Chapter 26
Justine knew she had screwed up, but she also knew in her bones that she didn’t have a choice. Try as she might, in all of her fifty-four years, she still hadn’t found a way to be in two places at once. And today of all days, she’d had no choice but to put Ashleigh first, no matter how unfair it was to Sienna.
By the time she’d had the chance—and the presence of mind—to call Sienna, the funeral service had begun and Sienna had been unreachable. When the doctor had assured her that Ashleigh was stable, Bobby’s funeral had almost finished. After Justine had—finally—been able to briefly talk to Ashleigh, to assure her that she wasn’t alone in this, that Justine was there for her no matter what, the reception at Maxine’s house was well on the way.
Justine sat in her car outside. Her old Subaru stuck out like a sore thumb between all the gleaming black town cars with drivers at the wheel. She’d been getting dressed for the funeral service when she’d received the call about Ashleigh, and at least she was wearing a black suit, but it was wrinkled and her white blouse had a coffee stain on it. As soon as she went inside that house, she would stand out like a sore thumb as well—and not just because of her disheveled looks.
Justine had texted Sienna when she’d left the hospital, but she hadn’t received a reply. She wondered if she should try calling Sienna and ask her to come outside so they could talk in private so Justine could explain what happened. But Sienna had just buried her father and Justine felt like it was too much to ask—especially after she had failed to show up. Being there for Sienna was truly the only thing she’d had to do and she had utterly failed at this simple task—just like she had done so many times for others in the past.
Justine huffed out a breath, gathered her courage, and made her way inside—she’d faced much worse in her life, after all.
The house was packed with people, some of them surely celebrities, but Justine didn’t recognize any of them. She spotted Sienna talking to someone by the big table in the dining area but before she could reach her, Maxine intercepted Justine.
“I’m not sure you should be here.” Maxine’s stare was cold and hard on Justine. “You’re a little late.”
“I know and I’m sorry.”
“What excuse could you possibly have for not being there for Sienna at her father’s funeral?” Maxine hissed.
“An emergency at the shelter,” Justine said. Maxine was not the one she wanted to have this conversation with and she wasn’t going to give her any details about what had transpired with Ashleigh. “I’d like to speak to Sienna, please.”
As if she’d heard her name being spoken through the hubbub of the crowd, Sienna looked in Justine’s direction. Their gazes met, but it was impossible to read Sienna’s face—that lovely, warm, usually so expressive face.
“What you did was not okay,” Maxine said. “You sure picked a day to show your true colors.” With that, she turned around and walked off.
Justine tried to advance, to get closer to Sienna, who seemed to pretend Justine wasn’t even there, but it was as though everyone in the room knew what she had done and was trying to prevent her, just by standing in a certain way and blocking the path.
When Justine finally reached Sienna’s side, she was exhausted. It had been a day and a half already.
“Can we talk, please,” she said to Sienna’s back.
When Sienna turned around, her eyes were moist and her face a mask of raw pain.
“I needed you today,” Sienna whispered. “Fuck, how I needed you.”
“I know.” Saying sorry seemed so insignificant, but an apology was all Justine had. “I’m so sorry, babe. I would have been there if I could. Please, can we talk?” Justine urged again.
“I just can’t right now, Justine.” Sienna looked in such agony. Actually saying goodbye to her dad and the ritual of the funeral must have wrecked her. Justine completely understood. “I needed you today and you weren’t there.” Tears pearled in her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded as inadequate as they felt to Justine as she uttered them. “I’m here now,” she said, hoping—in vain—that it was enough.
“As what?” Some of the pain on Sienna’s face had turned into hardness. “My girlfriend? My friend, even?” She gave a terse shake of the head. “Everyone else was there. Rochelle and Rita were there. Drew and Shanti from makeup? They were there. A whole bunch of people I don’t even know, they were there.” She pointed a finger at Justine. “And you? Where the fuck were you? I can’t do this right now. I’m sure you had what seemed like a huge emergency, although I only figured that out after I saw your text and I could finally be sure that you hadn’t been in an accident, the week after my father died in a motorcycle crash. So no, I don’t want to talk to you today. Not tomorrow, either. I never want to fucking see you again.”
“Hey, sis.” Taissa had made her way through the crowd, most of whom were staring at Sienna and Justine. “Why don’t you come with me? We’ll get something to drink in the kitchen.” Taissa put her arm around Sienna and, without even acknowledging Justine, ushered her sister away.
Justine had clearly incurred the wrath of all the Brewster-Brights—perhaps rightly so.
Sienna was also right about today not being the day for Justine to explain why she hadn’t been at Bobby’s funeral. Sienna was too wrung out by all the emotions of the day, and the past week.
