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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

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He didn’t deny it, or backpedal, or apologize. In the long silence that followed, Grace wondered if he intended to speak to her again at all, but finally he cleared his throat. “I never knew that a year could be so long,” he said wearily. “I never realized that the world could feel so dark and cold for months on end. In all that time, it seemed that there was just one glimmer of light—you. You listened to me and helped me talk out some of my grief. And most of all, you helped my kids.”
The words should have warmed her, but they didn’t. She could hear the
but
coming down Fifth Avenue.
“But now . . .” He shook his head. “Now I suspect you had your own needy agenda. It appears you weren’t above encouraging them to be sneaky and underhanded.”
Her eyes flew open wide. “What?”
“Thieving?”
he asked. “My daughter was caught stealing, and you knew about that?”
She opened her mouth, but it took a moment to form words. “It was just a minor incident at a Chinese restaurant. Jordan didn’t even do anything—her friend got caught stealing egg rolls. I talked to the owner.”
“You
did?” he asked. “Who gave you the right to act as her parent?”
Her face was hot. She didn’t know what to say.
“What else has there been?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she said. “Well . . . just an incident when we took her friend to the hospital.” In response to his alarmed look, she added, “With appendicitis.”
“What friend? The older one I saw in the picture?” he asked. “Was that the screwed-up friend Jordan mentioned?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“And did you know she was screwed up?”
Grace shut her eyes, resenting the inquisition but unable to lie. In hindsight, her actions really did seem worse than they had in real time. “Yes, I knew.”
“But you still didn’t say a word to me about it.” His lips twisted in a sour, digusted frown that she found infuriating.
“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry. I probably should have mentioned what happened to you, but I didn’t, and you know why? Because Jordan was concerned about you. She said she didn’t want to upset you, and I didn’t either. You seem to have already forgotten, Ray. For the past year the kids were pretty much in loco parentis for themselves, because you had checked out.”
Twin splotches of red crept into his cheeks. “I was grieving, but I wasn’t so out of it that I would have ignored my daughter’s problems if I had known about them.”
“But how could you have known?” Grace fired back. “You hid yourself away, and walked past your own children without really seeing them. They even had a word for it—‘Dad’s zombie days.’ ”
“I could have known if
you
had told me. You lured my kids to your house like some pied piper. Of course they loved it there—they could tell you everything and know you would do nothing, because ultimately you weren’t really responsible for them.”
“What should I have done?” she asked angrily. “Turned them away from my door? Left them to your benign neglect?”
“You could have been open with me,” he said. “Truthful. I thought we were friends. I thought we were . . . Now I don’t see how I can trust you at all. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to stay out of my family’s business. We can deal with our own problems.”
She felt winded, as if someone had punched her. “I assume you don’t want me to show your children the door if they choose to visit—but I won’t encourage them to come over, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I think would be best for all of us.”
“Fine.” She turned to go, but after a few steps she pivoted back around. “I know it’s none of my business,” she said bitterly, “and that I should probably just shut up now, but there’s just one more thing I need to say.”
“What?”
She didn’t know why she was sticking her neck out, but she felt compelled to.
Last time.
“I think you should let Jordan go away this summer. Punish her some other way that doesn’t crush her dreams. Keeping her here will just demoralize her.”
He shook his head. “I just don’t know. I’m overwhelmed. All I can think is that I’m not up to handling this. I need Jen.”
There was no answer for that.
She backed toward the door. When she spoke, she tried to sound businesslike and not wounded. And not like she wanted to strangle him, which she did. “I tidied up a little,” she told him, referring to the kitchen. “There’s still a lot to do, though.”
He nodded.
“Good-bye,” she said.
“To you, too. And good luck.”
It was as if she were moving across country instead of walking right next door. As she was turning to go, he shook his head as if remembering something.
She paused midstep. “What?”
His eyes held such emotion, she wondered if it might be longing, or regret. She thought he might be on the verge of an apology.
She thought wrong.
“Did you actually kiss Wyatt?” he asked.
She sighed. Not longing—disgust. She couldn’t read him at all.
