A Walk Along the Beach(53)

Nodding, Dad sniffled and ran his forearm beneath his nose. “Last time…I failed you and Harper. Lucas, too. I want to help. I want to be there for all of you. What do you need me to do? Tell me. If you want me at that hospital with you, I’ll find a way, no matter what. If you need anything, anything at all, you call me.”

    That did it for me and I broke into tears. My father had floundered, taken to booze when the family needed him most. From the determined glint in his eye I knew he would do his best to not abandon us again. We needed him. Harper needed him, but so did Lucas and so did I.

“Is there anything I can help you with now?” he asked.

Snowball appeared, racing across the floor, chasing some imaginary foe. “Actually, will you take care of Snowball?” I asked. It would help not to worry about Harper’s silly cat, and it would make my dad feel like he was contributing, which he was.

“Of course. You don’t hesitate to call me, you hear? Any time you need me, I’ll find a way to be there.”

“I will, Dad.” We hugged again.

“I love you, baby girl.”

“Love you back,” I said, my arms tightening around him. I couldn’t remember the last time I told my father I loved him or heard those words from him.



* * *



—

“Come on, Willa,” Harper urged. “Let me paint your toenails, too.”

“Not lilac,” I protested. We’d been in a flurry getting ready for Lucas and Chantelle’s engagement party, hosted by her sister, who was to be the maid of honor.

“The lilac matches my hair.” Harper’s smile briefly faded.

If her last experience was any indication, my sister would be losing her beautiful silver/lilac-colored hair within a few weeks. In her first bout with cancer she’d been completely bald, although, ill as she was, her hair was the least of her concerns.

    “How about blood red for me,” I said, needing to turn her thoughts away from what awaited her.

“Got it,” she said, dipping her hand into the plastic basket at her side and pulling out a bottle of deep red nail polish.

I pulled my foot out of the basin of hot water and reached for a towel to dry it off. “So what’s with the gift?” I asked. Harper had returned earlier with a brightly wrapped gift box and set it down by her purse. She’d said it was for the happy couple. “It’s an engagement party, not a shower, you realize.”

“I do, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to attend any of her wedding showers, so I decided to give her my gift now.”

“Which is?” I couldn’t help being curious.

Harper jiggled her eyebrows. “Something Lucas is going to love.”

“Harper!” I could well imagine my sister picking out skimpy black lingerie for Chantelle. Rolling my eyes, I finished drying off my feet so my sister could paint my toes.

“Have you heard from Sean?” she asked, as she unscrewed the top off the polish.

“Not much. He’s out in the boonies, but it sounds like it’s going well.” Sean had explained this assignment to me before he’d left. It had something to do with the effects of climate change in the ocean waters in that area of the world. From the last brief email that arrived, it sounded like the project had proved to be more involved with the changes they had already found due to the drop in the water temperature, which affected nearly every aspect of life on this tiny island.

Keeping her head lowered, Harper continued to spread red polish across my big toenail. “Did you mention…tell him about me?”

“Not really.” With Sean half a world away, it didn’t seem right to dump this news on him, seeing there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t fly home, and if he did try to make such arrangements it would leave the entire project in a bind. Leaving could hurt him professionally, and I refused to be party to anything that would damage the career he’d worked so hard to build.

    “What did you say?”

“Just that you were undergoing some tests and there wasn’t anything to worry about.” Sean hadn’t questioned me further, and for that I was grateful. I doubted I could have continued with the lie.

“Good.”

“I thought it was for the best.”

Harper went silent before she said, “I think so, too. He’s good for you, you know?”

I shrugged, not wanting to discuss Sean; that only made me miss him more. He’d been away a little more than a week and I already felt lost without him. A zillion times a day I’d think of something I wanted to tell him, something I wanted to say. Instead of moping and feeling bereft, I’d taken to writing him long letters, sort of like a journal. I wrote about my worries and fears for Harper, about this battle we were about to engage in and how surprised I was by my father’s determination to help. I told him news from Bean There and how grateful I was for my staff and their willingness to lean in and give me the space so that I could be with my sister. At the end of each entry, I wrote how much I missed him and that I was quickly falling in love with him.

“You’re going to have beautiful babies,” she added.

“Stop.”

“I’m serious.”

“Harper,” I protested, “you’re getting way ahead of yourself with Sean and me.”