In an Instant

PROLOGUE

Mrs. Kaminski knew.

Before it happened.

Until that day, we thought she was a psycho mom, neurotic and paranoid. Behind her back, we called her the warden and felt bad for Mo for having to deal with such a phobic, obsessive mother. Sheltered was an understatement for the way Mrs. Kaminski guarded her daughter. Birthday parties at the beach or pool were off limits unless a lifeguard was present and Mrs. Kaminski was allowed to be there as well—a fortysomething shadow lurking on the sand or at the water’s edge, hovering watchfully beside the reveling twelve-year-olds. Disneyland was out of the question. Though she was a small, quiet woman, barely five feet tall with a kind smile and exceeding politeness, it was hard to believe how unyielding she was about watching over Mo.

Secretly we wondered if something traumatic had happened to Mrs. Kaminski when she was young that had made her so protective, but Mo said that wasn’t it. She said her mom just believed that nobody looked after your children the way you looked after your own. It was a generous view for Mo to take, her patience far greater than any of the rest of us would have had for our moms interfering in our lives the way Mrs. Kaminski did in Mo’s.

Sixth-grade science camp was when her resolve finally softened from granite to steel: slightly more malleable but not by much. Every sixth grader except Mo was going on the trip. The teacher called Mrs. Kaminski, then the principal, then my mom. It was my mom who convinced her. My dad was going as a chaperone, and he would personally watch after Mo. Perhaps it was because she believed my mom, or maybe it was because she trusted my dad, or perhaps it was because she realized she couldn’t hold her iron grip forever, or maybe it was because the camp was so important to that year’s curriculum. Whatever the reason, for the first time in Mo’s twelve years, she was allowed to leave the nest without her mom at her side.

Since then Mrs. Kaminski has repeatedly entrusted us with her daughter, each sacred trust prefaced with assurances from my parents of “We’ll take good care of her,” “She’s in good hands,” “Mo is like a daughter to us”—throwaway platitudes I wonder about endlessly these days, questioning whether those clichéd, careless words influenced what happened or whether they were meaningless and that things would have happened the way they did regardless of what had been thoughtlessly promised beforehand.

Over the years I was entrusted to Mrs. Kaminski as well, but my parents never asked for guarantees of my safekeeping. Mo is an only child, so I was taken along as company on all the Kaminski vacations. I’ve been to Africa and Spain and Thailand and Alaska. My parents eagerly agreed to each invitation without the slightest hesitation or demand of reciprocal pledges of protection like those given when we took Mo. Perhaps it was assumed it went both ways. Or maybe, deep down, my parents knew the promise wouldn’t be granted, which would have made the decision to allow me to join them awkward. I imagine my parents understood that Mrs. Kaminski’s fears were based on deep-seated self-reflection, that she had considered the possibility of a fault rupturing or a volcano erupting or a ship sinking and knew, faced with the dire choice, she would take care of her own, and though Mo and I were close as sisters, I didn’t qualify.

From my earliest memories, I can remember my sisters, my friends, and me rolling our eyes whenever Mrs. Kaminski was mentioned, how we thought she was crazy.

No one calls her crazy anymore.

She knew. Before it happened. And I wonder, How? Was it because she was a prophet, a visionary gifted with preternatural premonition? Or was it exactly as Mo said—a rational, well-considered protective stance based on the simple understanding that no one watches over yours the way you watch out for your own, knowing hers would be saved second if a choice needed to be made?

These are the things I wonder, now. After.

1

One more discussion about pink ribbon or gold and I swear I’m going to lose it! WHO CARES! Just elope. Get it over with. I’M DYING!!!

Mo’s text response is nearly instant: So ur having fun?

A tooth extraction would be less painful. For five months I’ve endured this torture. Since the announcement of my sister’s engagement, the minutiae of her nuptials have been dissected and regurgitated ad nauseam, and the big day is still three months away. Ad nauseam. Now there’s a great word that doesn’t get nearly enough use (or is it two words?), and it’s very appropriate—this whole outing is more than I can stomach.

It’s Friday, a gorgeous blue-sky afternoon and the perfect opportunity to be at the beach, skimming or surfing or hanging out with my friends. But instead, here I am, sitting on the floor of the dressing room of a bridal salon, my back against the wall so my sister can model her dress to my mom, my aunt, and me, her reluctant maid of honor. My other sister, Chloe, isn’t here. A week into the engagement, she made some comment about the institution of marriage being an antiquated patriarchal construct that oppresses women, causing her to be immediately fired from the whole affair and for me to be promoted.

