I wish, I wish. I wish you had another one in you.
She chuckled to herself. As it had always been, Johanna knew the exact wish she would make, but no amount of magic was going to somehow make Bitterly closer to Cape May. She slipped the chain over Julietta’s head.
“We all agree, you should have it,” she said. “You believed the most.”
Eyes welling, Julietta only hugged her, nearly breaking the rose’s long stem in doing so. Johanna held her all the tighter. The youngest of them all had, in fairytale fashion, truly believed the most, but Johanna would never forget the chimes and the pop-candy feeling when her sister made her wish, even if she would never tell anyone about it.
“I didn’t think I could be this happy,” Julietta whispered, drawing away. “Is that cliché for a bride to say on her wedding day?”
“Probably, but who cares?”
“This is how Mom felt about Dad. This is what was at the root of it all. Their life together couldn’t be all bad, could it?”
“No. It couldn’t.”
Julietta leaned back against Johanna, their gazes meeting in the mirror. “I just wish they had it better.”
“They had what they had. Don’t fret about what was or wasn’t. You and Efan are going to live happily-ever-after in Great Barrington among all those books and students and knowledge. I can’t imagine anything better.”
Julietta’s gaze dropped.
“Jules?” Johanna turned her sister around. “What’s wrong?”
Julietta shrugged.
“Are you afraid about moving out of Bitterly? Of leaving home?”
“Of course I am.” Julietta laughed softly. “But Sam says the more I cling to everything staying the same, the more I’m going to need it to. So I’m going. I have to. I want to. Efan will be my something familiar. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. It’s going to take a little while to start really believing it.”
A light tap on the door turned their attention. Julietta nodded, and Johanna answered it. “Ready for us?”
“Ready,” Darren-at-the-desk answered. “If we don’t start this soon, I believe we’re going to have to tie the groom down so he doesn’t float off like a helium balloon.”
Johanna checked her hair and dress in the mirror. “This is it, baby-sis.”
“You have the rings?”
Johanna pulled the little pouch out of her dress.
Julietta laughed. “Please don’t keep it in there during the ceremony. Emma will have a cow.”
Kissing her sister’s cheek, Johanna gripped the rings in one hand. She offered her sister the other and together, they left the office serving as the bridal dressing room.
There was no house of worship at Wolf Moon Lodge, only a sanctuary to serve as a place of peace for the residents to take refuge in. Julietta’s request to be married there, in that place her mother lived and died, had first been met with friction. Penny, as she insisted they call her, had advocated on her behalf, dragging Darren into the appeal and ultimately winning permission. Johanna was close to certain Nina pulled strings only their warrior-sister had the connections and fearlessness to pull, but she denied it. Gunner only winked and smiled the way Poppy always did when Gram was up to something he would not tattle on, and for that, Johanna loved her brother-in-law even more.
Walking into the sanctuary together, Julietta gripped her hand tighter when Johanna would let her go.
“Walk with me,” she said.
Heart swelling, pride welling, Johanna Elsbet Coco accompanied her baby sister down the aisle, through whispered encouragement, teasing, and love, from one life into another.
“Cariad,” Efan whispered, taking Julietta’s hand. Sam, no longer Dr. Sam or Dr. Chowdary, left his place beside Efan and offered Johanna his arm. She took it and stepped away, knowing already she was forgotten, and happy to be so. She slipped onto the bench beside Charlie, leaning into him when his arm went around her shoulders. He kissed her temple.
“You okay?”
“I am spectacular,” she whispered back.
“Yes, you are.” Charlie kissed her neck, and thankfully, let it go at that. They had been going at one another like porn stars since the first time in the woods. Johanna kept waiting for it to mellow into something more rational, but even after being caught mauling one another, in the car outside the movie theater, by Caleb who would not get into the car with his new girlfriend until all the windows had cleared of steam, it didn’t. She wasn’t sure if age or exhaustion would kick in first. Johanna hoped neither.
