“Yeah, now that you know they don’t have cancer—changes the perspective a bit,” Julia scoffed and peered closer.
“Shut up.” Dani shook her head and stepped next to her sister. “Apparently they’re a really big find. Jonah’s all gaga over them.”
“I can imagine,” Julia whispered, awed, and then laughed. “Not Jonah being gaga, but still…”
“Yeah.”
Julia sighed.
Dani sighed with her and murmured, to the eerie silence that befell the two sisters, “I’m sorry.” At Julia’s quick look, she added, “And I mean it and I’ve meant it for a long time.”
Julia closed her mouth and straightened.
The water glistened and reflected their blue shadows to the ceiling above them.
Julia looked back down and sighed, “I wish they could’ve found those before Erica…”
“It wouldn’t have helped,” Dani spoke the truth, and felt her knot unwind—just slightly—from its hold deep inside of her. It hurt, but it hurt less. “They’ve known about the mussels for a long time, but research is pretty slow, you know.”
“Wishful thinking,” Julia murmured. “Erica would’ve still…”
“Died.”
“Mom too.”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Julia chuckled bitterly. “Isn’t this a nice touching scene between the torn sisters?”
“You can mock me. You can hate me, but we’re still sisters, Julia.” Dani watched the water as she confided. “And I’ll go visit Kathryn tomorrow—even if it means that she’ll throw me out and the new receptionist will be humiliated for me. I’ll do it.”
“That’s all I wanted.”
“Liar.” Dani was quick to call her lies. “You want me to apologize. You want me to stay away from Jake. You want me to go see Kathryn. You don’t want me at the house—I can’t keep track of where I can go and who I can talk to.”
Julia rolled her eyes and griped, “So melodramatic.”
Dani grinned faintly, but held firm. She waited.
“You know…I know that I love you and I know that we’re sisters and family stands for something, right?” Julia murmured, hollow. “But sometimes, I absolutely and truly hate you.”
“She would’ve still died if I stayed.”
Julia closed her eyes and bent her head. Stricken and struck.
Dani added, her own pain evident, “And I don’t think anything would’ve changed if I had stayed. I wouldn’t have helped because it’s how our family runs. Right? Kathryn’s dying and Mae won’t go near her sister.”
“And that’s a coward.”
“No. It’s called stupidity, pride, and just too many ghosts and secrets between us and we don’t even know half of them,” Dani rasped out.
“It would’ve helped,” Julia spoke up. “If you had been here—it would’ve helped because you could’ve been at the funeral. That would’ve helped, I know that much because I really wanted you there when…I wanted my sister beside me, even if we hate each other.”
And the mystery of families would never cease to amaze Dani. A ghost of a smile crossed her face and she said, “For what’s it worth, I wish that I had known. I would’ve come back, but…”
“Erica changed a lot, you know.” Julia smiled for the first time and laughed even. “She…I know that I do stupid things, like clean obsessively, and straighten every pencil in the house, but, I need my world to make sense, I need what I can control to make sense and I know that. I know that it’s because I’ve had so much ripped from me and I’m controlling what I can and seeing you making Jake laugh, I can’t control that. I can’t control how much my fiancé still loves you and the hate that I do feel—just—it covers everything else…, but you’re my sister and…”
“I love you too.” Dani shut her up.
Julia’s resolve fell in that moment and the tears burst forth once more, “And I really miss Erica.”
“I miss mom,” Dani whispered her own confession.
“Me too…” Julia shook her head and brushed at her tears. “Okay, enough of our dysfunctional family bonding time…I hate you.”
“I know.” And Dani watched as her sister, the one who was always composed, compose herself frantically before she walked back out the door.
“Julia doesn’t hate you, you know,” Jake said from the doorway. He’d heard it all.
Dani sighed, “I know, but she does hate me, though. At times it’s real.”
“She doesn’t. She just…she doesn’t know how to handle things that she doesn’t understand.”
Sardonic humor glinted in Dani’s eyes as she asked softly, “She sure understands herself. So you’re saying that it’s me that she doesn’t understand?”
“Who does, Dani?” Jake countered swiftly. “I mean, you’re different. You left and this entirely different person that came back.”
