Rachel
“For the love of Christopher Robin, can you please give me five more minutes? That’s all I need. Five minutes.”
“But I’m starving!” Her five-year-old daughter, Ava, whined, just as if she hadn’t finished a mozzarella stick and several apple slices a half hour earlier. “If I don’t eat something, I’m going to die. Can I have one of your cookies?”
“Eat.” Her brother, Silas, echoed the sentiment if not the words.
Rachel Clayton McBride closed her eyes and released a heavy breath to keep from snapping back. She dredged up a calm smile. “Give me five more minutes and I will be done taking pictures, I promise. Then I can make you some macaroni and cheese.”
“I don’t want macaroni and cheese. I want a cookie.”
Of course she did. If Rachel had said she would give her a cookie, Ava would have said she was in the mood for macaroni and cheese. She was in training for the debate Olympics, apparently.
“I don’t need a cookie, Mama,” her other daughter, Grace, said from the kitchen table in a prim voice that seemed out of place in a seven-year-old girl.
She knew her oldest well enough to be quite certain Grace would quickly change her tune if Rachel actually did start doling out cookies to Grace’s younger siblings. That wasn’t going to happen with these particular cookies. She had worked too hard on them to see them gobbled up by little mouths that wouldn’t appreciate the nuances of flavor.
“Grace, could you please grab a granola bar for Ava and Silas?”
“I don’t want a granola bar,” Ava whined. “I want one of those. It’s purple and pretty.”
Ava pointed to the tray of perfectly decorated almond sugar cookies Rachel had been working on all afternoon.
“I told you when we were making them. These are for my book group tonight. I made some for only us and you can have one after dinner.”
“But they’re so pretty. Why can’t I have one now?” Ava whined.
“Because you can’t.” It was the worst sort of maternal response but she was just about out of patience for the day.
Undeterred, Silas reached on tiptoe for one but still couldn’t reach. If she hadn’t been focused on the photographs for her blog and social media properties, she might have seen the telltale signs of a tantrum. The jutted-out lip, the rising color, the obstinate jawline.
He grunted and tried to reach.
“See? Silas wants one, too,” Ava informed her. “Daddy would give us one.”
“I’m sure he would. But Daddy’s not here right now, is he?”
All right. She was heading straight into full-on bitch mode. It wasn’t Ava’s fault that her father seemed to be spending more and more time working these days.
She wanted to think it was simply an uptick in the construction business that had him leaving before sunrise and coming home after dark most days. As the owner of a successful roofing company, her husband had plenty of obligations outside the home—which meant most of the work inside the home fell on Rachel’s shoulders.
She hoped work was the reason Cody was gone so much, anyway, and that he wasn’t trying to avoid the hard realities of home life, especially their son’s early diagnosis of autism two months earlier.
When Cody was home, he seemed distracted, as if he couldn’t wait to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
She shoved down the low, constant thrum of anxiety to focus on her children. “A granola bar or nothing,” she told Ava. “Those are your choices until dinner. Silas, you can’t do that. No. Play with your car on the floor.”
As she might have expected, her son ignored her. She might as well have been talking to one of those flower-shaped cookies. He continued driving his car along the edge of the island.
At least he hadn’t had a meltdown over not getting a cookie. Rachel decided to focus on the positive as she took a few more shots of two cookies on a piece of antique china she had picked up at a thrift store.
This would make a beautiful post about spring baking when she shared the recipe on her blog, she thought.
Her phone rang with Cody’s distinctive ringtone, a jazz song they had danced to on an amazing trip to Sonoma for their anniversary some years back.
She was quite certain she had conceived Silas on that trip.
Even though doctors had told her it wasn’t the case, Rachel still wondered whether Silas’s autism was a result of all the wine she had consumed, in between magical afternoons spent making love.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly. Oh, how she missed sex. It had been weeks, for one reason or another.
“Hey, babe. I’m going to be late again. I’m sorry. I’m down two guys and the job is taking longer than we thought. It’s supposed to rain overnight and we can’t leave the Tanners with a hole in their roof.”
“Again? You promised you would be home on time tonight! I have my book group, remember?”
Rachel had been holding on desperately to the idea of a little adult conversation. Okay, most of the time her group rarely actually managed to make time to discuss the book. It was more about drinking wine and having a discussion that didn’t involve her wiping someone’s nose or telling someone else to stop jumping on the furniture.
“Oh, damn. I completely forgot about book group. Maybe my mom could sit with the kids until I get home.”
He could remember the batting average of every single hitter on the Giants lineup but didn’t bother to remember the one night a month when she could pretend to have a life outside her kids.
