113 Katama Rd

by Katie Winters

  On the other side of Amelia, mid-hug, Oliver looked just about as nervous as any man about to become a father. He shrugged and smiled wide. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I think it’s a good thing?”

  “You’re damn right it’s a good thing,” Camilla said.

  A few minutes later, Camilla found herself in the passenger seat of Jonathon’s truck. Jonathon took every precaution while driving to the docks, which resulted in Camilla’s endless impatience.

  “We have to get there! Now!” she cried. “Andrea’s tour boat docks in five minutes!”

  “We’ll get there!” Jonathon said as he tipped his toes harder on the gas pedal.

  “But not fast enough! She’s been through enough! We have to let her know it’ll all be okay!”

  At this, Jonathon pressed even harder on the gas and winked at Camilla. “I’m so glad I married you all those years ago,” he said then. “The best decision I ever made. I know that for sure.”

  When Andrea’s tour boat docked, Camilla and Jonathon stood hand-in-hand over to the side of the dock. Andrea stepped out before the other tourists in her silly little sailor outfit and hat. She waved at the tourists as they departed; she thanked them loudly in a voice that didn’t sound at all like her own. Several tourists gave her tips, which she pocketed in her overly-large shorts.

  When the last of the tourists retreated, Andrea’s shoulders slumped forward. She leafed into her pocket and drew out the bills, which she then counted. It was clear that her tip value wasn’t enormous, as her shoulders never righted themselves.

  “Hey, honey.” Camilla’s words rushed out across the dock. They wrapped around her daughter. Slowly, Andrea turned her head around to see her parents there, hand-in-hand, which made her instantly furrowed her brow.

  Obviously, this was a confusing sight, especially for Andrea, who already felt so conflicted about Camilla getting back together with Jonathon.

  Camilla tugged at Jonathon’s hand. Throughout all of this, Jonathon hadn’t lost his smile — until now. Now, all the color drained from his cheeks. It was really like he was terrified of his daughter.

  In a way, this reminded her of the old days when Jonathon had been terrified of having a baby. As Camilla’s stomach had grown, he had read every book, researched every factor. All the while, he’d struggled to sleep. “What if I can’t do it? What if I’m not up for it?” he’d asked Camilla so many times. “You’ll be the best father in the world,” she assured him in return.

  They met one another in the middle of the dock. Andrea removed her sailor hat sheepishly. Her eyes turned from her mother to her father and back again.

  “It’s just a stupid uniform,” she told her father. “Sorry.”

  “Andrea... you don’t have anything to apologize for.” Jonathon’s voice broke. His hand shook in Camilla’s.

  “Honey, we have something to tell you,” Camilla breathed.

  Andrea rubbed her eye with her free hand. “I know. You’re getting back together. And it’s — it’s fine. I just — I just don’t know how to —”

  “It’s not about that,” Camilla interjected.

  Jonathon squeezed her hand all the more.

  In the silence that followed, Camilla pondered what to say next. How to even comprehend the enormity of what they needed to say?

  “Andrea, I can’t even begin to know what you’ve gone through this year,” Jonathon finally said.

  Andrea dropped her hand from her eye and looked at him with those big, blue irises.

  “It must have been horrible, thinking that your schooling was over, and that you couldn’t have the wedding you’d dreamed of, and that all your plans had to go off the wayside, all because of me,” Jonathon continued.

  Andrea remained motionless.

  “I can’t even begin to apologize for it. It’s been hell. And I know I caused it. But there’s a lot you don’t know. Suffice it to say that we’ve found a way to get it all back— all of it. You’re going to be able to go back to school in the fall. And that wedding you’ve always dreamed of? We’re going to make it happen,” Jonathon finished with assurance in his voice.

  Andrea furrowed her brow with confusion. Her lips fell open. All she could do was turn toward Camilla and whisper, “What is he talking about?”

  Camilla nodded firmly. “It’s all true. The firm that took our money was an illegal shell investment company. It’s all going to come back to us, every cent of it. There is so much you don’t know, honey, but we’ll fill you in.”

