Page 18 of Lost Memories (Secrets of Mackinac Island 1)

Chapter Eight

The following morning, everyone awoke with a colossal hangover. “It’s the kind that deserves bacon, eggs, biscuits, mimosas, and buckets of coffee,” Elise affirmed to Penny, who had her head on the kitchen counter and blinked out toward the bright blue sky.

“That sounds great,” Mia said, appearing in the doorway. She rubbed her eyes and said, “Jeez. I can’t remember the last time I tried to outdrink a college student. You and Brad can really put them away.”

Penny giggled. “I guess it’s part of the deal at Berkley. You have to keep up with your studies, sure—but it’s only impressive if you can do that and go out almost every night.”

“If you say so,” Mia said.

Elise, Penny, and Mia set to work: stirring up scrambled eggs, casting bacon into the skillet and making it sizzle, brewing coffee. Finally, both Brad and Haley appeared, rubbing their eyes.

“What’s that smell?” Brad asked. “Is it heaven?”

Midway through breakfast, both Brad and Penny admitted that they’d told their father they would have lunch with him that afternoon.

“I see,” Haley said, rolling her eyes.

“Come on, Haley,” Elise said. “Behave.” Then, to Brad and Penny, she said, “I think that’s great. He doesn’t get to see you two very often, especially now that he’s down in Silver Lake.”

Penny bit hard on her lower lip. “He wants us to come see his new place. Hang out with him and that witch...”

Elise’s heart lurched. She considered herself a pretty level-headed person, but the image of her two children with her ex-husband’s new girlfriend in their trendy and assuredly over-the-top apartment made her consider vomiting.

“But we don’t have to go if you really hate it,” Penny said hurriedly.

“No, no. I think it’s good,” Elise said. There was a strange hiccup in her throat, one she wished she could have avoided altogether.

The silence stretched over the table. Finally, Brad grabbed a piece of bacon and crunched it between his teeth.

“Just for the record, I don’t like her,” he said.

Penny chuckled. “Neither do I.”

“It doesn’t matter if you like her or not,” Elise said, rolling her eyes. “She’s a part of your father’s life now. And your father will always be a part of yours.”

Still, when Penny and Brad yanked out of the driveway, and Haley and Mia bid their own farewells and returned to their homes, Elise felt a strange ache in her gut. The past week had been a whirlwind of panic and planning, meetings and conversations that had allowed her to forget about the terror in her heart. Now that she stood alone in the kitchen (which was still rather messy from the wake), she felt bleak.

Slowly, Elise began to stitch the last of the plates into the trash bags, scrub the counters and the rest of the dishes. She gathered the cards and the flowers in a single location in the corner of the kitchen and made up her mind they would be tossed out within the week. If there was anything Allison had taught her, it was that you had to push yourself forward—without dragging your feet.

She just hated that in this case, she had to force herself away from this sadness, as it seemed like one of the last things that linked Elise up with her mother’s life.

Before Elise had fully considered it, she’d dragged herself to her BMW and driven the familiar route toward the house she had grown up in. When she reached it, she found Peter in the doorway, a little cardboard box in his arms. He looked defeated, his shoulders slumped and his cheeks salty with tears. Elise imagined losing a love at this time was one of the more difficult things; they’d put so much time, so much energy, into whatever it was they had built.

Peter affirmed this after another hug. “We actually weren’t even together when we broke up, which has put me in such a weird place,” he said. “I can’t say that my girlfriend died, but it doesn’t feel right to say that my friend died. She was my best friend. She knew everything about me. I went to bed thinking about her; I woke up in the morning, wanting to know what she had dreamed about.”

“You knew one another for years and years,” Elise said. “Nobody can take that away from you. Anyone who tries is evil. And for the record, I always told her she should just own up and marry you. She loved you enough for it.”

Peter blinked back tears. “Lord knows I asked her upwards of five times.”

“She always said she didn’t believe in it,” Elise returned.

“Oh, I know that.”

Elise swallowed. After a strange pause, Peter lifted his box of things. He looked like he’d just been fired from a job and had to go figure something else out.

“I guess it’s time for me to start going through her things,” Elise offered. “I don’t know how I’ll manage. And I know I still have things in here from my childhood and teenage years. It’ll be a really long, really painful memory lane.”

“You got that right that it will be,” Peter said with a heavy sigh. “Do you know how you’ll start?”

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