“Yes and no, it has something to do with the idea of sharing,” Sharlene said. “Just hear me out.”
The two friends entered the house as Sharlene unfolded her plan. By ten o’clock they had reached a mutual decision. They would run the business out of both Erin’s and Sharlene’s homes. The two of them would meet at Erin’s home office every Monday and Thursday for planning and face-to-face updates, but the rest of the week they would divide the clients, as they had been doing, and would run everything from their separate locations. Sharlene already had cleared space in her garage for half the boxes.
“This will make us more efficient,” Sharlene said as she pulled out her laptop and plugged it into the wall.
“That’s true.” Erin settled in the desk chair in front of her computer and remembered their first morning when they had toasted with their paper latte cups. “I know this is a good solution, but I’m still sad. The only other solution I see is for us to take on fewer clients. But things are going so great and running so smoothly, I would hate to put on the brakes now.”
“Exactly.”
The restructuring of their fledgling business took place right away. When more than half the boxes had been moved to Sharlene’s house, Erin even managed to park her car in the garage.
By the time Thanksgiving arrived, Erin was grateful to have some of her house space back. She also was secretly relieved that she didn’t have a lot of guests coming. Her goal was to make this the happiest, best, most memorable Thanksgiving ever for the five important people who would put their feet under her mother’s dining room table.
The day before Thanksgiving Jordan and Sierra arrived just as it was getting dark. They came in through the garage and entered the kitchen. Erin had an apron on over her jeans and sweater and was pulling two pumpkin pies from the oven. She nearly dropped them when she saw Jordan walk in.
“You’re here! I didn’t think you would arrive until tomorrow.” She quickly put the pies on the stove and wiped her hands on her apron before rushing to wrap her arms around her tall son and kiss him soundly on his scruffy cheek. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, honey!”
The older Jordan got, the more he resembled Mike. His dark hair was longer than Erin had seen it in a long time. His jaw was firmly set, and his clear eyes hinted at deep inner happiness. He stretched his arm back and took Sierra’s hand, drawing her forward. “Mom, this is Sierra.”
Erin grinned wildly at the earthy young woman standing in her kitchen. Sierra’s curly blond hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her no-makeup, no-nonsense expression was refreshing, and her soft blue green eyes were bright with honesty. “Welcome, Sierra. I want you to make yourself at home. Completely at home.”
Erin considered giving Sierra a hug, but she hesitated, not knowing if Sierra was the type of girl who felt comfortable getting hugged on the first meeting.
Sierra quickly answered that question by stepping forward and being the one to give Erin a simple, sweet, spontaneous hug. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
Erin loved her immediately.
As the evening continued, Erin’s happiness grew. Mike came home with pizza for all of them. Jordan carried in the luggage, and Sierra offered to help in the kitchen. She chopped onions for Erin’s famous stuffing recipe, washed dishes, and talked about the years she had spent working in Brazil. It was a dream come true for Erin to have another woman to work with side by side in the kitchen. She had waited a long time for the day when one of her boys would bring home a young woman who made his heart happy. Without a doubt, Sierra was that woman for Jordan.
Early on Thursday morning a persistent rain started about the same time that Erin put the obscenely huge bird into her new, bright red roaster and closed the oven door. By noon the rain had lifted, and when they sat down to an opulent meal at four o’clock, the late-afternoon autumn sun was coming through the freshly sprinkled front windows, casting tiny prisms of light on the rims of the crystal goblets.
The scene reminded her of the drive to the Hidden Cottage in February when the sun broke through the fog-shrouded woods and lit up the strings of glimmering ice droplets on the pine tree boughs. That trip seemed so long ago. It now felt like a vivid dream and not something that had really happened.
They joined hands around the table, and Mike led their family in a prayer of gratefulness. Erin whispered another prayer silently, thanking God that her father’s health was good and asking that he and her brother would somehow, someday, be peacefully reunited.
An echo of “amens” sounded around the table.
When Erin looked up, she saw that Jordan and Sierra, who had been holding hands during the prayer, hadn’t let go after the “amen.” Both Jordan and Sierra had their backs to the window, and when Erin looked at them, the sun had backlit their profiles, igniting the glow in their eyes.
That impression was extraordinary in and of itself. But the brief moment that pressed itself into her memory was the look on Jordan’s face as he gazed at Sierra and the way that look was mirrored on Sierra’s face. It wasn’t a giddy glimpse born of infatuation or a heady gaze of passion ignited by human hormones. Jordan and Sierra gave each other the sort of look that remains the same at ninety-five when exchanged between two people who have set their sights on going the distance together as one. It was the look of lifetime love.
Erin choked up. Her son was in love right before her eyes.
Not wanting to give away any clues of what her maternal instinct was telling her, Erin uncovered the mashed potatoes in the china serving bowl that had been her mother’s and passed the steaming spuds to Mike on her right. Ever since she was a child, at every family gathering, this beautiful bowl had served one purpose and one purpose only. This was where the garlic mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives were put and topped with a pat of butter before being covered and placed on the dining table to wait for the prayer of thanks.
