“I told them about our family situation. I hope that is okay.”
“Of course, it is.”
Siena was Goldie’s biological daughter.
When Goldie was pregnant by a big Hollywood player, she feared she couldn’t keep her pregnancy away from the prying eyes of the Hollywood rumor mill. Viv had just had her fourth miscarriage. Goldie reached out to Viv, and it fell into place. It was like the universe wanted them both to be Siena’s mother.
Viv’s dream of motherhood came true, but also kept Goldie from becoming a Hollywood tragedy. They were a family.
But they’d kept it a secret at Goldie’s insistence. Goldie had lied to protect a famous man and her own reputation, too. But Dustin Toms had only become more famous in the twenty-plus years Siena had been alive. Something had changed. Viv put the question to her.
“What’s changed?”
“I realized I could trust these women; in a way I haven’t found anywhere else. And now, our Siena has so many aunties.”
“It looks like it, but what about…?” Viv was happy to see her daughter among her old friends. She’d need them. The idea that there would be a network of support comforted Viv and also stabbed into her heart.
“Yeah, he’ll never find out because he has no reason to look,” Goldie said it quietly. Siena had no idea who her biological father was. She had two moms, and two dads, more or less with Bret and eventually Travis. It was a small army of parental units. Why look for more? Viv hoped that was always the case.
Hope brought out lemonade and a tray of lovely morsels to nibble on.
“She calls them Nosh Plates at the restaurant. It’s so cute I can hardly stand it,” J.J. bragged about Hope. Hope shook her head in amusement.
“Hope’s menu changes every week, always local, and you get what she makes, no menu of a million options,” Libby said.
“I was lucky enough to have a dinner at The Lost Kitchen in Maine. She does that too! It’s so amazing,” Viv said. She’d had one of the best meals of her life at The Lost Kitchen.
“Yes, Erin French is my hero,” Hope said.
“Well, you’remyhero. This is so good,” J.J. chimed in while enjoying a cracker spread with local cheese.
Viv wanted to love it too. But her appetite wasn’t the same. Food didn’t taste the same as it did before.
The food and drinks were arranged, and then the six of them worked on getting reacquainted. They weren’t the same young girls; they’d all been through so much. Hope had just divorced a cheating husband and had two grown daughters. Hope’s Table was the restaurant of her dreams, deferred for years, it turned out. The confidence Hope radiated was also newly won, it turned out.
“I guess I am lucky in that regard. My ex, Bret, he never stopped my desire to be a designer. In a lot of ways, he was the perfect partner, knew people, helped me get the line going years before I could have on my own.”
“He sounds wonderful,” Hope said.
“He is a great dad, too, right, Siena?”
“The best.”
“If he hadn’t been in love with Travis, maybe we’d still be married.”
“Ah, gotcha,” Hope said.
Then it was catching up with J.J. She worked at a local hair salon and was married to a man named Dean Tucker, who Libby referred to as a superhero. She had kids too, boys—well, men. Giant men, like their bear of a father, J.J. said.
“They’re mostly civilized, but not entirely. I am always the odd woman out, so it’s been such a nice thing having the Sandbar Sisters back! Helps me be less feral.”
“Only a little less feral,” Goldie said. And J.J. nodded in agreement.
Viv watched how comfortable the four of them were together after all this time. Viv had that with Goldie but wondered if she could be close, again, to the other three. There was a literal lake between who she was before cancer and whoever she was now.
And then there was Libby. She was also coming out of a bad marriage.
“Yeah, I nearly got thrown in prison thanks to the fact that Henry’s midlife crisis included felony embezzlement.”
