The Lights of Sugarberry Cove Read online

  As Sadie and I had grown older and Mother and Buzzy’s public displays of affection intensified, we’d take off to escape the embarrassment of it all. We’d go swimming or biking or spend long hours at the library, giggling as we read romance novels hidden behind Teen magazines. We’d drifted apart some when I went to college, but we still managed to make time for each other. Weekend spa dates. Movies. Long lunches.

  Then, the accident happened and nothing had ever been the same. At the thought of that lantern-lit night, guilt twined through my stomach, making it ache. I pressed a hand to my belly and said, “As much as I hate to be away for three nights, this weekend will be a good time to have another heart-to-heart with Sadie about moving back to Sugarberry Cove for good. I can’t remember the last time we spent more than a few hours together.”

  Connor didn’t look up from his computer. “You’ll be wasting your breath. Sadie doesn’t want to move back. She’s made that quite clear.”

  It was true that every time I brought up the subject, Sadie shut down the conversation quickly. “Maybe this time will be different, since she’ll be here, in Sugarberry Cove.” Right now, she was staying at a hotel close to the hospital. I’d asked her to stay with me, but she’d declined, saying she wanted to be near Mother. “I know the lake is a painful reminder of what she went through, but staying away isn’t helping her any.”

  Of course, Sadie never blamed the lake outright for her desertion, instead claiming she simply loved to travel and that her career was on the road—but I wasn’t buying it. She was escaping—just like we used to do when Mother and Buzzy got too touchy-feely with each other. Sadie’s job was nothing but a front. She had dubbed herself a “content creator,” and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes even thinking about the title. I truly didn’t even know how she was making ends meet.

  If she wanted to see what hard work really looked like, she should spend some time with Connor. He’d had a hardscrabble upbringing, earned a hardship scholarship to college, and was top of his class in law school down in New Orleans, where we’d lived for three years before moving back here, to my hometown.

  But I knew better than anyone that Sadie would hate spending time with Connor more than being back in Sugarberry Cove, a place she’d once loved with her whole heart, near family and old friends, all of whom had become virtual strangers.

  I plucked another long hair off my sleeve. “Since Sadie will be staying at the cottage, she won’t be able to hide from her fears. Three days isn’t a lot of time, but maybe with being so close to the water, she’ll finally be able to start healing. That’s all she needs. A start. Don’t you think? Every day is a chance at a new beginning.”

  “Mm,” Connor grumbled.

  He’d obviously tuned me out. Sometimes I wanted to get rid of our internet altogether. There was something to be said for unplugging once in a while. Suddenly irritated by his distraction, I picked up a pile of three blouses from my side of the bed and tossed them into the open weekender, having instant regrets as soon as they landed in a loose heap. I quickly refolded the shirts into a neat stack. “Maybe I should take Tucker with me this weekend after all.”

  At this, Connor finally glanced up. “A two-year-old at the hospital? And underfoot at the cottage while your mother convalesces? You think that’s a good idea?”

  His tone stated that this was a ridiculous idea, and maybe it was. But I liked it better than Tucker staying here with a distracted Connor.

  “A cottage under renovation, at that,” Connor added.

  Truthfully, the renovations were the least of my worries, as they were confined to two guest rooms on the first floor that had been damaged by water from a burst pipe. The restoration work was almost done, due to be completed just in time for the water lantern festival.

  I said, “It’s not ideal, but you’re busy with work.”

  “We’ve been through this. I took today off, didn’t I?”

  We had been through it. I’d insisted Tucker come with me. Connor insisted Tucker stay home, away from hospitals and illnesses and recuperations. It wasn’t as if I wanted Tucker exposed to the hospital and its germs, either. And I certainly didn’t want Tucker exposed to my mother’s quirks for any great length of time. Except for our monthly dinners, I managed to keep our visits quick. In and out in less than half an hour.

