chapter twenty-one
The first time it hit me that day was when I was in the bathroom, washing the sugar off my face. There was no towel hanging up, so I opened the linen closet, and on the row below the beach towels, there was Susannah’s big floppy hat. The one she wore every time she sat on the beach. She was careful with her skin. Was.
Not thinking about Susannah, consciously not thinking about her, made it easier. Because then she wasn’t really gone. She was just off someplace else. That was what I’d been doing since she died. Not thinking about her. It was easier to do at home. But here, at the summer house, she was everywhere.
I picked her hat up, held it for a second, and then put it back on the shelf. I closed the door, and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was too hard.
