“I don’t know how you’re so strong, Mel. I feel like I’m falling apart every day.”
Mel didn’t know why her eyes pricked with tears or why she suddenly wanted Summer’s hand to stay exactly where it was. Or maybe she did know why. Because wasn’t that exactly what she felt? Falling apart. She’d finally found a place where her whole life hadn’t felt like that, and she’d been so afraid it wouldn’t last, it wasn’t real, she’d pushed it away.
You had to. You had to.
Why did that voice in her head sound so desperate?
“You guys ready?” Caleb stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. He offered a smile for Summer, but it was all frayed at the edges, as jerky as Mel’s fiddling and Summer’s hand clasping.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’ll never be ready for this,” Mel muttered. And again, admitting that was like that moment in Dan’s cabin when she’d said the horrible thing and everything after it was easy. Except those weren’t so much painful as they were…freeing. “It’s awful and painful and I wish I could just run in the opposite direction.”
“I am dreaming about a bottle of Jack Daniel’s,” Caleb said in a scratchy, grumbly voice.
Summer’s laugh was something more like a hysterical giggle. “I want to go home. Only…I don’t have one.”
She realized Summer was still clutching her hand, so Mel swallowed and held out her free hand for Caleb. It took him a minute, but he finally took the steps necessary and clasped Mel’s hand. Then with a throat-clearing sound, offered his other hand to Summer.
They made a circle, the three of them, and Mel knew it was important to make this mean something, no matter what happened when they told Dad. She couldn’t control Dad’s reaction, she couldn’t make the past what she wanted it to be—dear Lord, wasn’t that a realization—but maybe if the three of them could be honest with each other, they’d somehow resemble some kind of normal sibling relationship.
“This is awful. But, that’s not on us.” Mel took a slow, deep breath and let it out. “Maybe…somehow we can make it less awful.”
“You guys already have. Really.” Summer’s hand squeezed Mel’s. “This is more than I…well, not more than I fantasized, because I fantasized you guys were like royalty and had a spa and stuff, but this is way better than any of my realistic fantasies.”
“This girl,” Caleb said, shaking his head. “Where did she come from?”
They all seemed to look toward the entry to the dining room, where Dad apparently was. Time to face the music.
Dad was parked at the table, somehow managing to look surly and blank at the same time. Mel went first, Caleb almost next to her, their shoulders nearly pressing together, a human shield.
Shielding their little sister. Sister—still a term she wasn’t used to, but it was becoming easier to think. It was pretty damn obvious this girl needed some sheltering.
“Dad, we have someone we want you to talk to.”
“If this is about the nurse thing, I called up Fiona myself today and did the apology bullshit, and she agreed to come back,” he said, not looking at them, his gaze completely focused on the rich wood of the table.
It was a surprise, that was for certain, enough of one that she and Caleb stopped and exchanged a glance.
“You called her?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So.” Caleb shook his head. “That is something. What we have to talk to you about is something too. Something important.”
“We want you to meet someone,” Mel said, sounding far more firm and in control than she felt. But she and Caleb parted, and Summer stepped in to be shoulder to shoulder with them.
“Who is that?” Dad demanded, but it obviously took him a few seconds to really look, because he jolted a little, eyes going from Summer to Mel. His hands gripped the armrest of his wheelchair. “What is this?”
“Hi, um, my name is Summer. And…” She looked to Mel, biting her lip. Mel didn’t do anything—what could she do? But in some bizarre twist of something, Summer seemed to take strength just from looking at her. “My mother is Linda Shaw, and she says you are my father.”
Dad looked surprised, but there was no confusion, no denial in his expression, and that made Mel’s stomach tighten and cramp. He couldn’t have known. No, this had to be the poker face he’d learned so well.
He didn’t say anything for the longest while, and Mel thought Summer and Caleb were holding their breaths just as she was. Silence stretched. Then he looked down at his lap and moved to wheel away.
Mel opened her mouth, but Summer grabbed her hand again. Held on to it for dear life. “Did you know about me?” she asked into the heavy silence.