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  “Well, they don’t. And maybe it’s not their fault. But that begs the question. Are we willing to entrust a child’s life to that situation?”

  “The hope is that with the proper support system—”

  Wyatt stood up so abruptly the beach chair fell over. “People like Carmen can never stay sober. This is so much bull.” He stalked off toward the steps.

  “Well,” Karen said as soon as he was out of hearing distance.

  “What just happened?” Reesa asked. “I can tell Wyatt is upset, but does that mean he’s going to stand by her or drop the ball and run?”

  She and Karen both looked at Stu.

  “Are you asking me?”

  They both nodded.

  “You’re asking him to take on a lot of responsibility. I gotta be honest. Sarah alone is a handful. Man, she just can’t relax.”

  “Sarah lost her own mother when she was Tammy’s age, never found someone who could love her as a parent should until she met Sam. She was already eighteen. She’s not going to be easy to love. But I think she’s worth it.”

  “Well, tell Wyatt, not me. I’ve got my own handful.” He waggled his eyebrows at Karen.

  “Stu, this is not the time for your slightly off-color humor,” she said. “Though I appreciate the sentiment. So what do you think we should do?”

  “I think you girls oughta just let Wyatt deal with this himself. Either they’ll get together or they won’t, but nothing any of us do is going to make one bit of difference in the end.”

  SARAH BARELY MADE it into the house before she broke down in sobs. She was so embarrassed. Never let them see you cry. It was a hard-earned lesson in survival, but now she wished she hadn’t learned it quite so well.

  She’d actually reached out to her friends and then she couldn’t even take their concern. What was wrong with her?

  She jumped at the sound of someone pounding on the door. She rushed to it, thinking it might be Danny bringing Leila back early.

  She stopped before opening it to wipe her eyes on her shirt.

  “Sarah, open up.”

  Not Danny. Wyatt.

  Sarah reached for the doorknob, pulled her hand back. She liked, maybe loved, him so much, but it was unfair to keep dumping stuff on him. They’d had some fun. He was a popular guy in town; neither of them wanted anything from the relationship but a good time.

  But it was different now. At least for her. He’d stuck by her through Sam’s death and Leila’s fostering. She had even sometimes let herself think of the three of them as a family.

  Did she have to choose one or the other? Leila or Wyatt? Even though he kept telling her it would work out, she didn’t see how it could. He might not want to sign on for the long haul with Leila, and even if she lost Leila, how could she go to him? He’d think he was a consolation prize and maybe he would be right.

  She grabbed her hair and pulled until it hurt. There had been girls in the group home who cut themselves. Sarah never understood how they could do that. Now she did. A sharp pain on the arm or the wrist, to take attention away from the dull ache of despair.

  “I know you’re in there, let me in.”

  Sarah shook her head but leaned against the door trying to be closer to him.

  “Please, Sarah. We’ll see this through.”

  She rolled her forehead against the wood; she didn’t see how they could see it through. She wasn’t even able to see it through. She tried to say so, but tears were choking her throat. “Please,” she managed. “Just go.”

  “Why? So I won’t see you hurting? I can feel it, Sarah. Through this door. I can feel it.”

  She moved back. “No.”

  “Won’t work, Sarah. You may be able to push everybody else away, but not me. I’m too damn big, for one thing. And too stubborn for another.”

  She smiled, but it was twisted, and she knew if she looked in the mirror, it would be ugly.

  “Please, Wyatt, I can’t do this.”

  “You don’t have to. You think you have to do everything alone, but you don’t, nobody can. Not even you Sarah, so you might as well open the door, ’cause I’m not going away.”

  Open the door, Sarah. She shook her head. Open the door. Please.

  She wiped her eyes. Peeked out the window to see if he had left or if he really meant it about not going away.

  He was sitting on the steps.

  She could do this. It was time. Just open the door and go out. Sit down next to him. Tell him she loved him. Ask him to love both of them.

