One Perfect Summer

by Brenda Novak

  Lorelei watched her daughter hurry back to the table. “Is that all you’re interested in?” she asked Serenity as she helped Lucy into her seat.

  Serenity had just gotten up to stir the soup. “Is what all I’m interested in?”

  “Figuring out how, why?”

  The lid clanked on the pot. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you even interested in having another sister? From what you’ve said, you’re hurt and angry to think you’ve been deceived, and you’re curious about the truth. Where you come from. Who knows the real story. Why no one spoke up. But I don’t get the impression you’re excited about adding to your family. You have enough siblings.”

  “No,” Serenity cried. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I’m happy to have more sisters. For one thing, the twins are seven years younger than I am, and they’re completely caught up in their husbands and each other. There’s definitely room in my life. I’m just worried about what the past will reveal about my parents. That’s all.”

  “Right.” Lorelei forced a smile. “I understand,” she said, but she’d definitely been hoping for more. Now that she’d finally found some blood relatives—not one but two sisters—neither of them seemed very excited to have found her.

  * * *

  reagan

  A soft knock sounded. Curled up in bed, Reagan called, “Come in,” and Serenity walked inside with a tray that held a bowl of soup, a roll and a glass of wine, which she put on the small desk by the wall.

  “You’ve had a long day,” she said as she sat at the foot of the bed. “You need to eat something.”

  Reagan hesitated before propping herself against the headboard. Food was the last thing on her mind. She wanted to pull the covers over her head and pretend that what she’d done was just a nightmare, that she’d be able to go back to Edison & Curry when she returned to New York and all would be well.

  She eyed the tray dubiously. “I don’t think I can.”

  Serenity leaned to one side. “Lorelei didn’t mean to offend you. She’s angry with the friend who betrayed her, and she’s taking it out on you. You realize that, right? You’re just a proxy.”

  “Of course I realize that. I’m not mad at her. I would loathe me, too, if I were in her shoes. I can’t believe I’m that woman, you know? The one everyone hates for being so stupid and selfish.”

  Serenity’s eyes were sympathetic. “Everyone screws up—”

  “Not like this,” Reagan broke in. She wasn’t willing to accept such an easy excuse. “There are enough regular setbacks in life, setbacks you can’t avoid. I’m furious at myself for causing my own downfall.”

  “Downfall?” Serenity echoed. “Isn’t that a little...extreme?”

  “Hardly. I can’t continue to work with Drew. I’ll have to quit my job, and I love what I do. Love where I work.” She’d had her eye on achieving partner from the beginning, and she was so close! She didn’t want to start over. It was much harder for a woman to climb that corporate ladder than a man. She’d had to do a great deal more to prove herself.

  She shook her head in disgust as she remembered some of the partners in the agency mentioning how detrimental it would be if she were to get married, because she might lose her focus. Or, God forbid, have a baby, which would require the death sentence of maternity leave.

  “You might find something even better,” Serenity said.

  It was hard to be optimistic, given the situation, but she made herself say, “Maybe. I just wish I’d been smarter.”

  As she shoved more pillows behind her back, she remembered Drew catching her hand as she started to walk out of his office. The next thing she knew, they were kissing and touching and, at some point, he kicked the door shut.

  That had merely been a safety precaution, though. Everyone else had already left the building, except maybe a couple of accountants who worked on another floor.

  If only those accountants had been closer, she and Drew would’ve had to stop...

  “I should’ve quit my job as soon as I could tell he was beginning to have feelings for me—and that I reciprocated them,” she went on. “I’d still have to start over at another firm, but at least my dignity would be intact. And my reputation. I never dreamed we’d act on what we felt. He’s been a devoted family man ever since I met him. That’s partly what I love about him.”

  “Does he feel as bad as you do?”

  She thought of the many calls and texts she’d ignored. “I have no idea. I haven’t talked to him.”

  “Since...”

  “Since it happened,” she clarified.

  Serenity sat forward. “Then this isn’t an ongoing affair?”

  “No. It’s brand-new. I haven’t been back to work since.”

  “Does his wife know?”

  Reagan pictured Sally, whom she’d met along with their three boys, seven, nine and twelve, at various work functions. Had Drew gone straight home and confessed? Or was he keeping it from Sally until he could discuss it with Reagan?

  And what about his other associates—her associates, too? Had they guessed what was going on?

  “Who can say? Like I said, I haven’t talked to him.”

  Serenity raised her eyebrows. “Wow.”

  Letting her head fall back, Reagan stared up at the ceiling. “I was too confident, you know?” she said, looking at Serenity again. “I believed I had the self-control to avoid going that far. And then...”

  When she let her words fade away, Serenity finished for her. “And then you made a mistake. It happened, and you can’t take it back. But punishing yourself by going hungry won’t help.”

  Reagan frowned at the soup and bread. “I’m not punishing myself. I have no appetite.”

  “Well, you’re already the skinniest one of the three of us, and we don’t like that, so we’ve both decided you must eat.”

