Hello, Sunshine

I smiled. “I don’t want you worrying about it, okay?”

She nodded. “What were you doing in the other house?”

“Visiting,” I said.

“Why?”

I sighed. “That question deserves a longer answer than I think you’ll be able to sneak away for. Where did you tell them you were going?”

“Seashells.”

I laughed.

“Mom is already at work, but Thomas said I could go for a little while. He’s waiting on me, though. We’re going to the Pancake House on the way to camp.”

“That sounds delicious,” I said. “Thanks for sneaking out to meet me first. I’m really happy to see you.”

She shrugged. “I don’t really get to see you anymore.”

“I didn’t want you to think it had anything to do with you.”

She scrunched up her face. “Why would I think that? My mother didn’t really want us hanging around together. There was no choice.”

I felt my heart burst at her empathy, her understanding. At six years old, she had already surpassed her aunt and her mother.

I leaned in and gave her a hug, like I hadn’t missed the first six years of her life, like I had any right. Maybe that was the thing about regret. Once you felt it, you went out on a limb to try and feel anything else.

“I think you’re pretty great,” I said. “And I want you to know that in case your mother kicks me out again.”

She blushed. Actually blushed. “Okay, next time you can just say it.”

I reached down to the sand and picked up a white seashell, handing it to her. “For your cover story,” I said.

She looked over my shell choice disapprovingly. Then she tossed it back onto the sand and began searching for a different shell.

“Let’s at least make it believable,” she said.

45

Not the next night, but the night after that, I arrived at the restaurant an hour before my shift, in time to eat the staff meal and relax before the dinner rush.

As I walked into the kitchen, Douglas met me at the door.

“Hey, you have a visitor out front,” he said. “And she’s looking for you. The real you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t really know, Sunny. Ask her.”

Then he motioned toward the dining room, where Julie was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of wine.

I wiped my hands on my jeans. “What does she want?” I said, more to myself than to Douglas. Apparently, though, he felt compelled to respond.

“So you’re pressing the extent of my knowledge. And my interest.”

He stalked off, and I headed into the dining room. I instinctively looked down at myself—taking in my sweater, pulling my hair behind my ear, trying to look presentable.

“Julie?”