6 Savannah
This trip was not off to the start she’d hoped for. Or even the start she’d expected. In fact, she’d go so far as to say that
up to this point, this trip had been a disaster.
There was a day when the Prestly sisters had been inseparable. They did everything together. They knew everything about one
another. Yes, they had three very different personalities, but somehow that made them even closer. Growing up in the Prestly
family had been a dream.
And then the divorce changed everything.
Technically speaking, their parents’ divorce had been amicable enough. They didn’t fight over assets or have long, drawn-out
court hearings. Savannah and Cora were essentially adults at the time, and since Bianca was almost a teenager, their parents
let her have a major say in her custody arrangement.
All in all, the whole thing seemed to be pretty seamless—to Savannah, at least. One day her parents were married, and the
next they just... weren’t.
Although the one thing she hadn’t been ready for was how their parents’ split would split the sisters.
Cora took the news the hardest, siding with their mom and putting all the blame on their dad. It strained Cora’s relationship
with him so much that eventually she stopped talking to him altogether.
When Savannah didn’t take that same stance, she felt a wedge form between her and Cora.
Of course, there were things Cora didn’t know.
Things Savannah had kept from her, for the sake of keeping the peace.
And almost overnight, Cora and Savannah went from two sisters who were inseparable to two polite acquaintances who kept in touch on birthdays and major holidays.
Bianca was caught somewhere in the middle. She didn’t take sides. Savannah couldn’t tell whether her baby sister’s stance
was a conscious decision to remain neutral or a product of her go-wherever-the-wind-blows personality. Either way, Bianca
flitted through life blissfully unattached to anything. She never finished a project. She was the most likely sister to show
up late or skip a family event because she forgot or was double-booked.
Admittedly, her childhood had looked very different from hers and Cora’s. She was the only one who grew up in a single-parent
household. She was the only one who was still a minor and living at home when their mom had died. She had the fewest memories
of what life was like before, when the sisters were close and everyone got along.
Which was why this trip was so important. This was their chance to recapture what they once had. Their last happy family moments
had been right here, in this cottage, and Savannah had hoped that if they could just revisit the place and do the things they
once loved to do together, maybe the sisters could remember how good it had been. Maybe they could find their way back.
Which was the reason Savannah had put so much time and effort into the Summer Bucket List. It was the blueprint of her plan.
Were her sisters as inspired by it as she’d hoped? No, but perhaps she should’ve expected that. At the end of the day, the
beautiful aesthetic of the list wasn’t going to save their relationships. But the experiences and laughter and fun they would
share just might.
Of course, they’d have to actually experience those activities first.
Savannah was no stranger to the amount of patience it took to get a group of people out the door. She was a mom of preschoolers,
after all.
What she didn’t expect was that getting preschoolers, who were distracted by any little thing, out the door was considerably
easier than getting her grown-up sisters to do the same.
She was just about to head into the house and find out why it was taking so long to grab a book and make two smoothies when Cora finally walked out the back door. By herself.
“Bianca had to switch her swimsuit. Again. She wasn’t vibing with the last one,” Cora said with an eye roll. She handed Savannah
one of the two smoothies in her hand.
“I said it wasn’t comfortable,” Bianca yelled from somewhere in the house.
Cora seemed unconcerned as she sipped her smoothie. “We could always leave her.”
“That would be rude, Cora.” Bianca’s voice drifted out the open sliding glass doors.
Savannah sighed and flopped down into the chair she’d just vacated. “We should wait. We’d want her to wait on us.”
“Would we, though?”
Savannah didn’t even bother responding. She just took a sip of her own smoothie.
Several minutes ticked by before Bianca cruised out of the house dressed in a bikini and cutoff jean shorts, with a towel
over her shoulder. “Are we going to sit around here and talk all day, or are we going to the beach?”
“Finally,” Savannah said and started to gather everything they needed to take down to the beach.
The first trip of the day was always the worst. There were coolers and umbrellas. Chairs and boogie boards. It was all stuff
they would enjoy having once they were by the water. But even though the water was only a couple hundred yards from their
back deck, getting there with all this stuff felt like trekking across the Sahara.
