by Jen Gilroy
Charlie squeezed Mia’s hand, then fumbled for the cake knife. She loved and worried about Mia, but the two of them had lost their way. And a lot of it was her fault. She’d shut Mia out because the contrast between her life and her sister’s hurt too much.
“I know we haven’t seen each other much lately because it’s hard for you to visit with your job, but you’re my sister and we’re in this together.” Mia’s expression was cautious.
“Of course we are.” Charlie took a steadying breath. “I still think we should sell the cottage. I need the money, but imagine what a marina on the doorstep would do to Carmichael’s. Not to mention casino traffic. Maybe we could break the lot up and give Carmichael’s right of first refusal on part of the wooded lot.”
“As if Tat Chee would go for that.” Mia ran the knife across the top of the cake and smoothed wayward buttercream peaks and troughs. “You saw their faces. They want all the land, maybe more.”
Charlie gripped the edge of the countertop. “I’m only suggesting—”
“Don’t.” Mia waved away Charlie’s protest. “I won’t sell one inch of our land to Carmichael’s. We already saved their business once.”
“Apart from Mom and Mrs. Carmichael, we’re the only ones who ever knew Dad loaned Sean’s dad money to keep Carmichael’s going. I’m sure Mrs. Carmichael wouldn’t have said anything. She was so embarrassed.” Charlie swallowed hard as pain ripped through her.
“And Mrs. Carmichael doesn’t know the terms of that deal either, does she?” Mia dropped the knife into the bowl with a clang. “What you did for Sean. And then the miscarriage. You’d never talk about it, but it must have almost destroyed you.”
It had, so she couldn’t talk about it. Until last night. Hot tears burned at the back of Charlie’s eyes. “Sean idolized his dad. Mom and Mr. Carmichael and Dad are gone. We’ve kept the secret all these years. Can’t you let it go?”
“No.” Mia’s voice was raw. “Even though she didn’t know the whole story, I bet Mrs. Carmichael can’t let things go either. That loan destroyed her friendship with Mom. Mom grieved over that until the day she died.”
“Maybe this is a chance to put things right, to heal. Mom couldn’t stand up to Dad, but she was the most forgiving person I’ve ever known.” Charlie ran a spatula around the inside of the bowl like she’d seen her mom do, to scrape up the last bits of frosting. “Holding on to some old grudge doesn’t do any of us any good.”
“Mom was the best.” Mia’s voice wobbled. “But we need to sell, and if we break up the lot, we won’t get nearly as much money.”
“Okay, so let’s try to find another option.” Charlie fought to steady her breathing. “Please?”
“Have you talked to Sean? Are you hooking up with him again?” Mia tightened her apron ties. “From what I saw the other day, he still has a thing for you.”
“I’m not hooking up with him.” The desire that churned through Charlie was about the past, not the present. “I haven’t talked to him about the cottage either. I wouldn’t, not without talking to you first.” Instead, she’d talked to him about their baby. Her stomach heaved. “As for him having a thing for me, that’s in your imagination.”
“I know what I saw. Unlike Dad, I never had anything against Sean or his family. He’s a decent guy and decent guys are hard to find, but you’re moving on. You always do.” Her voice was suddenly flat.
“If you can find another buyer who can offer us what Tat Chee will, go ahead, even talk to Sean if you think it might help. Without Dad’s money, Carmichael’s would have gone under and, good man or not, do you think Sean would have stayed with you back then? The business always came first for him.”
Charlie swallowed around the lump in her throat. She’d wanted to come first in Sean’s life, but she’d never been sure she had.
From her apron pocket, Mia’s phone rang, and she pulled it out. “It’s Jay. You carry on.”
Charlie dumped the last of the frosting on the cake and pushed down with the knife until the smooth surface cracked. Why had she told Sean about the baby? All she’d done was dig up feelings she thought she’d buried years ago. At least she hadn’t told him about the loan. That was one secret he didn’t need to know.
Mia disconnected the call without saying good-bye and put the phone on the counter with a thud, startling Charlie.
“Everything okay?”
