Chapter 11
Athena
“In every stitch, there is a story. In every craft, a piece of the soul.”
—Eloisa Hobby
After Calista returned to the chapel for her cane, Athena lingered on the church steps, standing at the edge of the Crafters’ Corner welcome party, feeling as out of place as a cat at a dog show despite the warm glow of the twinkle lights strung overhead.
She tugged at the restrictive hem of her pencil skirt, feeling overdressed and underprepared.
She could go back to the Lavender Lark and change.
Her luggage should have arrived by now, but she couldn’t summon the energy for even that minor task, especially when Demetra’s friends continued to offer their heartfelt condolences.
Athena stapled a glossy smile to her face, the manufactured mask she perfected over years of press conferences and award ceremonies.
But this was different. This gathering wasn’t a crowd of golf enthusiasts, adoring fans, or eager reporters.
These people knew her mother and loved her in a way Athena never had the chance to.
“Oh my stars, you’re Athena Dempsey! I can’t believe it!” A fortysomething woman rushed over to Athena. She beamed like a lighthouse, her hands glee-clenched into fists that she shook like maracas.
“Nice to meet you,” Athena said. Chill, relax your jaw, act human.
“My daughter will not believe this! She’s hoping for the LPGA, ya know.
She’s sixteen with an eight handicap, and you’re her absolute idol.
She’s gonna hate that she didn’t come on this trip, but she’s at golf camp this summer.
Could I get a selfie, please, please? And maybe a video shout-out to Tatiana? ”
“Um, if you can make it quick. I’m waiting for my sister.” Athena’s facial muscles ached from forcing a smile.
Tatiana’s mom’s eyes widened. “Is this the sister who walked away from Chevron on the eighteenth green without sinking the putt?”
“That’d be the one.” Her right eye twitched.
“What happened? Why would she do that?” The woman shook her chin like a bobblehead.
“Let’s video that message to Tatiana, okay?”
The woman whipped out her phone and hit record. Athena made the short video, giving the young woman a rah-rah speech about perseverance and dedication to craft.
“Thank you so much. You are so nice. How kind!” The woman clutched her phone to her chest. “Well, I won’t keep you. Hope to see you around!”
“Bye.” Athena wriggled her fingers and wondered what was keeping Calista.
“Athena!” A cheerful voice cut through her worry like a machete through jungle foliage. “Come, come, you simply must join us!”
She turned to find Clare from the quilt shop approaching her, eyes twinkling brighter than the string lights overhead.
Behind her trailed Dot, who had stepped out of the local apothecary, and Vivian, who had emerged from A New Chapter, the Crafters’ Corner bookstore, looking for all the world like a jolly gang of fairy godmothers.
“Great, all I need now is a pumpkin, some mice, and glass slippers, and we’ve got ourselves a Cinderella ball,” Athena muttered under her breath.
Except she wasn’t Cinderella. That role went to Calista. In this scenario, Athena was most likely a wicked stepsister. A fresh pang of guilt drove a spike through her heart. Yeah, well, the truth hurts.
“Hello, Clare, lovely party.” Amazingly banal, Dempsey.
“Oh, it’s just getting started! Wait until the conga line! It’ll snake all around Crafters’ Corner. Demetra loved conga lines, you understand.”
No, she did not.
Clare linked her arm through Athena’s as if they were old friends and not virtual strangers connected by the gossamer thread of a dead mother’s memory. “This way. Everyone’s dying to meet you!”
“Um, I’m waiting for Calista.”
“She can catch up. We’re just going across the quad.” Clare steered her toward a group of eager-looking women. Dot flanked Athena’s other side.
“We’re so excited to have you and your sister here.” Vivian hurried along after Dot’s long-legged strides. She wore pink kitten heels. Her eyes peered at Athena from behind glittery cat-eye glasses. “How are you finding the island?”
Oh, you know. Nothing like a family reunion slash memorial service on Willy Wonka’s summer getaway to really lift the spirits.
“It’s . . . unique.” Athena settled on diplomacy. “Very colorful.”
“Oh, yes!” Clare made a cooing noise and put a hand to her ample cleavage. “Eloisa believes color is food for the soul. Speaking of food, have you tried the crab puffs?” She gestured to the lavish buffet. “They’re divine!”
Before Athena could politely decline (or less politely flee), she found herself swept into a whirlwind of introductions. Every shopkeeper, craft enthusiast, and long-lost third cousin twice removed was eager to meet her, each armed with a story about Demetra.
