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I turned to find a twentysomething blond giving me an eager look.
“That’s me,” I said.
“Oh my gosh!” She threw her arms around me. “Finally!”
I hugged her back, and after a couple of seconds, I felt her body shake with a sob. She pulled away, smiling widely as she wiped beneath her eyes.
“Shoot, I didn’t even introduce myself,” she said. “I’m Harper Landis, your cousin. My mom and your mom are…or, I guess, were sisters.”
Tears pooled in my eyes as her words set in. “Laura? You’re Laura’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
I pulled her into another hug, crying along with her. When my parents had died two years ago, I’d thought I had no family left in the world, and now I was hugging my cousin.
There were still so many unanswered questions. My parents had left their families here behind forever, and there had to be a good reason for it. I wanted to get to know Laura and her family, but I was also cautious about getting too close.
“I was just leaving,” Harper said, frowning. “I have to work for a few hours. I’m a hairstylist and Saturdays are always busy. Are you busy tonight, or can we hang out?”
I didn’t hesitate before answering, my excitement stronger than my reservations.
“No, I’m not busy. I’d love to.”
Her smile was radiant, lighting up her whole face. With light-blond hair, blue eyes, and a slight frame, she looked nothing like me other than her very fair skin.
“Here, put your number in,” she said, passing me her cell phone. “Mom said she heard you were in town, but she wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from us. She’s in Minneapolis visiting a friend.”
Why wouldn’t I want to hear from them? I again had the feeling that there was a lot about my family here that I didn’t know but needed to.
I entered my number into her phone and passed it back. “I want to meet her, too. I’m only here through Monday.”
“She won’t be home until Tuesday.” Harper looked at her phone screen and groaned. “Shit, I’m gonna be late. I’ll text you my address and you can come over at, like, six to get ready with me. Will that work?”
“Sure.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, squeezing my hand.
“Me either.”
“Most of my clients would kill for this hair,” Harper said that evening as she ran a flat iron through a section of my hair. “It’s so thick and this dark auburn color is literally like walking around with fall on your head.”
So far, I’d found out she was twenty-six, just three years younger than me, she lived alone in a cute, brightly furnished two-bedroom bungalow near downtown Sven’s Beard that her dad had remodeled for her, and she loved Fruity Pebbles. She’d been in the middle of eating a bowl of her favorite cereal when I arrived.
“I can finish this,” I offered. “You’ve been doing hair all day; you don’t have to do mine.”
“Stop saying that. I don’t mind a bit. I’ve wanted to meet you my whole life.” She met my gaze in the mirror. “My mom said you didn’t know about us, though.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you know why?”
I shook my head. “I was hoping your mom might be able to tell me.”
“All she ever told me was that her sister Amelia had to leave here and she couldn’t come back. She got to see her a few times, but I never got to go.”
Laura had seen my mom? The betrayal I already felt kept getting compounded. My parents hadn’t just kept secrets from me—they’d lied. And for what? To keep me from people like Pete and Harper, who seemed perfectly nice?
“Do you know where they saw each other?” I asked Harper. “And when?”
“Let’s see…” She furrowed her brow. “I know Mom went to the funeral after they died. I’m so sorry about that, Avon.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t want to dwell on my parents’ deaths, so I didn’t say anything else.
“I know they liked to meet up in Chicago in the summer. My mom told me about their trips to Navy Pier and I wanted to go so badly she took me there when I was a senior in high school.”
My heart squeezed as I remembered my mom telling me those trips were girls’ trips with a close friend of hers from college. She’d even shown me pictures, never bothering to mention the “friend” was her sister.
“What do you think?” Harper asked as she finished the last section of my hair.
“I love it. This is the best blowout I’ve ever had.”
She grinned and rolled her eyes. “Come on, I know I’m not as good as those high-dollar city stylists.”
“You are, too.”
She met my gaze in the mirror again with a sheepish smile. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but I fried my mom’s hair when I was in beauty school. She let me use her as my trial client for a chemical treatment and a bunch of her hair fell out. She had to get it all cut off, but I felt so bad I asked one of my instructors to do it because I was afraid to touch it.”
