Chapter 30
Calista
“Life’s hardest truths crash like waves, pulling us under, but it’s in the struggle to the surface that we find our strength.”
—Eloisa Hobby
Yesterday, if someone had told Calista she’d be trudging across Mermaid’s Cove five days before her mother’s memorial golf tournament, wrestling a world-class identity crisis, she would’ve laughed.
Then again, if someone told her Gavin Gonzales was her biological father, she would have asked for the punch line.
Funny how life worked sometimes.
She’d spent the remainder of last night roaming the island revisiting every spot she and Athena went during their stay here, putting a fine point on the ending of her time on Hobby Island—save for one destination.
Mermaid Cove.
She’d been too exhausted to tackle that without sleep.
She’d stumbled into the Lavender Lark at dawn, fallen into bed, and slept for several hours.
Finally, she’d gotten up, showered, changed clothes, stuffed herself on take-out fried chicken.
Once fortified, she trekked to Mermaid Cove on foot because although the place was accessible by both land and sea, she didn’t know how to sail.
So she walked instead, even though it took much longer.
She planned a good, cathartic cry in the place where everything changed between her and Reid—damn him—before letting it all go forever.
At the B&B she’d made a point to avoid her sister, because she wasn’t ready to explain everything, but now, near the water, she spotted Athena walking barefoot at low tide, searching the sand for shells.
“Attie!” Calista waved, suddenly desperate to feel her sister’s arms around her.
Athena’s head snapped up, her face breaking into a smile that lasted approximately 0.5 seconds before morphing into concern. She rushed toward her. “Lissy? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Calista let out a laugh that came out more like a sob. How exactly do you drop a bombshell like this? She knew how not to do it. Reid Thornton’s abrupt blurting a case in point.
Athena rubbed Calista’s forearm. “Good grief, you’re cold as ice. Here.” She took off her cover-up and draped it over Calista’s shoulders.
Calista met her sister’s concerned eyes and offered a limp smile. It was the best she could pull off. She motioned toward the large flat rock a few feet up the beach. “Maybe we should sit.”
“Is it that bad?” Athena splayed a hand to her heart.
“It’s earth-shattering . . . at least to me.”
Athena took her arm and guided her to the rock. It was only then Calista realized her legs were trembling. “What is? Just tell me.”
“It’s . . .” Calista blew out her breath.
Athena massaged her back and murmured, “Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.”
Calista stared down at her sister’s feet dangling over the rock, covered in sand, the pink pearl of her toenail polish barely visible through the sugar-fine dusting.
Her mind shot back to childhood when they’d played together on this very beach, building sandcastles and chasing baby turtles to the ocean.
Demetra had sat on this very rock, watching them, a happy smile on her face, even though her eyes had been so sad. Had she been pining for her lover?
“It’s about Benjamin,” Calista said. “And Gavin Gonzales.”
Athena’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay, that’s a combo I wasn’t expecting. What about them? Did they get into another ‘whose golf swing is better’ pissing contest?”
No point sugarcoating it. “I just found out that Benjamin is not my father.”
“Wh-what?” Athena pulled back to stare at her, stunned shock in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Gavin is my real father. My biological father.”
Athena let out a gasp and slapped a palm across her mouth. For a moment, the only sound was the gentle lapping of waves against the shore and the distant screech of a seagull that seemed to be saying, What the fuuuck?
Athena’s face went through more changes than a chameleon in a yarn store—shock, disbelief, confusion, and finally, understanding.
“Oh, Lissy.” Somehow those two words held a lifetime of shared secrets, sisterly love, and holy-crap-our-family-is-messier-than-a-toddler-with-fingerpaints. “When? Where? How?”
“In the middle of the night.” Calista laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.
“After Reid and I . . . well, never mind that. Turns out he’s been sitting on this bombshell for who knows how long and when we were in the middle of, well .
. . you know . . . Gavin showed up, and everything just . . . went sideways.”
Before Calista could blink, Athena enveloped her in a fierce hug that smelled of sea salt and their mom’s favorite perfume—the one that always made Benjamin sneeze.
She buried her face in Athena’s shoulder, letting the tears flow.
They sat like that for what felt like hours, Athena murmuring soothing nonsense while Calista did her best impression of a sprinkler system.