By the time they got to the spot where they were going to set up, Savannah was out of breath. Which, she told herself, was
normal. Everyone was out of breath after that hike. It had absolutely nothing to do with...
Well, anyway, it was totally normal.
She pretended to busy herself with stacking the things she’d carried down in the sand while she tried to catch her breath.
Bianca stepped up next to her, a serene expression on her face as she surveyed the scene in front of them. “I mean, it doesn’t get more perfect than this.” She let out a contented sigh.
Cora started the process of putting up the umbrella. “After the travel day I had yesterday, I definitely earned the right
to relax in the shade, listen to the waves, and eat all the salty snacks.”
Bianca grabbed a chair and set it up in the sun. “I’ll do the same. Out of support, of course.” Then she shimmied out of her
shorts and sank down into the chair, stretching her legs out over the sand.
“But first, we break in these little beauties, right?” Savannah picked up one of the brand-new boogie boards she’d bought
just for the trip and gave it a little shake. “Boogie boarding. Remember, we always start with boogie boarding.”
“Seems like a later kind of thing.” Cora opened her own chair and set it in the shade of the umbrella she’d just set up.
“Yeah, maybe we should work up to it.” Bianca closed her eyes and tipped her head toward the sun.
“Work up to what? We never had to ‘work up’ to boogie boarding before.”
“We were never in our thirties before,” Cora said.
“Some of us still aren’t.” Bianca shot Cora a look. Then she shifted her gaze to Savannah. “But I’m still not getting in the
water yet. Aren’t beach days supposed to be relaxing?”
“Yes. Totally. We should relax first.” Savannah set up her chair in the shade next to Cora and sat on the edge.
“That’s your problem. You don’t relax well. You always have to be doing something,” Bianca said.
“That’s not true,” Savannah shot back and slid a little farther back in her seat.
“It’s kinda true,” Cora agreed.
“I’m great at relaxing. Look, I’m relaxing right now.” Savannah leaned back and stretched out her legs, mimicking Bianca’s
pose. Although even she had to admit she looked a little stiff.
Honestly, it wasn’t that she always had to be doing something. She just felt more at peace when everything was scratched off her to-do list. She could argue that a lot of people were that way. Maybe even most people.
The problem was that lately she couldn’t seem to get everything scratched off.
She’d always been somewhat of a high achiever. She was a star student, and after she graduated, she went to work as a graphic
designer. In the few years she was in the workforce, between getting married and having Genevieve, she’d advanced quickly.
Then, when she became a mom, she and Chris had decided she’d stay home with their kids. It was a move she was excited about
because she’d been dreaming about it for a while.
She loved being a stay-at-home mom. She did. But sometimes it felt like the kind of task where she couldn’t win. There was
always something else she could be doing or something she could be doing better. And with Pinterest and Instagram, there was
always visual proof of what “better” looked like. Not to mention that as soon as she got a particular age or stage figured
out, they’d move on to the next one.
Keeping up with it all was exhausting.
Plus, there was this whole thing with her sisters not getting along. And Cora turning into a recluse. And now Bianca’s new
life plan. Not to mention trying to do the house upkeep and the never-ending pile of laundry and feeding her always-hungry
family.
Then there was the whole health thing she didn’t want to think about...
The bottom line was that her life seemed to be spinning out of control, and the list of things she needed to do to fix it
kept growing. So yeah, she was having a hard time relaxing.
But resting was as much on her to-do list as reconnecting with her sisters. The doctor had ordered it. Chris had rearranged
his work schedule so he could solo parent while she took what he called “a well-deserved vacation.” She needed to honor her
end of the deal.
Since she’d already pledged to make the beach a screen-free zone, she pulled a magazine from her bag and forced herself to settle into the chair. See, she could relax if she wanted to.
She flipped through the pages, trying to focus on the articles that weren’t holding her attention and the pictures she didn’t
care about. When she got to the end, she glanced around, taking in the scene as she tried to decide if she should reread the
only magazine she’d brought by starting over at the beginning or flipping through it backward.
Backward. Pages flip easier in that direction.
She was just about to get started on her second backward-this-time pass when she was distracted by a muffled chuckle coming