“Your mom will be at the book group. I can’t ask her to miss it to tend my kids. So will your sister and Jan.”
Those were about the only people she dared entrust with all three of her children, especially considering Silas’s behavior issues.
“What time is it over? I should be able to wrap things up here and leave the rest of the job to the guys so I can be home by eight. You would only be a little late.”
“Don’t bother. It’s fine. Finish the job.”
“No. I’ll see what I can do. I don’t want you to miss book group.”
“You said it yourself. You can’t leave the Tanners with a hole in their roof with rain in the forecast. Do what you need to do. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he repeated. “I’ve got to go. Love you.”
It sounded so practiced, so casually offhand that she suddenly wanted to cry.
“Bye,” she said, tapping her wireless earbud to end the call.
She stared into space, aching inside for everything that had gotten in the way of the vast love they used to share.
She was distracted from her grim thoughts by a clatter and matching squeals from the girls. When she whirled around, she found Silas and Ava standing over her tray of beautiful sugar cookies, now a jumble of broken glass, crumbs and frosting all over the floor. An entire day of work. She had been working on them all day and had finally perfected the lavender-infused icing.
“Look what you’ve done!” she exclaimed. The stress of the day chasing kids seemed to pour over her like water gushing over the cliffs to the ocean.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Ava said, tears dripping. “We didn’t mean to ruin your cookies. I was trying to look at one when you were on the phone. Only look. And Silas grabbed it and the whole tray fell down.”
“They were so pretty.” Grace wandered over to look at the disaster with a mournful look. “Now they’re trash. Should I clean them up and throw them away?”
Grace was being helpful, she knew, but Rachel still couldn’t like the way her daughter was always so eager to throw away anything that wasn’t perfect, whether it was a coloring page where she went outside the line or a toy with a broken piece.
Silas sat down and picked up a cookie piece from the floor. Before Rachel could stop him, he popped it into his mouth.
“Silas, stop. Don’t eat that. There’s glass.”
He looked at her, barely acknowledging she was there, and picked up another broken cookie to eat.
She wasn’t even sure he would notice if he ate glass. His reactions to things were sometimes so far out of the realm of what most people would consider normal. He could hold his hand under hot water without making a sound but have a complete meltdown if she left a tag on his shirt that bothered him.
“No,” she said again and swooped around the kitchen island to pick him up and physically move him out of harm’s way.
As she might have expected, Silas didn’t like that. He wriggled to get down, grunting his displeasure at her. “You’ll hurt yourself on glass,” she said.
He started banging his head back against her, something new and fun he had recently discovered.
“Stop,” she ordered. How did he manage to wriggle his body and buck his head like that at the same time? Sometimes keeping him from danger was like wrestling an angry baby alligator.
She had finally managed to restrain him and calm him a little when the doorbell rang, starting him up again.
“I’ll get it.” Ever helpful, Grace sailed to the front door before Rachel could remind her that they didn’t always have to answer the door every time it rang.
Great. Just what she needed. Someone to witness what a disaster she was making of her life.
Silas continued to fight so that he could be free to eat sugarcoated broken glass while Ava sat on the floor sobbing quietly, though Rachel couldn’t tell whether she was crying because of what she and her younger brother had done or because of the cookies she could no longer eat.
She almost forgot the doorbell had rung until she heard a whoop of excitement out of Grace. A moment later, the last person she expected to see that day walked into the kitchen.
Jess, her older sister. Jess, who lived a rambling life and was usually on the other side of the country.
Jess, who hadn’t given her one single whiff of warning that she might be coming to Cape Sanctuary.
Her sister surveyed the chaos of broken cookies and upset children with the impassive expression she always seemed to wear whenever she was around Rachel and her family.
“Looks like I’ve come at a bad time.”
“Aunt Jess!” Ava exclaimed. Her tears miraculously dried as she launched herself at her aunt, who hugged her with a little laugh.
Rachel couldn’t seem to stop staring.
Jess was as stunning as ever, her sun-streaked hair shorter than Rachel remembered. She wore hardly any makeup but was still beautiful. Lean, fit, with a flat belly that had obviously never had anything to do with giving birth to three children.
Her sister lived almost the length of the state away and rarely even came for a scheduled visit, let alone an unexpected one.
“Jess. What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming?”
“Surprise.” Her older sister smiled, though it seemed forced. “I picked up a job in this area so that I can spend time with you and the kids.”
“A job?”
She knew Jess helped people, usually senior citizens, clear out their houses before moving. Rachel considered it a strange occupation but her sister seemed to thrive on it.
