“Can you believe this whole thing?”
“It’s amazing. Beyond amazing. And you know, it’s making me think we were too quick to shut down the inn. I know you thought I needed to take it easy because of my health scare. But having the house full of people is a good thing. I think it’s good for you, especially.”
“It was hard to cancel on people and to turn away guests,” Amelia admitted. “I felt particularly bad about the Millers.” The Miller family had had standing reservations for the first week in August since the summer of 1996. Amelia and Kelly had watched their children grow up. “They must be so disappointed. They didn’t even respond to my e-mail. I can’t blame them, I guess.”
“I’ll call them. I’m sure they’re over it by now,” Kelly said. “So next summer we’ll reopen. Maybe Marin and Rachel will come for a while. And we’ll make it up to the Millers—give them a free weekend or something.”
Amelia smiled. “Okay, then. We’ll call this our one-season vacation.” She turned off her light and spooned Kelly. “By the way, have you noticed that love might be in bloom?”
“Who?”
“Rachel and Luke Duncan.”
“What happened with his girlfriend? That pretty Asian woman he brought last summer?”
Amelia shook her head. “Thomas said Luke ended it just before he came out here. I certainly hope that’s the case if he’s flirting with Rachel.”
“What is it about this island and love at first sight?” Kelly said with a sly smile.
Amelia started to say something, then stopped. Kelly was being romantic; she knew that. But it hit the wrong note with her. Love at first sight was not always harmless and romantic.
Oh, the agony when their affair had first begun! Amelia played all the mental games with herself that people do when they cross a line. She told herself it was just this one time. Then she told herself, Okay, it’s the summer and then it’s over. She assured herself it was harmless as long as no one found out.
But of course, someone always finds out.
Unfortunately, in their case, that person was Nick. Nick, who was supposed to be with his father at a fund-raiser at the theater one night but who came home early and went straight to Kelly’s room. Nick could no longer wait, could no longer be subtle; he was ready to profess his adoration for Kelly, his need to be with her.
Instead, he walked in on her making love to his mother.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marin dug her toes into the wet sand.
“Some days I just pick up whatever strikes my fancy,” Amelia said. “An oyster shell. A channeled whelk. A sand-dollar skeleton if I’m lucky. Other days, I’m on a mission. Maybe it’s green sea glass, or white pebbles.”
Marin nodded, bending down to roll up her cargo pants, then tying the drawstring tight to keep them high on her hips. The edges were soaked. The pants had enough pockets to hold whatever she collected that morning. She checked that the bandanna tied around her wrist to shield her tattoo from the sun was still in place, then tilted her face to the sky.
“I have this idea of getting a mason jar and filling it with sea glass from this week and then keeping it next to my bed at home,” she said.
“Well, it’s a lovely thought, but you won’t find that much sea glass in the time you have here.”
“I guess I could start with what I find and then just buy the rest to fill in.”
Amelia looked at her like she had two heads.
“Buy it? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? When you find it yourself, it has meaning. It marks this day, this walk—this moment in time. Your hands pluck it from the place that produced it and make it your own.”
Well, when she put it that way. “I guess I’ll just see what I can find.”
Amelia nodded her approval.
They walked in silence, both scouring the sand. It crossed Marin’s mind that maybe she should ask about Amelia’s son. It wasn’t that she particularly cared to know—he was nothing more to her than twenty-three chromosomes. An anonymous sperm donor that would have remained anonymous if it weren’t for damned technology. But was it rude not to at least acknowledge him? Surely he had walked that very stretch of beach. She shook the thought away; she would not let the donor take root in her mind, in her heart. To ask about him made him too real. It was a betrayal of her father.
Marin spotted something round and pale green. She scooped it up, wet sand getting underneath her fingernails, and showed it to Amelia, who held it up to the sky and pronounced, “It’s a pebble, not sea glass.”
“How can you tell?”
“No light is coming through it.”
Marin stuck it in her back pocket anyway.
Amelia stopped walking. “So Kelly and I were talking last night, and we’d really love it if you would consider staying another week or two. Maybe until the Fourth? It’s a fun day here in town and would be the perfect way to end your trip.”
Marin’s first impulse was to say no, to give her a litany of reasons why she had to get back to New York. But she couldn’t come up with a single one.
“That’s really generous of you, Amelia. Thanks. I’ll talk to Rachel and my mother about it.”
“It might not be my business, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that I think you need to forgive her.”
“What? Who?”
“Your mother.”
Marin looked at her sharply. “No offense, but you really don’t know the first thing about it.”
“Maybe not,” Amelia said, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun so she could look at Marin. “But I know that life is complicated, that people make mistakes, and that it never pays to judge those who love you.”
“She lied to me—and my father—my entire life. That’s not a mistake, it’s a choice.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “You know, my son, Nicolau, was not speaking to me at the time of his death. We hadn’t spoken for several years.”
“I didn’t know that. What happened?”
“I fell in love with Kelly. While I was married to his father.”
Okay, not ideal. But still, it paled in comparison to Blythe’s deception.
“Well, I can see how that would be…upsetting. But I still think what my mother did was worse. Way worse. I mean, you can’t help who you fall in love with.”
“I think Nick believed he was in love with Kelly.”
“What?”
“They were contemporaries. Kelly was my daughter’s best friend. We were all spending the summer here.”
“At the inn?”
“Well, it wasn’t an inn back then. It was our family home. And yes, at the house.”
Marin couldn’t believe it. The drama that had taken place under that very roof! Her biological father, now cast in the light of a tragic romantic figure.