by Megan Green
There’s something strangely familiar about her, even from behind. Something about her shape, her stature. Even her hair.
“Excuse me,” I call when I’m within earshot.
The woman’s head turns to the side, giving me a hint of the profile of her face. Dark glasses shield her eyes, but her surprise at being spoken to is clear from the small O her mouth makes when she sees me.
Before I can say another word, she whips back around, colliding with an elderly man standing between her and the door. I can’t make out her rushed words as she tries to move around him without knocking him over, but I can hear her frazzled tone.
Is this woman afraid of me?
Confusion floods through me as I pick up my pace, wanting now more than ever to find out just what exactly is going on here.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I call again. “Can I please—”
“Who is that, Daddy?” Ellie’s voice is meek as her little head leaves my shoulder, her eyes now following the woman as well.
The woman stops on a dime at the sound of my baby girl’s voice. I watch as her hand lifts to her chest, her shoulders slouching forward as if hearing Ellie speak somehow caused her physical pain.
I have no clue why Ellie’s words would affect her like this, but I’m sure as hell not going to waste the opportunity. Using her momentary bewilderment to my advantage, I close the distance between us. And just to make sure she’s not going to run off again, I place my hand around her elbow.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” I say, trying to sound normal and not like I just chased a random woman across a room. “How did you know Felicity?”
Her spine stiffens at my contact, her face turns as far away from me as possible. It’s as if she’s actively trying not to look at me.
I briefly wonder if maybe she knows about Felicity’s affair. If she somehow knew the details. Maybe she was Felicity’s confidant… is that why she doesn’t feel like she can face me? Did she help her cover it up?
But before my thoughts can go too far down that trail, the woman finally speaks. “I didn’t. I mean, I used to. But I don’t anymore.”
Her tone is sad, and I know if I looked behind those oversized shades, I’d find her eyes just as red as mine have been for the last week.
“Were you a childhood friend?”
My words seem to sting, her entire body recoiling from their backlash.
“You could say that.”
“Well, thank you for coming,” I say, suddenly realizing how foolish I’m acting. I don’t know this woman. Maybe I’ve seen a photo of her in one of Lissy’s yearbooks or something, and that’s why she seemed familiar. But now I’m just being fucking creepy.
I let go of her elbow, taking a step back to get out of her space. “Please feel free to stop by the house afterward if you’d like. I’m sure more of Felicity’s old friends will be there. They’d probably love to see you.”
The woman takes another step toward the door as soon as my hold falls, but my words stop her short. Turning her face slightly to the side, she looks as if she’s going to speak, but then thinks better of it.
With a hint of a sigh, she turns, her heels clicking against the tiled foyer as she nears the door.
“She looks like Mommy,” Ellie says as she watches the woman walk away, her head falling back to my shoulder.
I’d just been about to turn and head back to the rest of our family, but ice floods through my veins as Ellie’s words register.
Her shape.
Her stature.
Her fucking hair.
The woman must’ve heard Ellie as well, because when I turn to look at her, she’s no longer facing away from me.
And even with her hands covering her mouth, I can see it.
Lissy’s nose. Lissy’s seemingly ordinary shade of brown hair that glints slightly gold in the bright overhead light. And behind those glasses…
Does she have Lissy’s eyes?
I stalk over to her, reaching out and tearing the glasses from her face before she even has a chance to stop me. She flinches hard at the unexpected movement, but I can’t summon the energy to feel bad about it.
Because standing before me, right here at my wife’s funeral, is Kate fucking Mitchell.
My teeth clench as a hundred hateful words hurtle through my mind. But before I can release any of them, I need to…
Lowering myself to a knee, I reach up and unclasp Ellie’s arms from my neck.
“Ellie, sweetie, I need you to go find Nana and Gracie.”
She throws herself back at me. “No, Daddy!”
I pull her away. “Come on, Monkey. I need you to listen to me now.”
She sobs into my shirt. “Please, Daddy. Please don’t make me go.”
“It’s okay,” Kate’s voice breaks in. “I’m leaving.”
I cut a glare in her direction, letting her know just what I think of her leaving before I’ve said my piece.
“Ellie, you need to—”
“What is going on here?” Aara’s voice interrupts. My gaze flicks to her, and I realize Ellie’s outburst has caught the attention of everyone in the vicinity.
“Aara,” I plead. “Will you please take Ellie back to Mom and Dad? I need to speak with this…person.”
“Nooooo,” Ellie wails.
Aara looks from where I’m huddled on the floor with my daughter over to Kate. I watch as she gives her an assessing once-over before turning back to me.
“Shane, I think you’d better calm down.”
Aara’s words surprise me. “What do you mean ‘calm down?’ Do you have any idea who this is?”
Aara shoots Kate an apologetic look, and my jaw falls slack. Seriously?
“I know exactly who she is, Shane. I invited her.”
“You did what?”
My sister’s betrayal cuts me deep. Throughout all the years. All the deployments. My marriage. Her failed relationships… throughout it all, there’s always been one constant.
