Chapter 29 Angeni Luna
Angeni Luna
Much to Angeni’s relief, Freya had resumed breastfeeding several hours after Angeni had returned home from the hospital.
Two days later, she was still going strong.
It was as if nothing had happened between them, their relationship restored to its previous ease.
There was still an odd feeling on The Land.
Matt and Jer were acting like themselves, but everyone else seemed to be tiptoeing around her with a peculiar fear.
Now that she was feeling better, she decided she needed to talk to Aurora first and foremost. She had to find out if she’d been the one to write the letter.
Angeni, wearing Freya in the carrier against her chest to maximize closeness after the trauma of their separation, found Aurora out front, car keys hanging from a finger. She was going somewhere.
“Where you off to?” Angeni called, standing on the porch, using one hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
Aurora turned around, seemingly startled. The sun appeared to blind her as she squinted in search of Angeni. When her eyes finally settled upon her, she smiled.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “I was going to the bay.”
It was common for Aurora to go to the bay—Manzanita Bay—whenever she needed to ponder something. Angeni couldn’t help but wonder what it was she needed to ponder.
“Mind if we come with?” she asked.
Aurora shrugged, but Angeni caught the slightest hesitation in her voice when she said, “Sure.”
As they drove down Manzanita Road, Angeni made a mental note to do more outings like this. It was true that The Land provided everything she could possibly need, but there was something liberating about exploring, even if the exploring was nearby.
“We are so lucky to live here,” Angeni said. The trees were a blur of green in the periphery of her vision.
“We are,” Aurora said.
They turned right on Dock Street and parked where the road ended.
This was the not-so-secret access point for Manzanita Bay.
Ahead of them, two people were unloading kayaks from their car.
They exchanged greetings as they passed, the woman doing a double take at Angeni.
Angeni waited for her to say “Aren’t you .
. .” but thankfully, she didn’t. When she was a child, Angeni had said she wanted nothing more than to be famous.
But now, upon reflection, she decided the root of it was a desire to be seen.
She had become famous, if fame was defined by Instagram follower counts.
Her aversion to writing the memoir her editor wanted revealed that she was not yet brave enough to be seen.
The tide in the bay was low, exposing a wide shoreline littered with pebbles, crab legs, and oyster shells.
Aurora sat on a piece of driftwood that Mother Nature had provided as the perfect bench.
She reached down, collected a handful of pebbles, turned them over in her palm.
The kayakers walked past them and placed their kayaks in the water before climbing in and pushing off with a friendly wave.
Angeni sat next to Aurora on the driftwood. She lifted Freya from the carrier and turned her around to face the water.
“So I wanted to talk to you,” Angeni said. She bounced Freya in her lap gently.
“I wanted to talk to you too,” Aurora said.
They made these proclamations while staring ahead at the water, not at each other.
“I want to ask you something,” Angeni said. “And I want you to know that I am at peace with whatever your answer is. I’ve thought about it a lot. I want us to have a compassionate conversation about it.”
Now Aurora looked at her, dread and concern all over her face. “What is it?”
“Did you write that letter that came in the mail?”
Aurora looked confused and then flabbergasted. “Me? You think I wrote it?”
Angeni had never heard such a defensive tone from her before. It meant that she was either very wrong about her suspicion, or very right.
“Beck, you’re the only one who knows what happened,” she said.
It was only after she’d said Aurora’s birth name that she realized she’d said it. It was a trick of the brain. She was thinking back to that day, remembering the sound of the gunshot, the blood, her mother dying—and it was not Aurora by her side then, but Becky.
“I didn’t send it,” Aurora said. “I can’t believe you think I’d do that. Why would I do that?”
She seemed hurt, so hurt that it made Angeni doubt her accusation. Still, she returned to the indisputable fact: “But you’re the only one who knows what happened,” she repeated. “Did you tell someone else?”
Aurora shook her head. “Of course not,” she said with conviction. “I know who sent it, though.”
Angeni’s throat tightened. “Who?”
“I saw some text messages on Sitka’s phone. Between her and someone named Jay, who said he’d sent the letter.”
Freya squirmed in Angeni’s lap as Angeni attempted to process this information.
“Jay?”
“Someone Sitka knows,” Aurora said. “I think she came into our lives with . . . ill intentions.”
Angeni got to her feet abruptly, holding Freya against her chest.
“No,” she said. “How in the world would Sitka and this Jay person know about what happened with my mother?”
“I have no idea,” Aurora said.
“No, this is a misunderstanding,” Angeni said.
She walked toward the water’s edge, stared across the bay at Arrow Point. Was Aurora making this up as a way to turn Angeni against Sitka? Was she capable of such manipulation?
“There’s something else,” Aurora said, still seated on the driftwood behind Angeni. Aurora’s voice was small and tentative, and Angeni held Freya tighter in anticipation of what was next.
“I saw Sitka and Erik together,” Aurora said.
Angeni continued to stare straight ahead.
“They talk sometimes, at night. Erik has insomnia,” Angeni said. She kept her voice calm and even. She would not let Aurora get to her.
“No,” Aurora said. “I saw them . . . kissing.”
Angeni whipped her head around and stared at Aurora sitting there on the log, looking forlorn.
“You didn’t,” Angeni said.
“I did,” Aurora said. “I didn’t know if I should tell you. It worries me, given Erik’s . . . history with women. I wanted to wait until you were feeling better and—”
“Why are you doing this?” Angeni asked, instant tears coming to her eyes.
“I can’t lie to you,” Aurora said.
“You are trying to sabotage things,” Angeni said. “You hate Sitka. Is that it?”
Aurora looked stunned. “What? No.”
Angeni marched toward her, pebbles and shell fragments crunching beneath her feet.
“Why are you doing this?” Angeni asked, less than a foot of space between them. “After I created this whole life for us.”
Aurora stood up so they were eye level. She shook her head vigorously. “Britt, I swear,” she said. She was slipping back into their past too. “I’m telling the truth.”
Angeni retrieved her phone from her pocket, sent a text to Erik.
Can you come get me? I’m at Manzanita Bay
“Erik’s going to pick me up,” Angeni said, before Erik had even confirmed. “I need some space. From you.”
Angeni walked past Aurora. When she got to the end of Dock Street, she took a left on Manzanita Road and walked up the highway with Freya in her carrier, drivers slowing as they passed her.
Erik texted back:
I’m in the back with Matt and Jer. I’ll send Sitka to you