But she didn’t see the point of explaining herself at this point. She let the silence speak for her and stalked out.
Thanks, Lily,
she thought.
But what was going on with Ray wasn’t Lily’s fault. It was the grief. And the places they both found themselves in.
As she left the office, shutting the door behind her, she almost tripped over Dominic. His eyes were worried.
“Are you leaving?” he asked.
She forced a smile. “Yes—traveling all the way to the other side of the fence.”
“But I can still come over, right?” he asked, seeming unconcerned that he was giving away the fact that he’d been eavesdropping. “And see the professor, and Iago?”
She couldn’t help giving him a quick bracing hug. “Anytime. Remember, no matter what happens, my door will always be opened to two men—Daniel Craig and you.”
34
W
HEREVER
A
POLOGIES
A
RE
A
CCEPTED
T
wo days after the debacle, Lily knocked on the kitchen door. She held out a bouquet of flowers for Grace. “I’ve come to apologize. For the things that I wrote about you.”
“You shouldn’t have to apologize to me,” Grace told her, taking the flowers. They were roses. “You were writing in your diary. You didn’t know your thoughts were going to be broadcast.”
“I know. It was all Jordan’s fault. But who’s going to remember that? They’ll just remember that I wrote it.”
“Most probably won’t remember at all.”
Lily looked gloomy. “Dominic told me that Mr. Carter and Pippa have broken off their engagement.
She’ll
remember.” She sighed. “I don’t know where she lives, so I can’t take her roses. But I doubt she’d want them anyway, do you? Not from me, anyway.”
She leaned against the counter as Grace retrieved a vase and arranged the flowers. They were beautiful—and fragrant. They did take a little of the sting out of having the entire neighborhood know that she and Wyatt had experienced a moment of madness.
Lily tilted her head. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Four.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “
Four?”
“My two half brothers here,” Grace explained, “and my younger half brother and sister in Portland.”
Lily looked astonished. “You never talk about the Portland people.”
“They’re a lot younger than me. I was eleven when my half brother Jake was born, and I was already a teenager by the time Natalie came along. She’s just finishing up high school.”
Lily took a moment to absorb this information. “Do you hate any of them?”
The question caught Grace off guard. “No. Of course not.”
“I’m pretty sure I hate Jordan. And it’s not just what happened at the party—Jordan ruins everything. I blame her for what happened to Nina and Mom.”
“That was an accident.”
“But they wouldn’t have been driving if it hadn’t been for Jordan! I’ll never forgive her for that,” Lily said. “Never.”
Grace thought about letting the subject drop, and staying out of it.
Not my problem.
Ray had warned her not to interfere, and though his words had stung, and she’d thought he was being an illogical ass, maybe his instinct was right. She couldn’t help remembering how angry she’d been when Muriel had told her that her father should be in a home. Outsiders shouldn’t butt into family business.
On the other hand, here was Lily, wounded and distressed. She couldn’t just wave her out the door.
Thanks for the roses, sorry you hate your sister. Have a nice day.
“What if it had been you who your mom and sister were picking up?” Grace asked her.
Lily’s eyes bugged. “
I
wouldn’t have been arrested!”
“Okay. But what if you had called from band practice and asked your mother to come get you, and then she and your sister had had an accident picking you up?”
“But that didn’t happen. This was totally unexpected, because Jordan was at a
police station.
”
“Did the police station have anything to do with the car crashing? Shouldn’t your anger be for the person who actually hit them? Or was it the condition of the road, or the time of day? Maybe the sun created a glare and the other driver didn’t see their car. None of that was in Jordan’s power—or anyone else’s—to control.”
She didn’t know what she had expected. A teary Hallmark moment of understanding and forgiveness, maybe.
Instead, by the time she’d finished, Lily’s face had turned a darker hue of red. “Why are you taking
her
side? She doesn’t even like you!”
“Yeah, I sensed that.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you had twenty brothers and sisters,” Lily railed at her, “you don’t know what it’s like to live with Jordan. Even if she wasn’t
directly
responsible for Mom and Nina, she’s made my life a misery. And she’ll never change!”
“That’s probably true.”
