Sierra put her hand on Dede’s shoulder. “I mostly did it for you, Mom, but I also wanted to see if I could do it without making today about the past. And I can. Today is about me and Mason and our love story.” She held her glass up toward the poster, the past and future represented. “I want to keep looking forward, not back.”
“I hoped you’d feel that way.”
Sierra glanced over at Mason talking to his friend and neighbor, Luke Thompson, with Oliver hanging on Mason’s back, his chin propped on Mason’s shoulder. “Look at him. At them. How could I not be happy today?”
“I just want you to know I know it’s there under all the good and I appreciate that you’re strong enough to bury it and appreciate what you do have, not what you lost.”
“Maybe it’s callous . . .” Sierra frowned. “Or maybe it’s just my way of coping, but what Mason and I have is so much bigger and better than what I had with David. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad.”
Dede touched Sierra’s hand. “I’ve been married and divorced three times, sweetheart, I know what you mean. The love you have for Mason is different from what you felt for David. It’s okay to feel that way. It’s okay to celebrate it without feeling like you’re disparaging David’s memory and what you had with him before it went bad.”
“I don’t feel bad. I’ve gotten to a place where I can hold on to the good and not let the bad steal the joy from that. We loved each other. We had two children together. That’s worth holding on to fondly without letting the bad taint it.”
“Good for you, Sierra.” Dede hugged Sierra again and whispered her wish, “Maybe in time, you’ll be able to do that with your sister.”
* * *
The caterer waved her mom over and Sierra took a minute to appreciate her mom for being the rock she needed and the thread that tied Heather, Amy, and Sierra together.
“I know you invited her, but are you ready for me to ask her to leave?” Amy pointed her wine glass at Heather, who walked back into the garden area from the path that led to the pond and shed.
It made Sierra think of how Heather and David snuck off there. Anger flared, but the sad look in Heather’s red-rimmed eyes drew sympathy from what she thought was her hardened heart.
Sierra thought about her trip back to the shed with Mason and how the memories came back and filled her with all the emotions she’d felt then and now for him.
Heather missed David. She’d loved him. They’d had a child together.
If David hadn’t been Sierra’s husband and she saw her sister in this state over a man she’d loved and lost, how would she feel?
She’d sympathize. She’d want to comfort and console her sister.
No one had done that for Heather because David had been Sierra’s husband.
What they did was wrong, no doubt. It caused a lot of damage.
Heather deserved to feel terrible for what she’d done.
But for the first time Sierra put herself in her sister’s place. Heather mourned David. She missed him. She wished for him.
Sierra felt all those things when he died and she was just a widow, not the wife of a philanderer. That’s who David turned her into after she grieved and found out about what he did.
That’s not who David was to Heather.
“I need to talk to her.”
Amy scoffed. “You’re not seriously going to forgive her for what she did.”
Sierra met Amy’s disbelieving gaze. “She’s been carrying the weight of what happened for both her and David.”
“Because she deserves it.”
“She knows that. But I can’t keep feeding this anger. I’m working harder at hating her than I am on forgiving her. Maybe if I did it the other way around, this pit in my stomach every time I think about her would go away, because I don’t want to hate my sister.” It hurt her heart to shut her sister out like this, to think such terrible things about her, to wish bad things for her. She couldn’t do it anymore.
Amy sighed. “I know what you mean. It’s hard. She left me a message last week asking if I’d call her with the name and number of a good babysitter. I don’t know if she didn’t want to ask me to watch Hallee for her, or she wants someone as backup, or what. I want to see my niece. I want her to know that I’ll always help with Hallee and that if she’s really in a bind, I’m here.”
“That’s just it. You and Mom got sucked into our drama. I’m sure Heather feels like it’s us against her because of what she did. I don’t want it to be that way. I don’t want Mom to feel like she’s stuck in the middle of us for the rest of her life, like she can’t support both of us without feeling guilty or disloyal to either of us. As a mom, I feel for her, because I don’t know that I could do that with Danny and Oliver.”
“Me, either. P.J. and Emma have their squabbles. I help them work it out. Mom can’t fix this with forced apologies and making you two talk it out. This is a deep kind of hurt. Talking about it will only hurt more.”
“Maybe the only way past this is through the hurt.” Sierra grasped Amy’s arm. “Thanks for being on my side, but I want you to know it’s okay to have her back, too.”
“You’re a kinder person than I am. I don’t think I would have worked my way through this the way you have and gotten to a point where I could even contemplate talking to her, let alone trying to work it out.”
“I feel like if I don’t try, I’ll regret it. If David was still here, I’d want to find a way to at least be civil with each other for the kids’ sake. The least I can do is give my sister the same courtesy for the same reason.”
“When you put it like that, yeah, it makes sense.” Amy bounced her gaze from Sierra to Heather and back. “We do a lot for our kids.” Amy hugged her, then gave her an encouraging smile.
Sierra walked toward Heather, stopping briefly to clasp hands with Mason who’d stood by watching her and Amy quietly talking alone. He had to know the gist of the conversation and where she was headed. He gave her a reassuring smile and let her move on toward her sister.
Heather sat alone, her head down, holding a drink she hadn’t touched. Her head snapped up when Sierra approached the table and took the seat across from her.
“Uh. Hello.”
“Hi.” They had to break the ice somehow. Inane greetings seemed a good way to start, but Sierra wanted to make this as quick and painless as possible. “You hurt me.”
“I know.” Heather looked her in the eye, hers filled with remorse and pain. “I’m sorry.”
Sierra took that in and let it settle in her heart. “I believe you.”
“You do? Why? After what I did . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t take it back.”
“I sincerely doubt you’d want to.” Otherwise it wouldn’t have continued after the first encounter. And then there was Hallee.
One side of Heather’s mouth drew back in a half frown and tears glistened in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
Because they weren’t meant to share the details. Those memories belonged to Heather. Sierra didn’t need to pile on to the hurt by hearing all the sordid specifics.