“Of course. Jay says hi.” Mia inspected the cake, her eyes too shiny. “What are you doing? Here, like this.” She picked up her knife and filled in the hole Charlie had made.
“It’s only a cake. It doesn’t have to be perfect.” Charlie laced her fingers together.
“I’m sorry.” Her breath stuttered. “You’re right.”
“I’m sorry too.” She reached for Mia like she had when they were kids and their mom insisted they make up after an argument. She hugged her sister close, breathing in the sweet freesia fragrance Mia always wore. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“Nothing.” Mia’s voice was muffled against Charlie’s shoulder.
“Please talk to me. I know something’s wrong. I knew it from the moment you picked me up at the airport in Montreal. You’re like Mom, sweet, never a bad word for anybody, but something’s changed. You’re my sister and—”
“We hardly know each other.” Mia’s voice was small, and it cracked on the last two words.
“We can fix that.” Charlie patted her sister’s tense back. How long had it been since she’d touched Mia like this? Years. Her sister had never needed this kind of comfort before. Or if she had, Charlie had never noticed. “Tell me. I want to help.”
“The girls might hear.” Mia sniffed.
Charlie moved away and peeked out the kitchen door before closing it. “They’re on the beach. Nowhere near the water,” she added, catching the anxious look on her sister’s face. “Is this about you and Jay?”
Mia sank to the floor and covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking. Charlie sat beside her and pulled Mia into the shelter of her arms. She’d never seen Mia lose control, and it scared her.
“I thought he’d change. I kept telling myself if I loved him enough, if I was the best wife, the best mother, I could change him.” Mia’s hands dropped away, and Charlie caught her breath at the dullness in her eyes.
“I’ve got you, honey. You can tell me.” Charlie smoothed Mia’s hair, dark and glossy like their mom’s before she got sick.
“I stayed the same size I was when I got married. I dressed right, or at least how Jay wanted me to dress. I’ve tried so hard to be the perfect executive’s wife.” Mia’s face twisted in anguish. “I think he’s having an affair. Another one.”
“Mia, honey.” Charlie’s voice cracked. She’d never liked her brother-in-law, but she’d never pegged him for a cheater either.
“I’m ashamed. If I was good enough, he wouldn’t cheat.” Her voice broke.
“You’re more than good enough. You shouldn’t stay with him, not like this.” Charlie tried to work moisture into her dry mouth.
“What choice do I have?” Mia pulled away. “I’m not like you. I don’t have a job. I have a degree in music and a teaching credential I never used. All I ever wanted was a family, and look at me. I may not have anything.”
“Of course you have something. You have two beautiful daughters and you have me. I’ll help you. I’m on your side and I always will be.” Even if it meant selling the cottage to Tat Chee. Charlie’s stomach lurched, and she tasted bile.
“I’ve been a terrible sister.” Mia lifted her puffy, tearstained face, and Charlie reached to the counter and grabbed some tissues from the box.
“I haven’t been such a great sister either.” A piece of Charlie’s heart melted. “But we’re stuck with each other.” She tried to smile. “You’re right, we don’t know each other, but maybe we can start over.”
“I’d like that.” Mia used a tissue to blow her nose and managed a shy smile. “I was always jealous of
you.”
“Of me?” Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re so beautiful and you always did everything right. You were Mom and Dad’s favorite. I could never measure up. I was jealous of you.”
“No.” Mia shook her head. “I did what I was told, but right from when you were little, you had the courage to live your life and make your choices. Do you think I would have married Jay if he hadn’t come from what Dad thought was the right kind of family, if he hadn’t gone to the right schools, belonged to the right clubs?”
Charlie flinched. Making her own choices meant she’d gotten pregnant by a boy who didn’t come from what her dad considered the right kind of family. And she’d ended things with Sean because she was scared of her dad and thought Sean would dump her anyway. “You want to sell the cottage to Tat Chee because you need the money?” Charlie’s voice was high and reedy.
Mia’s face went red, and she dipped her head. “I don’t know what to do about Jay and me. Maybe he’s not having an affair, or if he is, maybe it’s just physical. When I caught him before, he said it didn’t mean anything. And I believed him. I’m a fool.”
