For a moment, she was taken back decades in time. She could see Crista, her baby, playing in the sunshine. The teenagers would have been out on their boogie boards, with Tessa’s infernal boombox screaming about walking on sunshine.
The memories were shockingly clear, as though they happened yesterday.
Roger and Artie would be out fishing on the boat and Jo inside, planning what they would make for dinner.
Easy days. Lazy nights. True friendship…until a traitor ruined it all.
Would having the answers to why Artie made that choice change anything? It wouldn’t bring Roger back. Nor would it change his bad, bad choices. But maybe it would…heal people.
She’d never admit it but…wasn’t that what she really wanted? For her poor children to be able to somehow let go of the anchor of shame that Roger hung around their necks?
And while that was happening, …maybe she could stop being such a raging shrew. Maybe she could let go of the anger and resentment that she had toward Roger and Artie and the courts that took all they had.
Was she too old to change? She was here in Destin, where she’d once been a carefree young mother. Maybe the sunshine and air and waves could soften this bitter old crone one more time.
Nolie came tearing up the boardwalk toward her, arms out, with Pittypat keeping pace and kicking up sand.
Her heart shifted so much she could feel it in her chest. An ache, a pressure, a literal punch of love.
And a reminder that it wasn’t the air or water or sun that changed a person in Destin. It was family and laughter and friends.
Could that happen again? She didn’t know, but deep inside, she hoped so.
Guilt. That had to be what made Lacey almost hang up when the automated phone system at Holmes Regional Medical Center started to play annoying “hold” music.
And if she felt guilt for making this call—what would she feel if she got what she wanted and did something with the information? More guilt.
But also, a weird sense of rightness and peace.
Lacey sighed and leaned back, the phone pressed to her ear, since she didn’t dare risk putting the call on speaker. She’d hidden herself in the small office on the main floor, tucked between the laundry room and Tessa’s bedroom.
At the thought of Tessa, she shivered a bit, certain that her friend, boss, and mentor would not be happy if she knew what Lacey was doing.
With her laptop open to the website of a florist for the Bat Mitzvah she was currently planning for Tessa Wylie Events, Lacey glanced around the space that still felt like “Uncle Eli’s office.” He’d used the small Ikea desk for his own paperwork and put a drafting table under the window for his architecture business.
But he’d gone back to Atlanta, so Lacey and Tessa moved their budding event planning business from the dining room table to this more private space.
She sure hoped it was private because what she was doing was…top secret.
“We appreciate your patience,” a recorded voice lilted in her ear. “Holmes Regional Medical Center has been Brevard County’s largest…”
She inched the phone away so she didn’t have to hear the hospital commercial and willed her call to go through to the medical records department.
She tapped her nails against the desk, eyes unfocused on the screen in front of her, listening to the promise that her call would be picked up by the first available operator.
Was this wrong? For some reason, she remembered Grandma Maggie talking to her about her conscience when she was about Nolie’s age.
“When your conscience tells you it hurts, then you might be hurting someone else.”
Was that her conscience speaking that made her chest hurt? Was she hurting Tessa by trying to find out…something? A name. A city. The identity of a baby who, twenty-five years ago, had been given up for adoption by Tessa Wylie.
Tessa had said she didn’t want to intrude on this person’s life, but Lacey had seen a longing in her friend’s eyes and knew that she had to do…
This.
Lacey shifted on an uncomfortable faux leather office chair, blowing out a breath.
It started when Lacey hadguessedthat Tessa had had a baby, which didn’t take any extraordinary powers of deduction or special mind-reading sorcery. They’d gotten very close in the lasttwo months, and Lacey could see the way Tessa reacted anytime someone commented what a great mother she would have been.