When her tears slowed to sniffles, Athena took her hand and they sat side by side, facing the ocean, which seemed a lot less vast than the sea of confusion Calista was drowning in.
“I don’t even know who I am anymore, Attie,” Calista whispered, her throat raw. “It’s like someone took the autobiography of my life and revealed it was actually fiction this whole time.”
Athena was quiet for a moment, her gaze fixed on the horizon as if the answers might be skywritten in the clouds.
“You’re still you, Lissy. The you who can’t wink without looking like you’re having a stroke, who cries at those ASPCA commercials, who once ate an entire jar of pickles on a dare.
This doesn’t change your fundamental Calista-ness. ”
She nodded, desperate to believe her sister, but doubt was a persistent little gremlin, whispering yeah, but what if it does? in her ear.
“It explains a lot why Benjamin was so cruel to me. Do you think he knew?”
Athena shrugged. “I had an epiphany of my own yesterday. Our father—well, lucky you, now you don’t have his genes—would have made a scapegoat of one of us.
It’s just who he is. He has to have someone to blame for his own shortcomings.
” Then she told Calista about Benjamin shutting down her bank accounts and credit cards.
“Oh, Attie, I’m so sorry. I was afraid this would happen.”
“I do have a secret bank account of my own,” Athena said. “I’m not a total fool, but it hurts, you know?”
“I do. All those years of us trying to be perfect daughters, and for what? A gold star in the ‘Congratulations, You’ve Been Duped’ category?”
Athena’s expression hardened, a look Calista rarely saw on her sister.
It was like watching a Teletubby go Rambo.
“You always knew what he was, didn’t you?
A controlling demigod who cared more about his golf handicap than his kids’ emotional well-being.
This doesn’t change that. If anything, it explains why he always treated you like you were auditioning for the role of ‘Good Enough Daughter’ in the world’s worst play. ”
“You get it now,” Calista said, scarcely daring to breathe. “You understand what he did to me . . . to Mom . . . wasn’t really about us, but rather his own shame and insecurities. Inside he’s a small person who puffs himself up by belittling others.”
“I’ve made enough excuses for him over the years, Lissy, and I am so sorry I was blind to my part in his gaslighting and manipulation. The man’s emotional capacity is smaller than a thimble, and neither one of us needs to live in his shadow any longer.”
“You’re breaking away?” Hope choked her up and Calista put a hand to her throat.
“I’m leaving, just as you did.”
A weight lifted from her shoulders. At last! Her sister’s eyes were opened. “Do you think Mamá ever planned to tell me about Gavin?”
“I think that’s what this month was all about. Eloisa did say Mom had planned all these activities, that the tournament was her idea, and you know she hated golf. It was all to reveal Gavin’s identity to you.”
“But I still have so many questions and so few answers!”
Athena plucked a seashell from her pocket, turning it over in her hands as if it might contain a Magic 8 Ball with all the answers. “I guess we’ll never know for sure why Mom did what she did. It couldn’t have been easy for her.”
Calista nodded, remembering how their mother would smooth things over after Benjamin’s outbursts, always the peacekeeper. “She did try to protect us the best she could, even if it wasn’t good enough. She did install Cantu in our lives to watch over us.”
“Yeah, well, loving two men and having to choose between them? That’s not exactly a Hallmark movie scenario.” Athena gave a wry smile. “Unless Hallmark’s branching out into Polyamory in Paradise.”
The idea of their serene, somewhat distant mother caught in a love triangle was mind-boggling. Like finding out her kindergarten teacher moonlighted as a Vegas showgirl.
“I wish I could talk to her about it,” Calista said, a fresh wave of grief washing over her. “There’s so much I want to ask, so much I need to understand. Like, was Dad always this much of a jerk, or did he level up over time? I’m assuming she felt trapped.”
Athena’s eyes glistened, reflecting a sorrow Calista felt in her own body. “Maybe we can corner Eloisa and wring more details out of her.”
Calista leaned into her sister’s side. “I’d like to understand Mamá better . . . God knows we’ve got enough material for a lifetime of therapy sessions.”
“So . . .” Athena pursed her lips and let out a hiss. “What about Reid? How are you feeling about Mr. Secret-Keeper? On a scale of ‘mildly annoyed’ to ‘plotting his demise,’ where do you land?”