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“I don’t think she’s ever seen you skip a workout—”
Dillon hurled the sponge into the sink, rounding on her sister. “So that’s what this is about? I sleep in one morning of the year, instead of going on a run, and Mam’s decided I’m no longer focused? And somehow that’s Kam’s fault?” She laughed, angry.
“You’re being deliberately petulant! You know Mam would love nothing more than for you to retire! But she knows you won’t—so of course it worries her to see you put your training on a back burner. We all know what happens when you aren’t at the top of your game—”
“I can’t win with you two! I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If I train every day, I’m obsessed. If I skip a day, I’m no longer committed—”
“Don’t you dare drag me into this! You asked about Mam, so I told you!”
“Are you really expecting me to believe you don’t share her opinion?”
“I don’t know what to think yet, Dillon! But I do think you can cut Mam some slack—she only wants the best for you.”
“Then she should be glad that I’m happy!” Dillon slammed her palm onto the counter, nearly upsetting the bowl of rising dough. “For once I feel like I have something more than just—just—” she threw her hands in the air, frustrated. How could she ever expect Seren to understand? Everything her perfect sister did was balanced. Seren had never battled the highs and the lows. Her entire life was even keel, steady and categorically stable. It would be impossible for her to know what it felt liketo have nothing beyond her training. She was far too practical to allow her sport to consume the entirety of her existence.
So how could Dillon explain that for the first time, she felt like she’d begun to find a glimpse of that normalcy? That her life wasn’t just her career as an athlete.
The medals. The podiums. The prize money.
That she finally felt like more than just rankings and results. More than what the sum of her life had tallied.
That a future with Kam made her feel like maybe one day there’d be more to life than just winning.
“Forget it. It’s not something you could ever understand.”
“Try me.” Seren reached to touch her arm, but Dillon pulled away, wiping her floured palm off on her joggers.
“I’m just happy, all right? Maybe you can relay that to Mam.”
“Maybe she can relay what to me?”
The two sisters spun toward the voice to find their mother standing in the entry arch of the kitchen. She had a sack of groceries in one hand and theSouth Wales Evening Postin the other.
It never failed to startle Dillon, how much of Seren she could see in their mother. Or, rather, the other way around. They were two congruous beings cut from the same cloth. From the way they stood, perfectly poised, ever in command of their emotions, to their style of dress—sharp, modest, practical. Even their long dark hair seemed inclined to part in harmonious echo of one another, falling to the same place beneath their slender shoulders.
Seren would be the exact replica of Jacqueline Sinclair in another twenty years. Ever elegant. Ever refined. Ever with all the answers—their lives mapped out in impeccable, straight lines.
“Nothing.” Taking the long way around the kitchen bar, Dillon skirted past her mother into the hall. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Dillon,” her mother commanded, ever the executive, the word almost convincing Dillon to slow on her way to the door.
Almost. But not quite.
“Where are you going?”
She paused with her hand on the brass knob. “A run.”
“Dillon—”
“Sorry Mam, couldn’t possibly miss a day of training.” And she was out the door, into the brisk coastal air.
Dillon ran until her calves cramped and her fingers lost all their feeling. Down the two-lane road, past the familiar pubs and restaurants, through the sleepy town of Mumbles unfolding along the waterfront. She slowed to a walk when she reached the ice cream parlor where Seren used to drag her every Sunday, and turned onto the pier. The boardwalk had been decorated for the holiday, festive in green and red and gold.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, she leaned against the railing.
The tide was high. Across the narrow strait of water, two small islands directly off the headland rose out of the fog. The previous evening, she’d pointed them out to Kam during their drive to her mother’s, explaining how the suggestively-shaped islets had given the village its name.
“Mumbles is a derivative of the French word,mamelles—which means breasts. A nickname courtesy of imaginative medieval sailors arriving from France.”
