Dara couldn’t resist the need to hug her new friend. “That means so much to me. You’ll never know. People reached out to me after we lost Lewis, but I was too broken to let them in. I think I’m ready now for the kind of support you’re offering.”
“It’s always here. We’ll exchange phone numbers, too, and I’ll introduce you to my friends Jenny and Erin. They lost Toby in 9/11. He was Jenny’s fiancé and Erin’s twin brother. They get it, and we’ve been a huge source of support to each other.”
“The people here are almost too good to be true,” Dara said.
“We’re not, though. Most of us are to the point in our lives where we’ve lived, loved, lost and survived. There’s a sisterhood and brotherhood in that. And there’s something healing about this place, which is why the town requires letters from the new lighthouse keepers. They’re looking for people who’ll benefit from what this place can do.”
“It’s working for us,” Oliver said. “We both feel like we’re coming back to life and to each other since we’ve been here.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
“One of the things I wanted to ask you,” Dara said hesitantly, “is how you found the courage to have another child. But if that’s too personal, I totally understand.”
“I’m an open book, Dara. You can honestly ask me anything, and I’ll always tell you the truth as I see it. And that’s a good question. It was hard for me for a long time to imagine ever finding the nerve to try again, not to mention I’d had a tubal ligation after Malena was born, so that had to be reversed. We had no way to know whether it would work, and we decided to just roll the dice and see what happened. Luke also helped me to see that I’ve probably had my great tragedy, and I should be home free from now on.” Sydney frowned, and the expression changed her entire demeanor. “But, of course, I found out it doesn’t work that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier this summer, I made a terrible mistake while in the car with Lily and ended up hitting the accelerator rather than the brake, which sent us off the pier at the marina and into the water.”
“Oh my God!” Dara said. “But you were both all right?”
“Thankfully, Luke, Big Mac, Mason and Blaine were able to get us out, but it was the longest ten minutes of my entire life.”
“Thank goodness neither of you was hurt.”
“Yes, for sure, but my nerves were wrecked for weeks. I’m doing better now, but it was a sobering reminder of what can happen in a heartbeat.”
“That’s the part that has me paralyzed with indecision. Olly and I… We did everything right with Lewis. We never let him out of our sight. We had him in swim lessons as an infant. And still, the worst possible thing happened.”
“I felt that way about my kids, too. I was the safety mom, always reminding them to be careful and to watch out for things that could hurt them. In the end, there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent what happened to them. Took me a lot of years, and a lot of therapy, to be able to say there was nothing I could’ve done, and there was nothing you could’ve done to stop what happened to Lewis.”
“I wish I hadn’t been working on a Sunday,” Dara said.
“And I wish I hadn’t fallen asleep watching football,” Oliver added.
“There was nothing either of you could’ve done to prevent an accident. That’s what it was. An accident. And by their very definition, accidents are things that shouldn’t have happened. I’m not sure if you believe in fate or higher powers or anything like that, but I do. I believe there’s a grand plan for all of us, and we’re just along for the ride. Believing that helps me to understand there was nothing I could’ve done to save my family.”
“I believe that, too, or at least I always had until we lost Lewis,” Dara said. “Now I’m not sure what I believe, but I’m trying to get back to my faith along with everything else that was once important to me.”
“The best advice I was given after my loss was to accept that I was spared for a reason. I think that reason was for me to come back here, to rekindle an old flame with Luke and to have Lily. I’ve come to believe this life, the one I’m leading now, was the one that was meant to be, but that doesn’t take anything away from the life I had with Seth and the kids. It’s hard to explain that to people who haven’t lived through what we have.”
Dara felt like Sydney was speaking directly to her battered soul. “You’ll never know what it means to me to talk to someone who truly understands.”
“I do know. I really do. I’ll always be sorry you had to lose your sweet boy for our paths to cross, but we can never have too many friends.”
“Thank you, Syd. Thank you so much.”
Luke came back out a few minutes later and, after checking the grill, declared dinner ready.
“And Mommy’s off duty, so it’s wine o’clock,” Syd said, throwing her hands in the air.
Dara laughed and followed her inside to help finish the dinner preparations while thinking about the advice Syd had given her. She was still here for a reason, and though she’d yet to figure out what that reason was, at least she was back to working, functioning and connecting with Oliver, not to mention breathing easier than she had since that dreadful day.
She’d take the progress where she could find it and appreciated Sydney’s generous offer of friendship.
Chapter 22
When Gigi was in eighth grade, her class took a trip to the Grand Canyon. She and her classmates had prepared for the trip for months, but when the day of departure finally arrived, Gigi found out her parents never submitted the permission slip or paid the fee, so she couldn’t go on the trip. She’d been absolutely devastated. That was the first time Evelyn Hopper stepped up for her, marching into Gigi’s so-called mother’s office to demand she sign the permission slip. Evelyn had also paid for Gigi to go on the trip and had made a scene at the school that’d resulted in Gigi boarding the bus minutes before it was due to leave.
Evelyn had saved the day, and Gigi had never forgotten what Evelyn had done for her or how amazing the Grand Canyon was.
Why was she thinking of that now, as the late-afternoon sun streamed into her bedroom? Cooper was out cold next to her, his arm across her middle, anchoring her to him. As she watched him sleep, she realized why she’d thought of the field trip. She’d dreamed about falling off the side of the Grand Canyon. The familiar dream had shown up occasionally after that trip to remind her not to get too close to the edge.
With Cooper, she’d already fallen into the canyon, so it was a bit late for warnings. She’d allowed him liberties no one else had ever taken with her, although “allowed” was a stretch. He’d done it without asking, and she’d loved it. Just remembering the way he’d played her body like a virtuoso had her tingling with desire.
This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. The kind of entanglement he wanted was the last freaking thing she needed. So why was he still there?
That was a very good question and one she had no clear answer to.