Efan wept through his vows, unembarrassed sobs that elicited tears from almost everyone witnessing, even Charlie’s older boys, who pretended itchy eyes rather than admit it. Julietta wiped away her almost-husband’s tears with her thumbs. She kissed him tenderly, and promised her love without a single hitch in her voice. Darren-at-the-desk, who also happened to be a justice-of-the-peace, pronounced them husband and wife. The gathering cheered. Millie tossed rose petals behind the departing bride and groom.
“Tony, Henry, no,” the little girl wailed. “Gio, don’t eat them!”
“Knock it off, guys,” Ian scolded his younger brothers, and Millie’s twin. “You’re such babies. Come on, Millie. You toss. I’ll make sure they leave them be.”
Emmaline’s oldest held out his hand to Charlie’s youngest. Millie gazed up at him with little-girl-worship Ian didn’t seem to notice. He led her to the front of the sanctuary, glaring the other boys motionless.
Johanna nudged Emma who had come to stand beside her. “We might have a problem there in a few years.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a McCallan fell for a Coco,” Charlie said, burying his face in Johanna’s curls.
“You two are like cats in heat.” Emma laughed. “Charlie, get off my sister and go help Gunner and Mike shepherd everyone to the dining room. Please.”
Emma batted her lashes playfully. Charlie leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Hint taken. I’ll see you ladies inside.”
Emma’s eyes stayed on Charlie’s back until he was gone. She took Johanna’s hand and led her away from the aisle where people were still filing out.
“Something wrong?” Johanna asked quickly. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, actually. I just wanted a minute with you.”
“All right. What’s up?”
Emma shifted from foot to foot. “We Cocos are very close,” she began, “but we all know Nina and I are closer, and you and Jules are closer. No, don’t protest.” She held up her hands when Johanna opened her mouth to do just that. “It’s nothing to do with love and everything to do with personality. I’ll fly to the sun for any of you. This is not what I wanted to say.”
“Start again, then. Take your time.”
Emma took a deep breath, let it go slowly. “Remember the talk we had, about me and Mike and all that?”
“Of course.”
“I took it to heart, Jo. I wanted you to know, you were right. Mike and I were in a terrible cycle of misunderstanding and, well, rebellion is probably the best word for it. We haven’t been happy in a long time. Me wanting babies and him having a vasectomy are symptoms to something bigger.”
“What are you saying?” Johanna grasped both her sister’s hands. “Divorce?”
Emma did not answer right away, and Johanna’s heart sank. Her eyes welled.
“Don’t start crying.” Emma hugged her quickly. “That’s what I have been thinking about, Jo, right up until today when Julietta and Efan said their vows. It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, try.”
“I am. Before Gram died and all this started, I would have divorced him if I had the money. I was furious, but I was also unhappy, and so was he. On New Year’s Eve, I thought everything could be good again, and then all that happened with Jules and we found Mom and I realized what real, eternal love actually was, and I wanted that. But…”
“But? Emma, come on.”
&n
bsp; “I have the money now, Jo,” she said. “The inheritance would allow me to start over again, buy the house on County Line Road and raise my boys where I was raised. I could go back to college and never have to worry about where the money for bills would come from. I can have all I ever thought I wanted, but sitting here today, watching Julietta and Efan promise their love to one another, I looked at Mike. He looked at me. I saw it in his face, Jo. He’s afraid.”
“He loves you.”
“I know he does, but I don’t think he remembered until the possibility of losing me hit him. We’ve been butting heads for so long, we forgot how to love one another, that we do love one another.” Emma sighed. “It might not be what Mom and Dad had, or what Jules and Efan do, but it is what we have. And it worked once. Now that I have the cushion I’d need if it doesn’t, it makes me want to make it work instead of have to. I’ll tell you, Jo, it makes a huge difference to me. It really does.”
“I’m not sure what to say about all this?” Johanna wiped her eyes carefully so her mascara wouldn’t smudge. “Why are you telling me now, of all days?”