Jordan held the bowl for Sierra. “Wait till you try my mom’s mashed potatoes. These are the ones I said were worth the long drive. Seriously, Mom, this is what I came home for—your famous mashed potatoes.”
Sierra looked across the table at Erin. “He really has been talking about your potatoes for two weeks now. If you don’t mind sharing your recipes, I’d like to get this one along with your secret ingredient.”
Erin swallowed a smile and answered with the same reply her mom always gave when anyone complimented her on this same recipe. “You add lots of love and an appalling amount of real butter.”
Sierra’s lips turned up in a compelling smile. That’s when Erin knew she would be passing on more than just this recipe to Sierra. One day, this serving bowl would be hers as well. These mashed potatoes just wouldn’t taste the same in any other bowl.
Erin had a deep longing to excuse herself from the table, go into the back room, and cry. She wanted to pick up the phone and say, “Mom, guess what? Jordan is in love. He’s really in love. Her name is Sierra, and she’s lovely and sweet, and you should be here to meet her.”
Instead she drew in her stomach and let her shoulders roll forward. Then she held her chin up and smiled. She had found this was the best posture to take in moments like this when she missed her mother so much it felt as if a cannonball had blown a hole through the middle of her soul.
When Sierra slipped off to the guest room after dinner, Jordan took the opportunity to sidle up to his mom and put his arm around her. Jordan was the same height as Erin, so the two of them could look at each other eye to eye.
“Well?” It was the only word Jordan said.
Erin replied with a single word of blessing, “Yes.”
7
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Jordan proposed to sweet Sierra on the beach in S
anta Barbara in January. He went over all the details with Mike and Erin on the phone three days prior and said he had selected that particular day because it was exactly one year since he first had met her at Sunset Beach, Hawaii. At Jordan’s insistence, Mike and Erin drove up to Santa Barbara to be there, waiting in the wings with a small gathering of friends and Sierra’s parents to celebrate with the newly engaged couple.
The giddy clan cheered as the couple came walking back from the beach at sunset, bundled together in a blanket. Her ring was a simple, custom-designed etched band that Sierra convinced Jordan was all she wanted. She wasn’t a diamond sort of girl. Her choice was to have a series of thin bands that she would add to her ring finger as the years went on, like the assortment of bangles she often wore on her arm. Unconventional, but as Erin had discovered, it was very much Sierra.
Jordan and Sierra were radiant and remained so during dinner. The group dined under a portico laced with twinkle lights and thick, gnarled grapevines at a beachfront restaurant. The owner was a friend of Sierra’s dad.
Mike leaned over as Erin was midbite into the best calzone she had ever tasted. “This is good stuff,” he said.
“Delicious.” Erin dabbed the corners of her mouth with the red-and-white-checkered paper napkin.
“I’m not talking about the food. I mean life. Us. This. This is good stuff.”
Erin leaned over and kissed her husband on the side of his neck. “Do you know that I love you more now than ever before?” Erin whispered.
Mike slipped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “I had a clue or two.”
“Oh, really? What were your clues?”
Drawing back and looking closely at Erin’s face he said, “It’s your smile. I can always tell what you’re thinking by the way you smile. And right now, you’re smiling as if you love the whole world but especially me.” He pressed his forehead against the side of her head and whispered in her ear, “And I love you more than ever, too.”
Jordan and Sierra’s wedding was set for August 7. Everyone assumed the two of them would zip through the planning because, after all, his mother did this for a living.
Within a week Erin knew that if she wanted to maintain a strong relationship with Jordan and Sierra, she would have to turn the planning connections on this one over to Sharlene. Erin had far too many opinions about what the couple should do, and like all young couples, the two of them had their own ideas.
“So I’ll be the backup planner,” Erin explained once she had Sharlene, Jordan, and Sierra on the phone the second week of January. “I need to be just the mother of the groom, if that makes sense. I’m here, and I’ll do whatever you two ask, but from here on out, Sharlene will be the one to provide you with your personally designed portfolio and follow up with anything you need.”
“Mom, you have no idea how much that helps us. Thank you. We were feeling uncomfortable with some of your suggestions, but we weren’t sure how to tell you.”
“I hope you don’t feel as if we don’t appreciate everything you put together for us.” Sierra sounded concerned.
“Don’t worry about any of that. I got a little overeager and started to run ahead without taking the time to listen to what the two of you had in mind.”
“Thank you for being so understanding,” Sierra said. “I can already tell you’re going to be a wonderful mother-in-law.”
“Oh, I hope so, honey. I hope so.”
Sharlene took over like the pro she was, and Jordan and Sierra were pleased with all the recommendations she pulled together for them. Since the wedding was going to be in Santa Barbara, Sharlene and Erin had to expand their connections beyond Orange County’s borders. It turned out to be a helpful addition to their website and their business.
