17. June
JUNE
By the time we dock the Bluebird, find the cars, and make the uneven, sandy trek back toward the beach house, the three of us are sun-tired and giddy.
We all need a shower and, like, twenty minutes alone to calm down.
The beach house, being the closest, feels like a haven of air conditioning at the end of a long day.
We round the porch steps, taking them two at a time, and push each other through the door. Racing to call dibs on the first shower, we almost miss that there’s something amiss.
Mom isn’t in her bed in the living room.
She’s standing in the kitchen.
Moving around the kitchen. Rummaging through the cupboard as though she’s looking for something, humming a tune under her breath, and none the wiser to the company.
For a moment, the three of us just freeze on the threshold, staring.
Meredith is the first of us to react, crossing the non-existent barrier into the room. “Mom?”
Eleanor turns, one hand still rummaging, the other pressed to her hip like she’s about to scold a small army. “Well, it’s about time. I was starting to think you’d sailed to Europe.”
When she smiles, it’s all full and sharp and mischievous. For one dizzying second, I swear even the house looks younger around her.
Meredith swallows audibly. “What are you doing there, huh? I thought we talked about you being in the kitchen.”
“Oh, please.” Mom waves her off. “If I have to sit much longer, I’ll fuse to the mattress. Besides, I wanted to get dinner started for when you got back. You were always so hungry after sailing. It was like I had boys.”
Sophie’s hand flies to her mouth.
My own breath constricts around an ache of longing in my chest.
“You shouldn’t be on your feet,” Meredith says quickly, crossing to her. “We told you?—”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do in my own house, Meredith, please.” She scoffs.
My sister looks over to us, desperation in her eyes.
I clear my throat. “You’ve done so much already for us, Mom. Why don’t you put your feet up while we start on food?”
“We could probably manage a pie,” Sophie chirps up. “Between the three of us, I mean. With you supervising, Mom, Meredith can’t burn it.”
Meredith offers a weak protest, too intent on watching Eleanor as she lets the suggestion marinate.
“I suppose it’s about time you all learn how to bake it properly. God forbid the Shack’s reputation suffers because you’re too impatient with the cranberries. Your father would never let me live it down.”
If anyone else is reeling from the mention of our dad, they don’t show it. Meredith gently gets to work, easing Eleanor toward a chair before she can get any bright ideas about staying on her feet. Sophie, on the other hand, is already in the pantry, pulling aprons from the back of the door.
Feeling momentarily useless, I pull out my phone.
Mark’s messages are easy to ignore.
“I’ll text Trent,” I tell the room. “Let him know to come here after his shift.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed him.” Mom sighs into her seat as Meredith adjusts a pillow. “Haven’t I missed him, Mer? It’s been too long since he helped me out in the kitchen.”
Meredith squeezes her shoulder. “He’s a natural, all right. Do you think he’ll go to culinary school, Sophie?”
Sophie pauses mid-piling ingredients onto the island. “Yeah, if that’s what he wants.”
“All my babies are such smart cookies,” Mom agrees, casually including Trent in her brood. It makes me reach for the butter, if only to have something to do with my hands.
“Shall we get started then?”
We quickly fall into a rhythm. Chattering as we piece together the well-worn recipe. Mom knows it without even looking, reciting measurements at the drop of a hat and enthralling us with her secret techniques.
We orbit Mom like planets, checking she’s comfortable, drinking in every clear-eyed comment she makes like it’s a God-given gift. It might well be.
Once the pie is in the oven, we stop for a moment to gather ourselves, perched on counters and stools around our mother and letting the scent of sweet, browning pastry fill the room.
“So,” Sophie says casually. “Speaking of delicious things… Eddie?”
Meredith groans immediately. “No.”
“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely yes.”
Mom perks up. “Eddie Jones? Oh, I love that boy.”
“Man,” Sophie corrects. “Very much a man.”
“He always was so handsome,” Mom says, matter-of-fact. “And he carried groceries in without being asked. That’s husband material.”
Meredith turns such a ferocious shade of pink that it’s a wonder she doesn’t spontaneously combust. “We’re not doing this.”
“We are absolutely doing this,” I say. “You spoke to him, right? I’m assuming it went well, considering you’ve been out with us all day instead of moping in your room.”
“June,” she warns.
“Meredith,” I mimic sweetly.
