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“Right.” I didn’t want to consider how much more upset he’d be if he knew the whole story.
Mom turned and gathered her spade and clippers into a bucket, then set those next to the front steps as we headed to the front door. Before we went inside, she stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Is everything really okay? Or did something happen there? With him?”
“Everything’s fine, Mom.” Really, everything would never be fine again, but I didn’t want to give my mother anything more to worry about. She’d lost a son. It was my job to be light and bright—I didn’t get to have problems. My parents had been through enough.
Mom blew out a breath, as if she’d been holding it the whole time I’d been away, waiting to see if the monster might steal yet another child from her grasp and relieved to find me whole.
The thing was, in some ways, Archie Kasper had changed my life as irrevocably as he’d changed my parents’ lives. None of us would ever be the same.
“Honey, Em is home,” Mom called to my father, who sat staring at a golf match with an annoyed look, as if he’d only just realized it wasn’t enough action to distract him from whatever was going on in his head.
“Glad you’re back,” he said, not turning to look at me.
So he was still angry at me, then. Not that I was surprised.
“We’ll have dinner in a bit,” Mom told me, angling her head in a way that told me she was actually telling Dad. “Drinks on the patio first?”
“I’ll be out in a bit,” Dad said, glancing at us and then turning back to the sprawling greens of whatever golf course he was watching.
I followed my mother through the kitchen, and soon we were sitting out back, the glittering expanse of the Pacific Ocean dominating the view before us as the setting sun sparked on its surface. I released a sigh as I sat, taking in the view. It always calmed me, connected me to something I didn’t understand. I knew that even if I lived somewhere else, somewhere dominated by land or trees or rocks, I’d always need to return to the ocean at times to feel centered and grounded. It was part of my soul. And this ocean, in particular, was part of my family.
Staring out at the Pacific was, in some ways, visiting my brother again. We didn’t discuss it, but I knew my parents felt it too. How could we look at the expanse of that deep, cold ocean and not think of the part of our family who would remain there forever?
We sat, and as I stared out at the landscape ahead of us, the sadness and pain crept back in, finally catching me despite my efforts to pretend it wasn’t there. I wasn’t going to cry in front of my mother—nothing good would come of admitting what had really happened in Kasper Ridge.
“Tell me about the trip,” Mom said, touching the lip of her wine glass to mine.
I took a sip of my wine and then did my best to gird myself, to drop the shields over the very tender wounds I was nursing.
“The place is incredible,” I began. “Have you ever been to Colorado?”
“Once, driving through the very southernmost part,” she said, crossing her long legs and smiling at me.
“It was really beautiful.” I described the ever-ascending ride up to the resort, told her about the wood and glass hotel that both stood out and blended so naturally into the mountain where it sat, and about the dark, close beauty of the trees that towered over you wherever you went. “It was one of those places where you could feel nature’s power,” I said, letting my eyes drift shut for just a second as I remembered the wide expanses of jagged rock jutting from hillsides, the temperamental nature of the weather. “Kind of like the ocean, I guess. Mountains like that make you feel small, remind you that humans are just one part of everything, you know?”
Mom nodded, a wistful smile on her face. “It sounds like maybe you fell in love a little bit.”
Oh god. If only I could tell her. My heart winced with pain, as if hearing the word “love” was a physical assault.
“And the best part,” I went on, nodding a hello to my father as he stepped down the back stairs and joined my mother on the couch, a beer in his hand and a scowl on his face, “was that we actually solved the treasure hunt. I got my story, and I’m justwaiting to hear whether it will land the cover.” The excitement I should have felt was muted. Did it even matter anymore?
“What was the treasure?” Mom asked, leaning forward slightly.
“Uh . . . love? I guess.” My heart withered even more.
Dad made a face. “What? How do you hunt for love?”
How could I explain the whole thing without going into a detailed description of Archie’s family history? Without talking about Archie himself?
“The man who built the resort fell in love with his best friend’s fiancé. And when she loved him too, they ran away together and never looked back.”
“Sounds like kind of a bastard,” Dad said.
“There was a lot more to it.” I felt suddenly defensive of Archie’s uncle. “The uncle and his best friend had both sworn not to do anything about the feelings they had for this woman.”
“Like...bros over hos?” Mom asked, earning a frown from my father and making me laugh.
“Exactly,” I told her. “But Rudy broke his promise and proposed, and made the girl think that the other man—Marvin—didn’t love her. So she accepted.”
