Page 77 of Love At The Shore
Chapter Seventeen
Afew hours later, after she’dshowered and washed off the lingering bits of sand and maternal anguish, Jenna sat at the kitchen counter icing cupcakes with Ally.
Chocolate ones, obviously.
“Do you really think they’ll like them?” Ally asked as Jenna swirled a generous dollop of frosting on one of the tiny cakes.
“Double fudge cupcakes for the last day of camp? Who wouldn’t?” She’d whipped them up from a boxed mix as soon as they’d returned from Doran’s Cove, desperate to make the beach house feel like home again. Cozy.Safe.
Now the smell of chocolate lingered in the air, but Jenna still felt strange and unmoored. Why she felt that way was no big mystery.
While she’d been elbow-deep in cupcake batter, Nick had showered and then gone straight to his room and shut the door. He still hadn’t emerged. Jenna had pressed her ear to the door a few times to assure herself that he hadn’t tried to sneak out again, but even his presence hadn’t made her feel any better.
She didn’t have this kind of relationship with her kids. They talked about things and trusted each other with their feelings. But Nick had been sullen and quiet on the walk back from Doran’s Cove. Sooner or later, she was going to have to hash things out with her son. The longer they went without speaking, the worse she felt.
Maybe that’s why she seemed to be icing the same cupcake over and over again. It was piled high with a towering mound of frosting. Perhaps she should step away from the chocolate before somebody got hurt.
Jenna placed the cupcake on the platter alongside the others and set down her frosting spatula. She smiled at Ally. “You finish the sprinkles. I’m going to go talk to your brother. All right?”
Ally grinned and plunged her hand into a bowl brimming with rainbow-colored sprinkles. She tossed a handful of them onto the cupcakes as Jenna left the room.
When she reached the kids’ bedroom, she knocked once or twice before pushing the door open. “Hey.”
Nick was situated on the bottom bunk with his backpack beside him, reading a book. He’d finally decided to get started on his summer reading, apparently.
“Can we talk?” she said, lingering in the doorway.
He closed the book and set it aside. “Sure.”
Jenna crossed to the other side of the room and took a seat on the adjoining bottom bunk. Their knees were only inches apart. She felt better already, having him close.
Keeping her voice as even and calm as possible, she said, “So you want to tell me what happened this morning?”
Nick shrugged. “I told you. I just wanted to surprise you.”
“By sneaking out?” Just saying it made her stomach churn. “That’s not a good surprise.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” He blinked wide, earnest eyes. Sunlight streamed through the bedroom window, illuminating the dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
Sometimes—times like now—the fierceness of the love Jenna had for her kids snuck up on her and took her breath away. Being a parent was the toughest job in the world, but worth all the heartache a million times over.
“I know, but you did,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He sighed. “It’s just I wanted to do it and then tell you, so you wouldn’t have to worry.”
Jenna felt herself smiling. “Honey, that’s the beauty of being a mom. I’m always going to worry about you. Both of you, for the rest of my life. I’m just trying to understand why you did it.”
“I just had to prove I could.”
“To who?” She did her best to keep any bitterness from her tone. “Lucas?”
“Myself.” There was an unwavering firmness in his voice. He paused, then his words were laced with soft sincerity. “I don’t want to be afraid of failure anymore.”
Jenna took a moment to consider his explanation. She thought about how nervous he’d been at the swim trials when he realized Lucas wouldn’t be there to push him to swim his fastest. And then she thought about how afraid of her own writing she’d been for most of the summer, how she’d second-guessed every sentence she typed.
It wasn’t a way to live. She knew that as well as anyone did, but she wasn’t sure she could change. With Lucas, she’d just about been ready to try. And then circumstances intervened, and she crawled back into her safe little shell, just like the hermit crabs that lived in the tide pools down at the shore.
As safe as it felt to retreat behind her barrier, she wasn’t sure she wanted to pass that kind of attitude on to her children. She wanted them to be brave and strong.
