Page 38 of Vineyard Winds

Penny shot Rina a look, and her smile fell. Rina had the urge to tell Penny how much she’d destroyed her. That, after Penny had disappeared, Rina had fallen into a tremendous depression that had lasted years. That she’d met and married a man who’d cheated on her and killed what little self-confidence she had left.

Penny had abandoned her. And Rina was the messy remains of that crime.

“Come on. You had to have known where I was,” Penny shot.

Rina parted her lips with surprise. “I’m sorry?”

Penny whipped her hair around. “That guy! The one I met at that party. Ben? He was like nineteen or twenty at the time. And he swept me off my feet. I was crazy for him. When he suggested we get out of town, I couldn’t say no. I was too worried about losing him. Besides, he knew how much I hated our parents.” Penny narrowed her eyes. “Don’t give me that look, Reen. You hated them just as much as I did. And they didn’t care that much for us, either. Talk about ‘family love.’ We didn’t have much of it.”

Rina gaped at her. “But what about me?”

Penny winced but remained quiet. She didn’t have a good answer.

“What about me, Penny?” Rina repeated. “You were my sister. My best friend. And just like that, you were gone.” She snapped her fingers. “And our parents blamed me. I blamed me. Everyone was looking for you. They even painted a stupid mural on the high school in your memory.”

Penny chuckled but abruptly stopped. The air between them was taut and difficult to breathe.

“I knew you, Rina,” Penny said quietly. “I knew you had this obsession with right and wrong. That the minute I reached out, you would tell Mom and Dad where I was.”

“That’s crazy,” Rina spat.

“You would have forced me to come home,” Penny said. “But I was done with them. Mom and Dad were cruel and manipulative. They never cared about us. And I knew I was better off on my own.” She straightened her neck to add, “And I was. I am.”

Rina gaped at Penny, remembering the thousands of sleepless nights, how she’d roamed through Santa Monica with Cody, calling Penny’s name as though she were a dog who’d escaped the fence.

“Why did you reach out to Dad, then?” Rina demanded.

Penny sighed and stared glumly into the swimming pool. “I have kids,” she said simply. “And I got to thinking about them. What if they ever left? It tore me apart inside. And in a moment of weakness, I reached out to Dad. I always liked him more than Mom. He could be charming when he wanted to be.”

Rina’s heart pounded. One question burned through her mind. Why hadn’t Penny reached out to her? Why hadn’t she followed her guilt to calling Rina on the phone—rather than their father?

Penny wet her lips. “I just couldn’t reach out to you first, okay? It was too heavy.” She stuttered. “I felt too guilty.”

Rina blinked back tears. She spun between wanting to shove Penny in the pool, hug her, or storm out of there. Could she do some combination of all three?

“Look, I know, it’s a mess.” Penny touched the corner of her eye to collect a tear on the tip of her finger. “But it’s the truth. In all its messy glory.”

Rina searched for an apology somewhere in Penny’s words, but she found none. She stood abruptly and staggered back toward the house. She needed to get out of there.

“Rina,” Penny called, chasing her.

Rina broke into a run down the glass hallway and past the ornate pots and the expensive modern art. She passed photographs of children at various ages—a boy and a girl, it looked like. Rina had ached for children of her own. She’d tried tirelessly until Vic had left. Why had Penny been allowed that gift when Rina had been left all alone?

But when Rina reached the front door of Penny’s horrible mansion, she opened it to find Steve waiting for her in the front seat of her car. Warmth flooded her chest.

“Rina,” Penny said again, gasping. She was directly behind her in the foyer. Her forehead glinted with sweat. “I really am sorry.”

There it was, the apology Rina so craved. It rang hollow.

“You broke my heart,” Rina said, her voice cracking. “I’ve looked for you for thirty years, and you were always just up the coast. I will never make sense of that.”

Penny scrunched up her face into a tight, red ball. “I hate myself right now, Rina. I really do.”

Rina took several deep breaths. She tried to link this blond, small-nosed Santa Barbara resident with her curly-haired, giggly little sister, but she just couldn’t. They were too far apart.

“Maybe we could meet again,” Penny offered, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Maybe we could talk. Really talk. When we’ve both calmed down.”

Rina closed her eyes. She wondered if Penny was manipulating her like their parents had so long ago? She couldn’t make sense of it.

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