“Cake,” he said clearly.
Judging by everyone’s excitement, he gathered Silas didn’t have much to say most of the time.
“Good job, kiddo,” Cody said gruffly.
“I should have known one of his first words besides the basics would be cake,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes.
“Count your blessings, I suppose. It could be something worse. Nate’s first word was poop,” Eleanor said.
The girls giggled and looked at him with wide eyes while Sophie groaned with disgust.
“Thank you for sharing that, Mom,” he said dryly.
She gave him an angelic smile. “You’re welcome, darling.”
Rachel took Ava and Grace inside, and a few moments later, they came back out carrying Jess’s birthday cake, a lovely concoction covered with tropical flowers. On top were two candles, one the number three and the other a zero.
“Oh wow. It’s so gorgeous,” Jess said. “Thank you. It looks too pretty to eat.”
“Guess what?” Ava said. “You can even eat the flowers! Mama made them out of frosting. They’re really good. I ate one of the leftovers.”
“That’s beautiful,” Eleanor said. “You are so talented, my dear.”
“I didn’t get a leftover flower,” Grace complained.
“You were in school,” Rachel told her. “I’ll make sure you have a flower on the piece I cut for you. Should we sing to your aunt?”
Jess again seemed uncomfortable when all the focus shifted to her, though she smiled while the children cheerfully sang the birthday song at the tops of their respective voices.
“Thank you.”
“What are you going to wish for?” Ava said.
To Nate’s astonishment, Jess’s gaze flickered to him and then quickly away, so quickly he didn’t think anyone else even noticed.
“After this perfect night, I don’t think there’s anything else I could ever need.”
“You have to wish for something,” Grace insisted. “That’s the rule.”
“But she’s not supposed to tell or it won’t come true,” Sophie said.
“That’s right,” Rachel said. “And you can wish for whatever you want. Go ahead and blow out the candles.”
“Cake,” Silas said again, which made everyone marvel again.
“Cake coming right up, young man,” Jess said. She quickly blew out the candles.
The cake was delicious, white with raspberry layers.
But for some reason, Jess only ate a few bites. Rachel must have noticed, too. “Is something wrong with the cake?” she asked, sounding defensive.
Jess blinked, looking down at her plate as if she had only just remembered the cake was there. “No. It’s delicious.”
“So why are you only eating a tiny bite at a time?”
“Maybe I want to savor every bite.”
Rachel frowned, clearly not believing her. “Is it the raspberries? I always thought you liked them.”
“I do. The cake is fabulous.” She took another bite, bigger this time, and made a big show of eating it then scooping up another bite.
“I should have called you first to find out what kind of cake you wanted,” Rachel said. She blinked rapidly, as if trying not to cry.
“Rach. It’s a fantastic cake,” Cody said. “One of your absolute best.”
“Everything has been perfect,” Jess said. “I could not have asked for more, honestly. I’ll remember turning thirty for a long, long time.”
“I’m glad we could share it with you,” Cody said gruffly.
Again, Nate had the sense that all wasn’t perfect between Rachel and Jess...or between Cody and Rachel, for that matter.
He wanted to fix it for her. Whatever was wrong, he wanted to sweep in and make it all better.
He remembered that moment when he was almost certain she had looked at him.
What are you going to wish for?
The low ache of hunger that seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside him since she came to town seemed to sharpen.
Unfortunately, Nate knew even the best-tasting cake in the world wouldn’t assuage it. Only one thing would do that and Jess had made it clear they would never be together.
26
Jess
Why did she feel as if she always had to walk on eggshells around her sister?
Maybe because Rachel right now seemed as fragile as an entire bushel of eggs.
Her sister was obviously still upset about the mess Silas had made with the garden hose. Though Rachel tried to be bubbly and happy with the Whitakers, Jess still knew her sister well enough to see it was an act. Beneath that crackly facade, Rachel was on the edge of tears.
Her sister seemed desperately unhappy and she didn’t know how to fix it.
After the cake, Rachel insisted everyone leave the dishes for now so Jess could open presents.
She didn’t want gifts but loved them all anyway. Cody had made a beautiful wooden frame lined with magnets to go on her refrigerator and the girls had each drawn pictures of themselves that she could hang in it.
“I love it. Thank you so much.”
She hugged her nieces and nephew. The girls hugged her back while Silas mostly tolerated it.
“You’re welcome. Hopefully, it will help you remember you have a family while you’re on the road,” Rachel said.
“Thanks,” Jess said cheerfully.
“We kind of had a similar idea,” Eleanor said. Jess unwrapped their gift and was astonished to find a small watercolor she had admired at Whitaker House.
It had been painted by a friend of Jack Whitaker’s years ago and was an overview of Cape Sanctuary, with Sunshine Cove in the distance.
“I can’t accept this. It’s an original.”