Trauma tended to change a person. She’d learned that much.
“I am fully appreciating the irony that my ex-boyfriend is translating my sister for me,” Dani reflected, dryly.
“Yeah…,” Jake glanced down, but he continued softly, “I’ve gotten a lot of that irony lately, trust me.”
She frowned, “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not…I know I’ve said it’s weird having you back, but I know all of you guys. I know you. I know Erica. And I know Julia, but it’s like none of you guys even knew the other.”
Dani closed her eyes.
Jake continued, “I see you guys in each other, but there are differences. You guys are family. It’s a waste, actually. I mean, my family, there’s a reason why I don’t go around that much. My dad’s a waste and he’s…anyways, the three of you guys…there’s no reason for you to not know your own family.”
Pain echoed from his words.
Dani noted, softly, “You ever tell Julia what happened with your dad?”
Jake let out a ragged breath and admitted, “No. She couldn’t handle that.”
“She wouldn’t understand.” Dani felt an answering ache inside of her.
“No. I mean, your Aunt Kathryn can be kinda scary at times, but not compared to my dad at all. And Julia…”
“Needs her life in perfect order.”
Julia did the cleaning, baking, cooking. She made sure everything ran like clockwork while Erica shined bright.
And Dani stood back, in the shadows, and she watched.
Jake found her there because he’d already been in his own shadows.
“Closets aren’t so bad,” Dani said hoarsely.
Jake held still and Dani knew he clung to her word, to whatever she was about to profess.
So with her courage in tow, she said what they’d never talked about before, “Your dad locked you in a closet while he raped your mother.” She heard his swift intake of breath and thought it sounded as choked gasp of pain. Dani pressed, “And then when your mother wasn’t enough, he did it to your sisters, and then he beat you unconscious after all that.”
No matter the years of separation, the two stood together in remembered haunts. Dani reached for his hand and found it welcoming and grateful as it clung to hers.
She murmured, hallow and yet strong, “Your dad may be dead, but he’s still alive and more powerful than he was before. I’ve learned what ghosts can do to you.”
Jake met her eyes.
Dani tried and failed at a sad smile. “I was in a storm, when I was gone. I was in this awful storm. I survived, but a lot of people didn’t. Kids. I…,” she took a breath. “I felt them die, Jake, and I couldn’t do anything to save them. They’re still here with me, they’re here every day and I think your dad’s with you.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?” he asked, choked and hurting.
A childhood sweetheart looked at another in that moment when Dani replied, “I don’t know. He’s your dad.”
“Dani.”
“What,” The adult years caught up with her and she grinned faintly, “Sorry.
I didn’t mean…I don’t know about your dad, but it’s been better for me. Coming home, I thought I was just running away from my demons, you know? I just took off, I left the hospital, left a measly note for Boone and I came here because I just couldn’t be there. Now, I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but it’s better. The nightmares stopped at least, that’s something.”
Jake frowned again and glanced to their enjoined hands. He laughed softly, “It’s almost as if nothing happened.”
Their hands broke away and Dani wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes were solemn, “A lot happened.”
“I know, but you and me, standing here and talking, holding hands, it’s like nothing changed between us.”
Dani knew in that moment and she shared out loud, “We wouldn’t have worked out in the end. Erica, it was more than the fact that she was there. You and me weren’t right.”
Jake was silent, but he murmured a moment later, “I know.”
“I’m sorry.” And Dani knew that she was apologizing for more than their haunted pasts. She apologized for a childhood love that had died and never fully given a healing light. She had taken part in that cheated growth of their love because she had left. As she always did.
Her hand found his again and she squeezed his, reassuringly.
A lot was still between them that wasn’t given voice, but Dani knew it would. It would take time, patience, and it would take the courage to reopen those wounds that still gushed dried blood.
Dani took that courage again and asked, “Are you happy with her?”
They both knew who she meant.
Jake considered the question for a moment, and answered truthfully, “Yes, I am. Do I still love you? Yes. I still love Erica too, but I guess I go where I’m needed. Julia needs me and I need her in ways that I never needed Erica or you. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah.” Dani nodded. She squeezed his hand again and then hugged herself once more. She smiled, “I had you for ten years, you know. I get more credit than the others.”
