Page 100 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

Had he expected too much of her?

If he had, why did it feel so impossible to forgive her?

“Here,” Eileen said, handing the lunch bag over to Calvin.

He took it and thanked her, then followed Ceecee to the front door. Ceecee had her hiking boots on in minutes and was out the door like a rocket, but Calvin found himself lingering on the stoop. He turned back to his mother and watched the way the spring sunshine lit the tired lines of her face.

“Thanks again for this,” he said, lifting the food.

The smile she gave him reminded him of Ceecee. Bright as the midday sun. “I’m just glad you’re here,” she told him. “Ceecee lights upevery time you guys make plans together.” She hesitated, brows drawing together slightly, then said, “If you wanted to come for dinner sometime during the week, we’d all love to have you—”

“I’ll think about it,” he said, knowing he was being rude for interrupting her but not able to accept yet another peace offering. Not right now, when he was confused and hurt and alone.

“Sure,” Eileen answered, painting another smile on her face. This one trembled at the edges, and it didn’t reach her eyes. It was familiar, that smile, and it still hurt to see it on his mother’s lips all these years after his father’s death. “You just let me know, and we’ll put out another plate.”

“Come on!” Ceecee called out, waving from the bottom of the hill. “Let’s go!”

Calvin snorted, nodded to his mother, and followed his little sister to the truck. They spent the day looking at moss and mushrooms and centuries-old trees. Ceecee talked so much they didn’t spot a single animal, but Calvin didn’t care. They sat on a bench overlooking a cliff with waves crashing at their feet, ate their sandwiches, crunched on apple slices, and sipped warm, rich hot chocolate.

Ceecee wiggled over on the bench so she could lean against him, then said, “Why does Mom always get sad when you come over?”

Calvin jerked. “What?”

“She tries to hide it, but I can tell. Is it because you’re mad at her? She told me she wasn’t a good mom to you when you were my age.”

Calvin kept his eyes on the San Juan Islands in the distance, tracing the hazy horizon as Ceecee’s words sank in. “She said that?”

“Yeah. Is it true?”

Not knowing what to say, Calvin took a sip of hot chocolate. Finally, he admitted, “It’s true.”

“And it hurt your feelings?”

A huff slipped through his lips. It was funny how a nine-year-old could distill years of pain into one simple sentence that encompassed it all. “I’m trying to forgive her,” he admitted, “but it’s hard.”

“My dad once told me that the hardest thing is to let go of bad feelings. But then he said that when you’re mad, you hurt yourself more than the other person, and that kind of made sense. Like one time, I was mad at my mom because I didn’t like this one girl on my soccer team and I didn’t want to go anymore, but she wouldn’t let me stop until the end of the season. But then my dad made me see that the madder I got about it, the less I enjoyed practice. So I tried not being mad anymore, and it worked. And then we won the championship.” She kicked her legs out on the bench, her gaze on the cold, crashing water below. “Being mad for the sake of being mad doesn’t help anything.”

She looked up at him and gave him such a hopeful smile that all Calvin could do was laugh. “That’s very wise of you,” he told her.

Ceecee nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

That evening, Calvin took the pint of mint-chip ice cream out of the freezer, grabbed a spoon, sat on the couch, and ate the whole thing in one sitting.

Chapter 40

Daphne read the email from her old boss for the sixth time. The job offer was right there in black and white, the screen glowing in the darkness of her drab apartment.

She should’ve felt relief. A job offer was a lifeline. It was a way forward, a safety net, another step in the direction of responsibility. Two months ago, her bags would have been packed the moment the email landed in her inbox.

Now it felt like a trap.

It would be another monotony of gray cubicles. One with a great 401(k) match and the promise of safety. But her last “safe” job had ended in a layoff. Was there such a thing as job security? Maybe she’d been lying to herself about more than just her risk tolerance.

Maybe all the years she’d spent chasing stability had really been Daphne running from who she was, looking for safety outside herself, when she should have been working on her own confidence. If she accepted this job, what would she really gain, other than enough money to scrape by in the city?

Besides, leaving the island meant leaving her family. It meant leaving Calvin.

She’d seen him twice over the past two weeks. Both times were at the station, when she’d gone back in to give statements about the goings-on at the vow renewal. Calvin had sat across from her, stone faced, peppering her with questions as if she were a stranger.

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