  She hurried to the bathroom, splashed water on her face. Her eyes were still red and swollen, but who was she trying to kid? She quickly dried her face, pushed her fingers through her hair, and hurried back to the front door.

  Took a breath, unlocked the door, and opened it far enough to slip out.

  Wyatt was gone.

  Chapter 16

  Sarah stared at the place on the steps where he had been, then looked down the street to see if he was going back to the beach or to Dive Works or home. He was nowhere, like he’d just disappeared. Maybe he’d been a figment of her imagination.

  She was that crazed. Maybe she had imagined the whole thing, him saying he wasn’t going to leave her, that they’d get through it. She was a fool. Everybody left.

  Well, hell, it didn’t take him long to change his mind.

  She went back in the house. Closed the door, locked it. Just because.

  She took out a bottle of water from the fridge, pressed it to her forehead until it hurt. Then she drank the whole bottle leaning against the cool surface of the door, smothering Sam’s written words, Fix the now. So much for that. She’d royally screwed up the now. Left her friends. Hurt Wyatt. Sabotaged her own happiness. Why couldn’t she just get it right?

  GIRL. YOU’RE NOT gonna last a minute if you keep letting everything upset you. You gotta be hard. If they see you crying like a baby, they’re gonna go for you. Do bad things to you. Do you want that? I didn’t think so, so quit sniveling and show ’em how tough you are. Always hang tough and they’ll stay out of your face and your pants if you’re lucky. Be weak and you’re finished.

  SARAH HAD HUNG tough, stayed strong, and she felt like she was finished anyway. And she’d really tried. She thought of Nonie just a few miles away all this time and her heart broke all over again while at the same time anger swelled inside her. Nonie who was her sister, who wouldn’t take her case, who came to spy on her and called the police on her when she confronted her.

  Sarah just didn’t get it.

  Fix the now, dammit.

  She went back to the bathroom, washed her face for real, and put on makeup. It didn’t hide much, but she could pretend, and by the time Leila returned there would hardly be any traces of tears or scratches left.

  ILONA MEANT TO drive her car to the church, be there early to stand with her father, just for show. But her heart just wasn’t in it. She drove “home” to the mansion she’d grown up in.

  She parked in front of the three-car garage, knowing that people would return to the house after the funeral, and she’d be blocked in. She’d have to stay to the bitter end. Her penance for not being lovable enough, smart enough—just not enough.

  She didn’t feel sad, not exactly. Not standing in the living room waiting to leave for the church. Everything in its same place except for the one vase she’d broken in a fit of temper.

  It had never been replaced. Maybe it was irreplaceable. Like a Ming or Limoges. She couldn’t remember what it had looked like. An empty spot had stayed on that side table ever since. An empty reminder.

  Toby waddled in, sniffed at her shoes. She nudged him away with her toe. It had never occurred to her that the dog was still alive. His white coat had turned a dirty yellowish color, and one lip seemed to be stuck in a permanent snarl.

  Which he did, at Ilona.

  “You don’t scare me, you lump of lard.” He wasn’t her dog. He’d always belonged to June. And June cosseted him like . . . Well, Ilona woul
dn’t think about the dog or the past. She was just here for show. She knew what to do. She’d done it often enough before.

  She rode to the church in the back of the black limousine. It felt strange sitting next to her father with no June on her other side. That had been the presentation. June and Donald, compassionate, caring, who believed in the little people, in family values, their loving daughter, adopted from the foster system. Your tax dollars at work.

  Ilona swallowed. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to pat her father’s hand.

  The limo pulled up in front of the church. The two of them sat there while the driver came around to open the door. Her father got out first. Ilona adjusted her sunglasses and took the driver’s proffered hand.

  A man was there to meet them. A friend? The funeral parlor director? She hadn’t gone to the viewing. She’d been in court. Everyone understood. Such late notice.

  It wasn’t that she was cold and unfeeling, exactly. It was June who had been cold and exacting when she was alive. And Ilona just couldn’t face the chance that she would appear the same in death.