“Nate and I both want you to have it. Don’t we, darling?”
Her son nodded. “Absolutely.”
“We want you to have something to remember us by after you leave. I thought it was small enough you could hang it inside your trailer so you have a little piece of Cape Sanctuary with you wherever you go.”
She was immeasurably touched by everything. “Thank you. I’ll treasure all of these gifts.”
The Whitakers stayed for a while longer as Sophie and the children were enjoying an impromptu soccer game on the grass.
After helping to clear the dishes from the patio, they then said their goodbyes with a flurry of hugs.
“I’ll take care of bedtime then come down and help you clean up the dishes,” Cody said after they were gone. He started corralling the kids up the stairs toward their rooms.
“That’s a great guy you have there,” Jess said.
“Sometimes.”
A glimpse of that unhappiness flashed across Rachel’s expression before she turned away and headed into the kitchen.
Jess followed her and started filling the sink with soapy water.
“It’s your birthday. You don’t have to help me clean up. I am perfectly capable of cleaning my own kitchen,” Rachel snapped.
“I never said you weren’t,” Jess said carefully. “I don’t mind helping. It’s the least I can do to pay you back for such a great party.”
“You don’t have to repay me. That’s the whole point. There’s no scorecard in families. And anyway, you hated the party. You don’t have to lie to me, now that we’re alone.”
She tensed. “Why would you say that?”
“Admit it. You didn’t want a party in the first place. I forced you to have it. If you had your way, you’d be holed up in your trailer by yourself.”
Had it been that obvious? She thought she had done a pretty decent job of hiding it.
Jess shoved her hands in the soapy water and scrubbed vigorously at a salad bowl. “I’m sorry I’m not a big fan of birthday parties. I told you I
didn’t need one. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for all your hard work and didn’t enjoy the result.”
“I don’t think it’s birthday parties you don’t like. I think it’s me.”
Jess did not want to get into this right now. Or ever. “You know that’s not true.”
“I don’t. That’s the only thing I can figure out.”
“Why would you say that?”
“What else am I supposed to think? You rarely come to visit and when you do, you act like you can’t wait to leave. You’re always halfway out the door, just like Dad was.”
“I am not like Dad at all,” she said, her careful hold on her temper beginning to fray. Why did Rachel have to ruin what had been a lovely evening by bringing their parents into things?
“You might not be an abusive jerk. But you’re as closed off as he always was. I never know what’s going through your head. And I feel like I’m the one putting all the work into this relationship, just like Mom did with theirs. More often than not, I’m the one who texts or calls you and invites you to things. And most of the time, you can’t be bothered. I’m really tired of being an afterthought in your life.”
Jess gave up any pretense of washing dishes and faced her sister, trying not to let her see her hands tremble. “You’re not an afterthought. I love you. I love the kids. What do you want from me, Rachel?”
“I just want to know we matter to you.”
“Of course you matter. I only took this job in Cape Sanctuary because it meant I could be closer to you and the kids.”
“Right. Because this setup is just the way you like it. You can stop for a minute, keep everything superficial, then move on to your next job. You’ve created your life so that you have no close connections, except maybe Yvette. Even your bond with her is over the phone. That’s not normal, Jess.”
Rachel’s words stung, mostly because Jess knew she was right. She didn’t consciously push people away, but Jess knew that was the net impact.
Because it hurt so much, she reacted defensively by lashing out.
“And you’re doing just great, right? No problems here. You’re just throwing away a great marriage to a kind, caring man because you’re unhappy that your perfect Instagram life isn’t the beautiful picture you’ve always dreamed about.”
She shouldn’t have said it. As soon as the words were out, Jess regretted them, especially when Rachel seemed to pale and take a step back.
“Leave my marriage out of this.” Rachel’s voice quivered with emotion. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. How could you? You’ve never even had a relationship that lasted more than a week because you’re so screwed up about what happened with our parents that you’re afraid to let anybody get close to you.”
A second deadly but accurate uppercut. Jess was going to be dangling on the ropes in a minute. She drew in a ragged breath, not wanting Rachel to see the fresh wounds.
She had to get out of there before she said or did something she wouldn’t be able to take back.
“You’re right. I was out of line. Thank you for the birthday party. I appreciate all the effort that went into it, even though it wasn’t really for me, was it? Give my love to Cody and the kids.”
She grabbed the bag containing her birthday gifts—the ones she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to look at now without remembering the pain of this moment—and walked out of her sister’s house.
27
Rachel
Her heart was pounding and she felt hot and cold at the same time.
Was she having a heart attack? She checked her heart rate on her smartwatch and saw it was about the same as when she was doing sprints uphill on the treadmill.
Not a heart attack but maybe a broken one. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe slowly to calm herself. She didn’t know when she had last been so angry or so hurt.
Jess could be so difficult. She always kept part of herself out of reach.
