Summer Ever After

“Oh, this? I’m just making a pie. Come, my dear, help me.” I have a suspicion Maddie is up to her meddling ways, but I follow her to the kitchen, coffee ready and waiting.

“Um, would that be a turtle pie?” She sorts the ingredients on the counter, and her face lifts, nodding and humming some song appreciatively. “The way to a man’s heart—or in this case, Roman’s—is through his stomach.” She s

miles and busies herself pulling out pots and pans. They clang on the stove and she adjusts dials and spreads her items out on the counter in some haphazard order.

“I’m not so sure about that.” Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over my chest, I fess up to why I’m back in Gold Beach. “I did something pretty horrible and Roman is mad. I mean, he has legitimate reason to be mad, even if it was something I couldn’t tell him because of my job.”

“Oh, honey, the world ain’t got time for perfect people. Now let me show you how to make a decent caramel.”

Maddie takes pity on my poor cooking skills and shows me step by step how to make Roman’s ‘fall to my knees in supplication’ pie, or better known as turtle pie. I think Maddie is a little crazy, trying to convince me this will bring Roman back to me, but I’ll try anything just get him to sit down and listen to what I have to say.

It takes the better part of the morning to complete each ingredient and Maddie shows me how it all comes together, added with love. She helps me stir the pots of thick sugary ingredients and then how to cool them and layer them properly into a diabetic coma.

“Now this is a good pie.” Sampling bites of the pie, our mouths are full when Roman stops by to let Maddie know he’s fixed the fence behind the cottage. I hadn’t even noticed he was outside the window all this time working away. He looks good wearing his staple cargo shorts and a tight-fitting T-shirt, which is a little stained and holey in places from too many washings. I bet it’s softer than silk, but I don’t get the change to touch him and find out for sure.

“Roman, have a bite and tell me if it’s good.” Maddie coaxes him closer, but like a skittish deer, he doesn’t get any closer than the door and avoids looking at me.

“Thanks, but I need to get going. Darrell is expecting me to stop by.” He ignores me just like that and my heart is crushed when he walks away. My eyes follow him back up the path, his tool box swinging in his grasp and his legs muscular and defined. The soles of his flip-flops slap against the sand with each retreating step.

A hand rests on my shoulder gently. “Have faith, my dear. He was the surliest teenager you ever did meet back in the day. He’ll come home once he’s worked things out. He’s just hurting right now.”

“I know.”

Maddie clutches my hand, squeezing gently.

* * * * *

The day passes with me driving around town. I’m not following Roman, but I’m familiarizing myself with where my mother grew up before meeting my dad. I let the buildings burn images in my mind and wonder what my mother was thinking when she lived here, blessed by the rocky coast where the sunshine kisses sand and water. It’s beautiful place I could see myself raising a family. I know if Roman is not a part of my future, this will be very hard to come back to, this special place suspended in time and memories. I use my phone to snap pics and send them to Leah. We text back and forth, discussing vague things our mother had shared with us as kids. Our relationship is much better, Leah and I. It’s not perfect, but like Maddie told me earlier, life ain’t got time for perfect people.

Sometime in the middle of the night while I was deeply asleep tucked into the cottage, a watchful visitor stopped by. I know this because when I woke up the next morning, half the turtle pie was missing. Sloppy cuts in the chocolate and caramel littered sugared crumbs on the plate. Fresh coffee is brewed in the coffeemaker and a suspicious key sits alone on the counter with no note. The coffee cup in the sink is still warm when I pick it up and clutch it to my chest.

I know Roman does all the maintenance for Maddie, so it makes sense it was he who had stopped by, even harboring a secret key to the cottage all this time. Oh, Roman…I wonder what he thought coming over and how long he stayed. I probably just missed him. Checking all the doors and windows, I find everything is secure, not a lock out of place. Since the first time I met this man, he’s kept me safe emotionally and physically. This is nothing more than a rough patch we’ll work through. I wish he’d have stayed and woken me up from my slumber to kiss the wounds of yesterday away. But Maddie is right. I need to let Roman work this out, and chasing him across town might just send him back to Seattle.

My phone rings, and checking the caller ID, I see it’s my dad. I haven’t spoken to him much, so I answer the call, hoping it’s not anything serious or some case file misplaced. “Hey, Dad. What’s going on?”

“It’s Leah. She’s taken a turn for the worse. I need you to come home. She’s been asking for you.”

It would seem so many decisions are already made for me right now. I need to return to LA and take care of my sister. It’s a hard decision, but Roman never said he didn’t want to talk to me, just he needed time, and is the thing I’ll hold out hope for. That Roman and I still have time.

Chapter Twenty-three

ROMAN

Leah’s passing occurs on a clear moonless night. The morning sun is bright and promises an unexpected heat to the typically mild California winter. A yin and yang just like the sisters, interconnected and yet so different. Abby stayed with her through the night, holding her hand and telling her stories about them growing up. She had nine days with her since she left Gold Beach the morning I stopped by the cottage to eat her pie and tuck her in, making sure she was safe. I could never stay angry with my girl, but it took me just as long to make peace with her keeping Oscar Campbell from me.

As expected, Lucas hasn’t shown up at all, after effectively being cut from the family’s inner circle. It was Abby’s mentor, Everest, a man who I suspect has a much closer relationship to Abby than her father does, who called me and asked me to come. He found my number in Abby’s phone while she had been sitting vigil with Leah those last days. I was already in Seattle and was lucky to find a flight right away that has me landing in LA in less than three hours.

I find Abby, sitting in Leah’s room where I watch her from the doorway, taking in her unyielding strength, like a branch that bends with the winds. Her shoulders are hunched over with sadness, but not futility. Several hours into the night, when her voice has gone hoarse from speaking, Leah slips into sleep, and a shuddering breath later, the monitors beep one final unending note.

Abby’s wails permeate the halls of the hospice center. A piece of me breaks right with her in her grief. A nurse pulls me aside and asks me to collect her so they can prepare the body, or do whatever it is they do when someone has been released from the pain of this world. It’s one of the few times Abby doesn’t fight me. She simply clings to me like a limp rag doll, her smile and sass subdued. I give her all the strength I can from my arms and heart.

Tucking her into Vinnie’s car, he drives us to her home. I get her in the shower and dress her before putting her in bed. I’m not with Abby anymore, but when she clings to me from her bed, begging me to stay with her, just to hold her, I can’t pull myself away. We lay reverently in silence until the sun rises in the sky again.

Hours pass into days, and then the day of the funeral finally arrives. Abby has gone into survival mode. She made phone calls, arranged the service, the flowers, and all of the painful details, all the while both pushing me away and then pulling me close to her at night. We don’t speak; instead, we work in tandem to accomplish the few details Leah left unsettled in her passing. I make sure she eats, put her to bed, and watched her fall into an exhausted pattern of sleeplessness. We have a Grand Canyon’s worth of problems between us, but there is no other place I want to be.

* * * * *

The day of Leah’s service is just as temperate and pretty as her passing. I’d like to think if Leah had a say in the weather, she specifically chose it for that day. Abby’s father hired a car and the two of them drive together, leaving me out of the loop. As much as it pains me, I also know I don’t have any right to intrude on the remaining bond between Abby and her cantankerous father, whom I’d only met in passing at the hospice center. I know firsthand the loss of a parent, but I know nothing about the pains of losing a child or a sibling. Death is relative and right now I’m not.