“Because it hurt too much.” Finn touched her ribs.
“You felt that?” Nora looked mildly stunned. “What else did you feel?”
Finn wasn’t sure how to answer her mom’s question. She didn’t think of her echoes that way. She hadn’t just felt what Nora had felt. She’d become her. Those memories were now as much a part of her experience as her mother’s. “Just that you were lost and scared. I wanted to help.”
Nora squeezed her youngest’s shoulder. “You did.”
“Zadie’s the one who actually found you.”
Zadie squirmed, then shrugged. “I just followed the birds.”
Finn knew there was more to Zadie’s story, but she didn’t pressher. “So, wait… if a migratory instinct made you return home, why didn’t you come back a few months later? Isn’t that how migration works? It’s a cycle.”
“I’m not sure,” Nora said, shrugging.
“Birds migrate to nest,” Zadie broke in. Finn and Nora turned to look at her. “You left for Texas when you were pregnant with me, and you stayed until…”
“You were grown up,” Nora finished.
Zadie nodded.
The women were silent for a few moments as they considered this new theory. They could never really be sure why Nora had migrated when she did, just as they could never be sure why Finn and Zadie possessed their gifts. The world was a more extraordinary place now than it had been a month ago, before they knew about stars that sang or trees that talked with one another. It was a world where you could think you’d lost someone forever, only to be reunited years later.A happy ending,Finn thought, profoundly relieved that such a thing actually existed.
“Oh! I have something for you, too.” Finn pulled up her pants leg, undid the silver chain around her ankle, and handed it to her mom.
“My anklet!” Nora gasped.
“I’ve been keeping it safe for you.” Finn searched Nora’s face for a sign as to whether her mom remembered dropping it in their driveway five years ago—if she’d intended it as a bread crumb for Finn to follow or if the act had simply been a side effect of her confusion—but she found no such clarity.
Nora stared down at the tiny letters in her palm. After a moment, she said, “I think you should keep it,” then looped the chain around Finn’s ankle and closed the clasp. “It looks better on you, anyway.”
“Thanks, Mom.”Mom.The word should have come naturally to Finn, but it felt strange on her tongue. Nora was her mom, so then why did she feel guilty?Because Kathy and Steve are my parents, too,she thought. She realized then that she’d made her decision.
“I’ll be right back. I have to make a call.”
Finn walked down the beach until she was just out of earshot, then dialed Kathy’s number. “Hey, it’s Finn,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “I just wanted to let you know I’m coming home.”
My girl is a woman now.The epiphany was a gut punch. The last time Nora had seen Finn, she wore braces and still needed a night-light to sleep. Now Finn was taller than she was, an adult not just in stature but in comportment and ambition. Her daughter had endured a lot of pain to find her, but by the easiness of her smile you’d never know it.
As she watched Finn from a distance, Nora mourned the time she’d lost. Five years. Over a quarter of her younger daughter’s life. She owed a debt of gratitude to the couple who had raised her during that time. The Andersons must have made sure that Nora’s absence didn’t crush Finn’s spirit. That, or Finn’s spirit was too resilient to be crushed.
Zadie’s scars, on the other hand, were plainer. It pained Nora to know that she had put them there, and she searched for the magic words that would help them heal. But the longer she sat with her daughter, breathing in rhythm with the waves, the more apparent it became that no such words existed. Their scars would heal, but only with time. If Zadie would have her, she would be a part of her life for as long as she wanted. Hers and her grandchild’s.
“How far along are you?”
Zadie looked surprised. “Eight weeks… I didn’t think you could actually hear me.” Her daughter paused as though waiting for Nora to give her some sage piece of wisdom about motherhood that she would later pass on to her kid, but Nora didn’t. Instead, she patted Zadie on the back of the hand and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out.”
“Is it hard?”
Nora gazed out over the ocean as if the story of those eighteenyears of motherhood were a boat on the horizon. “Every day you’ll wonder if you’re doing it right. There will be days when you know you didn’t. Those are the hardest…” she said as her voice trailed off.
After a few moments of silence, Nora went on. “I should have told you what I was going through.”
Zadie nodded, then reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand.
When they returned to the house, Nora declared she needed to lie down and excused herself to her bedroom. For the first time in two days, Zadie and Finn were alone. Silence settled like dust. There was so much to talk about, but neither of them knew exactly where to begin.
“Let’s take a walk,” Zadie said.