31 Cora
Two days after life had gone topsy-turvy (aka the gala fiasco), Cora sat on the sandy beach and stared at her phone. She knew
what she needed to do. On some level she even wanted to do it. It was the right thing. She’d talked about it with her sisters.
She’d done some deep introspection, thinking about some of the issues she hadn’t wanted to deal with over the years. And all
those conversations pointed to the same conclusion.
She needed to send a text.
It was a simple task, really. She sent thousands of texts every day. All it took were a few taps, a few words, and they didn’t
have to be spelled correctly. Punctuation wasn’t even required.
But this wasn’t just any text. It was a text to her dad.
She needed to be the one to send it. She had rejected every attempt he’d made to reach out over the years, and she realized
now that some of her reasons for doing so were based on faulty information, combined with her blinding anger. She wasn’t taking
all the responsibility in what had happened, but it was time she took responsibility for her part. So here she was, offering
the modern version of an olive branch.
Now all she had to do was do it. With the steady rhythm of the waves lulling her nerves, she started.
Hey, Dad. It’s Cora.
Well, it was the text opening of a seventy-eight-year-old trying to figure out how “this newfangled technology” worked, but at least it was something.
She briefly considered deleting her name because she was well aware of how texts worked.
But on the other hand, it had been years since she’d sent one to her dad.
Or called him. Or had any communication with him of any sort.
If she got up the courage to send this message, she sure didn’t want the response to be new phone, who dis?
So she was sticking with the generic Boomer opening. And now that she’d gotten the greeting out of the way, it was time for
the meat of the message. She drew in a deep breath and before she could rethink it, she kept going.
I’m going to be in town in a couple weeks. Maybe we can grab dinner?
Okay, so she was going with complete sentences and full punctuation. But as long as she was going Boomer style, she might
as well own it.
As far as owning the question...
Her hand hovered over the Send button. It was such a simple question, but it felt like a giant step. Dinner? There were still
a lot of hurt feelings and anger there, still a mountain of healing that needed to happen. But Savannah was right. Life was
too short to spend it being mad at him.
Because without even realizing it, Cora had let her anger affect every single relationship she had, including her relationship
with her sisters. It was time to start looking at forgiveness.
And yes, she knew that one dinner wasn’t going to fix everything with her dad, but it could be a start. She needed to start
down that road. She owed it to herself.
She read the question one more time. Then before she could talk herself out of it, she pressed Send.
Almost instantly her phone buzzed.
Hi, Cora.
It’s really good to hear from you.
I’d love to go to dinner. Tell me when and where, and I’m there.
She stared at the last message.
He’d love to.
Okay, they were doing this.
Her stomach did a nervous flip. She had no idea how dinner would go or where it would lead, but just putting the wheels in
motion made her feel lighter.
Great, I’ll be in touch.
“I thought I might find you out here.”
Bianca walked up and sank down into the sand next to her.
“I’m going to have dinner with Dad.” Cora held up her phone as if she needed to prove it.
Bianca nodded. “Savannah told me you were thinking about that.”
“And?”
“And I think it’s a good idea. You two have a lot to talk about.”
Yes, they did. And at some point she would think about the conversations they needed to have. But not right now. She’d taken
enough big steps for one day.
So instead, she gave her sister a playful nudge with her shoulder to lighten the mood. “Maybe our first topic will be why
he’s still paying for your cell phone.”
“Maybe you need to mind your business,” Bianca joked.
Cora laughed. She’d missed this kind of relationship with her sisters.
“Anyway, it will be nice to have everyone talking again,” Bianca continued.
Cora nodded. “Yeah. It will.”
“Speaking of talking, have you talked to Jax yet?”
Well, that was a sneaky conversation change.
Almost instantly, her mood changed with it.
“No.” Maybe she was short with Bianca, but that was because she was done talking about it.
She’d said everything she’d needed to say to Jax at the hospital.
And she’d even returned the clothes he’d kindly lent her to the hotel check-in desk.
As far as she was concerned, things between them were over. She was moving on.
“Not at all?” Bianca asked.
“Nope.” Of course, part of that could’ve been because she’d blocked his number, but whatever.
“You’re not even curious about what he has to say?”
“Not really. He got what he set out to get. Now we go our separate ways. That’s how it was always supposed to be, right?”
