Anne bit her tongue. That life – catty rich girls and a seventeen-year-old boyfriend – wasn’t what she wanted for her daughter. But she knew better than to comment. If she said something that was even vaguely critical of her choices, it only made Claire double down.
“When are we going back?” she asked again.
“I’m still figuring that out.”
“Before school starts, right?” Claire turned around to look at her.
She met her daughter’s silver-gray eyes. They were narrowed now, obscured by dark red lashes. Countless freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Sometimes Anne got lost in her daughter’s face. The resemblance was almost spooky – like looking at a younger version of herself.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“What?” Claire looked stricken. “Are wemovinghere?”
“Maybe. For a while.”
“You said you would find us a new house in La Jolla. You promised!”
“I’ve been trying, Claire. I’ve been looking everywhere. I can’t find anything.”
“And you’re telling menow?”
Anne closed her eyes for a heartbeat, holding back the tears that threatened to fall. She opened them and steadied her voice through sheer force of will as she said, “I’ve applied for a hundred different jobs. I’ve been searching for rentals. I’mstilllooking, and I’ll keep trying, but there’s nothing available in your school district that’s even remotely in the realm of what I can afford right now.”
Claire stared at her, mouth open slightly in speechless shock. She looked so young and vulnerable in that moment that Anne’s heart nearly broke.
She reached for her daughter’s hand, but Claire snatched it away. Her expression hardened. She stood, turned, and dove into the pool.
Anne sighed and leaned into the shade of the umbrella.
She let the kids play until the last possible minute, and then they rushed back to their room to shower and change before checkout time.
When they walked back out, squinting in the bright midday sunshine and dragging the luggage that contained all of their worldly possessions, Anne’s little sister was there waiting.
Laurie looked tired, but her eyes brightened when she saw them.
Tears stung Anne’s eyes again – but this time, the overflow of emotion was from the gratitude that flooded her the moment she saw Laurie. Her gorgeous sister, with a smile that lit up her whole face.
Sometimes Anne didn’t realize just how much she’d missed her family until she saw them again.
Laurie was nearly the same age as Anne, but she didn’t look it. Her golden-brown skin drank in the island sunshine without showing any sign of damage. Not a wrinkle in sight. She was forty-two but looked at least a decade younger.
She had always been stunning, but she was never comfortable with the attention that brought her. All through their schooldays, she’d fought her curls into a tight bun and hidden behind a stack of library books. Summers were spent reading in the woods or sometimes surfing a local break with her sisters, where Uncles they’d known all their lives made sure that nobody hassled them.
Anne understood the urge to hide. She didn’t have anywhere near her sister’s astonishing beauty, but her fire-red hair had always made her a target. In middle school, she’d tried dying it dark brown – but it had turned a purplish black and stained the edges of her face. She’d cried and cried and refused to go to school for days. In the end, her mother had cut it nearly down to the roots.
Laurie jumped out of the van and threw her arms around Anne. Her hair was the longest it had ever been, a mass of glossy black curls that went well past her shoulders.
“Hi Pete!” Eight-year-old Mia waved at them from the window. Her brown eyes were magnified by thick glasses; the color of the plastic frame was a perfect match for Laurie’s electric-purple hearing aids. “Hi Claire! Hi Auntie!”
“Hi Mia!” Anne released her sister to go and give her niece a kiss. “You’re getting so big!”
“I bet I’m as tall as Pete!” Mia’s hands moved fluidly through the air, signing in ASL as she spoke aloud. She jumped down to the pavement and sure enough, she was as tall as her nine-year-old cousin.
“Claire!” Laurie pulled her niece in for a hug. “You’re so tall! You look just like your mom.”
Anne’s daughter wrinkled her nose at the familiar refrain, but she accepted the hug.
“And Pete!” Laurie tousled his hair. “It’s so good to see you!”
