathing as if he truly had just run a marathon, was fairly close to upright, he held out an arm for me.I fell into it fearlessly.We leaned into each other, neither of us strong enough to stay up on our own.“I thought I’d never see you sit up again,” Julie cried.We both turned to her, smiling at the happy tears on her face.
When we’d all settled down from that first night, Julie found a bag on the porch, which we thought must have been left by the same three girls who had brought me to them. Just like the clues on my skin, I’d only been left with two worldly possessions. The first was a wad of cash that I immediately handed to Ben and Julie as compensation for giving me a home. Most of it went to pay for Akinli’s medical bills, which was fine with me. I didn’t know if there was a word bigger than soul mates, something that meant the feeling of being so connected that it was hard to tell where one person ended and the other began. If there was, that word belonged to Akinli and me.The second thing was a bottle of water. It was so peculiar, this water, a blue that was both dark and brilliant, too thick to see through but still carrying light. No matter the season, it was always cold, and there were tiny shells in it that never settled.Sometimes I slept with it, even though it was cold enough to wake me up if I rolled on it the wrong way. It was the only clue I had to tell me who I had been before the night I was left on the porch, and I loved it second only to Akinli.Somehow, I knew that this love was important, as if treasuring the water meant I treasured myself. And I did. I loved my recovering body, I loved my blue-eyed soul mate, I loved my adopted family.I held the water to my chest, and I loved.
I looked at him and the other two people whose names I’d just learned. “So . . . so this is home then?”Akinli looked at me, perplexed, then turned to Ben and Julie.“She said some girls left her here and told her it was home. That’s all she knows. She doesn’t even know you.” Julie wiped at her tears, trying to calm herself.He moved his eyes back to me as quickly as he could manage. “Kahlen? You remember me, right?”I stared into this face, searching for something familiar. I didn’t recognize the angle of his chin, the length of his fingers. I didn’t know the slope of his shoulder or the shape of his lips.“Akinli, right?” I asked. This poor boy. I pitied him in the depths of my heart. Clearly, he’d already been going through something, and I could see the last scrap of fight he had in him dying with those words.“Yes.”“I don’t remember ever seeing you before in my life. I’m sorry.”He pressed his lips together as if he was swallowing the urge to cry.“But,” I said, “I know your voice. I know it as if it were my own.