Didn’t an affair always mean something? Charlie’s breath left her lungs in a whoosh. What had happened to her sister? The Mia she remembered wouldn’t have put up with a husband who cheated on her, not for a moment. She’d been prom queen, head cheerleader, and the perfect, popular girl Charlie wanted to be. But this new Mia was a woman with blank eyes, forlorn and somehow broken.
“At least if I had money that was mine, I’d have something to fall back on for me and the girls,” Mia said. “Everybody will think I’m a failure.” She winced and buried her head on her knees.
“You’re not a failure, so who cares what anyone else thinks. You could live to eighty or more. That’s a lot of years. Do you really want to spend them with Jay?” Somehow Charlie had to get through to her sister, help her realize that no matter how bad things seemed, she still had choices.
“Mom didn’t have those years.” Mia looked up, her face blotchy.
Grief flooded Charlie. Why had her mom died when she’d still needed her? When Mia did too.
“The girls need their dad, and I can’t walk away from Jay. I’ve been with him since I was nineteen and…” Mia’s voice was thick with tears.
“You don’t have to decide anything today.” Charlie twisted her hands together to stop them from shaking. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed. I can finish here.”
“No, I’ll do it.” Mia squared her shoulders. “You’re the birthday girl. What kind of sister am I, getting both of us all upset today, of all days?”
“A real sister.” Charlie tried to smile.
Mia’s lips trembled. “Maybe I’ve never said it before, but I’m glad you’re my sister. I may have been jealous of you, Charlie, but I’ve always been proud of you too.”
“You called me Charlie.” She looked at Mia in wonder. “You haven’t called me Charlie in, I don’t know, years, I guess.”
“Charlotte was never my sister, but Charlie is, if she’ll have me. If she’ll give me another chance.”
“I’ll have you, Mimi.” The old name for the big sister she’d once looked up to. Charlie’s throat clogged.
“Nobody but you and Mom ever called me Mimi, but I like it.” Mia’s eyes lost their horrible blankness and turned soft and gentle.
“I like it too.” Charlie nestled into the curve of Mia’s shoulder. The world telescoped to the two of them, and a sense of security and belonging Charlie had never felt before. She’d run from her family as far and as fast as she could, never realizing her sister hurt as much as she did. Never realizing her perfect sister was as flawed, and as human, as she was.
“I’ll finish decorating the cake,” Mia said, practical again. “I can imagine what would happen if I let you at it.”
Charlie laughed. A real laugh that bubbled up from deep inside and healed some of the hurt she’d carried for years. “I’d ask Naomi to help me.”
“She’s a good girl.” With one last hug, Mia got to her feet. “I know she thinks I’m strict, not letting her date, but I can’t risk her getting hurt. Some boy could break her heart. I’m her mom. It’s my job to keep her safe.”
“Nobody’s going to break her heart.” Charlie hoped she was right.
Mia snapped the lid off a plastic box and shook out pink and purple birthday candles with matching holders. “I’m being silly. What kind of trouble could she get into here? In Dallas I worry about her friends and what she’s doing at the mall. In Firefly Lake she doesn’t have any friends. There’s no mall, and she can’t get into town unless we drive her.”
Guilt sliced through Charlie, razor-sharp. “There’s something I have to—”
“Look at the time.” Mia made an apologetic face. “I made an early reservation at Mario’s. If Emma eats late, she gets cranky. You go get changed. I’ll bring you a glass of milk and some of those oatmeal cookies I made yesterday.”
And milk and cookies had been their mother’s remedy for everything from a skinned knee to a broken heart.
Leaving Mia in the kitchen, Charlie climbed the stairs, her feet following the wooden grooves worn by several generations of her family. She stopped on the landing halfway up and looked out the window at the forested island in the middle of the lake. When she was small, she pretended a mermaid lived on that island. A mermaid who wore a shimmering green dress and granted wishes with a flick of her sparkly tail.
She and Mia had to sell the cottage. But not like this. Not if the price of leaving the past behind to secure her future meant everything good about that past would be destroyed.
