Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(87)
“Yeah, try acting like an adult, you big lug,” Sara teased her brother.
He made a silly face, their banter fueling her strokes toward the beach and the other sibling she hoped to eventually find some common ground with.
Off to the right, her parents and Edward bent over, peering at something on the sand. A shell or crab or maybe a washed-up sand dollar. Fond of beachcombing, the three of them and Robin attended a yearly medical conference in Tampa. Last year they’d flown down a day early to enjoy a day on the beach.
The pang of jealousy Sara typically felt when thinking of the trips Robin, and often Jonathan, shared with their parents for one medical conference or another failed to materialize.
Progress, her therapist would say.
Yes, it was.
Her mom straightened, putting her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun as she stared in Sara’s direction.
Sara waved but continued swimming toward her sister.
Robin frowned as Sara neared, a fistful of wet sand drizzling through her open fingers. Behind her a piece of driftwood several feet long, battered and worn by the sun, saltwater, and sand, shifted under the tide’s pull. Wavering between staying on the shore and being swept out to sea again.
Kind of how Sara had spent the past twenty minutes since Luis dropped anchor and everyone else jumped overboard.
“What are you doing?” Robin asked.
Reminding herself that her sister’s brusque tone was the same with everyone, no need to read any slight into it, Sara slowed her swim stroke.
“Nothing. Just figured I’d join you.” She reached shallower water, where she squatted, bobbing in the light waves.
“Suit yourself.” Robin grabbed another fistful of sand, then let it slip away, aided by the lapping ocean.
“It’s been a good trip, don’t you think?” Sara tiptoed into the conversation. No use dive-bombing her sister right away with the hard questions, like why are you always annoyed with me?
“Yeah. It’s good to see Mom getting stronger.” Robin shifted to watch her husband and their parents, slowly strolling farther away, heads bent in search of the perfect shell.
“I agree. Honestly, I was pretty scared there for a while. Afraid we’d lose her. That I might not ever get a chance to—” Memories laced with fear rose to choke her and Sara rolled off the balls of her feet to plop onto her hip, cushioned by the soft sand. “Never get a chance to make her proud.”
So much for tiptoeing into emotional territory.
Robin’s face scrunched in a disbelieving scowl. “What are you talking about?” With an irritated scoff, she threw a handful of sand that landed in a series of tiny splashes across the water’s surface. “Of course she’s proud of you.”
A gray seagull squawked overhead, mimicking the screech of denial howling in Sara’s ears. The pain of rejection, the agony of how she had mistreated her body, the twisted thinking she was steadfastly working to untwist . . . they tumbled in on her like yesterday’s steel gray storm clouds, thunder rolling, lightning flashing through her.
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sara argued.
“Excuse you?”
Rather than deter Sara like it usually did, Robin’s condescending glare lit a fuse inside Sara. It hissed and flared and blew a powder keg on agonizing truths she had kept hidden all these years. All at once they came pouring out.
“My whole life I’ve tried so hard to live up to you and Jonathan. Knowing, because I’ve heard them say it a thousand times, how proud mom and dad are of you two. But me?”
She huffed a harsh breath and swatted away a mass of mossy green seaweed floating nearby. If only she could push away the hateful memories as easily.
“I’ve never been as academically gifted or just plain book smart or even musically-inclined. God those early piano recitals of mine were horrific, and Mom kept reminding me of how easily you had picked it up. Even Jonathan, until he switched to the guitar. Basically, I’ve always been all-around not as good as you at anything. I actually heard Mom say that to Mamá Alicia once. ‘Sometimes you have to lower your expectations for your child.’” Sara pitched her voice to sound more authoritative, copying their mother’s speech pattern. “Do you know what hearing that does to a teenager?”
The question ripped from her heart with gut-wrenching sorrow. Dully, Sara rubbed at the ache in her chest.
For the first time in Sara’s life, her sister appeared to be at a loss for words. Slack-jawed, Robin plunked her hand on her lap. Sand spread across the top of her thighs, dribbling onto her navy bathing suit bottom.
The geyser of self-revelation waned, having depleted the fight out of Sara. Spent, she slumped lower under the water. A school of tiny clear and gray fish zigzagged around her knees blissfully unaware of the monsoon of emotions and recriminations rumbling above the surface.
Robin blinked a couple times, visibly pulling herself out of her shocked stupor after Sara’s revelation.
“And yet I’m the daughter whose birth made our mother set aside a promising career,” Robin said, her astringent voice softened with self-recrimination. “Did you know she actually turned down a fellowship on the East Coast because she and Dad didn’t think it wise for one of them to single parent while they were separated?”
Robin’s shoulders sagged, ill-fitting dejection settling over them. Her brow creased as she shook her head. Then, as quickly as her mood dipped, she shook it off.