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"Sheila. I… I can't. I don't have his number. And even if I did, it… it's too close to… you know…." I frown. "Like… what if Brett shows up while I'm there? I couldn't handle that."
"I know, I know." She sighs in disappointment. "I'm sorry I brought it up. Anyway, let's get back to it. These boxes aren't going to load themselves."
After another hour of sweating and swearing, loading heavy box after heavier box into the back of the van, the place is finally empty. Same exterior as always, but hollow inside. Skeletal. Lifeless.
Sheila nuzzles up against me. "Hey," she says so quietly it's almost a whisper. "How about one more picture? Just the two of us? Right where Mom used to stand?"
I turn around and spot it, that small section of the bricks where Mom used to pose us for pictures in front of the bakery. It seems like a lifetime ago, yet I can picture her as clearly as if she were standing right before me. Her hair puffed up in a perm, her face still young and bright. And hopeful, endlessly hopeful. Her children gathered around her legs. Not fighting. Not bickering. We never did when Mom was around.
What would she think of what we had become?
I peek up at the sky and the powerful Texas sun as if trying to spot her there. And while I don't see her face looking down on me, I do sense something else.
The unending warmth of the air and the sun. The whispering of the sea in the distance. It's home. The home she gave to me.
Though the bakery is gone, I still feel my mother here with me, in the bricks of Barton Beach, the town she used to command with such grace and beauty. She's here with me. She's in Sheila, in her face and her body. And she's in me, too. Somewhere.
She never truly left.
Sheila wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close, holding her phone out in front of us for the picture. And though my cheeks are crusted with dry tears, and my eyes and nose are red and sore, I still manage a big smile. Putting an arm around my baby sister, I tug her close to me. I feel comforted with her beside me.
She snaps the picture and then takes another as she turns to kiss me on the cheek. It's bittersweet.
We climb into the van, with me behind the wheel. Turning the key in the ignition, the van begins to rumble beneath me. But I don't take off right away. I peer out the window one final time at the last home of the Sugar Breeze Bakery.
Sheila looks through the pictures she's just taken. When she sighs, I assume it's with the same kind of sadness I'm currently feeling. But when she speaks, I realize that's not true.
"I really wanted the two of you to be together, you know…."
"What?" I ask, blinking in confusion.
She turns her phone's screen to me, and I see what she's talking about. It's a picture of me that I didn't even know she'd taken. Me and Brett together on the day of Tinsley Simon's wedding. My hand is on his cheek, feeling the smoothness of his freshly shaven chin, and his hands are on my waist, holding me tightly. Our lips are pressed together, and despite the emotion behind it, the intensity we feel for one another, both of us are smiling as we kiss.
It's like the end of an old fairy tale cartoon or the final page of a picture book. The prince embracing his new princess. Totally and hopelessly in love.
I pull my eyes away, feeling new tears brimming. "Please don't show me that right now, Sheila."
"I'm sorry, sweetie. I was just so happy for you. I thought… well, I thought you'd finally found your one."
"You know why that can't happen," I say, my voice shaking.
"Why not?" I shoot her a look, but she shoots one back. "I'm serious."
"Helied, Sheila. It's as bad as what—"
But she groans, interrupting me. "No, Denise. It'snotas bad as what Dave did. I promise you that. Yes, he got himself in too deep. Yes, he lied by omission. But that doesn't take away the genuine way he felt for you. I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at you, Denise. That man was smitten. He would never, ever hurt you the way Dave did. And he didn't this time either."
"He still hurt me, Sheila," I insist, staring out the windshield. "The pain is the same."
There is a pause, and for a second, I think I've finally convinced her. But of course, my wonderful, annoying sister loves having the last word. "I just don't want you to hurt yourself too, Denise, by pushing away a good thing. Whatever you decide, I'll support you. Wholeheartedly. And so would he."
CHAPTER25
Brett
The days pass by in a haze.
Most nights, I sit around my apartment with a glass of something dark in hand, just waiting for sleep to come. I am a wreck of a man.
