And he speaks of his affair with Naomi, and how she tried to trap him into marriage by getting pregnant. When I get to the part where he talks about Jazz, I listen carefully, as though I haven’t already committed his words to memory. “As for Jazz, I trust you’ve fallen in love with her by now. It’s easy to do. I have faith that you’ll take care of your baby sister in the event something happens to Naomi. Or in case Jazz needs you.”
The words I’m looking to hear come straight from his lips. In case Jazz needs you. She totally needs me right now. To protect her from her mother.
30
Presley
Presley wakes in a funk on Sunday morning. With the day stretching long ahead of her, she lounges in bed, scrolling through Instagram until she can no longer stand looking at pics of her friends enjoying their weekends with their significant others. She pads in bare feet to the kitchen for coffee and takes her steaming mug to the window. The sun is high in the sky, bright and happy and clashing with her dark mood. Why couldn’t it be stormy today?
She turns away from the window to face her empty living room and Big Blue. It’s not yet ten o’clock. She’ll go insane before lunchtime if she doesn’t find a way to occupy her time. She’s not in the mood for work or exercise, and while her stomach growls in hunger, she has no appetite for food. Retail therapy has worked for her in the past. Why not go out and buy something pretty, like a painting from a local artist, for her apartment?
She dresses in jeans and a fleece and brushes her hair back into a ponytail. Slipping on her running shoes, she heads down to Main Street, only to discover the art galleries are all closed. Retail therapy comes in all shapes and sizes. She’ll go to Target to tackle the long list of household items she’s been meaning to buy. But when she sees the crowded parking lot, she keeps on going. She rolls down her window, the brisk air clearing her head, and cranks the volume on Pandora’s Southern Rock Radio. With no destination in mind, she drives in a trance with her eyes on the road and her mind on Everett and Lucy. Twenty minutes later, she finds herself in the mountains. She parks at the next overlook and gets out of her car. Standing on a boulder, she stares out at the seemingly endless landscape of mountains surrounding her. The beauty of the scene takes her breath. This is God’s creation, and she’s merely a small part of his universe. Spreading her arms wide, she tilts her head back. “I’m here, God, waiting for you to show me the way.”
She lowers herself to a sitting position, and for the next two hours, she contemplates her life, where she’s been and where she’s headed. She’s on her journey. From now on, she’ll take life one day at a time, no matter what happens with Lucy and Everett.
Presley returns to town feeling revived, as though someone pushed her reset button.
She begins the new week by diving into her work, the one thing she can count on to satisfy and fulfill her. But Lucy is determined to make things difficult for her. Lucy leaves when Presley enters a room, ignores her calls, and responds to her texts and emails with curt messages. Presley understands if Lucy no longer wants to be friends, but her hostility toward Presley makes for an unhealthy work environment for the other team members. She needs to clear the air with Lucy before Stella senses the tension between them.
Midafternoon on Wednesday, Presley makes the trip to the wine cellar to confront Lucy. When the elevator doors open, Lucy is standing before her, waiting to get on. As Presley exits the elevator cart, Lucy backs herself into the cellar. Lucy, who is normally meticulously groomed, is not wearing any makeup, which underscores the inky shadows under her eyes on her pale face.
Glancing around, Presley is relieved to see they’re alone. “We need to talk.”
Lucy turns her back on Presley and enters the wine shop, going behind the checkout counter to the iPad point of sale terminal.
Presley approaches the counter. “Have you spoken to Rita yet?”
“I’ve spoken to her. Regardless of what Rita says, the situation is too coincidental for me to believe.”
“Coincidental?” Presley scoffs. “Rita confronted your parents about your adoption. Your parents gave her my parents’ contact information. Rita wrote to my mother. And my mother left the return address from the envelope in my adoption file for me to decide whether to pursue a relationship with you. The situation is anything but coincidental.”
“What about the part where you and I became friends? Are you saying that wasn’t planned?”
Presley raises a finger. “That was coincidental. I befriended you because I enjoy your company. I had no idea of your connection to Rita.”
“At lunch that day, when I was confiding in you about being date-raped and the subsequent pregnancy and adoption, did it ever occur to you that you might be my child?”
“Never. I admit the similarities in our situations hit home, but the idea that you might be my birth mother never crossed my mind. Rita is the one who lives at the return address on the envelope. I thought she was my birth mother. Since I didn’t know the two of you were sisters, I had no reason to suspect I was your child.” Presley’s throat swells, and she chokes out, “Having a rapist for a father isn’t something a girl dreams of when searching for her biological father.”
Lucy’s eyes cloud over, and she braces herself against the counter. She’s apparently never considered how any of this might affect Presley. Presley has seen a different side of Lucy these past
