Chapter 14 – Sunshine/Kaitlyn #2
“No,” I said. “This is enough food for a week.”
I didn’t even know how to attack the sandwich, and decided to just go for it.
“City living must agree with you,” Mom said, adding a little puddle of ketchup to her plate.
I couldn’t answer, my mouth was full. It was delicious, of course. Tender and spicy. There was something sweet in there too.
“You look…” Mom stopped.
Now, I was braced, waiting for my mother’s opinion. Objectively, I knew how I looked. I’d worked hard to shed who I’d been and become this powerful version of myself. But one word from my mother, and I’d be back to that ugly duckling.
“Beautiful,” she said. “So sophisticated. If I didn’t have your 8 th grade picture on my fridge, I’d never guess you were the same person.”
“Thanks,” I said, with a laugh. That 8 th grade picture was legendary.
“Was it hard?” she asked, and I was surprised by the question. “Adapting to that new life?”
“I little,” I said. “Building my self-confidence was hard. The rest was just money, really. And growing up.”
The silence between us was suddenly crowded with other questions I didn’t want to ask.
Why didn’t you visit me? How could you let me go out there and never want to see where I lived and what I was doing?
But I knew the answers, I just didn’t like them.
My therapist would remind me that my mother’s fears were about her. Not about me. And, I had to accept my mom as she was, not as I wished she could be. It was easier to do that here, in this tiny, strange town that raised both of us .
Here, I could see my mom clearly. She was just a woman, trying her best.
I took another bite of sandwich. Honestly, it was so good.
Strange, I didn’t realize how famished I was until just now. Sneaking out of the house, giving Tag an epic blowjob, and then breaking down in an emotional collapse really took it out of a girl.
“I went horseback riding for the first time,” I told Mom, changing the subject and putting all my resentment behind me. “Carter and Ethan took me out to show me the land.”
“How about that?” she cried, with a big smile. “I always thought you were afraid of horses. You know, your dad tried to get you up on one any number of times.”
The word dad hit me in the chest. Edward was my dad. He’d raised me, he’d loved me, he just hadn’t contributed to my biology.
“Not afraid,” I said, munching on a fry that was really crisp and delicious. I would need to let Amity know what a good job she was doing. “Just always wanted to be inside with a book.”
“That is true. Couldn’t pry the damn things out of your hands. You really are the smartest thing this town has ever seen.”
“Well, they’re all banking on Smarty Sunshine to save the day.”
“I always hated the way that nickname made you feel,” she said. “But I was always so proud of how hard you worked. Yesterday, you said you had an idea that would help, but it was risky.”
“It’s crypto.”
“Crypt what? Like a burial ground?” Mom looked baffled.
I shook my head. “Never mind. It’s just the start of an idea.”
“You’ll work it out. You always do. But for now, I’m going to enjoy having my long lost daughter home. Who doesn’t hate me for lying to her, her whole life.” She reached across the table and stole one of my fries, given that she’d already finished hers off.
“When you put it like that,” I said, with narrowed eyes.
“Oh no. You forgave me. No take-backsies.”
I laughed. Forgiveness felt better than resentment, so I held onto it with both hands.
“Hello! Was anyone going to visit me?” I turned at the sound of my sister’s voice. Bliss stood there in the tightest black jeans known to man and an old Willie Nelson concert t-shirt, tied in a knot at her waist.
Just standing there, with that smile on her face, she looked like trouble.
I leapt to my feet and pulled her into a hug. I always thought Bliss and I had more in common than we realized. We were both rebels at heart. More selfish than our sisters. Our edges sharper. I was looking forward to getting to know her better.
“We were coming to your place after lunch,” I told her.
“Likely story,” she said, with a smile.
She pulled up a chair, turned it so she straddled it, and sat down. She also proceeded to steal my fries. Like mother, like daughter.
“Amity says you and Mom made up,” she said, running a fry through a pool of ketchup.
