Page 6

I stared at the Rivera-Sanchezes’ phone number on the fridge for the next few days. I sipped orange juice for breakfast and watched it taunt me next to a Hammerhead’s menu.

What if I called and they hated me?

What if I called and they didn’t hate me but then one day decided that they did?

Blair pushed me to call, insisting they’d be crazy not to love me. I pretended to believe her, chewing on a hangnail while she dialed.

Mrs. Rivera-Sanchez picked up after the first ring.

Haven got to the phone so fast you would have thought she’d been waiting for it.

That brought us here, on a dock on the sound side of the island. Holden unloaded fishing gear and three fishing rods from his wagon.

Blair promised me it was okay to walk there alone since we were only a few streets from the twins’ house, but I asked her not to tell Mom anyway. Mom never let me play alone with the neighborhood kids back home. I was less than a week into my new life and already a liar, but what Mom didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

The air squeezed like a pair of tights after a warm shower. There was a pinch of fish guts in the air, but the wind pushed away the rotten part before it got too close. Haven and I stood on ballerina toes for a peek at the water below.

“Do you guys do this a lot?” I asked Haven’s reflection in the dark water below.

Haven flashed a peace sign on the calm ripples. “Holden does and Mom makes me babysit.”

Holden shook his head from the fishing line tangled in his hand. “Don’t believe a word she says.”

“I guess Quinn will be the tie breaker,” Haven said.

I looked at the purple polish chipping off my toes. I didn’t know which twin to believe, but if fishing was just like the movies, I’d rather watch nail polish dry. But Holden had dug through a can of worms for me, so I was willing to give it a shot.

Holden wrapped a wriggly worm around a hook, kissed the air around it, and bowed his head in salute. “I’m sorry, worm. Thank you, worm.”

He launched the worm into the water, then showed me how to cast my own. I nodded my head with uncertainty like my mom did when she wanted people to stop talking to her. Finally, my bobber bounced with the tide.

After two hours, all the worms had died for nothing. The fish made a meal of the worms but were too smart to bite. I sat next to Haven on the dock, our rods propped on our knees.

Haven reeled in another half-eaten worm. “I can’t do this anymore. This was my fourth worm.”

“Dad got us two cans,” Holden said, leaning over the rail covered in sun-dried fish scales.

“I don’t care. We’re bored.”

“You too, Quinn?” Holden looked at me with soft eyes.

His voice was so close to hurt that I didn’t want to tell the truth, but my mom taught me that lying was worse than stealing. If you steal, at least tell the truth about it. “It’s not that. It’s just that we haven’t caught anything.”

“We’ve been hanging out,” he said with a shrug.

He was right, and I felt bad for complaining. Maybe that was the point of fishing. We had been hanging out and learning about each other. I learned that they moved here from Mexico when they were four. Haven never went to bed without braiding her hair in an effort to train her wavy hair. Holden always gave his ice cream cherries to Haven. Haven’s favorite shade of yellow was the center of a daisy. Holden liked rainy weather since it made the best fish hungry.

Holden taught me about fiddler crabs and the migration of blue herons and the time he swore he saw a mermaid tail off this very dock.

After Haven told me about the mermaid show at the local aquarium, she asked me to join them sometime. We talked about big dreams of opening mermaid museums, owning a mansion on the water, cooking s’mores for dinner, and eating cherry popsicles until we threw up.

The feeling in my gut left me breathless. I felt included and wanted, like I’d been best friends with them for my whole life. I wished I’d met them sooner. I wished they lived in Raleigh with me, or that I lived here with them and never had to hear my mom cry herself to sleep again.

I’d never met anyone who talked so much about things that didn’t matter, never met anyone who made me care about every little nothing like it was everything.

Haven talked like she couldn’t say enough.

Holden said even more with his mouth shut.

I never thought I had much to say, but Holden and Haven made me feel like they would listen to me talk about orange juice and mermaid scales and the best way to roast a s’more until their eyes got droopy.

“I promise it’s worth it when you get a bite. Sometimes the fish are stubborn, but I’ll let you reel mine in when I get one.”

“Pinky promise?” I held my pinky out for him.

“Pinky promise.” He took mine in his.

I watched him reel in another worm heart, wrap another, wipe the dirt on his shorts, and kiss it goodbye.

Haven resigned to throwing corn kernels at Holden—a more economical bait that Holden said only sometimes worked. The only thing it caught was Holden’s attention. He finally noticed, or finally decided to care, and stuck his tongue out at her.

Haven gave up and pulled out a sandwich with bread, peanut butter, and sticky marshmallow goo from the wagon. “You ever had a fluffernutter?”

