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“Just tell me,” Robin said. “Clara is my friend. She hangs out with me and all of my friends. If there’s something going on, I deserve to know about it.”
“Deserve?”
“Yes,” Robin said. She lifted her chin and took a step toward her mom. “It won’t take you long to tell me.”
Her mom turned back to her. “I’m not going to explain anything when there’s nothing to explain.”
Robin searched her mom’s face. She wasn’t going to give in on this. “I’ll ask Clara,” she said. She started down the hall toward the front door. She’d have to pull out of the driveway in order for her mom to get out anyway.
“Robin,” her mom called after her.
“It’s fine, Mom. I get you don’t want me to know anything about your life. You’ve entrusted everything to Stuart instead of me, though I’ve lived here my whole life and could be more in-the-know.” She turned back to her, even took a couple of steps that way.
“I could’ve handled your affairs. We could’ve had a closer relationship. You chose everyone and everything over me, and Stuart doesn’t even care about what you’re doing here. There’s a reason he never comes to visit.”
“Stop it,” her mom said.
Robin felt wild and out of control. “Even my daughters don’t like being around you. They know how fake you are. Even they see right through you.” She yanked open the front door and started outside.
“I offered to invest in the inn,” her mom blurted out.
“Great,” Robin said over her shoulder. Her ears were working, but they didn’t make connections with her brain. She stomped toward her car, and it wasn’t until she was several blocks away from her mother’s that she realized what she’d said.
“She offered to invest in Friendship Inn?” Robin knew her mother had money, but she didn’t know she had that much. The inn needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it to the point of opening, and Robin had thought Clara and Scott had a construction loan.
She’d have to look through hundreds of texts, and back months, to find the message where Kristen had said that. Her memory tickled, and she definitely remembered seeing Kristen’s message about the inn and the construction loan.
Otherwise, the Tanners had no way to pay their bills.
She thought of Clara’s news that she’d gotten some companies to donate goods. In essence, they’d sponsor the inn, and Robin had thought the renovation was going well.
“Doesn’t mean they don’t need money,” she said.
She hadn’t been paying attention to where she was driving, and she realized as she went up a rise that the lighthouse pierced the sky on her right.
She’d driven to the lighthouse. The one place she’d always felt safe and cared for. Most of that had come from Kristen, but she wasn’t here anymore.
Robin pulled into the parking lot anyway, and all of the spots sat open and available. She went to the far end of the lot and parked. Out the windshield, she could see the ocean beyond the bluff.
It went on and on, and Robin tried to find a solution to the unrest in her soul.
Regret lanced through her. She should’ve known better than to go to her mother to get answers. She should’ve started with Clara.
For some reason, she expected her mother to lie to her, and she didn’t want to put Clara on the spot. She’d just barely started to warm to the group in the last month or so, and Robin wanted her to continue to find her place with them here in the cove.
Her phone buzzed, and Robin didn’t dare look at it. It would probably be her mom, demanding an apology. She never offered one first, and Robin had stopped hoping for that a long time ago.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat in her car, but she caught movement in her rearview mirror and saw Jean crossing the sidewalk and coming toward her.
Emotion surged up her throat, and Robin wanted to disappear. She wasn’t sure why. Jean was the nicest person on the island, and she wouldn’t judge Robin.
She got out of the car and tucked her hands in her pockets. “Hey,” she said.
“I thought it was you, but you didn’t answer when I texted.”
“I was just thinking.” Robin faced the water again. “I used to come here to do that, and I just…showed up here.”
Jean came to her side, and they stood there, the two of them. Silent.