When the invitations went out, Erin followed up with a handwritten note to her brother, inviting him to stay with them after the wedding. She didn’t hear from him until two weeks before the big day.
“I just can’t pull it off, Erin. Sorry. I had hoped I might be able to come. It would be the first chance I’ve had to see you guys since I’ve gotten clean and sober.” For the next twenty minutes he told her about the recovery program he had been in and how his life had been turned around.
Toward the end of their phone call, Erin told her brother, “I’m really glad to be able to talk with you like this, Tony.”
“It’s good to talk to you, too. Let’s try to do this more often.”
“I’d like that. I’m so glad the recovery program has worked out for you. This is really, really good news.”
“My wife and the girls think so, too. I was a mess for so long. The guy who heads our group has gone the distance with me, you know? It’s what I needed. I wish I could come to Jordan’s wedding. I really do. I think camping on the backside of Maui is about as far as I’m going to make it anywhere during the month of August.”
“I understand. Maybe Mike and I will have to come over there and see you guys.”
“Now there’s an idea. I’m ready to see you. I’m able to handle the real world, if you know what I mean. So come on over. I’m not sure you’ll recognize me, though.”
At their mother’s funeral Tony’s hair was long and hung in front of his face. He didn’t make eye contact or have a conversation with anyone. Apparently he already had been using drugs for some time, but Erin, in her sisterly naiveté, told people he was in mourning and as shocked about the loss of their mother as she was. Had she known what was really going on, she would have responded differently to him.
“You haven’t said anything about Dad,” Tony said. “I’m assuming he’s coming to the wedding with his wife.”
Erin noted that Tony didn’t seem to remember Delores’s name. Either that or he chose not to speak it.
“Yes, they’re coming. Dad said he wanted to drive so he would have his own car while they’re here. He said they had big plans to go to Ireland earlier this spring, but they had some financial adjustments to make before they could go. I think they rescheduled their flight for the fall.”
“What sort of financial adjustments?”
“I don’t know. He’s put a lot into the place where they live on the Oregon coast. All those remodeling expenses might have caught up with them. I didn’t ask him. All I know is that he said they plan to take their time, drive down the coast, and stay here in Irvine after the wedding for at least a week.”
Tony didn’t reply.
“I really wish the two of you could be back in communication.”
“I know. I’m almost there. Give me a little more space. I’m working on it.”
Erin held on to the thought of “a little more space” as the final wedding details came together. Sierra and her mom were handling everything in Santa Barbara. All Mike and Erin had to work out were the details for the rehearsal dinner as well as transportation and accommodations.
Somehow those few arrangements kept hitting snags. Erin needed more space in her packed calendar.
The last week of July Sharlene showed up at Erin’s with the newly altered mother-of-the-groom dress hanging in a zipped-up garment bag, compliments of the family dry-cleaning business.
“You are a lifesaver on so many levels, Sharlene. Thank you for having this done for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Well, I can tell you what you’re going to do with me once the wedding is over. You’re going to sit down and go over these applications for assistants. I marked the ones that I think have the best potential. Our goal should be to have someone in place by the first of September, if not sooner.”
Erin knew that Sharlene had been doing far more than her share over the past few weeks. Once the wedding was over, Erin would be able to go back to a regular workload and that assistant could work mostly with Sharlene. They both knew it was a nice problem to have, needing to hire someone.
As Erin spent the evening packing for the wedding weekend in Santa Barbara, she thought about all she had to be grateful for: Jordan’s
darling wife-to-be, the screaming success of The Happiest Day, and most recently, the great conversation she’d had with her brother.
She was almost ready to zip up the suitcase and go to bed when she decided she couldn’t ignore the rumbling in her stomach any longer. It was hard to tell if the grumbles were over not eating enough in all her scrambling around that day or if she was feeling more nervous about this huge event in their son’s life than she was letting herself believe.
Padding barefooted out to the kitchen, she told Mike, who was watching the eleven o’clock news, “I’m almost ready to go to bed. How about you?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Erin opened the refrigerator door and stood for far too long, staring at the contents as if one of the uninteresting items would suddenly change into a Boston cream pie and start singing to her, “I am your midnight snack. Yum-yum! I’ll calm those nerves and be nutritious for you, too!”
All she saw was a warehouse-sized glass jar of artichokes, a carton of orange juice, and four square plastic containers of leftovers.
“Did you eat the last of the broccoli salad?” she asked Mike.
He didn’t answer. The sportscaster was giving the scores of the baseball teams that were World Series contenders.
Undeterred, Erin moved the containers around and peeled back the corners of the lids to determine if any of them held promise for a snack. As she reached her arm in for the large container at the back of the middle shelf, the huge jar of artichokes inched forward too far and toppled off the shelf.
Before she could catch it or move out of its path, the heavy glass jar came crashing down on the big toe of her left foot. She let out a scream as if she had been run through with a sword. Losing her balance in the wake of the sudden, overwhelming pain, Erin collapsed onto the floor and sobbed.
Cottage by the Sea Page 7