Lily looked as if she was about to continue her rant, but at the last minute she doubled back. “What’s true?”
“She won’t change—or if she does, the change probably won’t be what you would have expected, or wanted.”
“Great!” Lily said. “Thanks. That’s really comforting.”
“You can change yourself, but other people are out of your control, unfortunately.”
“There’s nothing the matter with me,” Lily argued. “
I’m
not the problem.”
“You’re the problem if you’re unhappy,” Grace told her, amazed how easy it was to channel Deepak Chopra when faced with an unhappy teenager.
“You’re not
listening,”
Lily said. “I’m telling you, if it weren’t for Jordan, I
would
be happy.”
“Look, I’m not saying you have to like Jordan, or even get along with her. But the fact is, she’s going to be your sister forever. Even if you become the kind of siblings that live on opposite sides of the continent and don’t even send each other Christmas cards, she’s going to be out there, and you’re going to think about her. So for your own peace of mind, you should figure out something about her that
doesn’t
make you crazy—just one little thing. That way when you’re giving lectures at Princeton and she’s serving her life sentence in the women’s correctional facility in Chowchilla, California, you won’t have this awful gunk festering away inside you. Instead, you can think to yourself, ‘
Gosh it must be difficult for a free spirit like Jordan to be spending her life making license plates.’ ”
Lily bit her lip to stop her face from crooking into a smile. “But there’s
nothing
to like about her. You couldn’t find anything either, even if you tried.”
“Yes, I could. I know she’s a talented artist. I have a painting she did of a demented smiley face.”
Lily’s mouth dropped. “You have Egbert?”
“It’s up in my room. And sometimes on the worst days I can look at that crazy picture—and I don’t know why—but it makes me feel better. It really does.”
“I thought Egbert was gone for good,” Lily said. “I thought everything of Nina’s was gone.”
“No, it’s just dispersed,” Grace assured her. “Egbert found a good home.”
Lily folded her arms. “I still don’t think Jordan’s all that great.”
“I was just trying to give you a coping mechanism,” Grace said.
The girl narrowed her eyes and focused on a spot on the linoleum. “I’m going to cope by leaving. I’m going to go live with Granny Kate.”
Unexpected sadness welled up in Grace at the news. “Your dad would miss you. So will Dominic. We will here, too.”
Lily pursed her lips. “I don’t believe it. Sometimes I think I’m one of those invisible people that no one remembers after they leave a room.”
Grace couldn’t help laughing. “If you think that, you don’t know yourself at all. I remember the moment you opened the door when I went to your house to find Iago. And the moment you came over to return the cheap plastic cookie plate—looking for Crawford but not saying so.”
Lily’s hue turned a shade redder. “How pointless was that? I was crazy, thinking any cute boy would look twice at me.”
Grace held back for a moment, wondering if she should not interfere in this, either.
In for a penny . . .
“Look—don’t take this wrong.” Lily stared up with wide eyes, and Grace continued. “You have a very distinctive appearance. But teenage boys aren’t really known for favoring distinctive.”
“What about Jordan? She has peach and black hair and the personality of a viper—but Crawford fell in love with her anyway.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it love. And Jordan also wears make-up and clothes that make her stand out.”
“Make her look like a skank, you mean.”
Grace wasn’t going there. “But the thing is, dating and stuff—it takes a
little
effort.”
Lily glanced at her sharply. “You mean I ought to make myself look just like everybody else. But how can I do that? Everybody knows who I am already. How stupid would I seem if I suddenly showed up at school attempting to look like the cover of
Seventeen?
”
“You wouldn’t look stupid. You might feel awkward for a day or so. And then . . .”
Lily shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You don’t know what it’s like. Anyway,
you
look sort of normal, and Ben still dumped you, and I haven’t noticed men flocking around here. Except Mr. Carter, and he’s not exactly particular.”
Sort of normal?
What part of her wasn’t normal? She was interested to know, but she probably shouldn’t be asking a fifteen-year-old.
Grace lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Well, do as I say, not as I do.”
She had the sinking feeling that nothing she’d said had made the least bit of difference. “The only thing I want to do is flee,” Lily said.

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