Jake barked out a laugh and she saw his hand jerk upwards.
He wiped a tear free and smiled in fondness relief, “Yeah. Ten years…I had you too.”
“Jake, about Erica…”
Jake overrode her and said instead, “About Erica, I didn’t come out here about her. Or…I didn’t stay for the whole shebang for her.”
“Right.”
Julia.
“Julia doesn’t hate you, I think it’s the opposite,” Jake said what he had meant to say in the beginning. “She, she gets frantic when she doesn’t know how to react or handle something. She doesn’t know her place and she gets all restless inside. It’s why we had to go home the other night and she needed to clean. It’s how she finds her place.” He took another deep breath. “Erica was her reason for the longest time.”
“And then it was Aunt Kathryn.”
“Yeah,” Jake remarked. “But…”
“She’s going to be gone soon.”
“Yeah.”
“She was my aunt too and she cared for me for thirteen years and…I don’t know her.”
“She doesn’t know you either, Dani.” Jake looked at his childhood friend. “She could’ve known you, but she chose not to.”
“Because I was given to her sister and not her, because I didn’t fit.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Dani took a breath and murmured, to shake her troubles free, “I get why Julia needs to have things in place. I remember that when we were kids. We’d play and she was the one who organized where the dolls were and she insisted on putting them all back.” She smiled at the memory. “Wow, I’d forgotten that.”
They’d played together as children. They each had a special doll with their own name and Julia had insisted on making sure each were polished and pristine before they could even stay to play.
Dani had never cared.
Neither had Erica. Erica just cared about the clothes and hairstyles. She wanted her doll to look the most beautiful.
Dani always wanted her doll to be artistic, a poet, or just a daydreamer.
Julia and Erica never understood it, but Dani never cared. She played how she wanted to play and the others took their dolls shopping.
Dani smiled now and she sighed, “Julia had an inventory about…she inventoried the toys.” She laughed softly.
Jake nodded, “Yeah. I can see her doing that. She inventories my cigars.”
“She would.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
They stood there at that moment. Both felt a love for the same soul, but it was a remembered love for Dani. A love that she still felt inside of her, but it hadn’t been unlocked until that moment.
A love of a sister that she’d forgotten, even one that insisted the love wasn’t needed. Dani knew better, she should’ve known better.
Dani closed her eyes as her heart opened in that moment. She felt all the remembered hurts upon her back, but she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Jake was silent, his eyes closed beside her. He knew what she meant, but he dared not ask.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“You’re my best friend, Dani,” Jake murmured. His hand squeezed over hers and he added, “No matter what happens—you’re my best friend. Always were and always will be.”
“What about Erica?”
“I loved Erica. I love Erica, but, she wasn’t my best friend.”
Dani murmured, “I’ll give my crown…when Julia’s ready to take it.”
It was the right thing to say. Dani saw the sudden and abrupt tears leap to Jake’s eyes. He stood speechless for a moment as he held upon her hand and in that moment, Dani’s heart swelled with love to the first boy she had given her heart.
And for the first time in a long time, she smiled upon their past. The regret vanished and Dani felt free.
She’d said it before and she’d say it again, but she loved Jake. He’d been her light, her confidant, and he’d been her sturdy hand as she learned what the world stood for and against.
As she learned herself, Jake had been her anchor and Dani was immensely grateful that she had that back.
It had been an ache she hadn’t known was missing, but she felt it return and click back into its rightful place and she felt whole.
She felt whole again with her best friend and sidekick at her elbow.
Jake whispered, “Part of me doesn’t want her to need it.”
“Part of me doesn’t want her to need it either.”
Jake bent and tenderly let his forehead rest against her. He whispered, “She can’t replace what you are.”
Dani hadn’t known the tears had arrived until he raised a hand and wiped two from her cheek.
He gave another soft smile, a hand squeeze, before he left and Dani was left feeling bereft, as she had another moment in time.
It hurt. It would always hurt, but it was needed. It was healing. She was healing.
Dani took her twenty minutes that she’d been cheated from before until she moved to Jonah’s office and saw a small makeshift bed the others had left open for her. Jonah wasn’t there, but she curled underneath the blanket and when she woke—he still wasn’t