Why were they still talking about this?
“Except everything changed when you fell in love,” Bianca said.
The statement made Cora pause. It was weird to hear it out loud. It made her feelings for Jax somehow seem more real. Yes,
she had fallen in love with him. She wasn’t even sure how it happened. She wasn’t someone who fell in love, not anymore. And
yet, she had fallen in love with him.
“What did or didn’t happen doesn’t matter,” Cora said. “It’s over. Time to move on.” She stood up and dusted the sand off
her legs. “In fact, I’m not sure if Savannah told you, but I’m heading to Houston tomorrow. I need to get a few things in
order before I fly out to Atlanta to help her out after her surgery. They scheduled it for the week after next. My flight
has officially been changed.”
“So that’s it, then?”
How many different ways did she have to say it? “Yes, Bianca, that’s it. The relationship had an expiration date from day
one, which I knew. And I fell for him anyway. Which I was warned would happen by nearly every woman in town. But did I listen?
No.” She shrugged. “So I’m not sure if that makes him a jerk or me a fool. But either way, the end game is the same.”
“So, what? You just fall out of love with him?”
Cora was starting to lose her patience. “Me loving him never mattered!”
“It matters to me.”
The deep voice came from behind her. It was so unexpected she actually had to take a tiny step forward to keep from losing her balance.
Her first instinct was to stomp off and pretend Jax didn’t exist. It was over. The damage was done. She didn’t feel like she
needed to hash it out over and over again while, as Bianca had so eloquently put it, she was trying to figure out how to fall
out of love with him.
Although if she didn’t at least acknowledge him, he’d probably follow her, and she had no desire to have whatever exchange
was bound to happen at the beach house. He’d never actually been there before, so at least she had one Sunnyside memory that
wasn’t tainted by him, and she wanted to keep it that way.
With an annoyed sigh she spun around to face him.
Then her heart did the most ridiculous thing. Even though she was furious with him, even though she never wanted to see him
again, her heart still fluttered at the sight of him.
Love was such a strange thing.
He was holding a white poster that said I’m Sorry in big black letters. Under it, in smaller letters, it said I Was a Fool.
“What do you want?” She didn’t bother masking her hostility.
He tapped his poster. “I think I made it pretty clear.” Then he leaned in as if sharing a secret. “It was all me. I was the
fool. And the jerk. Guilty on both accounts.”
She turned back to Bianca, motioning to Jax. “Were you in on this?”
Bianca shook her head. “No. I’ve interfered in this enough. But this is a pretty perfect coincidence, if you ask me. You might
almost call it serendipity .” Bianca gave her a nudge in Jax’s direction. “I’ll be at the house if you need me.”
Cora let out a long, tired breath. As soon as Bianca was out of earshot, she turned back to Jax. “Okay, fine, you got your
conversation. What do you want to say?”
“Did you mean what you said before? About the love thing?” He took a step toward her, and the magnetic draw that had always
been between them tugged at her.
She could’ve lied. She could’ve said no, of course she wasn’t in love with him, and walked away. This whole relationship had already been humiliating enough.
But she was tired of the lies and tired of the games. If she was going out, she at least wanted to go out with the truth.
“Yes.”
He took another tiny step toward her. “You fell in love with me?”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “What is it with people not understanding answers today? Yes. I fell in love with you.
Happy?”
“Yes, actually. Very.” He grinned. It was the authentic one that made it hard for her to think clearly. “Now it’s your turn
to ask me a question.”
She huffed. “Like what? How’s the new job?”
“Good one.” He nodded at her question choice. “Yeah, I turned it down.”
That news caught her off guard. He what? She felt some of her defenses, along with her anger, start to drop. “What? Why?”
“Turns out it wasn’t a good fit.” He shrugged like What do you do? “The job kept me here. And I realized I don’t want to be here.”
For a moment she didn’t say anything.
So this had all been for nothing? Seriously? Why would he even come here to tell her that?
“You’re not going to ask me why not?” Jax prompted.
“Do you have a script you want me to read from, or are you just going to keep feeding me lines?”
He chuckled, but her sass didn’t slow him down. “Because I’m at a place where I’m looking for a forever kind of relationship.
Someone to share my life with. And I know enough to know I’m not going to find that here.”