  But at the cottage, at least Tucker would be with me, where I could keep a close eye on him. I’d even offered Connor a compromise—dinner at the cottage tomorrow night—but he had dismissed it straight off, saying he wanted the weekend alone with Tucker. Which on the surface was all well and good, but underneath there was one big flaw with his plan: Connor’s inability to unplug from work.

  “We both know that a vacation day isn’t really time off,” I said. “You’ll be on call. You’ll check your email. You’ll be easily distracted. Like you are now.” In truth, I could do naked cartwheels in front of him, and he probably wouldn’t look up from his computer long enough to notice. Or care.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I glanced around at the big master bedroom with its vaulted ceiling, so cavernous that it sometimes made me feel small and lost. I had a successful husband, a beautiful little boy, and a fancy house that was so big we’d hired a service to help clean it. I should be happy. Content. Especially since I’d worked so very hard on being happy and content.

  Yet … I felt restless in the one place where I should feel most comfortable: home.

  And truly, I should be thankful for Connor’s job. His hard work had allowed me to quit my job as a healthcare accountant to stay home full-time, something I’d always wanted to do once we had a child. Or thought I wanted. I shook my head, not wanting to go there right now.

  But instead of thankful, I was resentful. Because somewhere along the line I’d lost Connor. The man I’d fallen in love with. The man who’d shared my hopes and dreams. And sure, those dreams had shifted over the years, blurred, and changed course due to unexpected bumps in the road, but the grand plan, the happy, close-knit family part, had never altered.

  But somehow, over the eight years we’d been married, he’d lost sight of what we’d always wanted, too engrossed in billable hours to see that he was slowly erasing himself from our lives. I didn’t know how to bring him back to us, to make him understand all he was losing by working all the time. Somehow Connor Keesling, the man I loved with my whole heart, had become the thing I despised most in the world.

  A workaholic.

  Uneasy, I shifted my weight and added two pairs of shorts and yoga pants and a yoga mat to the bag. “It takes only a moment for a two-year-old to wander away or find trouble. Not even a moment. A split second. If you’re glued to your phone or laptop all weekend…”

  I couldn’t even finish the sentence as all the what-ifs flew through my head, flashes of the worst-case scenarios that often gave me insomnia and nightmares.

  I knew how fast a world could be turned inside out.

  I tried not to think of my daddy’s accident often, but every once in a while it sprang unbidden into my mind. One wrong step on a tall ladder, a long fall, and he was gone. I’d been only five years old, Sadie just one. I was grateful to still have memories of him, but Sadie only knew him through photos and stories shared time and again, because they were the only way we had to keep him alive, at least in our minds.

  “Leala, I promise you I won’t be working. Don’t you understand? I’m looking forward to a little father-son bonding. We’ll be fine, just us boys.”

  I blinked tears away and almost laughed. Did I understand? Of course I did. Better than he did.

  I wished … No. Not wished. I hated wishes. I wanted to trust him to not break his promise. I also wanted him to have time with Tucker and to know our son like I did—and for Tucker to know Connor. It was one of my deepest desires. Maybe if they had this time together, Connor would come to understand all he was missing. Money and a big house were nice, but they weren’t your son�
��s chubby arms squeezing you tightly at bedtime. They weren’t his little voice saying, “Luh you,” because he couldn’t pronounce the v in love.

  But the thought of leaving them together made me ache with fear.

  Connor glanced up and, with a heavy sigh, set the computer aside, stood up, and walked over to me. Gently pulling me into a hug, he rested his chin on the top of my head. “We’ll be fine, Leala. You’re acting like I’m not capable of taking care of my own child.”

  I bit back a sharp confirmation. Connor was barely home other than to sleep. He worked eighty-hour weeks, and when he was home, he was always on call. He’d missed so much already. First words and steps and all the everyday little things that made me laugh, like how Tucker chirped back at the birds outside the window as if having a meaningful conversation and how he chased his shadow on a sunny day.

  Connor didn’t know Tucker the way I did.

