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“And what else?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something more,” Mom says. Her eyes twinkle.
“It’s not like that.”
“It always is.”
“Mom...” I roll my eyes. Mom is obsessed with getting me to confide in her about my would-be relationships. The thing is that I don’t have any relationships. Not really. At least, not in the way she wants me to.
“Now, Juniper,” Helena pats my mom’s hand. “Leave him alone.”
“Oh, I will.”
“What about you?” I ask Mom and Helena. “How are you two doing?” Mom and Helena run a little flower shop in town. Mom made out like a bandit during the divorce. It was mutual, but Dad still paid her a ton of money when they split. I don’t even know all of the details. I just know that as a partner in his company, she was entitled to a lot. Mom took her money, bought a little cottage in the foothills of the mountains, and bought a flower shop. Helena quit her marketing job to market for Mom full-time. The two of them lead a very wonderful life, as far as I know.
“The business is going well,” Mom says. “Holly is coming by later this week to help out.” Helena and Mom are both late-bloomer-bisexuals who were previously married to men. Helena and her ex-husband share a daughter, Holly, who is about my age. I’ve met her a few times, and she seems nice enough. She’s busy, though, and she travels a lot. She doesn’t generally make it back to town for family events.
We chat for a few more minutes, order some croissants, and drink our coffees. It’s a lovely breakfast, but before I leave, I want to pick my mom’s brain a little bit more.
“What do you know about something called Project Sunshine?”
She cocks her head, and I realize she doesn’t know. Her curiosity is piqued, though.
“Tell me everything you know,” she says. “I haven’t heard the name, but it’s possible that it was housed under a different name previously. Your father had a lot of pet projects that he didn’t always tell me about.”
“I don’t know much. It’s just something I can’t seem to find a lot of details on.”
“Welcome to your father’s world,” Mom says. She holds up her coffee cup like it’s a glass of wine and not a mocha. I wonder if she managed to make the coffee Irish this morning.
Helena looks at me, cocking her head.
“Your father had a lot of secrets, Ryan.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your mother managed to uncover many of them during the end of their marriage, but there were a lot of cards he held close to his chest.”
“He still should have told me.” He knew he was dying. He was aware. He had so much damn time to tell me and my brothers about his secrets, yet he didn’t.
“Maybe he should have,” Mom agrees. “All you can do is try to move forward from here.” She pulls out her phone and sends me a text. It’s a string of numbers and symbols.
“What’s this?”
“My password for your father’s servers. He may have died, but he didn’t deactivate my account.”
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Go through my old files,” Mom says. “Who knows? You might find something I missed.”
“Are you sure?” Somehow, the idea of going through my mother’s things feels like it’s some sort of violation.
“Positive,” she smiles. “And have fun.”