  Reagan couldn’t even make herself laugh. But when Serenity got up to retrieve the tray and place it on her lap, she picked up the spoon.

  Serenity sat back down on the bed. “How do you like the room?”

  “It’s great. The whole cabin is.”

  “Wait until you see the lake.”

  “Believe me, I’m anxious for this storm to pass so that I can.” She took a bite, found the soup much tastier than it looked and realized she was hungry, after all. She ate half of it before she asked, “Where’s Lorelei?”

  “Putting Lucy to bed.”

  She tore off a piece of the roll and crammed it in her mouth, so depressed she didn’t care about her manners. “Can you believe her best friend is pregnant with her husband’s child?” she asked as she chewed.

  “I can’t. An affair is bad enough. You have to wonder—how did the two of them let something like that happen?”

  Reagan had no idea. A baby made everything so much worse. It affected the future, not just the past, making it that much harder for Lorelei to forgive and forget. Harder for her to stay in the marriage, too. A child was a lifetime commitment. In nine months or less, she’d have a constant reminder of her husband’s philandering.

  Reagan opened her mouth to say as much—then nearly choked on the bread she was trying to swallow as a memory flashed through her mind. She and Drew hadn’t used any birth control. She’d been so busy the past few months she hadn’t been sexually active, so she wasn’t on the pill. And he was married. It wasn’t as if he was walking around with a condom in his pocket.

  A curious expression came over Serenity’s face. “What is it?”

  Surely she wasn’t—

  Reagan tried to cut off the thought before she could fully think it. She’d been so worried about all the other ramifications of what she’d done that she hadn’t even considered this one. But now the possibility had burst onto the stage of her mind, and she couldn’t chase it away, no matter how hard she tried.

>   And that put the fear of God in her.

  Somehow she managed to finish swallowing before pushing aside the tray. “That was good, but I’ve had enough.”

  “Are you okay?” Serenity’s voice was filled with concern.

  The chance of pregnancy had to be slight. They’d had only one encounter, and Drew had pulled out.

  “I—I’m fine,” she replied, but she could barely force out those two words, and the food she’d eaten sat heavy on her stomach. The situation with Lorelei and Francine proved that the worst could happen.

  And she had to acknowledge that it could happen to her.

  7

  lorelei

  THE FAMILIAR NIGHTMARE woke Lorelei, the one where she was lost and wandering around in the dark on a cold, rainy street she didn’t recognize. She couldn’t find a single thing that looked familiar, no one she knew or trusted. Figures seemed to skulk in the shadows, following her, and yet, when she turned around, there was no one there. Her surroundings, those strange people—everything—felt menacing, but she couldn’t say exactly why, couldn’t identify the danger.

  Clammy with sweat, she pushed off the heavy comforter she’d found so welcoming when she went to bed and hauled in a gulp of clean, cool air. She’d been having that dream since she was a child, and she hated it. Her various foster parents used to tell her caseworker that she’d wake up in the night, kicking and screaming, and couldn’t be consoled.

  Lorelei was convinced that was why she’d never been adopted. She should’ve had a good chance, especially with her first placement, when she was so young. But those foster parents had taken her back to the receiving home after only nine months. Somehow, following years of infertility, they’d managed to get pregnant, but they were having a baby with Down Syndrome, so they said they weren’t up to the challenge of raising two children with special needs.

  Lorelei had always believed they would’ve kept her had she been an easier child—a normal child. Even with the unexpected pregnancy. But they were afraid she’d never get over whatever trauma she’d endured. And, sadly, she’d proven them right. The nightmares had plagued her throughout adolescence. They’d eventually gone away, once she’d been married to Mark for several years. But now they were back. Mark’s confession must’ve triggered a memory she’d buried deep inside her brain, because this was her fourth nightmare in the past three weeks.

  “Bastard,” she muttered. She could call him that when Lucy wasn’t around. Not only was it liberating, it reflected her pain and anger better than anything else she could say, even though it didn’t change the situation.

  Restless, she climbed out of bed and crossed over to the window.

  The storm had died down. Shafts of moonlight struck a glistening blanket of new-fallen snow. Evergreen trees jutted through it, standing tall and straight, like sentinels watching over the pristine landscape. She could see why Serenity loved this place. It was beautiful—a winter wonderland even though it was spring—and nothing like anything she’d ever experienced in hot and humid Florida.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to regulate her breathing in an effort to slow her heart rate. Although the fire Serenity had built earlier must have gone out by now, the smell of wood smoke lingered in the cabin. Lorelei found it oddly comforting.

  That’s it. Just breathe.

  She rested her forehead against the glass as she continued to gaze out at the snow-globe-like scene. If she didn’t calm down she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. And caring for a four-year-old wasn’t easy even when she was well rested.

  Instead of going back to bed, however, she went into the room next door to check on her daughter.

  Curled into a ball, her long medium-brown hair streaming across the pillow, Lucy seemed to be sleeping soundly.

