“And that’s what’s important,” Sarah said firmly, filling the kettle for tea and then pulling out two mugs, one for her, one for Meg.
Once all four trays of cookies were in the oven, the kids settled in the family room to watch cartoons, and Meg wiped down the floured surfaces while Sarah washed up the beaters and mixing bowl. Neither of them talked while they worked, and Sarah was thinking it was a companionable silence, and was enjoying the peacefulness, until Meg joined her at the sink to rinse out her floury rag.
“Don’t say it,” Meg murmured, holding the cloth under the faucet.
Sarah glanced at Meg, who still had the swipe of flour on her chin and two bright spots of color high in her cheeks. “Say what?”
“Anything about anything.”
“Not planning on it.” Sarah struggled to understand what was happening. “Did I miss something?”
“No. You were there.”
Oh. Jack. Sarah sighed, suddenly very glad she was flying home to Tampa tomorrow. She needed to get home. Needed to get back to normal.
Meg wrung out the rinsed cloth, giving it an extra-firm twist before glancing at Sarah. “There’s nothing you want to say?”
“No.”
“This is my fault, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that, and I don’t think it either.”
“You don’t want to tell me ‘I told you so—’?”
“No, Meg. I don’t blame you, and what’s happening here is brutal, painful. I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t do it. If Boone talked to me the way Jack talks to you, I’d kill him. I would—”
“You wouldn’t,” Meg interrupted flatly. “You’d hate prison. It wouldn’t be your thing at all.”
Sarah laughed, wiped her eyes. “You’re so deadpan.”
“What can I say? I’m just funny.”
Sarah snickered and then choked on a smothered laugh, and when Meg giggled, Sarah impulsively threw her arms around her big sister and hugged her tight.
Sarah had cried more this week than she’d cried in her entire life—no, not true. She’d cried for weeks when she first found out about Boone and that Atlanta woman. That had brought her to her knees—but suddenly she needed to laugh, and needed to make Meg laugh, and needed to bring love and hope back.
“You are funny,” she said. “And wonderful. And absolutely my favorite oldest sister in the world.”
Meg snorted. “And your only oldest sister.”
“See? Don’t you feel good about yourself now?”
Meg started to laugh and then the laughter turned to tears, and she was crying hard, sobbing against Sarah as if her heart would break.
Swallowing hard, Sarah rubbed her back, murmuring soothing things even as the whole week came flooding back. Mom dying. Mom gone. The nurse from hospice returning Mom’s pale pink bed jacket and the beautiful, soft knit blanket the color of Mom’s favorite roses that Aunt Linda had made for her at Christmas. Dad on one knee at the cemetery, his big shoulders shaking, and Ella scared that Grandpa was crying and pressing herself into Sarah’s legs while Brennan stood stoic at her side, a rare event for this usually hyperactive child.
But those intense, painful memories were balanced by the memory of Boone’s arms around her just before he left for the airport yesterday, and just sitting with Meg, talking in the empty movie theater, and then the kids at the park, playing, and the kids here in the kitchen, rolling out the dough and working in tandem, as if they were performing a delicate medical operation instead of making cookies. It was good, this life. Even at its messiest.
“It’s going to be okay,” Sarah said firmly, more briskly. “You’re amazing, and you have an amazing family.”
Meg suddenly looked up at Sarah, face wet, nose streaming, and made a yelping sound. “How embarrassing!” She stepped away, turned around, looking for a tissue. “I’m a disaster!”
“We all are. That’s just life.”
Meg grabbed a paper towel and blotted beneath her eyes. “So. Do I call Jack? Text him? What do I do?”
Sarah pictured the scene she’d witnessed an hour ago, remembered the slam of the door behind Jack, the way he’d walked out, seething. “Give him space.”
“I feel like I should apologize.”
“I’d wait. He needs to cool off, and you don’t need to chase after him. It’ll just make you appear clingy and weak.”
“So I wait.”
“Yes. Wait. Let him call you.”
* * *
While the cookies cooled on top of the stove, Sarah slipped up to the guest room and phoned Boone, hoping he was still awake.