One Perfect Summer

by Brenda Novak

  She hadn’t agreed to anything. Her husband had been trying to convince her, had been pleading with her to forgive him ever since the ugly truth came out. And she’d been walking around in a shocked daze, going through the motions of life for the past three weeks like some sort of automaton.

  But she’d made no commitments, and wasn’t even sure she was capable of letting this one go...

  She was itching to reply to his text and tell him that. He was acting as though she was doing something wrong. But she’d already met up with Reagan at the Reno, Nevada, airport, where they’d rented a car to drive to Serenity’s cabin, and she didn’t want to get caught up fighting with Mark, didn’t want Reagan, who was driving, asking questions. She was so humiliated by what Mark had done she wished no one had to find out.

  But, sadly, there’d be no hiding, at least not from her friends and family back home. As the weeks wore on and the proof became more apparent, she’d become an object of everyone’s pity, whether she liked it or not.

  “Mommy, I want to get out,” her daughter said, a whine in her voice.

  Poor Lucy. At only four, she’d found it difficult to sit on a plane for most of the day. Buckling her into the back seat of a car for another hour and a half as soon as they landed was almost more than the child could bear. And the weather was making the drive take forever. “Soon,” she promised.

  Had she made a mistake coming here in the middle of everything that was going on at home? Lorelei wondered as she gazed out at the onslaught of white flakes pummeling the windshield and sticking to the road.

  That was possible. But she’d needed an escape, some time to think about what she was going to do. And the hope that she might have support from family—something she’d never been able to count on before—had been too tempting to resist. Even if she ultimately chose not to share her situation with Serenity and Reagan, it was nice to have a neutral place to go while she figured things out. A safe haven where no one really knew her and she wouldn’t have to field all the questions she’d face at home as soon as word began to spread.

  It was possible she’d never go back. To Mark, anyway.

  Stifling a sigh, she shoved her phone in her purse. “Look at this traffic,” she murmured as though she wasn’t under so much pressure she felt she might start sweating diamonds.

  Lines of concentration creased Reagan’s forehead. “It’s ugly, all right.”

  Lorelei had been so curious about her newly discovered half sisters. For the sake of comparison, they’d exchanged pictures and provided their heights and weights months ago. All three of them had dark hair and blue eyes, which was unusual, given how rare that combination was. Like Serenity, Lorelei wore her hair long. Reagan’s had been buzzed into a dramatic yet stylish cut that fit her more assertive and gregarious personality. They were all three close to the same height, at five foot nine to ten inches, and weighed within twenty pounds of each other—she being the heaviest, thanks to the baby weight she’d never quite lost, and Reagan being the skinniest. If they were to walk through a mall together, most people would guess they were sisters, because of their lanky builds. But Lorelei wondered if there were other, less obvious similarities. How would her new siblings behave? Would they have the same likes and dislikes? The same mannerisms?

  As a child who’d never had any real family, who’d been alone and adrift for so long, Lorelei had been beyond excited to find Reagan and Serenity. The wondering and waiting, the painstaking research and the hope that had driven her through it all had paid off. Finally. Now she had not one but two other human beings, besides her daughter, who shared her DNA. She’d thought having these connections, being more like other people, might eventually fill that terrible void inside her.

  But her thrill over finding Reagan and Serenity had dissolved the instant her husband had blindsided her with such a painful admission that she no longer cared about anything else. She’d lost the very foundation of her life, and she hadn’t seen it coming.

  “Should we call Serenity?” Reagan asked. “Let her know we landed?”

  “Good idea.” Lorelei pulled up her contacts and tried the number she’d been given but couldn’t get the call to go through. “I guess I don’t have enough service.”

  Being careful not to take her eyes off the road for too long, Reagan fumbled around in her oversized bag situated between them, and eventually located her own cell. “Do I?” she asked as she handed it to Lorelei.

  Lorelei checked the signal. Reagan had a different carrier, but her coverage didn’t seem to be any better. “No more than I do.”

  “Damn.” She hunched forward to gaze up at the mountains towering on either side of them. “Maybe it’s because we’re in this narrow gorge. Let’s try again in a few minutes.”

  “I might be able to get a text to go through,” Lorelei suggested, giving Reagan back her phone. “Sometimes that’ll work even when you can’t make a call.”

  Lorelei sent Serenity a message to tell her they were caught in the storm and to see if she was having the same problem.

  It seemed to deliver, so she dropped her phone in her lap and once again frowned at the weather. “Looks like it went through, but we’re going to need GPS, so I hope we get a stronger signal before too long. How else will we find the cabin?”

  “For now, I’m following the signs to King’s Beach, which Serenity said will take us to Incline Village.”

  “Okay.” Lorelei smiled as though she believed everything was under control. But it was hard to trust a total stranger to drive in these conditions, especially with Lucy in the car. Since Lorelei lived in Florida, she wasn’t used to snow. That was the logic Reagan had used for taking the wheel, but that wasn’t the reason Lorelei had agreed. Once again, she’d sacrificed her own best judgment because of her past. She’d been shuffled around to so many homes when she was a child, had grown up with the harsh knowledge that if she wasn’t always sweet and compliant her foster parents could decide at any moment that they no longer wanted her. And even though she was now an adult and didn’t have to worry about being returned to a group home to await the next foster placement, she couldn’t get past the deeply rooted fears that situation had created. So she spent her life trying to build what she’d been missing, which meant she’d probably compromised too often, and now she was riding in the passenger seat while Reagan, who worked as an ad executive and came from New York City, drove.

