When he came to the last flower in the bouquet—the blush pink rose—he paused to inhale the sweet scent before leaning over the starboard side and placing it gently on the water. “And for our little girl. I know you’re watching over her.”
After releasing the pink rose, he trailed his fingers in the water, sifting through the waves that swayed the boat. Finally, he bowed his head and placed his hand over his heart.
“To you, my love. Not to our future, but to our past. And always in my heart.”
In her final hours, Jackie had asked him to find another woman to share his life with, but he had never found anyone he’d felt the same way about.
After ten years, he doubted he ever would.
Chapter 5
“WE’LL HAVE TO make do without our luggage tonight,” Ivy said, shifting uncomfortably in the back seat as the ride-share driver neared their parents’ home. The adrenaline she’d felt at the house had worn off. Now, she couldn’t wait to ease into a warm bath to wash off the travel grime. “Bennett probably took off with it on purpose just to annoy me.”
Shelly fanned her face. “I don’t think so. It’s not all about you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You forgot about our bags, too.”
Something she never would have done in the past. Seeing Bennett again had been disturbing. “Only because of his attitude.”
“Seemed like he was being helpful,” Shelly said. “Look, you’re the most organized person I know, but you have to admit that in the last twenty-four hours, an impulsive, preoccupied woman who looks a lot like my sister has taken her place. It’s okay to forget things. Relax, this gives us an excuse to raid Mom’s closet. You know how much fun that is.”
“I’ll try Bennett again tomorrow.” However, that was easily the last thing Ivy wanted to do. She leaned forward toward the driver. “You can let us off here, thanks.”
The front steps to the home were a steep descent from the curb to the front door because the house was built on a sloping hillside, which was dotted with houses that opened out to a panoramic, edge-of-the-world view of the ocean.
Exhausted by the early flight from Boston and their afternoon in Summer Beach, Ivy started down the flagstone steps. The pathway was edged with delicate, green baby’s tears and shaded by gnarled, silvery-leafed olive trees and pepper trees with pink peppercorns. Filtered sunlight shone through the arched canopy.
The coffee hadn’t done much to revive Ivy, except make her jittery. Shelly dragged behind her.
Midway down the hillside, Ivy paused by a hand-carved stone bench her parents had brought back from one of their trips abroad. As she waited for her sister, she glanced around at the familiar houses of her childhood. Noticing changes and upgrades—the Andersons had added a new Tuscan stone façade, while the Levys and Chens had converted their lawns to stunning desert-scapes—she realized how long she had been away.
When Shelly caught up with her, Ivy asked, “Before we go inside, do you have any idea what Mom’s big announcement is?”
“None at all,” Shelly said, stopping beside her.
“Mom’s nearly seventy,” Ivy said, bracing herself for bad news. “You know what that means.”
“Not sure I do.”
“Her health is probably declining.”
“She looked good at Jeremy’s funeral,” Shelly said. “Mom’s pretty straight with us. If there’s something wrong, she would’ve called us, not summoned us here like she did.”
“I’m just saying we should prepare ourselves for the worst.”
“You do you, sis,” Shelly said, sounding tired. “I’m not going down that path until we have to.”
“No, you never imagine the worst that could happen or plan for it,” Ivy snapped. “That’s why you’ve always ended up with men like Ezzra.” As soon as she uttered her words, Ivy regretted them. She was tired and frustrated that Shelly wasn’t as concerned as she was.
“Didn’t I just tell you that’s over?” Shelly put a hand on her hip. “I might not be the uber-organizer you are, but at least I live in the present.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Like the trips to Nantucket. That summer I joined you guys, you packed enough supplies for an army. You had every minute of every day so structured that you couldn’t enjoy yourself without worrying about everyone else.”
Ivy opened her mouth in astonishment. “That’s what it takes to run a family. Not that you’d know anything about responsibility. You’ve been running from it all your life.”
“And you took everything too seriously. No wonder Jeremy bought that house without telling you. You never would have agreed to it.”
“If that’s the way you feel, you don’t have to move in.” Ivy wished she could just shut up, but words kept tumbling from her mouth. “For all I care, you can go back to Ezzra.”
Shelly glared at her. “If you were so sure that Ezzra wasn’t right for me, you should’ve told me a long time ago. But then, I kept my mouth shut about Jeremy, too.”
Fuming, Ivy crossed her arms. “Go ahead, say it.”
Shelly turned away from her as if to end the conversation, but then she whirled around. “All right, I will. Maybe Jeremy wasn’t the ideal husband you thought he was. Seems no matter what men do while they’re alive, they suddenly achieve sainthood after they die.”
“You were always jealous of what we had,” Ivy charged, aware that their exchange was spiraling out of control, but too exhausted to stop the damage.
“Now you’ve got to be kidding.”
A few steps beneath them, the front door opened.
Ivy shot Shelly a seething frown. “Not a word to Mom about this. We don’t want to worry her.” She
