“I guess I can see why she never told me about him.”
“You were really rough for her; you looked so much like him. She was too hard on you. And when you got older, she sort of pretended you weren’t there. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that.”
He didn’t. Ellis had always assumed she’d had some deficit that made her mother hate her. But all along it had been about her father.
“When I started seeing her, I tried to be there for you, Ellis. I really tried. I owed that to your daddy. I loved that guy.”
So there was the truth. Zane had come into her life because her mother, as he’d said earlier, was like an addiction for him. And he’d become her almost father because he had loved his friend, not her. Even worse, he had probably been taking care of her to appease that striking woman who’d first chosen his best friend instead of him.
Ellis glanced at River. His expression was inscrutable. He looked like he was trying to read her, too. As if they were playing a game of emotional poker. If she let him see that Zane had created a whole new level of pain for her, would he be glad he’d been its architect?
“All that love became hate,” Zane had said. Was that what happened to River when Ellis left him?
Zane stretched up in his chair and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Well . . . I’m glad I finally told you all that. It’s bothered me some that you didn’t know.”
Bothered me some. Ellis almost laughed at the irony.
He grinned, blue eyes sparkling in that way Ellis had loved when she was little. “I’m glad you’re not dying, Ellis.”
“So am I,” she said.
“You always were a funny one.” He rose out of his chair. “I’d better get going.”
She stood. “You’re welcome to rest first.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got somewhere to get to. Do you remember that friend of your mother’s and mine called Rocky?”
“Of course.”
“He’s got a little place near Daytona Beach. I told him I was coming to Florida, and he’s having me over. We’re gonna go ocean fishing and have some bro time.”
“Good thing I’m not dying slowly to keep you,” she said.
He laughed. “Rocky’ll be glad to hear it’s not true. He said to tell you hello.”
“Tell him the same.”
“I will.” He walked to the door, turned around. “Come here. I want a hug from Luke’s pretty girl.”
She was relieved to discover she wanted to embrace him. She felt no bitterness. Zane had taught her about love when her mother couldn’t. What did it matter if he had or hadn’t loved her back?
“Goodbye, Zane.”
“Goodbye, Ellis. You take care now.”
It had taken more than thirty years, but finally she’d heard him say it.
7
RAVEN
Seven ibis flew over her, and she stopped to listen. Raven never tired of hearing air whoosh through the wings of water birds. It was a new sound for her. Herons, egrets, ibis, cranes. They flew over Ellis’s land all day. The big birds were one of her favorite things about living there.
But if she had to pick one favorite, it would be the old live oaks. Matriarchs of the woods, each had a different personality. Raven went to the one she loved most, an ancient fern-covered mama with an immense trunk and myriad twisted limbs snaking out like the fat strands of Medusa’s hair.
Raven looked down at two Askings she’d made at the base of the tree. One was to bring her home to Washington. The other was to send her feelings out into the universe: “I love you, Jackie.”
She sat between two humps of the oak’s mossy roots and leaned against the massive trunk. She closed her eyes, tried to imagine what Jackie was doing.
“How can you stand these mosquitoes?”
She opened her eyes. River peered at her through a screen of young cabbage palms.
“Did you follow me here?”
“Sort of,” he said.
“Why not just say yes?”
“Because that would sound creepy stalker, and I’m not. I had to go somewhere because they’re all pissed at me up there.” He pushed through the palms to get closer. “I saw you leave, and that looked like a good idea—until I started to stew in my own juices. How do people live in this steam bath?”
“You get used to it.”
“You look like one of your earth spirits sitting there like that.”
She had come to the tree because she felt sick and needed rest, but she’d get none of that now.
River noticed one of her Askings and walked over to it. “What’s this? Offerings to the goddess tree?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Spirit got your tongue?”
“Why do you like to make people angry?”
“Because it’s much more interesting than having people be happy with me.”
She maybe understood. People who were happy with you would have higher expectations.
“Do you want to go do something? They’re all looking daggers at me for bringing Zane. Even that scar-faced woman.”
“Her name is Maxine. And she doesn’t know about Zane.”
“Mom probably told her.”
“I doubt that. Maxine is deaf.”
“Oh. That explains it.”
“What?”
“How weird she acts.”
Raven stood. “Just shut up, will you?”
“Whoa. What’s this all about?”
“I like her.”
Soon after Raven moved in, Maxine saw her vomit in the trees. She must have understood that Raven was homesick. Max sat next to her and gently wiped her mouth with a bandanna she had in her pocket. Then she wrapped one arm around her the way Reece did and stayed like that, just holding her for a while.
“So do you want to go somewhere?” he asked. “It’s almost five o’clock. We could do an early dinner.”
She felt sorry for him. He clearly didn’t like to be alone, yet he compulsively provoked people into shunning him.
“Why did you lie to make Zane come here?” she asked.
“The truth?”
She nodded.
“I’d drunk no small amount of whiskey when I messaged him. This morning when he wrote back to say he was