“Your mother’s laugh was like music . . .”
“I’ll never forget the time Demetra organized that beach cleanup . . .”
“She always said her girls were her greatest joy . . .”
These people spoke of a Demetra she’d never known. The mother Athena remembered was a faded photograph, a meek mouse in drab clothes, a ghost that haunted the edges of her childhood memories.
Just as Athena considered faking a sudden and highly contagious case of island fever, she spotted Calista leaving the chapel.
Her sister looked . . . different, softer somehow, despite the clear fatigue in her posture and the way she favored her injured ankle, her face drawn, almost gaunt, her eyes haunted. She paused on the steps, looking lost in the crowd pulsing between them.
“Calista!” Clare waved Athena’s sister over. “Come join us!”
A shadow passed over her sister’s face, and for a moment Athena thought she might walk away. Instead, she smiled warmly and approached them.
Athena moved toward Calista, mouth open, ready to ask about her injury and say something, anything, to bridge the Grand Canyon gap. Still, before she got the words out, Vivian grabbed her arm and tugged her backward.
“Tell us more about your mother’s influence and how she made you who you are today.” Vivian batted eyelash extensions as long and thick as paintbrushes. She looked good in them.
How? By not putting up a fight and letting Benjamin take them away from her. That was how. Demetra’s absence made Athena driven, trying her best to prove she was worth something.
“Demi was the most incredible person.” Vivian let out a wistful sigh.
What could Athena say? That her most explicit memory of her mother was as a cowed and subservient woman? For years, she blamed Demetra for abandoning them and for choosing fear over her own daughters.
She searched for Calista, hoping for rescue, but her sister was deep in conversation with Artie and Orion. Then Calista laughed at something one of the teens said, the sound carrying across the quad, open and unguarded.
How had they drifted so far apart? Oh, right, Calista walked away from her just as Demetra had.
Stop wallowing. Fix it.
But could she? Would Calista allow it? Her sister gave Reid a second chance. Why not her?
Trapped in a conversational merry-go-round, Athena spun from one group to another as people sought her attention, always just missing Calista, who seemed caught in a loop too. A cosmic game of keep-away, with the universe dangling her sister just out of reach.
After what felt like hours of smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, Athena spotted her chance. Calista headed toward the buffet, her limp more pronounced as she braced against the cane. She needed to get ice on that ankle.
Zeroing her gaze on her sister, Athena broke free from her latest conversation, but just as she neared, Calista stumbled. One minute, her sister was upright. The next, she was falling, her arms pinwheeling, cane flying as she struggled to catch herself.
A chorus of concerned “Ohs!” rang out across the quad. Athena’s heart jumped as she pushed through the gathered throng.
“Let me through,” Athena said, injecting power into her voice and rushing forward. Still, Calista was already being helped to her feet by a couple of burly lumberjack-size men. Someone handed Calista her cane.
“I’m fine,” Calista said, face flushed as she brushed off the hands reaching to steady her. “I need some space, please.”
Wasn’t that just like her younger sister? Pushing people away when all they wanted was to help. Calista turned and limped away, the crowd parting before her like the Red Sea.
And just like that, their moment vanished. The chance to connect, to explain, to ask what had been burning inside her for five long years.
Why did you leave?
Athena stood rooted to the spot, the jovial party swirling around her. The twinkling lights shone too bright, the laughter too loud. She felt exposed, raw, like a nerve ending left open to the air.
“Are you all right, dear?” Dot’s concerned voice cut through Athena’s foggy thoughts.
She blinked, realizing she had been staring after Calista’s back for who knows how long. When was the last time she answered that question honestly instead of with I’m fine?
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
Dot patted her arm. “Family can be complicated, especially when there’s toxic behavior involved.”
Athena whipped her head around and stared up at the tall woman. “What do you know?”
Dot’s eyes looked black in the shadows. “Demetra told us everything.”
Everything? That encompassed a lot of territory.
“Well . . .” Dot’s straightforward voice seemed older than the island itself. “Sometimes the best way to move forward is to stop trying to fix the past.”
“Huh?”
Dot reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small round tin that she pressed into Athena’s palm. “You look like you could use this.”
Athena glanced down at the container. “What is it?”
“Lavender-orange ointment,” Dot said. “I call it Self-Empowerment Salve.”
Athena raised an eyebrow. “Self-empowerment? From lavender and oranges?”