Page 40 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“Yeah, but I’ll bet you have a key to the gazebo, don’t you? And that all we have to do to borrow it is bat our eyes and smile nicely at you?”

River rolled down her window and added her entreaty to Scarlett’s. “Please, mister? We’ve come all the way from Idaho—”

“Oregon,” Scarlett corrected her.

“Thousands of miles, then,” River said. “Or at least hundreds. Your dog is super cute, by the way. What’s his name?”

That did the trick. Chrissie could only roll her eyes as the man informed them of his dog’s name—Archibald—and lifted a piece of string from around his neck. Sure enough, a metal key dangled from the end.

“Just leave it in the lock when you’re done,” he said as he continued on his way. “I’ll have my son pick it up later.”

“You’ve got to hand it to small towns,” Scarlett said as they drove the last few blocks to the ball of twine, the key secure in the palm of her hand. “If I had to live here, I’d be bored to tears by the second day, but there’s something charming about how easily they trust people. For all that man knows, we’re planning on setting the ball of twine on fire and ruining the only tourism income this place has. He reminds me of you, Chrissie.”

If it had been up to Chrissie, she’d have refused to take the bait and left this conversation in the dust where it belonged, but River piped in with an eager, “Why? Because she trusts people too easily?”

“I don’t trust them too easily—” Chrissie began, but it was no use.

“That, and because you could dump her in one of those little houses we passed on the way in, and she’d stay there until someone picked her up and moved her again.” Scarlett feigned thoughtfulness with a purse of her lips. “And because in all the years that passed while she waited for it to happen, she’dlikeit.”

Well, of course she’d like it. That was what rational people did.They took the hand that life dealt them and sat down to play the game. They didn’t flip the entire table upside down or force the player next to them to give up their hand. They didn’t demand and prod andneedleas though they weren’t sitting right there trying to win just the same as everyone else.

“Ask her what her favorite place to go on vacation is,” Scarlett added—maliciously, Chrissie thought. “Quick. Before she has a chance to think about it.”

“I bet it’s Disneyland,” River said without givingeitherof them a chance to think about it. “And you probably love shopping at the mall on rainy Saturday afternoons, where you always order the biggest boba tea they have even though you hate how sweet it is. Oh, and you probably enjoy the heck out of Medieval Times whenever you go and would rather sit in a smelly school gym on a Friday night than go anywhere else on earth.”

They’d reached the ball of twine by this time, but none of them were paying attention to it. As Chrissie put the car in park, they both turned to stare at River—Scarlett with genuine surprise and Chrissie with a dawning sense of just how much this girl had lost.

“How do you know all that?” Scarlett asked.

“Because,” River said with a shrug. As she turned to look out the window, Chrissie thought she saw her wipe surreptitiously at a wayward tear. “Those are the things my mom loved. Or, I guess I should say the things shepretendedto love for my sake.”

“No.” Chrissie shot a hand back and took River’s in her own. The girl’s palm felt sweaty to the touch, but Chrissie didn’t pull away. She also kept looking into the back seat until River had no choice but to meet her gaze.

This River did, but slowly, carefully, as if afraid that moving too fast would unleash the emotions she was working so hard to keep concealed.

“Shedidlove them, River,” Chrissie said in a voice so soft they both had to strain to hear her words. “I didn’t know your mom, but I’m telling you with absolute certainty that nothing brought her more joy than to see the world through your eyes. Every precious minute, every slimy boba, was like magic to her, and she wouldn’t have given them up for a thousand luxury vacations without you.”

Chrissie didn’t hear the car door open or Scarlett slip out, so she had no idea how much of that she’d heard—if she’d heard anything at all. She found she didn’t much care, however, when River squeezed her hand and sat holding it for a full minute. No words passed between them in the entirety of that time, but that was fine with Chrissie.

No words needed to.

Scarlett had already opened the door to the ball of twine by the time Chrissie and River joined her. The earthy scent of decades-old string was pungent but not overwhelming. So too was the ball itself. It was big, there was no doubt about it, but when all was said and done, it was just that. An oddity only of interest because of its size. A passing whim that had become one man’s life passion until it took over an entire town.

Chrissie was the first to break the silence. “It’s too bad we didn’t bring Rufio. This is a cat’s dream scenario.”

Scarlett snorted. “To be crushed to death by seventeen-thousand-pound ball of twine? That’syourdream scenario, not his.”

“For the last time, Scarlett, I’m not going to murder an animal just because he’s an inconvenience. Kat loves that cat—and so do I.”

“Sometimes love means pulling the damn plug already.” Even though Scarlett spoke lightly, there was an undercurrent to her words that only served to highlight the tension that had been building between the two of them. Chrissie had no idea how much all this dredging up of the past and scribbling commands on a piece of motel paper was due to the awkwardness of River’s addition to their partyand how much was the product of Scarlett’s roller-coaster moods, but she didn’t care for it either way.

There’d only been once in their shared history when a similar feeling of constraint had put a wedge between them. That particular time had resulted in Scarlett’s year of art study in Paris, followed not too long thereafter by a ten-month stint in Bangkok—both of which had included radio silence on Scarlett’s end.

At the time, Chrissie had been so hurt by her friend’s defection that it had been a physical ache.Especiallythat first one, when Kat had only been a few weeks old and Chrissie was so overwhelmed that she sometimes cried through the night alongside her newborn daughter.

She wasn’t sure if the same thing was happening now—if Scarlett was getting ready for a long, self-indulgent trip somewhere Chrissie wasn’t allowed to follow—but she was starting to worry.

“The guidebook says we’re allowed to touch it, but under no circumstances are we to cut off any of the twine and take it with us,” Scarlett said as she toyed with one of the frayed bits nearest her head. “I think it’s like taking obsidian from Hawaii. You’ll be cursed for all time, hounded to the ends of the earth by Minnesota Nice.”