Page 39 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“I wish I could. I don’t know nearly as much as I want to. Chrissie has always been tight-lipped about her love life. Even as a teenager, she never kissed and told. But I do know that Walsh has been her daughter’s volleyball coach for six years, and he’s been pining after herhardfor at least five of those.”

“That’s not true!” Chrissie protested, but she was about as involved in this conversation as the scrubby weeds they were passing in a blur.

“What’s wrong with him?” River chewed on one of her fingernails. “Like, is he ugly or mean to animals or something?”

“Show him that picture, Chrissie.”

The last thing Chrissie wanted to do was play one of Scarlett’s mind games—especially one around such a barbed topic—but she pulled up Walsh’s barbecue apron selfie all the same. She felt oddly nervous as she showed River, but she needn’t have worried.

“Oh, he’scute. You know, in a middle-aged, Jordan Peele sort of way. Aren’t you kind of young for him?”

Chrissie didn’t point out the obvious fact that her age wasmuchcloser to Walsh’s than River’s had been to the bartender back in Boise. The high road had always been her preferred method of travel.

“I’m an old soul,” was all she said.

“And not only is he nice to animals, but he’s literally training Chrissie’s elderly cat to pee on a patch of fake grass right now—even though she begged him not to.” Scarlett laughed and swerved to avoid a tumbleweed. “That’s how bad he wants in, but the poor guy has no idea how steep the climb is to reach her.”

A hand slid between the seats and gently touched Chrissie’s shoulder. “You mean because of your daughter?”

Chrissie opened her mouth to reply in a strong affirmative, but Scarlett beat her to the punch. “That’s the reason she’ll tell you, but it actually has more to do with her first love. Grimshaw Pemberly.”

Chrissie’s teenage boyfriend was the last topic she wanted to introduce into the conversation right now, but River only giggled. “No way. That can’t be his real name. It sounds like something from a romance novel—one of those really good ones where the lady’s dress is being yanked off by a naked Fabio.”

“Oh, it’s real, all right.” Scarlett nudged Chrissie with her elbow. “Tell River the story of your torrid teenage love affair. I’m sure she’d enjoy it. We have to dosomethingto pass the time between here and Minnesota, and a trip down memory lane seems as good as anything else.”

“The situations with Grimshaw and Walsh are nothing alike,” Chrissie said with a firm set of her jaw. “And I’m not talking about this. Not unless you’re prepared to tell your part of the story.”

She could have almost laughed at how quickly that shut the conversation down. Less amusing was how quiet River had grown in the back seat. Like any child of trauma, she’d caught the heavy,unpleasant undertones of the conversation and absorbed them as her own. Chrissie had spent so many years doing the same thing, eating her parents’ long silences for dinner, curling up under the blanket of their unspoken loss, that she felt instantly ashamed.

She also backtracked the only way she knew how.

“I accidentally sent Walsh a bikini photo our first night on the road,” she confessed. “I’m afraid he liked it a lot more than I expected him to.”

“No way,” River breathed, once again returned to the light, airy eighteen-year-old she deserved a chance to be. “Nowthat’sa story I definitely want to hear.”

* * *

The main benefit—if not the only one—of Scarlett’s refusal to sleep past six o’clock in the morning was how much ground they could cover in any given day. Although it had been their original intention to enjoy the journey, stopping every few hours to take in the sights, rest, and spend time together, River’s addition to the party had changed the tenor of things.

Now, instead of the laid-back atmosphere Chrissie had been hoping for, a sense of urgency swept over her at every gas station and bathroom pit stop, every convenience store where they stocked up on cheap snacks. Not because she thought they were being tailed, and not because she wasn’t enjoying River’s company, but because she couldn’t rest until she knew the girl was where she belonged.

One of the few games she could remember playing with Malcolm as a child was a cracked plastic Connect 4 that had been stored in the hospital game room. At least half the pieces had been missing, so the odds were always stacked in red’s favor, but that hadn’t stopped her from carrying the flattened box reverently to Malcolm’s room whenever her parents weren’t looking.

She’d only been four or five at the time, barely old enough for solid memories to take shape, but she remembered how satisfying it had felt every time one of those circles fell into place. As an adult, she could look back and see that the thing Young Chrissie had liked was that no matter how the game was played, every piece fit perfectly. The colors and gameplay were secondary to the plunk-plunk of the world stacking up exactly as promised.

As an adult, she could see the same patterns dictating her life now. The world haddefinitelynot worked out the way she’d expected, but she could still make sure that all the pieces—including River—ended up where they belonged.

“But I was promised a giant ball of twine, so a giant ball of twine I will see,” Chrissie announced as she turned off the road for a town called Darwin, population 330.

“All the guides say you can’t miss it,” Scarlett said as she consulted one of the maps scattered throughout the vehicle. “It’s pretty much the only thing this place has, and if you want to get inside the little gazebo where it’s housed, you have to ask someone who lives here. Everyone has a key.”

“Surely noteveryone.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Scarlett rolled down her window and shouted at the closest passerby, a man of indeterminate age who was walking an overweight Yorkie along a side street. “Excuse me? Sir? Sir, can you help us settle a bet?”

The man turned toward them with a deep frown. The moment he saw the out-of-state license plates, his frown seemed to fold in on itself. Calling his new expression asmilewould have been taking things too far, but it was close enough for Chrissie not to fear they were about to be murdered where they idled.

“If it’s the Twine Ball Museum you’re after, it’s already closed,” he shouted.