I nodded and took the half she held out to me. A few years back, we were low on groceries and my dad made them for dinner. We ate them on the porch steps at dusk, our bare feet on the concrete. We used to watch fireflies mingle through the darkness when we knew Mom was on the way home from work. I was the best at guessing where they’d end up the next time they lit up. Dad credited my young eyes and the determination I’d inherited from Mom.

But that was before everything happened, back when Mom was different and Dad still loved us.

“Do your mom and dad still love each other?” I said with peanut butter bread stuck in my molars. The words escaped so casually you’d think I was asking her where she got her shirt.

Holden looked at Haven, willing her to answer.

Haven finished her bite. “Yes, but I know Mom doesn’t like it when Dad doesn’t finish fixing stuff around the house. One time he took the shutters off the house and took forever to paint them. They look good now, though.” She shrugged and wiped marshmallow from the corner of her mouth.

“They were on the kitchen table for weeks,” Holden said dramatically, like weeks were years.

“You’re too much like Mama,” Haven said.

“You’re too much like Papa,” Holden retorted.

I got a taste of the parents they’d watched and supposedly become. Did people think I was like my mom? Did they think I also triple-checked the locks on the door and looked both ways nine times before crossing the street? Did my mom resent the daydreaming I got from Dad?

“Do they ever fight?” I asked.

“One time last year we got off the bus and saw Dad getting in the car. Mom was crying on the couch. She didn’t tell us what happened but she took us to Sunset Scoop.”

“We think they had a fight, but then Dad was waiting for her at the table when we got home. We went to bed and everything was normal when we woke up.” Holden shrugged.

They said it so coolly, like it was normal to talk to new friends about how close their parents got to living in different places.

It didn’t sound like the Rivera-Sanchezes’ world ever got close to breaking. It sounded like ice cream filled the small cracks in their foundation. Maybe real moms and dads were supposed to be happy together. Maybe that was the story people sat on a dock all day to catch but never did.

“Do your parents still love each other?” Haven’s voice danced with the wind.

All I could do was shrug. “Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled between chews.

I almost told her why. I almost told her about my dad, about all the nights I thought the ghastly sounds of the house settling was him breaking locks and sneaking back in to our lives. I almost told her about the night I unlocked the door after Mom fell asleep, like a little girl letting Santa Claus in. I locked it soon after having a nightmare about a strange man wandering in to kill us. At that point, though, my dad was a strange man too.

They wouldn’t care. They’d just pretend to understand.

“It’s fine,” I said. It wasn’t, but that was just what people said. My mom said it even when her eyes were all puffy and red.

It wasn’t Haven’s fault my parents couldn’t just fight about unpainted shutters.

Piper Island sunsets were different than the ones back home. The lush trees in Raleigh hid the sunset too early in the day. Here, the sun peeked through the pines. Here, the sound made a clearing perfect for an orange and pink sky. Here, the clouds were marshmallows drenched in cotton candy and orange pulp. Here, cicadas cooed wildly from the pine trees and frogs sang from the marsh.

None of us caught any fish. Eventually even Holden sat down with us, still determined to catch one but unwilling to toy with them. I brushed bread crumbs off my knee.

“Holden, we should go. Mom’s gonna get mad again.” Haven loaded up the wagon. “You know Mom’s rule about streetlights. And we have to take Quinn home.”

“Fine, we’ll just cast it one more time. They turn on too early anyway.”

I stood up to help Haven, but before I could get to her, I felt a tug on my rod. A jolt ran down to my toes.

The pole stooped down. Another tug. The rod was so heavy I was afraid it would snap. I forgot everything Holden taught me.

“I feel something!” I screamed loudly enough to scare the frogs away.

“Reel it up all the way!” Holden said.

This was the bite Holden kept telling me about. The hours we sat here finally meant something. I flicked back my wrists like I watched Holden do a million times. The glassy water shattered. A fish caught the sunset on its scales.

The fish slammed against the dock on its way out of the water. Holden pulled it into his hands and held tight to keep the silver fish from flopping out. “It’s a bluefish! I can’t believe you didn’t feel this on the line!”

I couldn’t believe it either, even though it was only big enough to fit in his palm. He held the fish up and I trusted him enough to get a closer look. The fish looked back at me, its eyes bulging from its face, gray and silver skin glistening in the sun.

“It’s so cool, isn’t it?” Holden’s smile competed with the sunset.

“Yeah.” I watched its gills struggle against the evening air.

“That was pretty cool, Quinn,” Haven said.

“Thanks, guys.” I smiled with all my teeth.

Holden unhooked it, kissed it, and released it back home.

I missed it already, but I knew it was happier without me.