There was no point in staying at this reception in Bobby Bright’s memory. Justine had hurt his daughter, possibly beyond repair, and she was damn sorry for it.
“This is what you always do,” Rochelle said. “You’re not there when it really matters.”
“Ashleigh tried to kill herself, Roche.” Justine had stopped by the hospital on her way to see Rochelle and Rita and, all things considered, Ashleigh was doing okay. “I’m not losing another kid. I can’t lose another one.” She shook her head.
“I feel for Ashleigh, you know that, but Sienna—the woman you are dating and are supposedly madly in love with—lost her dad.” Rochelle shook her head with even more force than Justine, as though they were in a contest. “The shelter has so many volunteers. You could have asked Darrel to go to the hospital to be with Ashleigh. They would have done it in a heartbeat, you know that.”
“I had to be there for Ashleigh myself. We have a connection.”
“If I have to convince you that you made the wrong choice today, there’s really no point,” Rochelle said. “In that case, Sienna being so angry with you might as well be the end of it. Then you shouldn’t even try to salvage whatever’s left of what you had.”
Justine closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know that I made the wrong choice, but?—”
“As long as there’s a ‘but’, you shouldn’t even apologize to Sienna.” Rochelle wasn’t pulling any punches today. She never had, but it had also never had the power to change Justine’s behavior.
“I think,” Justine said, “in this particular situation, there’s simply no such thing as a wrong choice. It wasn’t even a choice, not a conscious one, anyway. I got the call and I drove to the hospital.” It’s who I am, Justine thought but, perhaps, only she would ever understand that.
“For a minute there”—Rochelle’s gaze softened—“I truly believed it would be different with Sienna. You were different with her. You sat in that same chair and told me how easy it was to be with her, to show up for her. And I know you showed up, that you were there for her every single day after her father died. I was so impressed by that. I really was. Ask Rita. I told her in those exact words. Rita and I even talked about how you and Sienna might actually work out somehow—we couldn’t put our finger on what was so different this time around. Maybe, first of all, that you let yourself really fall in love for once but also, more importantly, that you let Sienna do the same with you. That you let whatever chemistry you had organically grow into something potentially beautiful and—who knows?—lasting. But today showed us that you still think the shelter is more important than anything or anyone else.”
“Because it is,” Justine confirmed.
“More important than Sienna on the day of her father’s funeral?”
“No,” Justine contradicted herself, because that’s what this whole situation was. One big contradiction. Both Sienna and Ashleigh mattered a great deal, but in very different ways.
“I hate to say this to you, Justine, but just like Bobby Bright, you’re not going to be around forever.” Rochelle really was too much sometimes, but it was also why she’d been Justine’s best friend forever. “The Rainbow Shelter will be there long after you’ve gone. It’s unlikely, but you might even consider retirement one day, or at least scaling back.” Rochelle held up her hand, indicating that she wasn’t done talking and that she had a further point to make. “What I’m trying to say is that there are other, equally capable people who work at the shelter and can fill in for you when needed—when you have to be at a funeral you can’t miss. If you’d called me this morning, I would have gone to the hospital to be with Ashleigh. You know that. And Darrel will graduate their management course soon.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I just did what I always do when I get a call. Hop in my car and go so I can deal with the situation. It’s what I’ve been doing for thirty years.” It’s what they’re making that fucking movie about. “I hate that I hurt Sienna. It’s the last thing I wanted to do.” Justine couldn’t shake that first heart-wrenching glimpse she’d caught of Sienna’s face at the reception earlier. The profound pain and deflation in her glance. “I really care about her. A lot.” Justine looked into Rochelle’s eyes. “I may need some advice on how to fix this.”
“Do you want to fix it?” Rochelle brought her hand to her chest. “Do you feel that in here? Like it can’t possibly be any other way?”
Justine nodded. That was precisely how she felt.
“Let me put it differently, then.” Rochelle narrowed her eyes. “If you could do today all over again and you got the call about Ashleigh while getting ready for Bobby’s funeral, what would you do?”
Justine scoffed. She knew what Rochelle needed and wanted to hear. Whether that was what she would actually do, given another chance, was impossible to honestly say.
“I would call you,” Justine said regardless. “I would ask you to be with Ashleigh so I could be with Sienna.”
“Sure.” Rochelle didn’t sound as though she fully believed Justine—and why would she? “Your best bet is to convince Sienna that’s the truth.”
“What a fucking mess.” Justine closed her eyes for a moment. This was usually the moment she knew she had to retreat from the relationship, for her own sake, but also for the other person’s sake. Yet, even though she had behaved the way she had, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision that put her relationship in grave jeopardy, Justine felt no desire to pull back from Sienna—on the contrary.