Page 105 of Whisking It All

“I don’t know what to say. And every day that I don’t say something, it gets harder to figure out how to start.”

Grama nodded, holding her mug between both hands, the steam curling into the air in front of her face. But she didn’t say anything. It was what she did—stared at a person with that sympathetic grandmother stare until they broke down and spilled their secrets. It’s how she got Gramps to admit he’d been stopping at the McDonald’s a few blocks away for a Big Mac when he went out for his afternoon walks.

“I made everything worse,” Tessa said at last. “I went to Aster Bay to get to know my dad and instead I pushed him away and destroyed his most important friendship at the same time.”

Grama clucked her tongue. “That would be quite the thing. But I don’t think you did any of that at all.”

“Ethan punched Jamie. He told him to get off his property. He—”

Grama shook her head. “Those boys are brothers, and they fight like brothers, too. But that also means they’ll forgive like brothers. Ethan always did have a black and white sense of morality, especially when it comes to honesty, so I have no doubt that he felt perfectly justified in punching Jamie. And I’m sure Jamie felt justified in not telling your father sooner about the two of you. They’ll talk it out and they’ll be just fine, if they aren’t already.”

“That’s not how things work. When someone gets angry like that…” Tessa trailed off, taking in her grandmother’s concerned frown. “My mom always said it was better to be the one to leave than to be the one who was left.”

“And so you came here,” Grama said. She sank onto the stool beside Tessa, turning to face her. “And who did you think was going to leave you, baby girl? Your father, or Jamie?”

Tessa shrugged, focusing her attention on her tea.

“Your mother… Well, I won’t say she was wrong exactly, more that her viewpoint was skewed. Your mother’s parents were not the most forgiving of folks,” Grama said. Tessa snorted at the understatement. “I see you’ve heard about them.”

“Mrs. Blumenthal told me about why we left Aster Bay when I was a kid. She told me about my other grandparents,” Tessa admitted.

“I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. Dot is practically the town historian,” Grama said with a soft smile. “So you know that your mother was taught from a young age that love could go away if you disappointed someone, or made them angry, or defied them. But, baby girl, what your mother didn’t stick around long enough to learn was that’s not love at all. That’s manipulation. And there’s no room for that in love.”

Grama gripped Tessa’s hand and stared into her eyes. How had Tessa gone so many years without this woman in her life, without her warmth and her wisdom?

“Your mother was like a wounded bird. She didn’t know how to accept love from our family, so we gave her freedom instead. And there were days when we were dreadfully angry that she’d taken you away and never came back, that the two of you were out there without a family. But our anger was never greater than our love. Your father and Jamie are both good men. Their anger will never be greater than their love.”

“What if he doesn’t want me anymore?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could stop it.

Grama squeezed her hand. “Oh, child, of course he wants you.”

“I don’t mean Ethan. I mean—”

“I know perfectly well who you mean,” Grama said. “You’re asking the wrong question, Tessa Jayne.”

“What’s the right question?”

Grama smiled. “What if he does?”

Tessa blinked away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Grama, I don’t know what to do.”

“What does your heart tell you to do, baby girl?”

Run.

The familiar refrain sounded in her head, but for the first time it wasn’t telling her to run from something—instead, all she wanted to do was run to the people and place she had come to love. She rested her hand on the notebook, her thumb fanning the edge lightly as though she could soak up the dreams she’d written within its pages through touch alone.

“I think I need to go home,” Tessa said, “to Aster Bay.”

Grama squeezed her hand again. “Henry, get your shoes on!” Grama called to Gramps in the other room. “We’re taking Tessa Jayne to the airport.”

∞∞∞

Tessa watched from her father’s front porch as the line of cars drove away from Nuthatch. She recognized Baz’s BMW and Natalia’s SUV, Gavin’s hatchback and Kyla’s beat-up Honda Civic. At the back of the line was Jamie, his focus on the dirt road that led off the vineyard property. He didn’t see her sitting in the shadows on the top step of Ethan’s porch, huddled in her jacket against the cold November wind, but still Tessa’s breath caught at the sight of him. Her fingers clenched around the thick down of her jacket, itching to touch him instead.

Soon. She had some things to make right first.

Finally, Ethan’s pickup truck rumbled down the dirt road and turned into the driveway, his headlights sliding over her where she sat. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding light, so she didn’t see him get out of the car, but she heard the door slam, heard his boots crunch on the gravel.

---