  Reagan didn’t even own a car! How long had it been since she’d driven before today?

  Lorelei’s phone buzzed, signaling a new message.

  “Is that Serenity?” Reagan asked.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “No, it’s my husband.”

  I wish I’d never given you that DNA kit, he’d written. But it was too late for regrets. He had given it to her—last summer—so she could possibly discover where she came from.

  After she’d taken that test and received her results, there was no one on the list of matches they’d sent her who could be her mother or her father. But she’d never forget the email letting her know there was someone designated a “close match” at 1957cM named Reagan Sands. When she logged on to the company website, there was a link to Reagan and they’d been in touch ever since. That was last August.

  Then, in November, she was surprised by another notice from the DNA company showing a small, circular picture of someone named Serenity Alston, who looked very much like her and Reagan, under that same “closely related” category. Serenity didn’t respond to the message feature—she’d since said that she never even opened the many emails the DNA company sent her—so Lorelei had checked Facebook and found her there. And right after that, she brought Serenity and Reagan together, and they began a group chat in Messenger.

  What a year. Would she one day discover other siblings? That was the thing about sperm. It went pretty far when it was from a donor—and since she, Reagan and Serenity were al
l born within two years of each other but came from such different situations, Lorelei could only assume that was how they’d been conceived.

  Reagan seemed completely engaged in navigating the storm, so this time Lorelei allowed herself to respond to Mark, who had ruined her wonderful, momentous year by dragging her into the depths of sorrow.

  That DNA kit isn’t the problem, and you know it, she wrote back.

  He messaged her again, but she didn’t bother to read it. He wouldn’t want to talk about what he did. He’d just go on about her leaving and how inopportune a time it was right now, given the situation at home. He didn’t see what she had to gain by meeting Reagan and Serenity. He’d already told her how foolish she was for opening herself up to whatever problems they might bring with them.

  Relationships aren’t all fun and games, Lorelei. They come with responsibility, he’d said when she’d first broached the subject of meeting her new sisters in person.

  She could only laugh about his comment now that everything had come out and she knew he’d let her down more than anyone else ever had. Chances were far better that he wasn’t excited about Reagan and Serenity because he didn’t want to share her and was worried about what having them in her life might change.

  What if one or both of these women are like Osha and Mercedes? Don’t you have enough dysfunctional people in your life?

  Mark had said that, too, and even if the comment was selfishly motivated, she couldn’t argue with the fact that she did have too many dysfunctional people in her life. She wouldn’t want another Osha. The youngest of the children Lorelei had known at her last foster home was so extremely narcissistic she couldn’t get along with anyone. After two impulsive marriages and two acrimonious divorces, she was working in the porn industry and was absolutely defiant if anyone questioned it. Because of the things she said and did, and the people she associated with, Lorelei couldn’t let Lucy be around her—not that Osha had ever shown any interest in Lucy in the first place.

  Mercedes, two years older, who’d also been in the same foster home just as Lorelei started high school, had gone in the opposite direction. She’d joined a cult and wouldn’t speak to anyone outside of it because she was so afraid she’d be led “astray.” The cult’s leader had warned his followers that Satan lurked around every corner, effectively inoculating them against anything an outsider might say. For a brief time, Mercedes had shown much more interest in Lucy, but Lorelei worried she might be even more dangerous than Osha.

  “Osha and Mercedes are the reason I want to meet Reagan and Serenity,” she’d argued. “I don’t have any real family. You grew up with seven brothers and sisters, so you don’t know what that’s like.”

  “Some of my siblings can be difficult,” had been his response. “Reagan and Serenity could make your life worse instead of better. That’s what I’m saying. Maybe they’re related genetically, but you have no idea how they were raised, what kind of people they might be.”

  He’d presented such a convincing argument that she had, at first, tried to listen to him. She’d told Serenity she couldn’t come to the cabin and, for a brief time, she’d even backed away from having any contact with them.

  But that was before Mark had mowed down all her previously held beliefs—as well as her sense of well-being, her trust in him and her hope for the future. After he sat her down and broke the news about what he’d done, she’d decided she didn’t want to shut out Serenity and Reagan. Maybe he was wrong about them. Maybe they would offer joy and friendship and support when she needed it most.

  “Still nothing from Serenity?” Reagan asked.

  Lorelei checked again. “Not yet.”

  The car in front of them slid on the ice. Lorelei caught her breath until the driver managed to recover—only inches from slamming into the guardrail and possibly hurtling over the edge into a deep ravine.

  Reagan’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, but she didn’t acknowledge the close call. Instead, she seemed intent on talking, probably to distract herself. “What’s your husband saying? He’s worried about you in this weather?”

