“Isn’t that the truth.” He pulled a roll from the pan she’d just taken from the oven and slathered it with butter. “You three have been friends for a long time.”
The yeasty smell of homemade bread made her eager to eat, too. She was getting her appetite back, she realized. “Ever since junior high,” she told him as she sat down with her own bowl and reached for a roll. “Sloane and I go back even further than that, but Jules wasn’t interested in hanging out with girls backthen. He was still pulling on our ponytails and running away to make us chase him,” she said with a laugh.
Her father watched her blow the heat from her first spoonful of soup. “It’s good to have you home, honey,” he said.
She smiled. “Thanks, Dad. ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.’ Isn’t that what Robert Frost said?”
“I don’t know what he said. But you’re always welcome here.”
He’d been careful not to say too many derogatory things about Cliff. She knew her parents had been disappointed that her husband hadn’t been more willing to embrace them, so the fact that they were being so cautious had surprised her at first—until she realized they were merely being diplomatic. They didn’t want to create an even bigger gulf, be even more alienated from him, if she put her marriage back together.
“Thanks. I’m hoping the security I feel here will make it so that I can get writing again.”
“I do, too. How’s the book going so far?”
“It’s not,” she said ruefully. “I haven’t even started—not yet.”
He glanced up from his meal. “I was under the impression, and I think your mother was, too, that you only needed to finish. Which would be daunting enough,” he added.
“Yeah, it’s a lot more daunting than I let on,” she admitted. “I couldn’t face what was ahead of me, didn’t even want to acknowledge it. Besides, giving Mom more reason to worry is never a good thing.”
“You can say that again,” he said. “So... are you going to be able to get it done in time?”
She was feeling only about ten percent better, but just that small improvement was making a huge difference. As soon as she finished cleaning up after dinner, she planned to scour the internet for ideas. She hoped reading about other books andmovies, and surfing through articles, would ignite her imagination. And since her parents went to bed before she did, she’d have several uninterrupted hours in which to decide what her next story would be. If she wasreallylucky, maybe she’d even be inspired to write the first few pages.
“We’ll see.” She was afraid to promise too much; just because she was feeling a slight lift at this moment didn’t mean it would last. A wave of grief could crash over her and drag her back out to sea, erasing her progress in an instant.
“Do you need me to find you a ghostwriter, honey?” he asked. “A creativity coach? A therapist? Whatever it is, I’ll make it happen.”
Like Sloane and Julian, her parents were there for her. So many people who went through a divorce didn’t have the friends and family she did. She should consider herself lucky. In many ways, shewaslucky. With time, her broken heart would heal, and as Sloane and Julian predicted, a life spent without Cliff might prove to be a happier life in the end.
“I’m going to see what I can do first.”
“You sure?” he pressed. “Because I bet we could find just the right person.”
Finished with her soup, she left her spoon in the bowl and enjoyed the rest of her roll with a generous amount of salty, melted butter. “It’s enough just knowing how much you love me,” she said.
She really felt that way. But when she finally made it to her room, she decided to go through the mail she’d picked up from the Malibu mansion before opening her laptop. She knew she was procrastinating the hard stuff. But her book was so daunting, such a difficult mountain to climb, she told herself she needed to get organized first.
“Junk, junk, junk,” she muttered, tossing one ad after another into the trash. There was a fashion magazine and several homedecor magazines she pitched, too, as well as a health insurance bill set to autopay. But then she came to a letter addressed to her from Heidelman & Heidelman, Attorneys at Law.
A sick feeling came over her as she stared at the envelope. Was this about the divorce? From what she’d read online, Cliff had to serve her before doing anything else, and that hadn’t happened yet. So what was this?
Taking a deep breath, she opened it and felt her heart leap into her throat—and then plunge. The letter had nothing to do with Cliff or the divorce. As far as she was concerned, it was worse, because it wasn’t anything even time could change.
chapter 6
This couldn’t be happening, not at the same time as the implosion of her marriage. Her family was the one thing she’d always relied on; she was relying heavily on them now. No way was she willing to believe they’d lied her entire life, especially about something so fundamental, sofoundational.
Charlotte started to read the letter again, but her hands were trembling and tears were beginning to blur the words. Wiping her eyes, she struggled to navigate the landmines.
She wasn’t who she thought she was. That was the main takeaway. But the details were just as shocking. She’d been adopted at birth and yet her parents had never let on. And now her birth mother had died, leaving behind another daughter named Lilly, who was twelve. No one knew who Lilly’s father was, so her mother’s boyfriend was caring for the girl until more permanent arrangements could be made, but he’d only been with Sabrina—that was the name the attorney provided for the woman who had supposedly given birth to her—for a few months and didn’t want permanent responsibility. Something had to be done about the child, so this attorney, who’d been searching for Sabrina’s relatives, was reaching out to seeif Charlotte might be interested in meeting and possibly taking custody of her only sibling.
Custody of a twelve-year-old. Her sibling. Hersister.
“Oh, my God,” she said aloud and dropped the letter before picking it up and reading it one more time, just for good measure. There was another astonishing detail in it that she’d stumbled over while trying to process all the rest.
It only took a moment to find it. There it was—in the last paragraph. Although Lilly was born in the United States, it had been Sabrina’s dream to live on the Amalfi Coast, so she’d taken Lilly and moved to Italy only a few months ago—to a small town called Praiano.
