Map of the Heart

“You got a call,” he prompted. “You got a fucking call.”

She could barely speak past the lump in her throat, so she nodded. Something melted inside her. She’d just had the most terrifying day. A call from the ER was every mother’s worst nightmare. For Camille, it revived the deep trauma of losing Jace, and now here was this furious stranger. Suddenly the strain of being a widowed single mother overwhelmed her. To go through a day like this without the love, support, and partnership of Julie’s father felt like too much to bear. Julie’s accident, and now this screw-up brought her longburied grief to the surface.

To keep herself from shattering, she went into defense mode. She began to tremble as fear, stress, and then a delayed response of anger swept over her. With shaking hands, she set the film and canister in the sink, struggling to hide her emotions. It was horrifying, this reaction to the stress of the day, and she refused to let a work disaster take her apart.

She braced her hands on the edge of the sink and tried to collect herself. She glanced at her phone. Four missed calls, six new text messages, four new e-mails—all from “M Finnemore.” She whirled around to face him. “I can’t say it enough. I’m sorry about the negatives. I wish you hadn’t wasted your time driving clear out here. And of course there’s no charge for anything.”

She glared at him, trying to hold fast to the anger. Instead, a hot tear slipped out. And then another. The guy stood there, seemingly frozen by anger. Then he spotted some tissues on the counter and handed her the whole box.

“Do you need to call someone?” he asked, indicating her phone. “Your husband …?”

“No husband,” she said through gritted teeth, swiping angrily at her cheeks.

He cut her with a laser glare, as if her lack of a husband inexplicably deepened the offense. “Thanks for nothing, lady.”

Shaken by the encounter, Camille watched him through the window. What an incredible tool. He strode to his car, yanked open the door. Just for a moment, he hesitated, turning back toward the house. His anger seemed to soften into something else—regret, maybe. Could be he realized he was being a tool. Then he swiped at the back of his neck as if something had bitten him there, and climbed into the car.

Julie came down from her room. “That your client?” she asked, watching as he threw the car into reverse and peeled out.

“My client,” Camille said. “My extremely disappointed client.” She used a tissue to give her cheeks another swipe.

“Why disappointed?”

“I ruined his film.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.” A pucker of concern knitted her brow. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Camille took a deep breath. “God, he was pissed.”

“I can tell. Is he single?”

“What? Jules.”

“Just asking. I know how you feel about guys with ponytails.”

Camille felt a flush creeping into her cheeks, because she had already wondered the same thing. Is he single? “I’m done with guys, with or without ponytails.” Maybe she was reading her daughter wrong. “Do you feel bad because Drake and I parted ways?”

Julie’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? No. Having my mom date the school principal was the worst.”

Camille studied her daughter’s face. Julie was so beautiful to her—curly dark hair, bright brown eyes, a sweet saddle of freckles across her nose. Sometimes she recognized a flicker of Jace in Julie, and it made her heart melt. You’re still here, she thought.

“What?” Julie rubbed her cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”

Camille smiled. “No. How’s your head?” She inspected the bump. It was barely visible now, thank goodness.

“Fine. Really, Mom.” She tucked her phone in her pocket. “I’m going out for a walk.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I saw the discharge papers. They said I can resume all normal activities. I’ll just go down to the lighthouse and back.”

“I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”

“Not helpful,” Julie said, a storm gathering in her eyes. “It’s just a walk.”

Camille hesitated. Julie spent way too much time alone in her room, staring at her phone screen. Anything that got her out of the house was a welcome distraction.

“All right.” Camille didn’t have the energy for a big argument. “But be—”

“I know. Careful.” Julie went out the front door. “I won’t be long.”

Camille watched her walking down the road toward the lighthouse. In that moment, she looked so isolated and lonely in her shapeless clothes. It bothered Camille that none of Julie’s friends had called or come by to make sure she was all right. Ninth graders were not noted for their compassion, but when one of their own was taken to the emergency room, she assumed at least one of them would follow up. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen any of Julie’s friends around in a while.

Three (#ulink_0fc5a7ad-0c11-5072-9571-679bbc2b6e3c)

Julie stepped out onto the ledge of the Bethany Point Light. The lighthouse was still in use, though it was all automated now.

Every few seconds, the beam at the top swung in an arc to encompass the entrance to the bay. Most folks assumed the lighthouse interior was locked up tight, but Julie knew how to climb to the top. She and her friends—back when she had friends—had found an access panel under the stairs at the base of the tower.

Once inside, it was a matter of climbing the winding brick steps to the rim that surrounded the old Fresnel lens. Most kids were too creeped out to climb the cobweb-infested steps, but Julie had persevered, using a broom to clear the way. This was her special place. She came here to be alone, to think, to dream.

As far as she knew, she was the only one who still came here. Her friends had all dumped her, moving on to hang out with the cooler kids. The popular kids. The thin kids. The kids whose moms were not dating the school principal.

With one hand on the railing behind her, Julie leaned over and studied the rocky shoals a hundred feet below. She wondered what it would be like to fall that far. Would there be time to feel scared, or would it all be over in the blink of an eye?

From her vantage point, she could see the beach where this morning’s drama had occurred. In the deep sunset colors of the evening, she could pick out the eddies of the riptide, the one that had nearly carried her away to see her father.

Although it could be nothing but a fantasy, Julie held a vision in her head of where her father was now. He lived in a place that was parallel to the world she knew. It was right next door, yet invisible until she crossed the threshold, leaving the here and now behind and stepping into the new place.

There, Julie would be perfect. She would have friends rather than mean kids making fun of her. She would have boobs, not fat rolls. She would be everyone’s favorite, not some chubby loser.

It worked like this in her mind, anyway. She was probably wrong, but a girl could dream. Sometimes she felt like talking to her mom about it, but she never did. Mom worried about every little thing and she’d find a way to worry about Julie’s dream of paradise.

Plus she would start digging around and she might find out the real reason Julie kept getting in fights with other kids. Above all else, Julie could not allow her mother to find out what had provoked the fights. Because the only thing worse than having kids say her mother had caused her father’s death was having to tell her mother what the kids were saying.

She heaved a lonely sigh, and then watched the colors of the water change as the sun went down behind the east-facing lighthouse. The colors were so rich, they made her heart ache. Maybe that was where her father lived, in a world so beautiful that mere mortals couldn’t bear it.

She stooped and picked up a stray bird feather and held it out in front of her. It looked like the feather of an eastern shorebird, maybe a piping plover. When you grew up at the shore, you learned these things. She opened her fingers and let the feather drift downward, watching it dance on an updraft of wind, then swirl as it made its way to earth. Down, down, down.

She used to be light as a feather. When she looked at old pictures of herself—and there were hundreds, because her mom was a photographer—she was amazed at how cute she had been, like a little fairy. Not anymore. These days she was a fat blob. A fat blob nobody wanted to talk to, except to talk shit about her and tell lies about her mom.

She stooped and picked up a loose brick from the rim of the structure and sent it hurtling to earth. Then she picked up another and did the same, waiting for it to smash on the rocks below.

“Hey!”

The loud voice startled Julie so much she nearly let go of the railing. Her heart pounding, she jumped over the rail to safety.

“What the hell?” yelled the voice in a funny accent. “You almost hit me.”