Danica laughed. “I never said that, Mom.”
Juliet sighed quietly. This was going to be a heck of a ride.
At around one thirty that afternoon, Juliet pulled over at a quaint diner with old-fashioned red-and-white striped plush booths. Danica sat down and studied the menu glumly, while Juliet stepped outside again to update her sister Ivy on their location and what time they’d be getting in.
Ivy answered. “So you’re really coming?”
Juliet tried to laugh, but it sounded all wrong. Hadn’t they been texting all week? Hadn’t Juliet updated her about the apartment rental and the storage facility?
“I told you we are. I want to get Danica out of the city for the summer.” She lowered her voice, then added, “She’s been having a hard time.”
Ivy was quiet for a moment. Juliet thought she could hear the ocean somewhere beside her.
A part of Juliet sensed that Ivy wasn’t so keen on Juliet coming to Bluebell Cove. But Juliet felt too sensitive—and too nervous—to ask if it was still all right. They’d already rented out the apartment. They’d already packed up their things.
“And what about your husband?” Ivy asked finally. “Will he be staying with us, too?”
Juliet remembered how cagey she’d been last time they’d spoken, how she’d said something about a man leaving them behind. Ivy surely knew that that man was her husband. Did she want to embarrass Juliet into saying it aloud?
Was this Ivy’s way of getting back at Juliet for a lack of honesty?
Or was this just an older sister, trying to embarrass a younger sister?
Juliet filled her lungs with air and told herself to remain steady. Family was complicated.
“Alvin has to work,” Juliet said finally.
“And you?” Ivy asked. “Do you have to work as well?”
“I took the summer off,” Juliet said. “As I said, Danica’s having a hard time.”
“It’s good to be there for our kids,” Ivy said. There was a jitteriness to her words, as though she was being very careful. “We’ll have a big dinner tonight to welcome you.”
After lunch, Juliet and Danica got back on the road. Danica was scribbling something in her notebook, and Juliet wanted desperately to ask Danica what it was.
“Are you more of a poet?” Juliet asked finally. “Or do you focus more on prose?”
Danica stopped writing and turned her head to look at her mother. Again, Danica felt exposed and stupid. “I’m writing about what’s happening around me,” Danica said finally. “I’m writing about how much I miss the city. I’m writing about how stupid this all is.”
Juliet squeezed the steering wheel firmly. “You could write letters, maybe,” she said. “To Mary. You could bring back the forgotten art of letter-writing.”
“Why would you write a letter when you can write an email?” Danica shot back. “I mean, letters get lost in the mail.”
“They don’t get lost as often as you think,” Juliet said. “For hundreds upon hundreds of years, humans sent letters. Romantic letters and friendship letters and letters between family members. It’s so often how we get to know people through reading the letters they left behind. I remember when I went to summer camp as a teenager. It was a fashion camp. We were supposed to learn how to model and make our own clothes. I missed my best friend Callie so much. We wrote each other letter after letter. I asked my counselor every afternoon if there was a letter from her.”
Danica furrowed her brow. “Callie?”
“Callie,” Juliet said again, her voice breaking the slightest bit.
“You’ve never mentioned her before,” Danica said.
“She was my Mary,” Juliet said, throwing her head against the headrest. She braced herself for Danica to ask what had happened to Callie and where she was now.
Instead, Danica asked, “Are you done? I mean, with your career?”
Juliet was caught off guard so much that she let the car slow down the slightest bit. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, you can’t go back to the fashion world, right?” Danica asked.