“Because you’re going to get home to a message on the voicemail saying to take the house off the market because I want to buy it.” Emma laughed. “I told you, I thought my mind was made up. I left a message on the house phone so I couldn’t chicken out.”
“Does he know?”
“Mike? No. Let’s keep it between us, all right?”
“Maybe you should tell Nina then,” Johanna said. “She’s liable to get to the phone messages before I will. Or Gunner. They check incessantly. One time a vendor left a message at the house was all it took. You know how Nina is.”
“She always claims Gunner’s the obsessive one.”
“Gunner’s hyper. She is obsessive. But it is a huge thing they’re doing. I don’t blame her for being a bit preoccupied with it.”
“Leave it to Nina and Gunner.” Emma sighed dramatically. “Sailing the world, collecting oddities. It’s going to be years before they come home to set up shop. They make me feel so mundane.”
“Be honest, Emma. You are no more interested in her life than she is yours.”
“True enough, if not completely. I think Nina wanted kids, but time got away from her. From them. Now kids just don’t fit into their life.”
“Maybe. I don’t think it’s a regret, though. Do you?”
“In passing, like I’ll always think about traveling the world as casually and carefree but never actually want it enough to make the effort.”
Arms around one another’s waists, Johanna and Emma followed the last of those leaving the sanctuary for the dining room.
“So what about you, Jo?” Emma asked.
“What about me?”
“Any thoughts about adding a sixth to Charlie’s brood?”
“I’m a little old, don’t you think?”
“You’re thirty-eight.”
“It sounded good.” Johanna blew a breath through her lips. “We still haven’t addressed our living situation. I have to go back to Cape May eventually. He can’t uproot the kids. I don’t want to simply throw away what I’ve built down there.”
“But you want to be in Bitterly.”
Johanna groaned. “It feels so much like caving in to a life I spent trying to avoid.”
“Do you hear how ridiculously babyish that sounds?”
“I’m not a baby, you are.” Johanna grinned.
Emma gave her a squeeze. “You had reasons before. Those no longer exist. And there’s one of them.”
Emma pointed to Charlie helping Charlotte position the wedding cake. Johanna closed her eyes to the thrills racing along her skin. Was it caving to give up something you kind of like at the moment for something you never-in-a-bajillion-years thought you could have? Was it betraying her sex to want a home, a man, a family when she had built a successful career on a whim?
Johanna kissed her sister’s cheek and headed for the cake table. Charlotte fussed over the cake. The decoration she had spent painstaking hours on the day prior faced the wall.
“Oh, Johanna! Yoohoo!”
Johanna halted halfway across the dining room full of family, friends and residents. She spotted Penny waving, weaving her way through the guests finding tables and chattering excitedly.
“I’m so glad I caught you before you got too busy.” Penny patted her chest, caught her breath. “It was so nice of you to invite those able to attend. It’s not often we have such a happy occasion to celebrate here.”
“Well, thank you for going to bat for us.”
“It’s the least I can do for Carolina’s darling girls.” Penny wiped a tear from the corner of her eye before it could fall. “I dream of her sometimes. More since you girls came into my life. I feel like she is with me, just like old times. Would it be overstepping my bounds to tell you I believe she is so happy and proud?”
“Of course not. We are all grateful to you for the friendship you gave our mother. And for the memories you’ve shared with us.”
Penny reached up tentatively then, touched Johanna’s cheek when she smiled instead of pulling away. “You know, Johanna, I had a son once. He would be your age now. I came here because I lost him, and no one in my life understood that the world was just too big a place without him. Carolina understood, because it was how she felt after Johan died. I would have done anything for her. I’m glad I was able to do something, at last.”
Penny let her hand fall and walked away. What a terrible waste it was, when sorrow consumed a whole life. How close she had come to being Penny, to being Carolina. How terrifyingly close.
“Dad, be careful.”
“I didn’t even touch it.”