  Andrea dropped her hat to the ground. Instantly, a wild wind rushed up and swept the hat toward the water. It disappeared without a trace, only a few moments later. Andrea’s smile was bigger than Camilla had ever seen it.

  “You have to be kidding me,” she finally blurted out. Her voice was light, boisterous. She smiled in the way she used to as a kid.

  “We’re not. We really aren’t,” Jonathon said with laughter.

  Andrea flung herself into her parents’ arms after that. She shook and cried, and soon, the three of them were fully wrapped around one another, just as they had been some twenty years before — a family of three, who had never needed anyone else but themselves.

  When their hug broke, Andrea turned back toward the tour boat and buzzed her lips. “I’m supposed to have another tour in about a half-hour. I’m supposed to clean the boat.”

  Jonathon shrugged. “Blow it off.”

  Andrea’s eyes brightened. “You’re kidding. All those times you told me that I had to uphold my commitments?”

  “I said a lot of things over the years, didn’t I? But right now, I think you should come out to eat with your mom and me. It’s time to celebrate.”

  “What should I tell my boss?” Andrea asked, incredulous.

  “Tell him your dad finally woke up from a year-long coma,” Jonathon said.

  Andrea chuckled. “I think he’ll know that’s a lie.”

  “Then quit. Who cares? You hate this job, anyway. And it would give you more time to get back to what you wanted to do this summer. From what your mom says, you had a whole fashion line you wanted to design for your upcoming year at school,” Jonathon continued with a wink.

  Andrea’s chin quivered. After a long pause, she nodded, then yanked herself around and headed straight for her boss. She informed her boss that she quit and there was no ill intent as Camilla turned and kissed Jonathon again, right on the lips.

  “I can’t believe you,” she breathed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just when I first fell in love with you; I couldn’t believe you existed. You were so incredible. I had to pinch myself when you actually asked me out because I wasn’t fully sure it was happening. But it did. All of this happened.”

  “It’s still happening, Camilla. We have so much more story to us,” Jonathon said as he slipped a strand of hair behind her ear tenderly. “I’m just so glad you’re up for a second chance.”

  “It seems like she is, too,” Camilla said as she turned to find Andrea hustling back. Andrea’s face was as bright as the sun.

  And when she reached them, she screamed, “I quit! I did it! I’ll never go back on that tourist boat again for as long as I live!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Camilla stepped out of the hospital and into the bright light of another beautiful summer morning. She’d plotted a day of relaxation, of bubble baths and bad television reruns, but what she found waiting for her back at the house was beyond her wildest dreams.

  Andrea had stayed over at Isaac’s the night before. She had texted to say she wouldn’t see Camilla until the July 4 party at the grandparents. But when Camilla entered her kitchen, she found a platter of donuts at the center of the counter, along with a large pitcher of mimosa, alongside another unopened bottle of champagne. In the oven, fresh biscuits rose into the heat and the blender held what seemed to be a recently-blended batch of strawberry smoothies.

  “Hello? Is someone here?”

&
nbsp; Camilla’s voice rang out, but no one replied. She slipped off her shoes and left them in the foyer, then walked toward the hallway. “Hello?” again, she called out.

  Along the hallway, someone had fluttered rose petals, both pink and red. Camilla’s heart surged. Slowly, she stepped down the hall until she found her bedroom door closed. All the exhaustion she’d accumulated from her long night at the hospital fell away. She no longer needed anything else.

  When she opened the door, she found Jonathon in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom. He wore a pair of Levi jeans and a tighter-fitting grey V-neck shirt, which highlighted his muscles. His eyes were honest, earnest, and he pressed open the door to the bathroom wider to show that he’d just finished drawing her a bath.

  “I know you’ve probably worked yourself crazy. Why don’t you relax for a while?”

  Camilla’s eyes grew heavy with tears. She rushed toward him and kissed him tenderly.

  “This is so sweet,” she breathed.