Aara has always had my back.
And I’ve had hers.
So for her to go against my wishes and do this? Today of all days?
I climb to my feet, taking Ellie with me. I shoot Aara a look that tells her this isn’t over before turning back to Kate.
“I don’t know why you came here, but you need to leave. Now. And stay the hell away from my family.”
Kate’s lower lip quivers as her eyes dart from me to Ellie a few times before she spins and pushes her way out the door.
I feel Aara’s presence beside me as I watch the door swing shut.
“You don’t even—”
I storm away before she can finish.
Chapter Four
Kate
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
My toiletry case clatters to the floor as I rush across the hotel room, trying to gather my belongings as quickly as possible so I can get the hell out of this town and back where I belong.
I don’t know what I’d been thinking. I knew coming here was a bad idea. My parents and Felicity had made that abundantly clear in the decade I’d been gone.
I’m not welcome in Virginia Beach. I wasn’t then, and I’m certainly not now.
I just thank my lucky stars that I’d managed to get the hell out of there before my parents had seen me.
Stupid!
That word has been on repeat in my head since the moment I realized Shane Dempsey was following me out the door.
It’d been foolish to think I could attend my sister’s funeral without anybody noticing. Idiotic to think I’d be able to get away with paying my respects and saying goodbye without someone realizing who I was.
I just hadn’t expected it to be him.
The look of pure hatred on Shane Dempsey’s face as he’d realized my identity had shaken me to my core. Never in my twenty-eight years had someone I’d never met looked at me with so much animosity and disdain, as if my very presence caused him to be sick.
&
nbsp; Sure, Felicity and my parents had treated me like that for years before I’d left. But never someone I didn’t know.
Which only made me wonder what my sister had told him.
What lies and half-truths she’d poisoned her husband’s mind with, what vitriol and hate she’d fed him to make him despise me so much on sight.
The entire time Shane had been at the podium, speaking about his memories of my sister, of her spirit and humor, it’d felt like he’d been talking about a different person. The person I used to know.
A brief hope had flashed through me. Maybe Lissy had changed. Maybe before she passed, she had no longer been the girl who’d despised me to her very core, and instead had found her way back to the sweet, happy person I’d once known and loved.
Had she died before she’d had a chance to reach out to me? To reconcile the wreckage of our relationship?
My heart had broken at the thought of Lissy wanting to reach out and not knowing how. Thinking things had been too broken to possibly repair.
If she’d only known how much I wanted that as well.
But then one look at Shane Dempsey as he discovered me was all I’d needed to dispel that notion.
Felicity had never forgiven me. She hadn’t died wanting to rectify our relationship. She’d died hating me every bit as much as she had the day I left.
I’m not sure which is worse. Knowing your sister loathed your existence until the day she died. Or having that brief flash of hope. A moment in which you think things might not have actually been so bad, that maybe, if you’d just had a little more time, things could’ve gotten better. Only to have that hope dashed across the bedrocks of truth.
Grabbing a pair of shoes, I stuff them into my duffel bag before turning back to pick up the spilled bag of toiletries. I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror as I do, and what I see brings me crashing to my knees.
My cheeks are flushed, my eyes red and swollen. My once sleek ponytail is now in complete disarray, the strands sticking up haphazardly around my face. But it’s not my disheveled appearance that has me weakening.
It’s the look of complete and utter heartbreak I see deep within my eyes.
Felicity has children.
Not only that. She has two girls.
Had, I remind myself. I don’t think my mind will ever get used to the idea of a world without Felicity in it.
How could Felicity have had children and not tell me?
I’ll be the first to admit I was no stranger to the ways of Facebook stalking my older sister. The invention of social media was a great thing for people like me—those desperate to keep up with goings-on in someone else’s life without the capability to do so in real life. Most families used it as a tool to keep in touch with loved ones across the country. That wasn’t entirely untrue for me. I did live a long way from my sister. She’d just never been aware of my visits to her profile.
Lucky for me, one thing that had never changed about Lissy was her constant need for validation and approval. I hadn’t even had to try hard to gain access to her photos, because she had them all set to public. Photos of her and her handsome husband on their wedding day. Anniversaries. Pictures of her with friends, co-workers… even students. Felicity had been religious about keeping her Facebook friends and Instagram followers constantly up to date on her daily activities.
But evidently, there was one part of her life she’d decided to keep private. Had she just never posted photos of the girls, preferring to keep their faces off social media and away from the eyes of potential predators? Or had she simply made them private, saving their precious smiles and beautiful eyes for those she trusted and loved?
I’d been prepared to see the man my sister had chosen to spend her life with. I’d seen his pictures. I’d grown to know his face, despite the hurt I felt whenever I remembered the day I realized she’d gotten married without me by her side. I could still feel the metaphorical slap across the face I’d felt when I’d pulled up Lissy’s profile that day, only to be met with the sight of her all in white, a gorgeous man with his arm hooked around her waist, smiling down at her as if she were his entire world.