“Word travels fast,” I said.
“We’ve got phones in Last Hope, Sun,” Bliss said. “We know how to text. We’re not completely uncivilized.”
“Didn’t say you were. ”
“Oh please, you know that’s why you never come home,” Bliss said, as she munched on a fry. “No sushi in the Gulch.”
I pretended to be shocked. “What? No Sushi? I’m out then.”
“Stop messing with your sister, Bliss,” Mom said, something we heard a lot growing up. “Sunshine is here for the foreseeable future. Aren’t you, dear? So, let’s take this time to really enjoy each other’s company.”
Foreseeable future seemed intense. I had to get back to the city to keep Jared away from my clients. It was possible I was compromising my chance at a partnership by lingering in town.
It was also possible, if I ran back to NY today, they would just find another reason to postpone my promotion.
“You should come by the bar tonight,” Bliss said. “Everyone will be there.”
“It’s Tuesday night.”
“Yeah, everyone will be there,” she repeated.
“Every night’s Friday Night in Last Hope Gulch since the Feud Day Festival.
It’s awesome. You have the tourists, who want the real western experience.
The locals, who hate the tourists, but love their money, and, of course, the cowboys. ” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Sounds like fun.”
Which was not something I typically engaged in, but I was doing a lot of things recently I’d never done before. And all of them had turned out pretty great.
Bliss’s blue eyes met mine in a way I’d never experienced from her. Like she was seeing me and letting me see her. Two fully adult women who happened to be sisters.
“Really? You’re serious? You’ll come?”
It was stunning that she cared. The way Amity cared what I thought about her food. Like I mattered to them, when I would have guessed they never thought of me at all.
“I’d love to.”
Bliss’s smile was brilliant. “Cool. I’ll get the word out. Everyone who hasn’t seen you in a long time will want to be there.”
That was highly unlikely, but I wasn’t going to rain on her parade.
“Awesome,” I lied. Being surrounded by my old high school classmates, most of whom thought I was weird as shit, did not sound like fun at all, but I wasn’t going to back down. This obviously meant a lot to Bliss.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell the McGraw motherfuckers, too.”
“Bliss,” my mom admonished. Another old habit that obviously had no impact on Bliss and her language.
“Seth and Eli are out of town, obvs,” Bliss said. “And Mac won’t come if Amity is there.”
“Really? Still?” I asked.
Mac and Amity had been off and on since grade school, basically. A secret relationship that wasn’t so secret. But, that was years ago. Surely, they’d managed to overcome any hard feelings after such a long time.
Last Hope Gulch was too small for sustained hostility.
Bliss shrugged. “That’s just how those two roll. What’s really comical is when Seth or Eli are in town, Mac will use them to order all the takeout food he can get his hands on from the Last Meal. Mac thinks he’s fooling Amity, but he’s not.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really,” Bliss said. “But Ethan and Harmony will definitely come, and if Carter can get Mac to watch the kids, he’ll show up, too, if only to make an appearance. We’ll turn it into a homecoming party! ”
Ask Tag , I wanted to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask it casually.
I felt like the second I said his name, my eagle-eyed sister would know what we did in the barn last night and the shit would hit the fan.
But, I knew I would spend the whole night wishing he was there, waiting for him to walk in the door, and being disappointed when he didn’t.
Jesus. It was high school all over again.
“Don’t make it a thing,” I said. “I’ll just come and have some wine. You do have wine, don’t you?”
“Of course. Stomp it with my own two feet,” Bliss smiled.
“Mom, tell her to stop lying.”
Mom lifted her head up from her phone, where I believed she was playing Wordle. “Bliss, stop messing with Sunshine.”
“You’ll really come?” Bliss asked.
I nodded. It was time for me to start remembering I had a family. A pretty large, extended family at this point. My sister wanted me to come to her bar tonight, to see her in action, and that’s what I was going to do.
And I was going to try really hard not to think of Tag.