Sophie elbows me. “She told me he kissed her.”
“I told you that in confidence!”
“So that’s a yes,” I say, delighted. “Mom, they’re in love.”
“They’ve always been in love; you’d be blind to miss it,” Eleanor says without a hint of irony. “He was good to you. That’s what matters.”
Meredith’s throat bobs.
Sensing the shift, Sophie jumps back in with a grin. “So, are we thinking a fall wedding or?—”
“I will throw the pie at you,” Meredith threatens.
“You’re right,” Sophie deadpans. “Fall doesn’t give us nearly enough time to plan everything.”
“Sophie!”
But I’m already nodding along. “You’re forgetting that Eddie has probably had the whole thing planned out since he was twelve.”
“June.”
I throw my hands up in mock defense. “I’m just happy for you!”
“Thank you. But?—”
“Plus, this means we might actually get an invitation this time.”
Meredith is on her feet and reaching for one of Mom’s pillows. I preemptively duck behind her chair. Not that it helps.
Eleanor laughs as I eat duck feathers, but mercifully pulls rank enough to get us to calm down.
Expertly guiding the conversation to safer waters, namely the Atlantic Ocean, and how it had treated us today.
By the time the pie is out of the oven, the three of us have taken turns in the showers, and the full story of Sophie’s dramatic fall from Bluebird has been recounted at least twice.
Our youngest sister now sits up on the counter, wet hair piled on top of her head as she scrolls through her phone. A frown slowly begins to form. “Meredith?”
She responds with a hum from where she’s slicing up the pie.
I, despite being arguably the most experienced chef of us all, have been relegated to perching on the arm of Mom’s chair.
“Have you been to Linda’s coffee place recently?”
The knife pauses in the air. “Yeah, I think I probably have.” She tries for casual and misses the mark.
“It’s just that she’s posted something about it on Facebook.”
Meredith snatches the phone out of Sophie’s hand a heartbeat later, eyes bulging out of her skull as she reads through whatever is on the screen.
“She was always such a nosy woman,” Mom mutters to me. “The social media thing has only made everyone worse.”
“Makes a mean coffee, though,” I counter half-heartedly. The caffeine boost had kept me alive through the first years at the gallery, but at the cost of my progress being offhandedly reported to half the island.
“Oh my God,” Meredith groans, placing the phone face down on the counter. “I’ll have to move.”
“She doesn’t mention you by name?—”
“She doesn’t need to!” Meredith counters a little hysterically.
“But it’s true, right?” Sophie presses, glancing at Mom and me before filling in the gaps. “You had a screaming match with Mark in her café?”
For the first time since our reconciliation, something unpleasant churns in my stomach.
Of all the cards now on the table, of all the truths laid bare between us, there’s one that still lingers, clutched in my hand. How would she feel if she knew about that stupid kiss? Would she think it was ridiculous, like Trent did, or…
Would she see it for something else? Would she trust me? After I’ve been unable to offer her the same courtesy? Would she know that it was just loneliness, kinship, feeling chosen?
Is that half-formed explanation even okay?
He said it meant nothing, and I believe him. But for me, it’s…complicated.
My chest tightens. Not the time. Not today. Not with my mother lucid, my family laughing, and my sisters happily together for the first time in months.
So, I swallow it.
Shove it down. Smile.
And that’s when the back door bangs open—interrupting Meredith’s watered-down explanation of events with relieving finality.
“Delivery!” Trent’s voice calls, and then he’s there in the doorway, cheeks flushed, grease on the bottom of the Lobster Shack T-shirt—clutching several large takeout containers to his chest.
“What’s all that?” Sophie asks with a laugh.
I don’t miss the way his grin falters at the sight of her, but he rallies through. “Dinner. We had a bunch left over, so I thought?—”
“Is that Trent?”
His whole face changes when he sees Eleanor in her chair, craning her neck around to get a good look at him.
“There she is!” he cries, abandoning his cargo on the side as he reaches his father’s wife. “Looking as beautiful as ever.”
Mom lights up in that playful way she reserves only for people she truly loves. “Flattery gets you everywhere,” she says, patting his cheek. “Good boy, now sit with me while your sisters set the table. I want to hear what you’ve been up to.”
He grins wide and earnest as he launches into a story about Davon, Danny, and football.