I’d been jealous of that photo, and all the ones that had followed of the two of them together. Jealous of the love they so obviously shared. Jealous of the happiness my sister clearly felt without my presence. Jealous that she had found the fairytale after all, when growing up, all she’d wanted was to be a writer. Meanwhile, I yearned for the type of man who’d look at me the way Shane Dempsey looked at my sister.
Or at least, I used to.
But as ready as I thought I’d been to see him, nothing could have prepared me for the shock of seeing the two little girls—girls who looked so much like Felicity—clinging to his legs, their distant gazes and sad faces cracking my heart in two on sight.
There’d been no mistaking who those sweet girls belonged to, their dark hair, rounded faces, and full lips so very obviously Felicity. And…
Me.
The pain that had shot through me seeing the older one wrap her sister in a hug had nearly brought me to my knees. Because there was no denying it.
They looked exactly like Felicity and I had at that age, right down to the pink in their cheeks and the ruffles on their dresses.
And neither one of them have any clue I even exist.
The little one in Shane’s arms had made that abundantly clear when she’d observed that I resembled her mother, her little brow furrowed as she tried to decipher what that meant. And as if that weren’t enough of a sign, Shane Dempsey practically growling his demand that I stay away from his family had sealed my assumption.
Shane knew all about me. And together, he and Felicity had made the decision not to tell the girls about her estranged sister.
I lean forward, pressing my face against the hotel carpet, unable to give a shit about whatever germs might be making their way into my system through my tears. I sob against the floor, the ache in my chest so great it feels like the work of a thousand tiny jackhammers pounding straight against my heart.
I want to know those girls. I want to hold them, to hug them, to tell them stories about their mother and me. I want to watch as they grow up, be the fun aunt they call whenever their parents piss them off. I want them to know how much I love them, without ever even having met them, but simply because they exist.
But I never will.
And that fucking breaks me.
I have no clue how long I sit here and sob into the dirty carpet, no clue how long the tears and the heartache pour out of me and onto the floor. It’s not until a soft knock at the door pulls me from my sorrow, my eyes darting to the window to see that the light of the evening has given way into night.
Awesome, I think as I attempt to wipe away some of my tears. That’s probably management here to kick me out because the other guests on the floor have been complaining about the crazy sobbing woman.
I take a brief look at myself in the mirror, cringing at what I see. Dark streaks line my cheeks, all of the makeup that had once been on my eyes now smeared around my face. Add to that the disheveled state of my hair, and well… I’d be surprised if whoever is at the door doesn’t take off screaming down the hallway at the first sight of me.
I can’t bring myself to care, however, so instead of trying to fix myself and cut whoever this is a break, I stride across the room and fling open the door.
It’s not like it matters anyway. I’m planning on leaving this stupid hotel and heading to the airport just as soon as I can get my shit together enough to pack.
But instead of a uniformed staff member, I’m met by the sight of a woman. A woman I’ve seen before.
Aarabelle Gilcher.
Her gaze slowly roves over me, her eyes softening when she reaches my face. “Oh, sweetie.”
She makes a move to step inside my room, her arms coming out as if she’s going to hug me. I take a step back, swinging the door so that it stands between us.
“What are
you doing here?” I ask, my tone guarded, my body unwilling to accept that this person is here for anything other than malicious reasons. “I heard your brother loud and clear. I’ll stay away.”
Aarabelle Gilcher purses her lips, her face falling when she realizes I’ve created a barrier between us. She shakes her head. “Don’t you listen to Shane. He’s going through some shit I can’t even begin to comprehend. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I scoff. “Sure sounded like he knew to me.”
Aarabelle leans against the doorjamb of my room, crossing her arms across her chest as she does. “That’s because you don’t know Shane. Trust me. He thinks he knows what he’s doing. He thinks he’s doing what’s best for both him and the girls. But he’s wrong.”
I open the door a little wider, her words softening some of the resolve I had to get her the hell out of here as fast as possible. “And what makes you think he’s wrong?”
She shrugs. “You wouldn’t have dropped everything and come all this way if you were even half as bad as Felicity made you out to be.”
Something about those words, words from a woman I don’t even know, pierces my heart. She doesn’t know me from Eve, but here she is, giving me the benefit of the doubt. Something my own family hasn’t given me in years.
Whatever I’m feeling must come through on my face, because before I know it, Aarabelle Gilcher has pushed her way into my room and pulled me into her arms.
It’s the first time I’ve been hugged in…
God, how long has it been?
I have friends back in Chicago. Hell, I’ve even had boyfriends. But still, I can’t remember the last time someone had wrapped me in their arms and just held me.
I fall apart in her arms, my tears soaking the shoulder of her shirt as she pats me gently on the back.
It’s the most soothing gesture I’ve felt in years.
And it comes from a person I don’t even know.
I cry until my tears run dry, my body no longer physically able to produce anymore sadness. I pull back, wiping at my eyes as I look anywhere in the room but at her.