  He couldn’t take care of him the way I could or keep him safe.

  Connor kissed the top of my head. “Tucker and I are going to be fine. And so will you. So it’s settled?”

  I pressed my eyes closed and nodded, hoping I wasn’t making yet another choice I’d come to question later on. To regret. Lord, some days the regrets felt like they were suffocating me. I wrapped my arms tighter around Connor, suddenly not wanting to let him go.

  It had been so long since he’d held me for any length of time, and my body reacted, aching for more of his touch. I glanced at the clock, then tipped an ear to the silent baby monitor. Tucker usually woke around seven thirty, an hour from now.

  Emboldened, I slid my hand under Connor’s shirt and slowly skimmed it up to his chest. His breath caught, and he smiled down at me, and for a moment, a blissful second, it felt as though we had no problems at all. It was just us, Leala and Connor, with our all-consuming love and an old, familiar white-hot passion that instantly flared to life from the cold, gray ash it had faded to over the years. As he slipped his hand inside my robe, his thumb resting near the top of the long raised scar on my stomach, his phone on the nightstand dinged with a notification, and he froze.

  “Leave it,” I said, holding his warm hand against my skin. It was six thirty in the morning. Whatever it was could wait. These kinds of loving moments between us were so few and far between of late that surely right here and now with me was more important than whatever message had come in.

  There was a slight hesitation before he made his decision. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He pulled away and stretched across the bed to grab his phone. The warm spot on my skin where his hand had rested instantly chilled, and I turned to hide the wash of tears in my eyes. I tightened my robe and tossed the rest of my clothes into the weekender, neatness and organization be damned. I hurried back to the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and finished packing my toiletries, throwing makeup and hair brushes into the bag without care. Suddenly I wanted to get away from Connor for a while. To get away from the anger that flared a bright, hot red, obliterating any and all flickering white passions. I glanced in the mirror, and unable to find any affirmations for this moment, I quickly looked away, unable to bear the pain I saw in the reflection.

  I missed my husband.

  I hung my robe on the back of the door and tried to ignore the doubt that came flooding in full force, nearly knocking me over. If Connor couldn’t put his phone down for me, he surely wouldn’t if Tucker needed him, promise or no. I took a deep, steadying breath and heard Connor’s voice in my head, telling me how he wanted this weekend to bond with Tucker. I let it replay over and over again, reminding myself that I wanted them to bond too. I needed to trust Connor. Dear God, I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I loved him enough to try.

  Before I changed my mind about leaving altogether, I dressed quickly. I’d originally planned to have breakfast with Tucker before leaving, but I decided to go now. Right now. I’d sneak into Tuck’s room, give him kisses, and be on my way. It was probably better this way, anyhow, without a long, drawn-out goodbye.

  Toiletry bag in hand, I opened the door. “Tucker likes his bananas cut up, not whole.”

  I couldn’t even look at Connor straight on while I zipped the weekender bag and slipped on my shoes, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he sat on the edge of his side of the bed.

  “Leala Clare…”

  I ignored the plea in his voice.

  “And he won’t go to sleep without a book and his plushie, Moo the cow.”

  There was a long pause before he said, “I know.”

  “He hates bath time. You’ll need to bribe him with bubbles.” I headed for the door, bag in hand, pieces of my heart trailing behind me like broken glass.

  “Leala.”

  Tears clouded my eyes as I set a hand on the doorknob. Bracing myself against waves of pain, I pulled open the door and walked out. I’d predicted this to be a hellacious weekend but hadn’t expected my misery to begin before I even left home.

  Chapter

  3

  Sadie

  “If I’d have known all it would take was me dying to get my girls together at the cottage for an extended visit, I’d have done it long ago.”

  The cottage. Not home.