I wonder where she is right now. Probably hanging out with Vance, the two of them lip locked or walking hand in hand downtown, enjoying the incredible day. I nearly groan in envy and wonder, not for the first time, if the comment was made intentionally. Chloe’s brilliant that way. She knows how to make things happen, and working side by side with my mom for eight months is definitely something she would have been very determined to make unhappen.

I sneer at the pure genius of it: my sister managing to liberate herself without actually quitting and successfully shuffling the responsibility of being Aubrey’s right-hand woman off to me. I imagine Chloe smirking as she schemed, knowing how much I hate this kind of stuff and knowing that eight months of talking about it while wearing a perky, supportive smile would put a real crimp in my normally sunny, never-shop-unless-in-dire-need-of-clean-underwear disposition.

“Finn, what do you think?” Aubrey says, causing me to lift my head from my phone, which is currently showing a slideshow of the world’s funniest animal memes. On the screen is a cat riding a husky with its paw raised and the caption Follow that mouse!

I blink, and my grin drops as a surprising lump lodges in my throat. Despite my dislike of all things lacy, wedding, and girly, a well of very girly emotions balloons in my chest. For two weeks, Aubrey has been gushing about her dress, going on and on about how perfect it is. Mostly I’ve tuned it out—satin this, silk that, rivulets of pearls, something about ribbing, something else about a jewel neckline. But now, here she is, standing in front of me—towering, actually, in her very tall heels—billows of ivory satin, smooth as liquid, spilling from her impossibly small waist, the rivulets of tiny pearls swirling and streaming from what I assume is a jewel neckline, and she looks like a fairy princess, the fairest queen in all the land, and I’m stunned by how pretty she is and maybe even the tiniest bit jealous.

Behind Aubrey, my mom clasps her hands in front of her, and Aunt Karen has her arm wrapped around my mom’s shoulders. The two of them lean in to each other as they admire my sister, their matching ash-blonde heads nearly touching.

“Nice,” I say, like it’s no big deal, then look back at my phone. A black dog squints, a dripping yellow Popsicle in front of him: Brain Freeze. I smile and continue to scroll through the images as my mom and Aunt Karen gush and circle, looking at the dress from every angle as Aubrey swishes back and forth.

Aunt Karen stops beside me. “Take a picture,” she squeals. “With Finn. The two of them.” And I cringe at the thought of being posted all over Aunt Karen’s Facebook with some ridiculous tag like Gorgeous bride-to-be and future runaway bride Aubrey and Finn Miller.

“Nope,” my mom says, saving me. “Not until the big day. Bad luck to take a photo of the bride in her dress before the wedding.”

I sigh in relief and shift a little farther from Aubrey, worried that even my proximity will soil her. She smiles down at me and mouths the words Thank you, then pivots to return to the clucking hens, who have now moved past their admiration and are on to fretting and fussing about the alterations.

I feel the heat in my cheeks and tell myself to cool it. Aubrey has already thanked me like a billion times, and it really wasn’t that big a deal. The conversation I had with her future mother-in-law took less than five minutes, and Mrs. Kinsell was super chill about it.

I wouldn’t even have made the call except Aubrey was so upset. I thought Mrs. Kinsell’s wedding dress sounded fine and that it was sort of cool that Aubrey was going to be the fourth generation to wear it—“classic lines, vintage beading, a Victorian lace collar, and satin buttons down the back.” But Aubrey practically cried as she recited the words, and since I sort of suck at all the other maid of honor duties, I figured this was the one thing I could do. Mo says my way of dealing with these sorts of things is a gift, a bluntness that mystically never seems to offend. I think it’s more that other people overcomplicate things. If you simply say things the way they are, there’s really no right or wrong about it. After Mrs. Kinsell got over her initial surprise, she was fine with it. She even confessed that she had also wanted to buy her own dress for her wedding.

She must have called Aubrey the moment we hung up because Aubrey called half an hour later thanking and thanking and thanking me. And now, here she is, five months later, twirling and admiring herself and smiling, and I’m very glad I decided to make that call.

In front of me, Aunt Karen pushes her ample double-D breasts up with her hands and says “Va va voom” in encouragement of a little more cleavage, and my mom shakes her head as Aubrey nods, saying something about how Ben would approve, and that’s when I snap the picture, their laughter concealing the tiny click of my phone.

I look at the small screen, the three of them laughing, their expressions blurred in delight, the dress reflected in the mirror, Aubrey’s smile filling her face, and my mom and Aunt Karen beaming beside her. I forward the picture to Mo with the message, She looks amazing! followed by lots of hearts and smiley faces.