She pressed her forehead against the windowpane, squeezed her eyes shut, and saw her mom’s face. Gentle and loving but always with an undercurrent of sadness and heartbreak. The same kind of heartbreak Mia’s face now wore.
Charlie flipped her eyes open and continued up the stairs. She had to talk to Sean. No matter what he thought of her. If today had shown her anything, it had shown her she didn’t want to sell to Tat Chee.
And Sean was the only one who might be able to help her and Mia find another solution.
Chapter Seven
Sean hesitated beneath the striped awning outside Mario’s pizza restaurant in town. His thoughts were still as jumbled as they’d been twenty-four hours earlier when Charlie dropped the bombshell on him that Ty wasn’t his first child.
But Sean had missed the excited anticipation of that first baby and the grief of losing it. By not telling him, Charlie had taken those feelings from him, as good as stolen them.
While a night out with his son wouldn’t make the pain go away, maybe it would distract him. He followed Ty into the cozy, wood-beamed restaurant and greeted his sixteen-year-old niece stacking menus behind the front counter. “Hey, Crystal.” He kissed her on the cheek. “You didn’t say you had to work here tonight. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you to help at the marina this afternoon.”
“You know I always like helping you.” Crystal hugged him, then pulled two menus from the lopsided pile. “I wasn’t supposed to be here, but we got some parties booked and Mario needed extra staff last minute.” She led Sean and Ty to a small table in an alcove at the back of the restaurant where tall windows overlooked the lake. “This one okay for you?”
“You don’t want to sit on the deck?” Sean glanced at his son.
“Nope.” Ty grinned at Crystal.
Sean pulled out a chair on the side of the table that faced the lake. “It’s a nice night. It’ll be winter before you know it, and we can’t sit out then.”
Ty shook his head and mumbled something indistinguishable before opening his menu.
Sean studied his son’s bent head and the thick shock of blond hair that stuck up at an unfamiliar angle. He took a closer look. His son had used styling gel on his hair, and he caught a whiff of his own aftershave. Both of which would explain why Ty, who was usually in and out of the shower and dressed in fi
ve minutes, had spent half an hour after work locked in Sean’s bathroom, leaving Sean to shower in the main bath. “Want to share a Vermonter?” He set his unopened menu aside.
“What?” Ty tugged on his shirt. A blue one Sean hadn’t seen before. Ty also wore an unfamiliar pair of tan cargo shorts and new sneakers.
“Mario’s Vermonter pizza. I asked if you wanted to share one. Like we usually do.” His son was fixed on a point behind Sean’s head.
“I don’t want pizza.” Ty didn’t look at him.
“Why did you insist on coming here, then?” Sean tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. “I’d have barbecued and we could be home watching the game. You were the one who wanted to go out.”
Ty snapped his menu shut. “I’ll have spaghetti and meatballs. We don’t always have to have the same thing. It gets boring, you know?”
“I like pizza.” Although Sean guessed he could order an individual Vermonter instead. “Ty, is something bothering you?”
“No.” His son grabbed a breadstick from the glass in the center of the table.
“Your mom wasn’t happy you wanted to stay with me this weekend. I know it’s hard for you, but we’ve got a joint custody agreement.” Sean grabbed a breadstick too. “We each have the same amount of time with you. You need to stick to the schedule we worked out.”
“That agreement sucks.” Ty crumbled the breadstick. “Mom lives twenty miles away. In summer, when I’m working here, I spend half the time in the car. You’re driving me or she’s driving me. I hate it.”
Regret punched Sean’s chest. “I know you do, and it isn’t the greatest with your mom in Kincaid and me here, but that’s where she lives. We all have to do the best we can to make things work.”
“I don’t see why she can’t live here.” Ty stuck out his lower lip, reminding Sean his son was still a boy with a lot of growing up to do.
“Your mom was never happy in Firefly Lake.” Sean kept his voice neutral so he didn’t sound like he was judging his ex-wife. “In three years you’ll be eighteen. Old enough to make independent choices.” He pressed his lips together. No matter how much he wanted to hold back time, Ty would be grown in the blink of an eye.