  This said everything about how my sister and I had been raised up. Sugarberry Cottage had always been Mama’s first priority. Leala and I had often felt like afterthoughts while Mama had dedicated most of her time and energy to the cottage’s upkeep and guests. Yet, when I had walked through the wide front door earlier, I hadn’t been able to deny the emotion that had washed over me, a brief swallow-me-whole sense of belonging, of love, for this old house. This was where I’d been born and raised, and my homesickness was undeniable.

  On the third floor of the house, the air-conditioning hummed and a ceiling fan stirred the tepid air—in the summertime it was never truly cool up here. Off a short hallway, Mama’s bedroom was as colorful and dramatic as she was, loud and proud, with its vivid teal walls and tangerine-colored drapes, which bracketed three side-by-side windows that overlooked the lake. The bedroom’s vibrancy should’ve been too much, an overload of senses that would have most people squinting at its brightness or turning away, but instead it was somehow comforting in its all-encompassing radiance.

  Like the rest of the house, this room showed some wear, but in a cozy kind of way, a sharp contrast to the disconcerting whispers of neglect I’d noticed downstairs. This space felt lived in. Loved.

  “Mother,” Leala Clare said sternly as she flew about the queen-size bed, throwing back a bold floral quilt, tugging sheets, and fluffing pillows like a small bird prepping a nest. “Joking about death isn’t the least bit funny. You didn’t die.”

  “Lighten up, LC.” Mama produced a tight smile, her usually rosy cheeks unnaturally pale, and her blue eyes dull. “You’ve become so tightly wound that even the curls on your head have straightened out.”

  Color climbed Leala’s neck as she ran long fingers through straight blond hair, then picked off a loose strand that had landed on the cap sleeve of her white blouse. “I flat ironed it. It helps stop the frizz.” She pasted on a fake smile. “I’d be happy to loan you my flat iron, Mother, if you’re wanting to give it a try.”

  Pick, pick, pick.

  The two of them were like to make me crazy. Mama hated being called Mother, something Leala had adopted after starting college, and Leala hated being called LC, a childhood nickname she’d abandoned about the same time.

  “No thank you,” Mama said, sweeter than artificial sugar. “I’m not embarrassed by the things that make me unique. Might I remind you that beauty is found within, LC? I choose to stay true to myself.” She patted her hair, and it sprang up again the moment she lifted her hand, like a Jack released from its box. Short, graying brown curls corkscrewed about her head like she’d recently stuck both hands in a light socket.

  At the words, Leala frowned deeply. “And I do visit.”

  I held back a sigh at Leala’s inability to leave we
ll enough alone. She was forever picking at old wounds with not only her need to be right but also her longing for recognition for always doing the right thing. The proper thing. And, well, to simply be recognized. Mama hadn’t exactly been a hands-on mother.

  With my arm curved around her back, I guided Mama across the wide-plank white pine floor toward her bed while trying my best to avoid my sister’s dangling bait, which I’d become an expert at dodging these past eight years. Worried about my happiness and my distance from family, she’d made no secret of wanting me to move back to Sugarberry Cove. She believed, and I had let her, that I’d been avoiding coming home because of some sort of traumatic response to the lake. That I was scared of it, or that it made me relive the night I’d drowned. All of which couldn’t be further from the truth but was easier to use as an excuse for the complicated reasons I stayed away.

  Through a crack in the tangerine curtains, I watched the shimmery waters of Lake Laurel pulse against the seawall behind the cottage. I had always been drawn to the lake, like a child reaching for her mother, knowing she’d be embraced wholeheartedly. Well, some children and some mothers. Around here if I’d wanted a hug, I went to Leala or Uncle Camp, my daddy’s uncle, who was as close to a granddad as Leala and I have ever known. My mama wasn’t one for tender affection. At least not with Leala and me. At least, according to Leala, not since Daddy had died.

  No, the lake certainly was not at fault for why I’d stayed away. I loved the lake with my whole heart. In fact, I was going to have to do my best to avoid the water, especially swimming in it, if I was going to be able to leave it behind on Monday morning. It held the power to keep me here, a place I most definitely did not want to stay.