Buried to the Brim

by Jenn McKinlay

  My father turned up his collar, bracing for the cold March air. He looked equal parts disappointed and frustrated. “Suit yourself.”

  He turned away and I sat frozen. I hated this. I didn’t want us to part company like this but I couldn’t change how I felt. I waited, feeling miserable, for him to walk away, but instead he turned back toward me. Rather than being furious with me, which would have allowed me to dig in my heels and push back, he looked sad.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “You used to be the girl with the big heart who was going to save the world.”

  I didn’t say anything. His disappointment and confusion washed over me like a bath of rank sludge.

  “I grew up,” I said. But even in my own ears I sounded defensive.

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. Quite the opposite. You stopped growing at all.”

  “Are you kidding me? In the past seven years, I have raised millions to help the fight against cancer. How can you say I haven’t grown?” I asked. I was working up a nice froth of indignation. “I’m trying to make a difference.”

  “That’s your career,” he said. “Being great at your profession doesn’t mean you’ve grown personally. Chels, look at your life. You work seven days a week. You never take time off. You don’t date. You have no friends. Heck, if we didn’t have a standing brunch date, I doubt I’d ever see you except on holidays. What kind of life is that?”

  I turned my head to stare out the window at Boylston Street. I couldn’t believe my father was belittling how hard I worked for the American Cancer Coalition. I had busted my butt to become the top corporate fund-raiser in the organization, and with the exception of one pesky coworker, my status was unquestioned.

  He sighed. I refused to look at him. “Chels, I’m not saying what you’ve accomplished isn’t important. It’s just that you’ve changed over the past few years. I can’t remember the last time you brought someone special home for me to meet. It’s as if you’ve sealed yourself off since you mother—”

  I whipped my head in his direction, daring him to talk about my mother in the same conversation where he announced he was remarrying.

  “Chels, you’re here!” a voice cried from the fitting room entrance on the opposite side of the store. I glanced away from my dad to see my younger sister, Annabelle, standing there in an explosion of hot pink satin and tulle trimmed with a wide swath of sparkling crystals.

  “What. Is. That?” I looked from Annabelle to our father and back. The crystals reflected the fluorescent light overhead, making me see spots, or perhaps I was having a stroke. Hard to say.

  “It’s our dress!” Annabelle squealed. Then she twirled. The long tulle skirt fanned out from the form-fitting satin bodice and Annabelle’s long dark curls streamed out around her. She looked like a demented fairy princess. “Do you love it or do you love it?”

  “No, I don’t love it. It’s hideous!” I cried. The seamstress glared at me, looking as if she was going to take some of the pins out of the pincushion strapped to her wrist and come stab me a few hundred times. I lowered my voice, a little. “Have you both gone insane? Seriously, what the hell is happening?”

  Annabelle staggered to a stop. She reeled a little bit as she walked toward us, looking more like a drunk princess than a fey one.

  “How can you be happy about this?” I snapped at her. I gestured to the dress. “Have you not known me for all of your twenty-seven years? How could you possibly think I would be okay with this?”

  Annabelle grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. “By ‘this’ do you mean the dress or the whole wedding thing?”

  “Of course I mean the whole wedding thing,” I growled. “Dad is clearly having some middle-aged crisis and there’s you just going along with it for a sparkly dress. Damn it, Annabelle, couldn’t you for once get your head out of your ass and think about someone other than yourself?”

  “Chelsea.” Dad’s voice was low with warning. “Don’t speak to your sister that way.”

  Annabelle blinked at me, looking surprised and a little hurt. “I am thinking about someone. I’m thinking about Dad. I kind of feel like I have a vested interest, given that it was my auction that brought Dad and Sheri together.”

  “Because you, like Dad, have gone completely mental!” I snapped. “Two weeks is not long enough to determine whether you should marry someone or not. My God, it takes longer to get a passport. What are you thinking, supporting this insanity?”

  “Chels, that’s not fair and you know it,” Dad said.

  My expression must have been full-on angry bear because he changed tack immediately, his expression softening.

  “When did you stop letting love into your heart?” he asked. His voice was gentler, full of parental concern, which rolled off my back like water off a duck. He didn’t get to judge me when he was marrying a person he barely knew. “Is this really how you want to live your life, Chels, with no one special to share it with? Because, I don’t.”

  I turned back to the window, refusing to answer. With a sigh weighty with disappointment, he left. I watched his reflection in the glass grow smaller and smaller as he departed. I couldn’t remember the last time we had argued, leaving harsh words between us festering like a canker sore. Ever since Mom had died, the awareness of how precious life was remained ever present and we always, always, said “I love you” at the end of a conversation, even when we weren’t getting along.

  I thought about running after him and saying I was sorry, that I was happy for him and Sheri, but it would be a lie and I knew I wasn’t a good enough actress to pull it off. I just couldn’t make myself do it. Instead, I tossed back my second mimosa because mimosas, unlike family, were always reliable.

  About the Author

  A true Anglophile, New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay loves all things British. In her idea of a perfect world, every day would include high tea or wearing a fabulous hat, or both. This adoration of all things U.K. inspired her to write the Hat Shop Mysteries, which are set in London, one of her most favorite cities in the world. She now gets to visit there regularly--for research purposes, of course.

  In addition to being the author of the Hat Shop Mysteries, Jenn also writes the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries, the Library Lover's Mysteries, the Bluff Point Romances, and the Happily Ever After Romances.

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