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He let me go and spun back around to the cabinet before I could come up with a response. What did he want from me? Until my divorce was final, I didn’t feel like I could make a firm decision. Until that door was closed, I had no business opening other doors. That wasn’t necessarily true—I could do what I wanted, when I wanted—but I didn’t want to take that old life of mine into the new one. I craved a clean break.
Mom came back with four steaks, a bagged salad mix, and three bottles of red wine. I raised my eyebrows at the number of bottles, but she just gave me a brilliant smile and pushed me out of the kitchen to take a shower.
“Get clean and put on something nice. You’ll feel like a new woman!”
I doubted that, but a shower did sound good. Installing cabinets was hard work. By the time I came downstairs in a sundress I’d bought when I went shopping with Char, Daniel’s booming voice came from the living room, along with Mom’s tinkling high-pitched response and Dec’s grunt. They were all seated around the couches, Daniel and Mom snuggled up like a little couple. I wasn’t sure how I felt about our parents dating, but then again, what I thought didn’t seem to matter. No one looked my way as I took a seat on the couch next to Dec.
“Dec, come on,” Daniel said sternly.
Mom’s eyes were round and watery. Oh dear God, what had I walked into?
“I think it’s only natural, having been Maeve’s friend for ten years, that I’d wonder why her only sister never came to visit.” Dec was using a low growling voice that did not melt my insides this time. Every muscle I possessed tensed.
Mom gasped. “Are you going to let him speak to me this way, Kenna?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, clinging to the very last nerve I had left that hadn’t frayed in the weeks that Mom had been staying with me here in Sunshine Key.
“Honestly? I’m wondering the same thing. You never told me the story either, Mom.” At her gasp, I tilted my head, softening toward the woman who’d never been much of a mother to me. “She’s gone already. Why not clear the air?”
Mom’s face went through a few different emotions, the longest one being hurt, before she settled on mad. She leaned forward, away from Daniel’s protective arm, practically vibrating as she pointed straight ahead at nothing.
“She knows exactly what she did! She slept with Kenna’s father!”
My entire body jolted. Dec laid his hand on my knee to steady me.
“You told me you barely knew my father.” My hand went immediately to the charm bracelet on my wrist. “That he only gave you a baby and this bracelet before he ran out of town never to be seen again.”
Mom lifted her nose in the air. “That’s the jist of it.”
I gaped at her. Why was she withholding information about my father? “Mom,” I snapped. Her head whipped in my direction. “Tell me everything. And this time, don’t leave anything out!”
She frowned at me, shooting a quick glance at Daniel before looking back at me, resigned. “Fine. I met Ronan my junior year, his senior year. He was a transfer student. His accent was adorable. All the girls were half in love with him that first week, but toward the end of the school year he chose me. He gave me that bracelet and told me it was his mother’s. He loved me, Kenna. He really did. We went on several dates before we, uh, you know.”
“Slept together?”
She nodded and kept going. “It was only after that night in the back seat of Daddy’s car that I found out he was dating several other girls too. Maeve being one of them.” Mom’s nose went in the air. “I told her that he was mine and she laughed at me. Said I was dumb if I thought Ronan would pick one girl when he could flirt with all of us. That little tramp slept with him even after I told her I loved him.”
Mom swiped at her eyes dramatically before continuing. “He’d gone home to Ireland before I found out I was pregnant with you. Maeve and I had already quit speaking to each other, so I packed up my clothes and left, hitching a ride until I got too far along to feel safe out on the open road. Ended up in a pregnancy center in San Francisco and you know the rest.”
All of us were silent, digesting that information as Mom continued to sniffle. I had so many questions tumbling around in my head I wasn’t sure which one to choose first.
“So wait, my father didn’t know about me? And neither did Maeve? What about your parents?”
When Mom refused to answer, Daniel put his hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles. “It’s okay, love. This was all a long time ago. No harm in giving Kenna answers. We don’t think less of you.”
Dec made a noise in the back of his throat, like he didn’t agree with his father, but he kept his mouth shut. Mom finally lifted her nose in the air again.
“No, he didn’t know about you. I didn’t know how to get ahold of him a continent away. And Maeve didn’t know either until you were a year old. She’d gotten married to your uncle and hired a detective to find me. I told her I was fine and so were you, but to leave us alone. She didn’t, of course, threatening to come to California if I didn’t give her regular updates about our lives. So I called her once a year for exactly a half hour, as you know. Our parents wouldn’t have helped me. They had no use for a granddaughter born out of wedlock.” She shifted to me, a softness in her gaze. “Things were different back then, you have to understand. We had everything we needed, you and me, Kenna. We didn’t need any of them.”
Life hadn’t been easy growing up with Mona as a mother, but I supposed things could have been worse. Mom loved me, even if she was still a spoiled prima donna with only a vague grasp on the responsibilities of motherhood.
Dec stood. “I’ll be right back.” He left, climbing the stairs and stomping around in my bedroom. We were all quiet when he came back down with a dusty photo album in one hand. He handed it to my mother.
“She said to give this to you if you ever came here. I was waiting for the right time.”
Mom put a hand to her mouth, as if to stifle a gasp. Her hands shook as she laid the photo album in her lap and began to flip through. I watched as a smile took over her face, replaced with a sniffle and a sob, only to be stifled by shocked laughter. Daniel handed her tissues and she blotted her face and blew her nose. Dec sat next to me again, his arm around my shoulders and his fingers playing with the ends of my hair.
“You okay, sunshine?” he whispered.