“Yes. I’ll be here for a few weeks cleaning out a place over near Sunshine Cove.”
Rachel knew a handful of people who lived in that area of Seaview Road but didn’t have time to figure out who might have enlisted her sister’s help. She was too busy trying to figure out what her sister was really doing there.
And also trying to face the fact that her relationship with Jess was yet one more area of Rachel’s life where she was failing. Their bond had been broken for a long time and at this point she didn’t know how to repair it.
“That’s great,” she said now. “So great.”
Did her voice sound as hollow to her sister as it did to Rachel? Could Jess tell her presence was a shock on par with a UFO landing in the backyard?
“I haven’t spent nearly enough time with the kids. A few phone calls and visits here and there during the holidays. I’m looking forward to spending more time with them.”
“Wow. They’ll love that.” Rachel tried to infuse her voice with warmth and delight but it took every iota of her limited acting skills.
How could she pretend to be overflowing with joy when her insides felt as hollow as her words?
She was tired, frustrated, afraid for her marriage, worried about her son’s future and upset about her book club cookies. She didn’t know if she had time to deal with all the guilt and pain inextricably tangled with her sister.
“I wish you had told me you were coming. I could have planned dinner for you or something. I was just about to make some macaroni and cheese for the girls. I can cook extra, if you would like.”
“Not necessary,” Jess said with that same blasted smile that Rachel couldn’t read. “Thank you, but I just went grocery shopping and have plenty of food back at my trailer. I can help you clean up that mess, though. Looks like we had a cookie accident.”
“Eat,” Silas demanded, his voice more urgent.
“You can’t eat those,” Rachel said again. “They have glass on them. Yucky. Owie.”
“Eat!” Silas said, more loudly and forcefully. He had temporarily stopped wriggling in light of their surprise visitor but continued his efforts now to be free.
“You deal with him. I’ll clean this up. Point me to your broom and dustpan,” Jess said.
Rachel didn’t want to accept her help, which she knew was stupid. Her sister was only being kind. There was just so much painful history between them, so many unresolved issues that hung in the air like their father’s cigar smoke.
The truth was, she did need help. Silas was gearing up for a full-on meltdown if she didn’t head it off first.
“In the closet off the mudroom.”
With her chin, Rachel pointed vaguely in the direction she meant.
“I can show you,” Grace said, ever helpful.
Jess followed her. Rachel gave in and found the tin containing all the less-than-perfect cookies she had saved for the kids and Cody. She pulled one out for Silas, and two more for Grace and Ava, then pulled another for her sister.
While Jess cleaned up the mess, Rachel held her son at the table while he enjoyed his cookie as Grace and Ava regaled her sister with a play-by-play of what had transpired a few minutes earlier.
“These look like delicious cookies,” was Jess’s only comment. “Were they for some kind of special event?”
“I was supposed to have book club tonight. But I guess it’s fine that they’re ruined. Cody has to work late so I can’t go anyway.”
She tried for that same cheerful tone that she was far from feeling. As she might have suspected, Jess wasn’t fooled. Her sister gave her a careful look that Rachel met with an impassive smile of her own. She refused to let her sister see the cracks in the foundation of her marriage.
“He’s got so much work right now, it’s crazy. We’re having a construction boom in this area, plus you wouldn’t believe all the people who had storm damage from nasty weather this winter and decided to get entirely new roofs once they received an insurance check.”
“That’s great. It’s good that he’s staying busy.”
“Super busy.”
“These cookies are fantastic,” Jess said. “What did you do differently from usual sugar cookies?”
“To start with, I use the finest quality ingredients and I like almond extract instead of vanilla. But a lot of people do that. The real secret is in the icing. I add powdered culinary lavender to give it an extra pop. Some people add that to the dough but I like the flavor it brings to the icing instead.”
“I never would have thought of adding lavender to cookies. I didn’t know you could even do that. But it’s really delicious.”
Jess looked at the cookies then back at Rachel. “You know, I could probably stay with the kids until Cody gets home so that you don’t have to miss your book group.”
The offer shocked her almost as much as the fact that Jess was sitting here at her kitchen table eating one of her imperfect lavender sugar cookies. She was instantly tempted. Friends, conversation, alcohol. Mostly a few hours away from the unrelenting work involved in trying to stay sane amid the chaos of three children under the age of seven, including one with special needs.
Before she could agree, Silas wriggled off her lap and zeroed straight for his car, flapping his hands as he had started to do.