The screen scrolls up to reveal Mo’s response: Admit it ur a closet romantic. Speaking of which have u decided?

My mouth swishes back and forth as I stare at the question, perhaps hoping the glowing pixels will offer some sort of enlightenment—the answer or the nerve I’ve lacked since confessing to Mo I was considering inviting Charlie McCoy to formal. It’s a girl-asks-boy dance, and last year I went dateless with a bunch of other girls who were either too shy, too proud, or too ugly to ask a boy. We wore Converse sneakers with our dresses; tore up the dance floor with outrageous, never-before-seen moves; and devoured the chocolate bar while making fun of all the girls teetering in their painful heels, smiling awkwardly at their dates, and looking longingly at the forbidden calories displayed like a torture table.

I’d been certain this year I would be opting for an encore, but that was before Charlie had appeared. It was as if I’d conjured him from thin air. Dear God, please send me one tall, gorgeous, slightly goofy, soccer-playing boy with green eyes. And kazam, there he was on the first day of school in my first-period class.

“Earth to Finn.” Aubrey throws my sweatshirt at me, and I realize she has re-dressed in her street clothes and that we are moving out of the dressing room.

I follow her into the store. My mom and Aunt Karen have stopped at the register to talk with the shop owner, and Aubrey and I continue outside. Aubrey immediately pulls out her phone to call Ben. She titters and giggles with excitement about her dress and then about what she should wear to meet his parents. This weekend she and Ben are flying to Ohio so she can bond with her future in-laws.

She says “I love you” and hangs up.

Her manicured hand goes to her mouth, and she gnaws at a cuticle.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Nervous.”

I pull her fingers from her mouth before she draws blood. “Yeah, they’re going to hate you. You’re completely intolerable.” I roll my eyes, and she crinkles her nose at me.

“At least Ben and I have an excuse for not joining you for Dad’s family-bonding experiment.”

“You mean you and Ben aren’t totally bummed not to be spending three days in a remote cabin in the woods with no television or radio or internet, only the delightful company of our family for entertainment?”

“I can’t believe he really thinks this is a good idea.”

“You know Dad; he’s an optimist.”

“He’s delusional. This isn’t going to fix things.”

I shrug and look away, hoping she’s wrong while thinking she’s probably right. Rocky waters have reached squall levels at home. Between my parents’ constant fighting; the growing problems with my brother, Oz; Chloe’s frequent acts of rebellion that seem specifically targeted at pissing off my mom; and my own recent screwups, I think I spend more time at Mo’s house these days than my own. Like an active volcano, five minutes together inevitably triggers some sort of eruption, and three days together is going to be like tempting Mount Vesuvius to blow.

“Well, at least Mo will be there,” Aubrey says. My sister loves Mo almost as much as I do.

“And Natalie,” I counter.

“What?” Aubrey says, her expression turning to sympathy.

My mom’s passive-aggressive retaliation to my dad’s cockamamy plan was to invite Aunt Karen, Uncle Bob, and their annoying daughter, Natalie, to join us, which means Mo and I will now be required to include her in everything we do.

“And Chloe’s bringing Vance,” I say, putting the cherry on top of the whole harebrained scheme. The only reason Chloe agreed to join us was because Vance loves to snowboard and he’s broke. The free room and board and lift tickets were too enticing an offer to pass up, even if it meant putting up with my family for the weekend. There’s almost nothing else in the world that would have convinced Chloe to spend even a minute with my mom, let alone three days, except her devotion to Vance—devotion the rest of us don’t share. The guy is a grade A sloth with a dose of cocky thrown in because he’s ace on a tennis court and thinks he’s going to turn pro.

“Wow, sounds like a rip-roaring good time,” Aubrey says, her in-law weekend looking better by the minute.

Aunt Karen and my mom walk from the shop, and my mom clicks open the locks to her new Mercedes, a white SUV she bought herself a month ago for her birthday.

“Let Finn drive,” Aunt Karen says innocently, though there’s nothing innocent about the comment at all. Aunt Karen is what my dad calls a pot stirrer. Like a leprechaun, she loves to stir up trouble: a mischievous little imp full of devilishness, which makes her tons of fun, except at moments like this when the fun is directed at you. Her finely teased brows lift. “You got your permit, didn’t you, Finn?”

I watch as my mom tenses, her whole body stiffening at the idea of someone else driving her beautiful new car.

