“It was nothing.” Anita smiled. “Meghann and Marge are the kind of friends who’ll drop anything to party. Besides, I always wanted to throw you a surprise party.”
Elizabeth knew how much she’d hurt her stepmother over the years, and yet, Anita had still organized this party. It was the kind of thing Elizabeth would do for her daughters. “Thank you,” she said, knowing it wasn’t enough.
Anita gently smoothed the flyaway hair from Elizabeth’s eyes. “You’re welcome, Birdie.”
Elizabeth grasped her stepmother’s hand, held it. “I want us to start over.”
Anita’s eyes rounded. “Oh, my …”
Meghann came up beside them. She looped one arm around Elizabeth and hip-bumped her. In one hand, she held a white plastic pitcher. “Can I interest you ladies in a margarita? Don’t worry, Anita, I can make you a virgin.”
Anita laughed shakily, wiped her eyes. “Honey, there ain’t nothin’ you can do that’ll make me a virgin again, but I’ll sure-as-tootin’ take a margarita.”
After that, the party kicked into high gear. Marge set a portable stereo out on the porch and hooked it up, pointing the speakers toward the yard. Meghann brought out a huge CD holder and started playing music Elizabeth had never heard before—stuff from Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam. It was raucous and loud and fun.
They barbecued oysters on the grill and cooked clams in a coffee can filled with butter, wine, and spices. A half salmon, drenched in lemon and onion slices and butter, lay on an alder plank on the barbecue. Dungeness crabs sat in a bucket of shaved ice.
Elizabeth and Meghann carried the kitchen table out into the yard. Within minutes, they’d covered it with food—a bowl of pasta salad, ears of corn wrapped in tinfoil, and a loaf of homemade garlic bread.
Elizabeth couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. They all danced and talked and laughed. It was like being twenty again, only better.
While the salmon was cooking, Marge turned Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” up to the edge of pain.
Laughing, Elizabeth stood at the table, arranging the silverware. She had just put the knives in a plastic glass when she heard the car drive up.
Jack turned onto Stormwatch Lane. “This road is still terrible.” He heard the testiness in his voice and wished he’d tempered it. It wasn’t enough that they were getting close to Birdie. Nooo. The girls had to choose today to give him the near silent treatment. On the flight across the country, Jamie had hardly spoken to him.
His daughters had talked—plenty—in fact. Enough so that his hangover had graduated into full-scale brain warfare. But they talked to each other. Jack’s feeble and obviously uncool remarks fell down an empty well.
They were mad at him for forgetting to meet them. He could understand that. What bothered him was the nagging sense that there was more to it. That this was … normal and he hadn’t realized the truth of their relationship until now.
Whenever the family had been together—mealtimes, holidays, vacations—Birdie had been there, stitching their disparate conversations together.
Hey, Jack, did you tell Jamie about …
Stephanie, does Daddy know …
Jack had always cared deeply about the big picture of his daughters’ lives. He’d wanted to know what they believed in and what they wanted to be when they grew up, and what kind of women they were becoming. But he’d never really concerned himself with the minutiae of their daily lives. That had been Elizabeth’s province. But it was that minutiae that fueled conversation.
Now, without Elizabeth, there was a distance between Jack and his girls. He didn’t remember enough about their ordinary lives to really communicate, and he was afraid of saying the wrong thing, showing his ignorance. Today would not be a good day to screw up on something like a boyfriend’s name or a major that had changed a year ago.
Such an error would make Jamie roll her eyes and say, Hel-lo, Dad. Like, get a clue.
He wasn’t strong enough to be mentally body slammed by a teenager. Not today.
So he confined himself to safe topics. “We got lucky. It’s a beautiful day.”
“Totally,” Jamie said from the backseat. “I can’t believe it’s not raining.”
The view was breathtaking. For the two years Jack had lived here, all he’d noticed was the falling rain and gray skies. All he’d cared about was earning his way out of here, but now, he saw the grandeur and wildness of the coastline. Jagged, cliff-faced rocks, stunted trees, endless gray beach. Today’s sunlight turned the sea into glittering silver.
No wonder Elizabeth loved it here. It was spectacularly wild. How was it that he’d never noticed the beauty before?
He rounded the last bend in the road and slowed down. There were a few cars parked along the side of the driveway. When he got out of the car, he noticed the music. It was some old disco song—maybe a Gloria Gaynor.
He pulled in behind a pale blue Toyota Camry and parked. “We’d better grab the stuff and hike in from here.”