My heart squeezes at the memory of when they first met.
The uncertainty of what their relationship could even look like had hung over them like a threat.
But I should’ve trusted Mom. Should’ve trusted Trent, now that I know him so much better.
Theirs is a bond forged by mutual pain and the mutual pride of overcoming, the sheer joy of defying expectation.
We work quickly to set the kitchen table, and in minutes, food is everywhere. Paper bags crinkle. Warm steam rises. The kitchen fills with that unmistakable smell of lobster and fried goods.
We all sit in time to catch the end of Trent’s explanation to Mom. “He should’ve just said he forgot it was his day off, but obviously, he couldn’t make an idiot of himself in front of Mia.”
I snort, picking up what he was saying from context. “Davon’s so gone for her.”
“He’s deep in his tragic Victorian yearning phase,” Trent says, rolling his eyes before digging into the food in earnest.
We follow suit with easy laughter, Trent happy to pile up as much as he can onto both his plate and Mom’s, ignoring her protests with a good-natured quip.
She scolds him half-heartedly, her voice notably softer now. Her eyelids are heavier. She keeps smiling, but her hand drifts instinctively to the table’s edge, fingers curling for something steady.
Meredith catches my eye when she notices. Worry immediately clouds her features.
With a sigh, I subtly shake my head, trying to communicate telepathically to let it be.
Let her have this.
Let us have this.
A family dinner, filled with good spirits and great food. In our home, on our terms, without anything immediately on the horizon to ruin it.
Of course, that’s when the door opens again.
Keys jangle, and Richard’s presence rolls in like an unwelcome draft.
He steps into the lively kitchen, taking in our impromptu feast with an unreadable expression as our babble dies down. Each of us is subconsciously holding our breath, waiting for whatever time-ruining nonsense is about to spurt from his mouth.
And then, for one surreal moment, he doesn’t look like a problem at all. Calmly walking across the room to greet our mother, he seems like a husband coming home to his wife. “Ellie,” he says softly, leaning down to kiss her hair. “You’ve had a good day.”
She blinks awake enough to smile at him. “I have. Sit. Eat. There’s plenty to go around.”
He looks at the table, at all of us. And instead of flinching or bristling or making some snide remark, he pulls out a chair and sits. “Smells good,” he says pleasantly.
Sophie stiffens next to me, and I can feel my grip tighten around the fork. Deep suspicion oozes from every orifice as I eye our stepfather. Half-expecting him to yell “psych!” at any moment and go back to criticizing whichever of our life choices he can get his hands on first.
But Meredith meets him halfway with a small, tired kind of compassion. “It was Trent’s heroic rescue,” she says. “We were half-starved before he got here.”
He glances at Trent. “Good man.”
Trent shrinks back from him awkwardly, cheeks a little pink. “You had the pie.”
“We tried living off pie before. It wasn’t as nourishing as you’d hope,” Meredith concedes, glancing my way. “You remember that summer, June? You’d gone through like eight different boyfriends.”
I cringe a little, waiting for a disparaging comment that never comes. But Richard is just quietly loading up his plate and glancing at Eleanor every so often, barely seeming to pay attention to the conversation.
Meredith throws me a meaningful look when I finally return her gaze.
I swallow. Breathe out. Right. Not about me.
“It was six, actually,” I argue back with faux-irritation. “And one of them was the same guy I dated twice, so technically only five.”
By the time Meredith and I finish bickering—while also reminding Trent to do as we say, not as we do—the atmosphere around the table is back to normal. By the time we bring the pie out, my cheeks ache with laughter and high spirits.
Mom drifts in and out, her hand occasionally seeking Richard’s arm as if by instinct. He murmurs reassurances, and Meredith watches out of the corner of her eye. But she laughs long and loud with us, filling the space with a special kind of magic that makes everything feel warm and endless.
Richard stands eventually, gently coaxing Eleanor up. She protests half-heartedly, but her eyelids have been drooping for half an hour. With a murmured “goodnight,” he holds her like something precious and breakable, guiding her toward the living room to help her into bed.
The kitchen falls into a hush.
The warmth lingers, even as the room slowly exhales. Even as the night creeps in around the windows, brushing the golden edges of our laughter away. And when the quiet settles fully, the smile that aches on my cheeks finally loosens.
And I am left with the soft truth of what today was.
A miracle.