“I’d like to be alive for my wedding,” Aubrey weighs in.

“I’m sure Finn is a fine driver,” Aunt Karen says, snatching the key fob from my mom’s hand.

“Perhaps another time,” my mom says, reaching to take it back.

“Nonsense,” Aunt Karen says, pulling it out of reach as she threads her arm through mine and leads me away. “No time like the present.” She gives me a conspiratorial wink and smile.

Normally, I would love this. There’s almost nothing I enjoy more than watching my mom squirm, and I totally pride myself on my daring and my athletic prowess, so the idea of jumping behind the wheel and tearing through the streets like Danica Patrick while terrifying the bejeebers out of my mom and Aubrey and delighting Aunt Karen is right up my alley.

If not for one teeny-weeny little problem.

“In you go,” Aunt Karen says, holding open the driver’s door.

I swallow. My driving instructor, a bald man with severe halitosis and nerves of steel, labeled the impediment “pedal dyslexia,” a slight major problem I have of mixing up the gas and the brake, an issue I haven’t been able to correct despite how simple it seems.

“I haven’t really driven a car this big,” I say. “So maybe it would be better if—”

Aunt Karen cuts me off. “Nonsense. Easy peasy. Mercedes practically drive themselves. Upsy-daisy,” she says with a Cheshire cat grin, clearly determined to have her fun.

Aubrey has already climbed into the back seat, and my mom is buckling herself into the passenger seat. My mom knows nothing about my affliction. When my parents have asked how my lessons are going, I’ve offered a noncommittal “Fine.”

“I remember when I did this with you,” my mom says, looking back at Aubrey. “You were such a nervous Nellie. It took you weeks before you’d even consider leaving the neighborhood.”

“I was being cautious,” Aubrey says, sticking her tongue out at her. “A good thing. I still have a perfect record: no accidents and no tickets. More than you can say.”

My mom is notorious for getting speeding tickets—at least two a year, and that’s not counting the ones she’s talked her way out of.

“Chloe, of course, was brilliant,” my mom goes on. “It was like she’d been driving her whole life. One lesson, and she was ready to drive across the country.”

My competitive bone vibrates. That’s the thing about having two older sisters: they’ve always done it first, which means I feel like I have to do it better.

I look down at the pedals on the floor. The right is narrow and vertical; the left is wide and horizontal. Right, gas. Left, brake. It’s not brain surgery. One is go. The other is stop. Anyone can do it. I mean, really, half the kids in my class have their licenses, and most of them are idiots.

“Finn?” Aunt Karen says, her head tilting, puzzled by my reticence.

I smile and climb on board, and Aunt Karen claps her hands with delight, then closes the door after me.

“Plenty of room back here,” she says, and I slide the seat back to accommodate my long legs.

I fiddle with the mirrors and the steering wheel, adjusting and readjusting them until they are perfect, my mind spinning. Right, gas. Left, brake. Right, go. Left, stop. Seriously, get over yourself. You’ve got this. Right. Left. Go. Stop.

“Of course I might just die of old age,” Aubrey says.

I sneer over my shoulder, then turn back. Carefully I set my foot on the brake, then push the button for the ignition, and the engine rumbles to life. I check the mirrors one more time to be sure nothing is behind us and then, to be extra sure, pivot my head in every direction.

“Really?” Aubrey says. “My plane leaves at dawn. Do you think I’m going to make it?”

My mom laughs.

“You’re doing fine, Finn,” Aunt Karen encourages, perhaps a tinge of guilt in her voice. Mischief-maker that she is, Aunt Karen is also softhearted, the sort who coos over babies and nurses fallen birds back to life. She wouldn’t have suggested this if she’d thought it would cause me any real distress.

After shifting into reverse, I back haltingly from the parking spot.

“Good job,” Aunt Karen says.

“And the Millers and Aunt Karen are leaving the parking lot,” Aubrey announces.

My mom chuckles again.

I pull onto the Coast Highway, and we start toward home, one block, then another, no one saying a word, and I know, despite my efforts to appear confident, they feel my stress.

The first signal comes into view, the light red, and with great deliberateness—left, left, left—I shift my foot from the gas to the brake.

We stop smoothly, and I exhale through my nose as I give myself an invisible pat on the back.

The light changes to green, and I shift my foot back to the gas, and on we go.

After several more blocks and two more uneventful stops, my white-knuckle grip lightens, and I start to relax. I’m totally figuring this out. I just have to focus. Think it and do it, just like in sports.