  So she’d made it up to her father by playing the grieving daughter. And she had to admit she felt a little empty. She hadn’t seen either of them for months; she’d made a point of not seeing them once she realized they were still seeing her ex-husband, that they had chosen him over her. And the new wife. Over their own—not their own—daughter.

  Kevin and his wife were the first people Ilona saw when she removed her sunglasses and stepped into the church. They came forward simultaneously as if they’d been rehearsing. He took her father’s hand in both of his, and the wife mimicked his actions with Ilona.

  Ilona gritted her teeth and smiled, thanked her in a quiet voice, repeated the same with the ex. And the usher guided them down the aisle to the front pew. The church was already packed, and she could feel the eyes of the multitude on her back: old friends speculating about why she’d come, if there had been a reconciliation; strangers wondering if she was her father’s new mistress; wives wondering how much her little black dress had cost.

  At least there were no cameras, though she suspected there would be some at the graveside. Hidden discreetly out of sight, behind a tree or a car.

  The coffin was covered by mounds of flowers. The whole front of the church was filled with flowers, and at first Ilona drowned out the preacher’s solemn words by concentrating on not sneezing. She didn’t want to hear about how much June Cartwright would be missed. She just didn’t.

  It wasn’t that she was ungrateful. She was. To both her parents. She’d made out really well thanks to their generosity. And she still found it incomprehensible how they could lavish so much on her and yet withhold the one thing she craved, and which cost nothing, nothing, to give. That was the great sadness in her life.

  But she was a big girl. She’d dealt with it. She was even fond of the man sitting beside her, stoically holding back his grief. She’d noticed walking in that he’d grown shorter. She wondered if he had really loved his wife, because now that Ilona thought of it, she’d never seen them exchange affection except in a perfunctory way, and in front of an audience.

  The organ swelled, bringing her thoughts back to the funeral. The pallbearers formed a line on either side of the casket and wheeled it down the aisle. Ilona stifled whatever emotion might be lurking just beneath the surface; she had no idea if it would come out as a sob or a giggle.

  They followed the casket outside, slipping on their sunglasses at the door along with the rest of the mourners. Got back in the limousine, drove to the cemetery where it was all done again, this time sitting in folding chairs on Astroturf in front of an open grave backed by an inadequately covered mound of earth.

  This service was quicker. It was hot, and people had busy Saturdays to get under way. When it was over, most mourners returned to their cars; a few stopped to give their condolences, then they too passed on to their cars. Someone came to get Ilona and her father and led them back to the limo.

  Ilona held back, turned to look at the now empty tent, the lone coffin, and quickly lifted her sunglasses and brushed away the tear before it betrayed her.

  SARAH CLOSED THE shop early and was sipping a cup of chamomile tea at her kitchen table when the doorbell rang. She’d been listening for it for the last fifteen minutes and still she jumped.

  She hurried to answer it.

  “Here she is,” Danny said brightly. He looked a little disheveled. He was holding a helium-filled balloon, a cellophane bag of candy, a stuffed monkey.

  Sarah opened the door for them to come in. Danny shoved his bundle at Sarah. Before she could take it, Leila grabbed the monkey; it flew from Danny’s arms, making him drop the bag of candy, which hit the floor and burst open spreading peppermints, toffees, and lollipops across the hardwood floor.

  “Piñata,” Danny explained as he knelt to help Sarah pick up the pieces.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Fine.” He frowned slightly. “Not too many people. I was expecting more family.”

  Sarah had an ungracious thought about where they might be, but she kept it to herself.

  They corralled most of the wayward candy and stood.

  “Well, until Wednesday,” he said.

  Sarah nodded.

  “See you Wednesday,” he called to Leila who had gone to her room. And he let himself out the door.

  Sarah went to see what mood Leila would be in.

  She was sitting on her bed next to the monkey, which she’d placed on her pillow.

  When she saw Sarah, she turned away from her.

  Sarah took a patience-inducing breath and came to sit behind her.

  “Did you have a good time?”

