Hello, Sunshine

She turned and stormed into the house, slamming the door behind her. “So now you’re the expert on my kid?”

I swung the door open, followed her inside. “I’m helping you with her. How about saying thank you?”

“Please, I could have gotten a college kid to drive Sammy to camp the day after Thomas’s accident,” she said. “Everyone knows who’s helping who here.”

She looked away, which was when I realized why she was so angry. She didn’t want Sammy having a great day. Not with me. It didn’t matter—the day we spent together, the pregnancy. Rain didn’t want Sammy having anything to do with me.

“This was just a mistake, okay?” she said. “I want you to pack your bags and leave.”

“No.”

She shook her head. “No?”

That was right. I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe it was the pregnancy, maybe it was the trauma. Maybe it was what Ethan had said about me and the peaches and getting honest. But I wanted to stay where I was. At least until I knew where I needed to go.

Rain laughed, bitterly. “What are you even doing here? I mean, really. It’s certainly not to reconnect with us.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Bullshit.”

I looked up toward Sammy’s loft. “Would you keep your voice down?”

Rain ignored me, kept talking loudly. “So what is the play? Getting Chef Z’s approval and using it to reinvent yourself in one way or another, right?”

“And what if it is? You think I should just take this all lying down? Amber stole everything I worked hard for. And, I know, you don’t think it was legitimate work, but I worked hard for it,” I said. “Not that that’s something you’d understand.”

“I don’t work hard?”

I kept my voice low, even if she refused to. “I just think running a hotel isn’t exactly a dream come true for you.”

She looked at me, surprised. Maybe even hurt for a second. Then she laughed, deflecting. “Well, since we’re talking about dreams, which dream did you make come true again?” she said.

“I’m not talking about me, Rain.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s all about you.” She shook her head. “Just because you think the picture would be prettier if I had an impressive career doesn’t mean I’m not happy. Did it ever occur to you that if you weren’t living in fear of other people’s opinions of you, no one would have the power to take anything away?”

“Is that right?”

“It is, as a matter of fact.”

I looked up toward the loft, moved toward my sister. “So why are you so scared to hear other people’s opinion about your kid?” I whispered.

She reached for my arm, pulling me back out to the porch. “Excuse me?”

“That’s why you took her out of camp, right?” I said. “Because the counselor had the gall to tell you that Sammy is special? That she needs special things?”

“So in all of your experience with Sammy, you’ve already reached the conclusion a woman you don’t know is correct, and her mother is wrong? That I haven’t considered what my kid needs?”

“Rain, don’t hold her back.”

“Right. ’Cause staying here is holding her back. Staying with her mother is holding her back.”

“So go with her. There are hotels you could run in New York.”

“It’s not that simple. I like it here. I’ve built a home here. I have a relationship here. It may not be sexy, or get us a television show, but some of us value building a home somewhere.”

“You don’t think it’s weird that yours is five feet away from where you grew up?”