The others relax as well. Aubrey reaches forward to turn on the radio, and my mom turns in her seat to comment on some forgotten detail she needs to tell the florist.

And that’s when it happens. She is saying something about lilies and how they don’t have pollen when the car behind us honks, a startling blare that sends a jolt to my heart and then ricochets to my foot, causing it to leap sideways and stamp down so hard on the brake that my mom needs to catch herself with her hand on the dash.

Her face snaps sideways, and my skin flames. I don’t dare look at her, guilt radiating from my Irish-freckled face, and I know she knows. That’s the thing about my mom: she always knows.

Aubrey and Aunt Karen are oblivious. The honker swerves past, and Aubrey flips him off as Aunt Karen says, “Asshole. Some people are in such a damn rush. You’re doing fine, Finn. Just fine.”

My whole body trembles as we start again, my attention focused like a laser on getting us the remainder of the way home without further incident or incrimination, my eyes fixed on the road as I try not to think about my mom beside me or her judgment.

My promise was given less than a week ago, and her forgiveness was incredibly generous, especially considering my latest mishap landed me at the police station. A dare gone awry: the boulder I launched off the seesaw flew much farther than I expected, nearly taking out one of my friends and breaking the park’s sign. My mom did a brilliant job in her smooth lawyer way of talking me out of the trouble I was in, laughing and joking with the arresting officer until he no longer saw it as a crime but rather as a curious young mind testing the laws of physics. And when we got home, all she said was, “You know, Finn, an apology is only worth something if a person means it.” The words cut deep. I’d been apologizing a lot lately.

I crossed my heart and pinky swore that I really did mean it, that from then on I would make sure to look before I leaped, which actually made her smile, considering my seesaw-leaping crime.

She’s not smiling now. Stone still, she sits like a statue staring out the windshield, and I feel worse than terrible. Five days. That’s how long it took for me to break my promise and to let her down again.

Finally the last traffic light comes into view, and I nearly give a cheer. One more block, a right and then a left, and we’ll be home. When it turns yellow, determined not to jolt us again, I tap the brake the way the instructor told me to so the deceleration will be smooth.

We are nearly stopped, the tires barely moving and my eyes on the bumper of the car in front of us, when my phone buzzes. A text message coming through. Two sharp vibrations that start in my back pocket before traveling down my leg to my foot, and the car unexpectedly lurches forward.

“Brake!” my mom yelps, the word combining with the awful crunch of metal as we ram into the car in front of us. “Brake!” she says again, which I am desperately trying to do, but inexplicably we continue to plow forward, smashing the little car into the truck in front of it.

“Other pedal,” she says, and my foot leaps sideways.

My mom is out of the car before I manage to put it in park.

“Shit,” Aubrey says behind me.

“Oops,” Aunt Karen says.

I stumble from the driver’s seat, my whole body on fire.

Already my mom is talking to the driver of the car we hit, her body bent toward the open window. The woman is the only passenger—dark, shoulder-length hair, a red sweater. A cross with beads dangles from the rearview mirror. She nods to something my mom says; then her head reverses direction, and I can’t be certain, but I think by the way her shoulders hiccup that she might be crying.

I step toward them, then step back, my muscles clenching and unclenching, unsure what to do.

The driver of the truck joins them, an older man dressed in a plaid shirt and loose jeans. He looks like a contractor or a tradesman. He asks if everyone’s okay, glances back at me, and then, reassured no one’s hurt, waves off my mom’s offer of insurance, climbs back in his truck, and drives away.

I study his bumper as he goes. It’s dinged and dented but firmly in place, and it’s hard to tell if the damage is from a few minutes or a few decades ago.

The woman’s car did not fare as well. An old Honda, it looks as if it’s been folded in two, the hood and trunk bent toward each other and the middle sagging. The woman has her phone out, and so does my mom. I stand watching.

“Finn, honey, why don’t you get back in the car?” Aunt Karen says from her open window.

I reach for the door.

“Perhaps it’s better if your mom drives the rest of the way.”

I walk around and slide into the passenger seat.

Twenty minutes later a tow truck arrives. My mom stays with the woman as her car is hitched to the back. The woman is no longer upset, and I am incredibly grateful. My mom is brilliant that way. It’s what makes her a great lawyer: the way she is able to handle any situation with complete calm and to charm anyone into believing she is their friend. When the woman climbs into the tow truck, she actually pauses to thank my mom, as if, by crashing into her car, we’ve done her some sort of favor.

A moment later my mom’s back in the car and driving us the remaining two blocks to our home.