She couldn’t leave Jess with Silas. Not now, when his behavior was so out of control. She shrugged. “It’s fine. I haven’t read the book anyway.”
“I really don’t mind. As I said, I’ve been looking forward to spending more time with them while I’m here in Cape Sanctuary.”
“No. But thank you,” she said firmly, then changed the subject to avoid further argument. “You said you’re staying near Sunshine Cove. Are you helping Eleanor Whitaker?”
Jess made a face. “I try not to talk about my work, for the client’s privacy. But since that’s where my trailer is parked right now, which is easy enough to find, you will eventually figure it out. Yes. I’m helping Eleanor clean out Whitaker House.”
“Oh, I love that place. It’s so gorgeous and dripping with history.”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea Eleanor was cleaning it out. Is she putting it on the market? I have many contacts online who would jump at the chance to buy that house, right on the water with those views and that gorgeous Craftsman architecture.”
“I don’t know her plans. I only know she’s asked me to help her clear out years of accumulated stuff.”
“Is she having an estate sale? Oh wow, the treasures I bet you could find in there.”
“We still have to figure all that out. I don’t know her plans. And I couldn’t share them, even if I knew. My clients trust me not to talk about their business.”
“I totally get it. No problem. I’ll just ask her myself. Eleanor is one of my good friends. In fact, she’s supposed to be going to book club tonight.”
“Except you’re not going to book club because you don’t think I can handle staying with your kids.”
“I never said that,” Rachel protested, though of course that was absolutely what she thought.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have plenty of other chances to hang out with them.”
“Yay!” Grace exclaimed, already gazing with hero worship at her aunt. “Did you see my coloring page? I only messed up one place. See, on the dog’s head? I wanted both ears to be brown but I forgot and did one ear black. You can’t erase crayons.”
“That is an unfortunate truth,” Jess said. “But I like a dog who has different-colored ears. It gives him a little more personality.”
Grace glowed under the praise, making Rachel painfully aware that she didn’t give her child enough of it.
“Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner?” she asked. “It’s no trouble.”
“That’s very kind of you, especially when I showed up out of the blue, but I should probably head back. Unless Eleanor decides to take off for book group, we’re supposed to be meeting when she returns to town so we can figure out a few things before we start working tomorrow.”
Rachel was ashamed of the relief she felt that she wouldn’t have to continue making awkward conversation with a sister who had become a virtual stranger over the years.
“I wouldn’t want you to keep her waiting, then. Eleanor is pretty special.”
“Do you have to go?” Ava whined, tugging on Jess’s hand. “I haven’t even showed you my new stuffed dog.”
“I’ll be around for a few weeks. I’m sure I’ll get the chance to see it soon.”
“When will you come back?” Ava asked.
“I don’t know for sure. But soon.”
“Tomorrow?” Grace pressed.
“Maybe not tomorrow since I’ll be working that day.”
“What about the day after tomorrow?” Ava asked.
“Girls, give your aunt a break,” Rachel said before Jess could reply. “She’s here to work, not play with you guys.”
“But I’ll find time to play with you while I’m here, I promise,” Jess said. “I would love to spend time with the kids in the evening, when I’m done helping Eleanor. Maybe you and Cody could get out for a night away or something.”
“That would be great,” Rachel said. The only trick would be persuading her husband to leave work for five minutes, a task at which she did not expect she could succeed. That also left the issue of Silas, who didn’t do well with other people.
Still, it was nice of Jess to offer.
Rachel walked her sister to the door, where they exchanged an awkward sort of hug that made her heart hurt.
Once upon a time, Jess had been her best friend. They had been inseparable, united by their shared experiences. Living with a harsh father in the military who moved his family every two or three years had drawn them closer together than typical sisters. Making outside friends had been a challenge in that environment.
That was only one of the reasons they had come to depend entirely on each other.
Everything had changed the year Rachel turned thirteen, that horrible summer when the world fell apart.
She didn’t want to think about that time. She preferred to block it out of her mind—the fear, the pain, the shared trauma.
Instead, she preferred to focus on what she had, the life she had rebuilt brick by brick out of the rubble that had been left behind.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said now to Jess. Her sister gave her a surprised look and for the first time she thought she saw something beneath the careful facade of politeness.
“Same,” Jess said, her voice gruff.
“Eat!” Silas demanded, wriggling again to be free.
“I’ll call you soon and we can get away, the two of us, to catch up.”
“Sounds good,” Jess said, then walked with her purposeful stride out the door and down the walkway to the pickup truck she had parked at the curb, leaving Rachel to wrestle her child and her demons at the same time.