Charlie stood back, hands up in surrender while Charlotte fussed over the cake she and Johanna spent the last several days baking, icing, decorating. Charlotte’s off-hand artistry was not something to be learned, but an unexplainable instinct shared by artists of all kinds. Johanna was already planning the display window in CC’s, ripe and ready for June weddings, with cakes never before seen in Cape May. Whether the town knew it or not, their favorite local bakery was about to go up a notch on the swanky scale.
She closed the gap to slide her hand into Charlie’s. “Shall I rescue you?”
“Rescue him?” Charlotte pursed her lips. “He nearly dumped the cake. Twice.”
“You need to relax, Char,” Charlie said. “It’s a cake.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.” She turned to Johanna. “Is it as beautiful as I think it is?”
“Probably more so,” Johanna answered. “You did take a picture, right? To add to your portfolio for school?”
“I didn’t think of that.” Charlotte fished her phone out of her pocket. “Will you take it dad? I want Jo in the pic too. I can’t take all the credit.”
They posed. Charlie took the picture and handed the phone back to his daughter. The conspiratorial look passing between the two was as good as words. Almost.
“Okay, you two, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” Charlotte said quickly, but her father leveled another glance, and her shoulders slumped a little. “Well, I was wondering about something.”
“I’m getting a little nervous here.”
“So am I.” Charlotte scooped her into a hug and let her go just as quickly. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. What if you and I went down to Cape May and opened CC’s for Easter. You can teach me the ropes and then…”
“And then?” Johanna prodded when she fell silent. Charlotte’s cheeks blotched crimson.
“It’s okay if you say no,” she said. “I mean it, Johanna. Seriously.”
“Just tell me.”
“Okay, it’s…see, there isn’t…I know this is presumptuous but…” She let go a deep breath. “I have been thinking that Bitterly needs a bakery. A real bakery and not the gross grocery store one that never used real cream or butter ever in its life. Ever. W
ith all the revitalization going on in town, a bakery would do really well and you just got all that money and dad can do the work, for free, considering…you know. And I thought I could help manage CC’s down in Cape May, and you could start work on opening another CC’s in Bitterly. Then you get to keep the first CC’s and Dad, and it’ll be a success, I just know it.” Charlotte fell suddenly silent, then, “What do you think?”
Words buzzed like bees in Johanna’s mouth. Old fears battled and lost fairly quickly. Opening another CC’s. In Bitterly. The notion of a baker having her cake and eating it too was entirely too ridiculous to make it out of her mouth. Instead she said, “I think you’re as good a businesswoman as you are a baker.”
Charlotte clapped her hands, squealing. “It’s kind of perfect, don’t you think?”
“What about school?”
“I still want to go to school,” Charlotte answered. “I know how to do things, but I don’t know why they work. I want to learn the chemistry of it all. It’s a lot of going back and forth between New Jersey and Connecticut, but it’s only two years and then, if things work out between you and my dad. Notice I said if? See, I’m not taking anything for granted. So if you and Dad work out, it will be a family business. You, me, dad. Who knows? Maybe even the boys and Millie one day. And if it doesn’t work out, then you can sell the Bitterly place, to me, and call it a day. See? I thought of everything.”
Johanna’s belly fluttered. She did not ask herself why she never thought about opening a CC’s in Bitterly. The reasons were far too easy to pick out, one by one, and groan over. She thought of Penny again, and Carolina, and the lives they gave over to sorrow and fear and loss.
Pretending to brush crumbs from the tablecloth, Johanna let the idea settle into her brain. Life changed so quickly, became unrecognizable in an instant. CC’s and Cape May seemed like a lifetime ago. If she went back now, there would be no pretending Gram’s death and all that came after hadn’t happened. All the secrets were spilled. All their lives had changed. She had changed, or perhaps, shed the masquerade. Nina was off to travel the world. Emmaline was reinventing herself. Julietta was stepping out into a new life.
Seeking Carolina (Bitterly Suite Book 1) Page 23