She never used to be that way but their experience in foster care had changed her. They always used to share everything. Hopes, frustrations, fears. She didn’t know her sister anymore. Not really. She felt the loss of that tight bond with a physical ache.
Still. Her sister seemed to see Rachel with painful clarity.
You’re throwing away a great marriage to a kind, caring man because you’re unhappy that your perfect Instagram life isn’t the beautiful picture you’ve always dreamed about.
With every passing second, those harsh words seemed to echo around and around her kitchen, getting louder by the second.
You’re throwing away a great marriage.
She thought of her ridiculous out-of-proportion anger at the garden hose accident and how terrible she had been to Cody, when he really had been trying to help.
Jess was absolutely right. She was going to lose her marriage if she didn’t figure out how to get her stuff together, if she didn’t find a better way to deal with her sadness and worry for Silas than taking everything out on Cody.
He was a good man. The best man she knew. He didn’t deserve the kind of wife she had been to him, a woman who was so damaged by the trauma of her past that she couldn’t embrace all the joy of her present.
28
Jess
She had little memory of the short drive between Rachel and Cody’s place and Eleanor’s house.
The confrontation with Rachel seemed to have opened the box she kept padlocked inside her, where she had stored all the memories of that horrible night.
Now they seemed to swirl inside and around her, ugly and dark and hateful. Somehow, she made it to her trailer parked beside the path to Sunshine Cove, her own private sanctuary that had become more of a home to her than any place she could remember.
She sat in her truck. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn’t want to go inside the Airstream, afraid the thin aluminum walls wouldn’t keep out the mass of emotions that wanted to crowd in.
She needed to move. A good, hard run would do the trick. Or she could make her way down to the beach and try to find calm where she could.
Driven to action, any action, she hurried inside and quickly grabbed a flashlight and hoodie then started down the trail toward the beach.
The ocean beckoned her.
She stumbled a little going down the path but managed to catch herself and didn’t fall.
At the water’s edge, she immediately went to Eleanor’s bench and sank down, already feeling the ocean’s calming effect.
The tide was going out, she could see with a quick sweep of the flashlight. Stars spilled across the sky and the moon’s reflection danced along the surface of the water, dancing on the waves.
Her sister’s words seemed to replay over and over in her head.
You’ve never even had a relationship that lasted more than a week because you’re so screwed up about what happened with our parents that you’re afraid to let anybody get close to you.
Rachel was exactly right. Jess sucked at close relationships and inevitably pushed everyone away before they could really know the heart of her.
It seemed that in every relationship, romantic or otherwise, she struggled to find her way. She was either afraid of becoming abusive and controlling like her father or needy and subservient like her mother. Jess had no idea how to find a healthy way through those two dynamics that had surrounded her as a child. As a result, she didn’t even try.
She was lonely.
Bitterly lonely.
Most of the time she told herself she was happy with her independent, no-strings lifestyle. And maybe most of the time she was. But every once in a while, like tonight on this day she had turned another decade older, she wondered if she could endure a lifetime of this.
She didn’t know how long she sat there trying to find peace in the low murmur of the sea. Sometime late
r, she caught a glimmer of light out of the corner of her eye and finally looked away from the waves to find a flashlight coming toward her.
So much for her solitude. Was it a late-night beachcomber? Or maybe kids coming down to make out on this isolated beach.
She saw a dark shape bounding toward her, dragging a leash, and recognized Cinder, Nate’s black Lab.
In the moonlight, the dog wagged her tail, looking thrilled to find her there as Jess reached out to pet her.
“Sorry,” Nate called. “She got away from me.”
“No problem,” she answered, wishing she could figure out a way to have a dog so she would feel a little less alone in the world.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he approached the bench. “I saw you drive up and sit in your truck for a while then rush straight down here.”
“Are you worried turning thirty has me so distraught I’m going to walk into the ocean and you’ll be stuck having to clean out the rest of your mother’s house by yourself?”
Nate sat beside her on the bench. He was big and warm and she had a sudden, completely irrational urge to nestle against him.
“No. I’m just worried about you. Everything okay?”
She laughed humorlessly. “Not really.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Did she? Or did she want to wallow here in her angst?
“Rachel and I had a fight. I said things I wish I hadn’t. And she said things I wish she hadn’t, but things I probably needed to hear.”
“I’ve never had a sibling. I can’t imagine it’s always easy.”
“No. They see the worst in you and usually know all your darkest moments.”
That was an understatement of epic proportions. Rachel had been there, too, both of them helpless to stop the events of that day.
One would think that enduring something like that would have created an unshakable bond between them. Instead, they were virtual strangers who kicked out at each other instead of finding solace together.
“What are your darkest moments?” he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him. She rarely told anyone. Yvette knew, of course. Other than that, she liked keeping that box locked up tightly.
The Path to Sunshine Cove Page 20