  “Be quiet.”

  “All right.”

  Leila turned on her. “Be quiet now, Sarah.”

  Sarah blinked. Leila looked defiant. Challenging.

  Leila never called her Sarah. Should she let it pass? Or should she reinforce what was the norm. And when would she ever get past always second-guessing what would be best?

  “I missed you while you were gone.” She decided not to mention the sand castle contest.

  Leila crawled across the bed and Sarah started to relax. She waited for Leila to climb onto her lap, for things to be fairly calm again. But Leila stopped in front of her. Held her arm up to Sarah’s. You could barely see the scratches.

  Leila looked at it for a long time. And Sarah was wondering if she should mention the fight they’d had, when Leila said, “Mama says you can’t be my mommee because we don’t have the same skin. I have my mama’s skin. You’re just Sarah.”

  Mama? Sarah was staggered. Mama. Blindsided, she looked down at their arms, hers light even with the sun and Leila’s dark and rich.

  Leila crossed her arms and scowled at Sarah.

  “Being a mother and daughter is not about colors,” Sarah said. “Your friends Macy and Kendrick’s mother doesn’t have the same skin color as them. Macy and Kendrick don’t even have the same skin color as each other, but they are brothers and she’s their mother. There are hundreds of shades of skin. Being a mother and daughter is about loving each other. I’m your mommee.”

  “That’s shit.”

  “That’s not a nice word. Who told you that word?”

  Leila shrugged.

  “Well, you’re not to use it. Do you understand?”

  “DeShawn says it.”

  “Who is DeShawn?” Sarah didn’t remember the names of all Carmen’s children, but she didn’t think any of them were DeShawn. Which meant . . .

  “Is DeShawn Carmen’s boyfriend?”

  Leila slid off the bed and went to the bookshelf, picked out a book, sat cross-legged on the floor, and opened it.

  “Is he, sweetie?”

  Leila didn’t answer. Just looked at her book.

  With a sinking heart, Sarah prepared for the long haul. She recognized the signs. Leila was only four and had been living with Sarah for most
of her life and yet already she had learned to withhold. And Sarah knew what would come next. The sulks, the lies, the rejection. It came with the territory.

  Leila was already building the walls of her protection, and she was using them in the one place she didn’t have to. At home with Sarah.

  “Leila?”

  Leila looked up. Her mean face. “You’re not my mama!” she screamed then threw her book at her.

  Sarah sidestepped it and rushed to her, picked her up. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right.”

  Leila squirmed. She kicked her, and kept kicking her until Sarah was forced to put her down.

  “I hate you!” Leila screamed. “Hate you. Hate you!” She landed a kick on Sarah’s ankle.

  Sarah saw stars for a second. She tried to stand outside herself. She knew Leila didn’t mean it. That this was just a classic reaction to the disruption in her life. Sarah’s mind knew it, but her heart . . .

  “I hate you.”

  “It’s okay, Leila. I have enough love for both of us.”

  “Go away. Go away.”

  “Okay. I’ll be out here if you need me.” Sarah turned away. Her stomach revolted, and bile rose to her throat. She grasped the doorjamb, stumbled across the hall to the bathroom. And made it just in time before her stomach rejected lunch and tea and what remained of her hope.

  At last she straightened up and ran the back of her hand over the sweat on her forehead. She turned on the faucet with shaky fingers, braced herself on her elbows on the side of the sink, and splashed cold water onto her face. Then she just stood there clinging to the sink waiting for her equilibrium to come back, wondering if she really had what it took to see them both through this again.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, but she knew she couldn’t stay. She would have to face whatever came. When she was more composed, she dried her face and opened the bathroom door.

  Leila was standing just outside.

  “Mommee?”

  Sarah scooped her up and held her tight.

  ILONA STAYED AT the funeral repast until the last guest left. But when her father asked if she would like to stay overnight, she refused. She saw his disappointment and, in an aberrant moment, felt sorry for him, but no way was she going to spend a night in that house.