Jess shoved her hands in the soapy water and scrubbed vigorously at a salad bowl. “I’m sorry I’m not a big fan of birthday parties. I told you I didn’t need one. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for all your hard work and didn’t enjoy the result.”
“I don’t think it’s birthday parties you don’t like. I think it’s me.”
Jess did not want to get into this right now. Or ever. “You know that’s not true.”
“I don’t. That’s the only thing I can figure out.”
“Why would you say that?”
“What else am I supposed to think? You rarely come to visit and when you do, you act like you can’t wait to leave. You’re always halfway out the door, just like Dad was.”
“I am not like Dad at all,” she said, her careful hold on her temper beginning to fray. Why did Rachel have to ruin what had been a lovely evening by bringing their parents into things?
“You might not be an abusive jerk. But you’re as closed off as he always was. I never know what’s going through your head. And I feel like I’m the one putting all the work into this relationship, just like Mom did with theirs. More often than not, I’m the one who texts or calls you and invites you to things. And most of the time, you can’t be bothered. I’m really tired of being an afterthought in your life.”
Jess gave up any pretense of washing dishes and faced her sister, trying not to let her see her hands tremble. “You’re not an afterthought. I love you. I love the kids. What do you want from me, Rachel?”
“I just want to know we matter to you.”
“Of course you matter. I only took this job in Cape Sanctuary because it meant I could be closer to you and the kids.”
“Right. Because this setup is just the way you like it. You can stop for a minute, keep everything superficial, then move on to your next job. You’ve created your life so that you have no close connections, except maybe Yvette. Even your bond with her is over the phone. That’s not normal, Jess.”
Rachel’s words stung, mostly because Jess knew she was right. She didn’t consciously push people away, but Jess knew that was the net impact.
Because it hurt so much, she reacted defensively by lashing out.
“And you’re doing just great, right? No problems here. You’re just throwing away a great marriage to a kind, caring man because you’re unhappy that your perfect Instagram life isn’t the beautiful picture you’ve always dreamed about.”
She shouldn’t have said it. As soon as the words were out, Jess regretted them, especially when Rachel seemed to pale and take a step back.
“Leave my marriage out of this.” Rachel’s voice quivered with emotion. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. How could you? You’ve never even had a relationship that lasted more than a week because you’re so screwed up about what happened with our parents that you’re afraid to let anybody get close to you.”
A second deadly but accurate uppercut. Jess was going to be dangling on the ropes in a minute. She drew in a ragged breath, not wanting Rachel to see the fresh wounds.
She had to get out of there before she said or did something she wouldn’t be able to take back.
“You’re right. I was out of line. Thank you for the birthday party. I appreciate all the effort that went into it, even though it wasn’t really for me, was it? Give my love to Cody and the kids.”
She grabbed the bag containing her birthday gifts—the ones she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to look at now without remembering the pain of this moment—and walked out of her sister’s house.
27
Rachel
Her heart was pounding and she felt hot and cold at the same time.
Was she having a heart attack? She checked her heart rate on her smartwatch and saw it was about the same as when she was doing sprints uphill on the treadmill.
Not a heart attack but maybe a broken one. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe slowly to calm herself. She didn’t know when she had last been so angry or so hurt.
Jess could be so difficult. She always kept part of herself out of reach.
She never used to be that way but their experience in foster care had changed her. They always used to share everything. Hopes, frustrations, fears. She didn’t know her sister anymore. Not really. She felt the loss of that tight bond with a physical ache.
Still. Her sister seemed to see Rachel with painful clarity.
You’re throwing away a great marriage to a kind, caring man because you’re unhappy that your perfect Instagram life isn’t the beautiful picture you’ve always dreamed about.
With every passing second, those harsh words seemed to echo around and around her kitchen, getting louder by the second.
You’re throwing away a great marriage.
She thought of her ridiculous out-of-proportion anger at the garden hose accident and how terrible she had been to Cody, when he really had been trying to help.
Jess was absolutely right. She was going to lose her marriage if she didn’t figure out how to get her stuff together, if she didn’t find a better way to deal with her sadness and worry for Silas than taking everything out on Cody.
He was a good man. The best man she knew. He didn’t deserve the kind of wife she had been to him, a woman who was so damaged by the trauma of her past that she couldn’t embrace all the joy of her present.
28
Jess
She had little memory of the short drive between Rachel and Cody’s place and Eleanor’s house.
The confrontation with Rachel seemed to have opened the box she kept padlocked inside her, where she had stored all the memories of that horrible night.
Now they seemed to swirl inside and around her, ugly and dark and hateful. Somehow, she made it to her trailer parked beside the path to Sunshine Cove, her own private sanctuary that had become more of a home to her than any place she could remember.
She sat in her truck. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn’t want to go inside the Airstream, afraid the thin aluminum walls wouldn’t keep out the mass of emotions that wanted to crowd in.
She needed to move. A good, hard run would do the trick. Or she could make her way down to the beach and try to find calm where she could.
Driven to action, any action, she hurried inside and quickly grabbed a flashlight and hoodie then started down the trail toward the beach.
The ocean beckoned her.
She stumbled a little going down the path but managed to catch herself and didn’t fall.