  “I’ll bring you a mimosa,” he told her. “Take as long as you want. Then, we can have breakfast outside together. I hardly slept last night either — I was too excited about everything. So when you want to take a nap, maybe we can do it together.”

  Camilla fell into the warmth of his embrace and then soon found herself deep in the bathtub, which simmered with bath salts. The smell of lavender permeated the room. Jonathon had connected his phone to a speaker in the bathtub, and it played soothing songs that made her heart beat slower and her eyes closed just the slightest bit.

  He was wooing her. That’s what this was. It was like they were teenagers again, and he was willing to do anything in his power to make her happy—what a wonderful thing.

  When she was ready, she stepped out from the bath and donned a fresh robe, one he had clearly purchased for her. She then redid her makeup, added a touch of perfume, and padded out toward the porch, where she found freshly-cut flowers on the table, alongside two enormous platters of seemingly endless breakfast. Jonathon grinned and said, “I hope you’re hungry.”

  They sat together. Everything was bright and beautiful with the summer sunlight. Camilla tossed her head back multiple times in the first few minutes, then was overcome with laughter. When asked later, she wouldn’t have been able to say what it was Jonathon had said that had made her laugh so much. She supposed it was just the psychosis of falling in love all over again. She felt crazy in love all over again. And she was addicted to it.

  Jonathon placed his half-eaten biscuit back on his plate. His eyes beamed with electricity and joy.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something. Before we fall asleep,” he said somberly.

  Camilla placed her mimosa glass back on the table. Her heart thudded, but not with fear. She couldn’t feel fear with him any longer.

  Jonathon reached across the table and gripped her hand. “I think that last year before I left was one of the hardest years of my life. I felt like you were so disconnected from me. I felt like you didn’t want to talk to me or that you hardly wanted to look at me. When we slept together in the same bed, I felt like you were a stranger.”

  Camilla’s throat constricted. “I felt the same way about you.”

  “I figured,” Jonathon said. “I know our communication frankly sucked last year. And maybe, it always kind of sucked. I wanted to try to find a way for us to get out of that rut if we can. Make a path toward more honesty. Are you game for that?”

  “Yes. I never want to go back to how that felt. It was poisonous.”

  Jonathon nodded. He then splayed his hand over his chest and exhaled slowly. “I pledge to be honest with you about everything, Camilla. I pledge to love you with everything I have and in as many ways as I can. If I’m off someday and I’m bound to be, let’s be honest...”

  “That’s life.”

  “Right. And if I am, or if you are, we have to let the other know that we just need space, or conversation, or a cuddle, or whatever. We have to be able to label our needs. If we don’t know what we need, then how is the other person supposed to understand?” Jonathon continued.

  “I agree completely,” Camilla said.

  “Do you have anything you’d like to say?” Jonathon asked.

  Camilla thought for a long moment. Finally, she lifted her glass of mimosa and said, “I just hope that we always see each other as we do right now. As people who are willing to show up every day and keep trying. As long as I’ve lived, I guess that’s the only thing. That we keep trying, even when we fail, we can wake up the next day and try again. We’re in this for life, baby. Let’s never forget that.”

  Jonathon lifted his glass, too, and clinked it with hers. They held one another’s gaze for a long time.

  And then, they sipped.

  “It’s a deal,” Jonathon said softly.

  “It feels like we just made our wedding vows again,” Camilla said with a laugh.

  “I feel that way, too.”

  “Maybe we should renew them someday?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to take all the light from Andrea right now,” Jonathon said. “She’s our bride-to-be. Let’s not take that away.”

  Camilla gestured into the living room. “Did you see that monstrous wedding dress?”

  “Yes!” Jonathon cried. “Was she really going to wear that?”

  “Apparently. Although I don’t think she would have lived through the day,” Camilla told him. “She would have been mortified. Isaac would have been a widower from day one.”

  Jonathon laughed. “How much do you think this wedding is going to cost us, anyway?”

