Grace glowed under the praise, making Rachel painfully aware that she didn’t give her child enough of it.
“Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner?” she asked. “It’s no trouble.”
“That’s very kind of you, especially when I showed up out of the blue, but I should probably head back. Unless Eleanor decides to take off for book group, we’re supposed to be meeting when she returns to town so we can figure out a few things before we start working tomorrow.”
Rachel was ashamed of the relief she felt that she wouldn’t have to continue making awkward conversation with a sister who had become a virtual stranger over the years.
“I wouldn’t want you to keep her waiting, then. Eleanor is pretty special.”
“Do you have to go?” Ava whined, tugging on Jess’s hand. “I haven’t even showed you my new stuffed dog.”
“I’ll be around for a few weeks. I’m sure I’ll get the chance to see it soon.”
“When will you come back?” Ava asked.
“I don’t know for sure. But soon.”
“Tomorrow?” Grace pressed.
“Maybe not tomorrow since I’ll be working that day.”
“What about the day after tomorrow?” Ava asked.
“Girls, give your aunt a break,” Rachel said before Jess could reply. “She’s here to work, not play with you guys.”
“But I’ll find time to play with you while I’m here, I promise,” Jess said. “I would love to spend time with the kids in the evening, when I’m done helping Eleanor. Maybe you and Cody could get out for a night away or something.”
“That would be great,” Rachel said. The only trick would be persuading her husband to leave work for five minutes, a task at which she did not expect she could succeed. That also left the issue of Silas, who didn’t do well with other people.
Still, it was nice of Jess to offer.
Rachel walked her sister to the door, where they exchanged an awkward sort of hug that made her heart hurt.
Once upon a time, Jess had been her best friend. They had been inseparable, united by their shared experiences. Living with a harsh father in the military who moved his family every two or three years had drawn them closer together than typical sisters. Making outside friends had been a challenge in that environment.
That was only one of the reasons they had come to depend entirely on each other.
Everything had changed the year Rachel turned thirteen, that horrible summer when the world fell apart.
She didn’t want to think about that time. She preferred to block it out of her mind—the fear, the pain, the shared trauma.
Instead, she preferred to focus on what she had, the life she had rebuilt brick by brick out of the rubble that had been left behind.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said now to Jess. Her sister gave her a surprised look and for the first time she thought she saw something beneath the careful facade of politeness.
“Same,” Jess said, her voice gruff.
“Eat!” Silas demanded, wriggling again to be free.
“I’ll call you soon and we can get away, the two of us, to catch up.”
“Sounds good,” Jess said, then walked with her purposeful stride out the door and down the walkway to the pickup truck she had parked at the curb, leaving Rachel to wrestle her child and her demons at the same time.
4
Jess
Jess drove back to her trailer and Whitaker House with a strange ache in her chest, an echo of an old injury.
So much for joyful reunions. The interaction with her sister had been awkward, stilted, like bumping into an old friend with whom you now have nothing in common.
What had she expected? That Rachel would drop everything and throw a party for her?
Admittedly, her timing hadn’t been the greatest. Rachel had been in the middle of what looked like a chaotic situation, with Ava howling, Silas throwing a fit, and glass and cookies all over the floor.
Still, she might have hoped her sister could at least pretend she was happy to see Jess. Rachel likely would have been more welcoming to a bat flying into the house. Bats at least ate mosquitos.
That ache in her chest seemed to throb in rhythm to her truck’s tires spinning on the asphalt as she made her way up the hill.
What had she expected? Her relationship with her sister was as broken as that plate she had cleaned up. Was it irreparable? She didn’t know. The chasm between them seemed so wide, as impossible to breach as the Grand Canyon.
The sight of her trailer gleaming in the early-evening sunlight lifted her heart. It wasn’t big, only twenty-four feet long, but the classic curved lines and aluminum skin always made her happy, especially because she knew how far Vera had come.
She had barely turned off her pickup and opened the door when a figure walked down toward her from the terrace of Whitaker House.
Her nerves bumped. Was it Nate again, ready for another confrontation? No. She relaxed when she recognized an older woman, tall and graceful with steel-gray hair cut in a classic pageboy.
She was followed closely by a small dog with curly hair and spaniel features.
This must be her new employer. The woman, anyway. Not the dog. The dog must be Charlie, Eleanor’s Cavapoo.
“Oh, Jess. You’re here at last!” Eleanor exclaimed. The other woman reached out and folded her into a huge embrace.
Jess stiffened, momentarily uncomfortable with the hug before the sheer genuineness of the gesture disarmed her.
Here was the welcome no one else but her nieces had given her in Cape Sanctuary, warm and enthusiastic and kind.
The constriction around her heart after the visit with her sister seemed to ease slightly. “Yes. Here I am.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you here at long last. I feel like the luckiest of women that you were able to find time for me in your schedule. I’ve heard you can be booked out a year in advance.”
Jess and her partner, Yvette, both had bookings that far out and had started turning down clients. “Business is booming right now.”
“That’s what happens when all those in my generation get sick and tired of living with all the clutter we always thought was so important.”
“I guess so.”
She smiled, charmed when Eleanor plopped onto one of the two bistro chairs. The small, cute dog collapsed at her feet as if too tired to take another step.
“How was your drive? You came up today from Los Angeles, right?”