  In Lorelei’s mind, if Mark cared about her as much as he claimed, he wouldn’t have done what he did. But that wasn’t what she said. “I’m sure he is,” she replied, hoping the expected response would steer the conversation away from him that much sooner. “What about Drew? Did he have any problem with you flying across the country to spend a week with two sisters you’ve never met?”

  Reagan didn’t respond.

  “Reagan?” Lorelei prodded.

  “I had the vacation time,” she said shortly.

  “I wasn’t talking about leaving work,” Lorelei clarified. “I was wondering if he was afraid you were making a mistake by getting to know us, or wished he could come, too, or—”

  “I didn’t discuss it with him,” she said. “He doesn’t really have any say over what I do.”

  Lorelei blinked in surprise. “He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”

  Again, no answer.

  “I’m sorry if you two have hit a rough patch. When you mentioned him on Messenger I got the impression things were going great between you, that you were in love.”

  “I am in love,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Why is that a problem?” Lorelei asked.

  Reagan bit her lip as she glanced over. “Because he’s married.”

  Lorelei felt her jaw drop. “You’re in a relationship with a married man?” Why? she wanted to scream. Reagan wasn’t just moderately pretty, she was beautiful. Successful, too. She could have almost any man she wanted. She didn’t need to steal anyone’s husband.

  “Mom, are we there yet?” Lucy asked from the back seat.

  Lorelei was so thrown by what she’d heard she didn’t answer until Lucy started crying.

  “We’ll be there soon, honey,” she replied as her daughter’s distress finally cut into her thoughts. Problem was she’d been saying the same thing for the past three hours, so it had no effect.

  When Lucy wouldn’t stop crying, Lorelei got a sucker out of her purse. She hated to ply her child with sugar, but it was about the only thing that would keep Lucy happy until they could reach the cabin, and with the storm and what she’d just learned about Reagan, the situation was stressful enough. “Here, I’ll give you this. Will that help?”

  Her daughter sniffed but brightened as she accepted the bribe, and Lorelei managed what she hoped was a pleasant expression even though she felt close to tears herself. She’d been hoping her two sisters would be the kind of people she needed. That the time, effort, money—plus navigating this damn storm—would be worth it. But she had no desire to invest in someone no better than Francine. Her best friend had turned out to be an even bigger disappointment than Osha and Mercedes.

  Reagan shot her a sheepish look. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Lorelei doubted she did, doubted she could possibly guess how repulsive she found this revelation. She said nothing, just turned to stare out the window.

  “Lorelei, please don’t judge me so fast,” Reagan said. “As a stay-at-home mom, you probably don’t come into contact with temptation very often. But when you’re out in the workforce, like me, you spend a lot of time with your coworkers and...and sometimes you begin to have feelings you shouldn’t. It wasn’t as if I planned on this happening. It wasn’t as if I’ve ever done anything even remotely like it before. I’m telling you...it came out of nowhere.”

  “I don’t care what your excuse is,” she said. “That’s a line you don’t cross.”

  Reagan’s face turned bright red. Lorelei was overreacting, and she knew it. This wasn’t her husband they were talking about. But it hit so close to home, and she’d put so much hope into her sisters being people she could admire—and count on—that she was bitterly disappointed.

  Reagan had already proven he
rself unreliable in one of the most important ways.

  “Thanks for your understanding,” Reagan said tightly.

  Lorelei rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. What you do is none of my business. But so you know, I’m not unsophisticated. I have a degree in marketing. I was a digital marketing manager for a great company and made decent money. It’s just that...when Mark and I discussed having children, we felt it would be best for me to be at home instead of shuttling our kids to and from day care every day.”

  “Why is it always the woman who makes that sacrifice?” Reagan grumbled. “Why couldn’t he have been the one to stay at home?”

  “It’s not always the woman. More and more men are doing it and—”

  “A small fraction.”

  Lorelei ignored the interruption. “And by the time we paid for day care, I wouldn’t have earned enough to warrant being away from our child, let alone been able to support us if Mark had stayed home.” Letting go of her career had been difficult. But she’d felt it was the right thing to do, the practical thing.

  Or had she, once again, compromised when she shouldn’t have? Given up her job to keep Mark happy?

  Now that she was possibly staring down a divorce, she felt it might’ve been smarter to push back.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see what you think of that decision when Lucy’s out of the house and on her own.”

  “What did you say?” Lorelei asked.

  Reagan sent her a scowl. “What will you have then?”

  “Hopefully, I’ll have a happy, well-adjusted child. Mark was making more than I was, so...”

  “So?” Reagan challenged when she let her words trail off.

  “It made sense,” Lorelei insisted. She hated that she hadn’t finished her sentence to begin with, that Reagan had to call her out. It revealed that she was concerned she’d made a mistake—one that might cost her dearly in the long run.

  But Reagan was so caught up in attempting to justify her own actions, she didn’t capitalize on Lorelei’s uncertainty. “I’ve been trying really hard to cut it off with Drew,” she said. “But it’s not as easy as you think. He’s one of the senior partners at the agency. I’ll lose him and my job, and I’ve worked my ass off for ten years to get where I am at Edison & Curry. It’s so competitive in advertising.”