  “Who knows. She’s already bought all these new wedding magazines. She has a whole new vision for the celebration. Isaac is terrified,” Camilla said.

  “Bring it on, I guess.”

  “Christmas. This time, there will be wedding bells. And a crazy high bill for one Jonathon Franklin,” Camilla returned.

  Jonathan’s laughter rang out through the back porch and out toward the garden, where already their seeds had sprouted through the soil.

  Someday soon, they would feast on potatoes, bell peppers and tomatoes, at that very table. They would enter into autumn and winter and another spring, all over again. They would handle every pain together, side-by-side, as they were always meant to.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The previous few months had been a whirlwind. Camilla blinked up at the house in which she had grown up, a pie tin in her hand and a large bag of supplies strapped to her shoulder. Throughout all the chaos, she hadn’t picked up the phone to call her parents, Carol or Mike, regarding the lawsuit, or her newfound love for her husband, or the fact that maybe everything had to crumble into nothing in order for them to fully understand how to rebuild. In any case, the Memorial BBQ had been such a disaster that Camilla had needed distance. Any judgment from Carol discolored her mind. She’d found herself overthinking about her mother’s opinion about everything when all she had really needed was to trust her gut.

  And her gut had gotten her to this day: July 4, on the verge of fully reuniting with her husband and retrieving all the money they’d lost.

  Before she could take the first step up the walk, her youngest sister, Tina, walked out of the front door. She wore a bikini top and a pair of cut-off shorts and she waved a hand wildly.

  “I thought maybe you weren’t going to come!” she cried as she rushed toward Camilla and threw her arms around her, very nearly tossing the pie to the ground.

  “Why would I do that? I’ve never missed a Fourth of July,” Camilla returned. “Unless I had to work or something.”

  Tina’s cheeks brightened to pink. “I don’t know. Mom was so intrusive last time. She’s been calling me non-stop the past few weeks to see if she can somehow make things up to you. I told her that I hadn’t heard from you either.” At this, Tina turned her eyes toward the ground in either shame or sadness or both. “But it’s not like I didn’t try to call.”

  It’s t
rue that both her sisters, Janet and Tina, had attempted to reach out a number of times. Camilla had frequently returned their calls with texts, saying how busy she was, or how slammed she was with work, or just that she’d call them back when she had a free moment. She had been so angry with her mother that she’d passed along that resentment to her sisters.

  She realized now that that hadn’t been fair.

  “I’m sorry, Tina. I don’t even know how to explain myself. Suffice it to say; I have a lot to report. A lot.”

  Tina’s eyes glowed with curiosity. “What do you mean?”

  At that moment, Carol herself appeared in the doorway. She waved her arm in a similar fashion to Tina and hollered, “We just poured mojitos! Get in here, my beauties!”

  Camilla was surprised that her mother’s voice filled her with a sense of warmth. She grinned as Tina laced her arm through hers and began to chatter.

  On the back porch, Camilla inhaled the familiar simmering smell of the salty breeze. The water lapped up across the glowing sands, and far down the beach, she spotted her father alongside her niece and nephew. Carol appeared beside her after a moment and pressed a mojito into her hand. Her eyes continued to beam out a sense of worry.

  “I’m glad you could make it, honey,” Carol said finally. “We were worried.”

  “Will Andrea be able to make it?” Janet asked from the table. “I know she’s had to work all those awful jobs.”

  “She’ll be here.”

  “I hope she’s bringing that fiancé of hers? You know, I feel I hardly know him, and he’ll soon be one of us,” Carol stated.

  Camilla pressed her lips together as a wave of panic crashed through her. She had promised Jonathon that she would tell her family about his return before his arrival to their house; he didn’t want to cause a scene, especially if he wasn’t welcome.

  Her mother beckoned for her to sit across from her at the picnic table. Janet yanked open a bag of chips and splayed it alongside all of them as the four Jenkins women sat for a fresh round of July 4 gossip.

  “I have to tell you girls something,” Camilla said finally.