“And you’re too forgiving.”
That shut her up.
We sat wordlessly for a while, the hum of conversation around us filling the gaps. Outside the window, the balloon hovered just above the rooftops, its colors flashing every so often in the sunlight.
It looked absurdly hopeful up there.Hopeful, and completely detached from gravity.
Exactly like him.
“I’m surprised you’re not helping him set up down there,” I murmured finally, just to say something.
She gave a small, humorless laugh. “Don’t think he needs my help. Your father’s always been good at gatherin’ people to his cause.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
I turned toward the window, pretending to study the line forming outside the café and past the window down Main Street. Each day, it seemed to grow a little more crowded.
“Did you talk to him?” she asked softly.
I looked back. “Unfortunately.”
“And?”
“And he’s the same.” I paused. “Charismatic, pleased with himself, pretending as though the last decade didn’t happen.”
She sighed, the kind that said she’d already played this conversation in her head a hundred times before it even began. “Maybe he’s just tryin’ to do right this time.”
“By who?” I asked. “You? His new daughter? Me? You can’t just wake up one day and decide all the harm you caused never happened.”
Her eyes flicked up. “No, but you need to start somewhere.”
It landed harder than I expected. For the first time, I saw the exhaustion in her face—the quiet, permanent sadness she wore like an old, comfortable sweater. Of course she wanted to believe that the man she spent half her life with was worthy of redemption.
But I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook.
“Anyway,” she said briskly, standing up and smoothing her apron. “I better get back before the diner burns down. I’ll see you at dinner?”
I nodded, not bothering with my usual snide response.
The bell over the café door jingled, and she disappeared into the brightness outside.
I stayed there a while after she left, nursing my cappuccino until all that was left was the remnants of foam.
Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself pulling out my phone. Three unread texts from Serena about the wedding and a fourth from Teddy, sent two hours ago.
Teddy Bowman: Where are you?
I shoved the phone back into my coat pocket and pushed off the stool. Outside, I caught my reflection in the café window: wind-tousled hair, dark circles under my eyes, a coffee stain on my sleeve. When had that gotten there?
A voice called my name.
Teddy leaned against his beat-up Jeep across the street, hands shoved in his pockets, grinning as bright as the sun itself.
“Figured I’d find you here,” he said as I crossed over. “Saw the balloon on my morning jog, and thought you might need reinforcements.”
I hugged my coat tighter and pointed at his Jeep, the perfect subject change. “How do you still have this old thing?”
An unwelcome memory flashed through my mind as I stared at the chipped, faded yellow paint. Bluebell Point in the dead of winter, frigid wind whipping through my hair, and the towering lighthouse sending me a pitying smile as the boy below swiftly broke my heart. I shifted on my feet, chest suddenly tight.