  A wave of tenderness drove Lorelei to drop a kiss on her soft, round cheek before pulling the covers higher. That Mark hadn’t considered what his actions might mean for Lucy when he’d gotten involved with Francine rattled Lorelei’s faith in him more than anything else. She’d believed his love for their daughter would be strong enough to preclude him from ever doing anything that would harm their family.

  Too bad he’d proven her wrong. By damaging their marriage, he’d left Lucy vulnerable to a huge upheaval, one that could gouge deep emotional scars.

  The insidious images Lorelei had been holding at bay ever since she’d learned the truth began to steal into her mind like a poisonous gas. The thought of Mark cheating was painful enough—but with Francine?

  Lorelei had known Francine since college, had trusted her like the sister she never had—which only doubled the betrayal, outrage and pain. It sickened her to picture them together, which was why she struggled so hard to avoid it. But she knew them both so well, could all too easily imagine how their affair had played out—

  Stop torturing yourself!

  She curved her fingernails into her palms, hoping a jolt of physical pain might distract her. She hadn’t spoken to her best friend since Mark broke the news. Francine had attempted to call her a few times. She’d even come over once, shouting from outside that they needed to talk. But Lorelei had refused to accept her calls or answer the door.

  That night, Mark, trying to play the arbitrator, had suggested the three of them sit down together, which let her know he and Francine had spoken that day. Lorelei remembered wondering bitterly if they’d managed to squeeze in a quickie. She hadn’t accused Mark of it—he was too busy acting remorseful—but Lorelei had refused to let him arrange the meeting with Francine, told him she wasn’t ready yet.

  Yet, she repeated to herself with a mirthless chuckle. She doubted she’d ever be ready, wasn’t sure she could be civil, even though there was a time she would’ve given Francine anything.

  When they were roommates in college and Francine lost her job, it was Lorelei who’d paid Francine’s share of the rent, saved her car from repossession and made sure she had food. And she’d done it while living on a shoestring budget herself. She didn’t have family she could fall back on, unlike most other people. And yet she’d tried to be there for Francine, even when Francine’s own family wasn’t.

  It was Lorelei who’d nursed her through mono. Lorelei who, when Francine’s mother died, helped make the funeral arrangements. And Lorelei who’d tutored Francine during the depression that had ensued later so that she wouldn’t flunk out of school.

  Lorelei had helped out much more recently, too. Francine hadn’t been happy with her husband for a long time, so Lorelei had allowed her to hang out at the house whenever she needed an escape, made her a bed on the couch so she could stay over if she and Allen were fighting and gave her a shoulder to cry on when they finally split up for good six months ago.

  Of all people to betray her! Letting Francine come over so often had probably contributed to the problem, which made her feel even worse.

  But Lorelei wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow what Francine and Mark had done to destroy her. She had to hang on for Lucy’s sake, no matter what kind of determination and sacrifice it required.

  What other choice did she have?

  She refused to let Lucy down the way Mark had.

  She was determined to be the kind of mother she’d always wanted but never had.

  * * *

  serenity

  “Serenity?”

  At the sound of her name, Serenity rolled over and lifted her head. It was morning—maybe even late morning—but she’d never been one to drag herself out of bed early. She preferred to work late, when telephones and emails weren’t bombarding her from her publisher, readers and people who were providing research or documentation on the case she was currently writing about.

  At night, she wasn’t as tempted by social media, either, which had become an important part of her promotion process. Without a following, she couldn’t continue to publish.

  So she blogged once a
week and maintained a Facebook page, an Instagram account and a Twitter presence. Increasing engagement on each of those could be taxing—Sean used to complain about the amount of time she spent trying to cover every base—but she felt it was necessary.

  And now she was glad she’d made the effort. Her career could’ve crashed right along with her personal life if she hadn’t maintained a relationship with her readers. Since Sean’s trial ended, and she suddenly found herself with hours and hours and nothing besides work to fill them, she’d been happy to have something she could devote herself to. Something that helped build her career but didn’t require the same level of mental acuity as writing. She didn’t have the focus and concentration she’d had before, hadn’t been able to make much progress on her latest book.

  Although she hadn’t made her ordeal public, there were certainly people who knew what had happened, especially if they lived in her area. It hadn’t been reported in the news, but word quickly spread through the firm where Sean worked and leaked out from there. A couple of friends and neighbors had posted well wishes or questions on her social media pages that had sparked a bit of conversation, but she’d managed to minimize all of that by hiding those comments and ignoring those who posted them. Most of her followers had no idea what Sean had done and how his actions had impacted her life.

  She was planning to let them know, however. She’d kept it as quiet as possible, but now that she was through the worst of it, it was time to address the scandal openly and honestly and then put it behind her. She hoped that would act as a purge of sorts, help her get back to writing.

  But every time she sat down to tackle that particular blog, she came up with another excuse to procrastinate. What Sean had done was so despicable, so humiliating and embarrassing she didn’t even want to think about it let alone tear the scab off the wound.

  “Serenity?”

  Her name again. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she blinked and then squinted, trying to bring the world into focus.