Chapter Seventeen
Sarah
THE SUN WAS setting, casting a rainbow across the skyline. The Towsons were at a restaurant cabana on the edge of town, near a wooden pier where children rushed down with parents sprinting behind them. Gulls cawed above, while the hint of a dolphin poking above the waves caused many oohs and aahs from the diners. It was almost eight, and the dazzling sea beyond was turning a darker color with the setting of the sun. Soon everything would be eclipsed in natural darkness.
Zach was in the midst of a comedic retelling of something he’d done with Joey. Their parents acted quite pleased with him and this friendship, laughing at all the necessary intervals, but Sarah’s mind was racing.
It had returned to Zach’s revelation of the woman who drove past their house every so often, and how Helena would ask her to leave. She wondered about the biracial girl involved, as she was only five or so, and very beautiful. The question still remained: Who were they? Sarah wasn’t sure, and she didn’t exactly want to know, but something deep in her was awaiting answers.
She listened to the chatter around the restaurant—some of it fake chatter—and the intoxicating sound of laughter. The truth was a lot of the joyous expressions emoted were not true to the ones bearing them, including Sarah, whose smiles did not match her eyes.
Eventually, when the family had finished their food and went outside to walk along the pier, Sarah discovered the gumption to interrogate Helena about this mystery. The twinkle of stars was dimmed by the bright lights at the cabana, but the night was still a magical one, and down the pier, it looked like a man had just proposed to his girlfriend.
Zach and Scott broke away, walking much faster, so they could check out a large German shepherd puppy down the way. Helena, on the other hand, walked without intensity, and in their aloneness, Sarah found comfort in asking her question.
“Mom…”
“Yes?”
“Who is Ms. Temprend?” The question came out like a hot flash from Sarah’s throat. She waited.
Helena gulped. She paused, leaning over the left brink of the pier, so she could stare at the string of resorts blocking the coastal edge. She looked older then, a few wrinkles sprouting underneath her eyelids. “Sarah…”
“Just tell me.”
“Did she bother you when we weren’t home?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“You’ve always been intuitive.”
“Always,” Sarah agreed.
Helena shrugged, finally recommitting their eye contact. “Ms. Temprend is a family friend. She has made mistakes, but she is a family friend.”
“What does that mean, Mom?”
Helena shrugged again. “I’m not at liberty to discuss her appearances at the house.”
“I’m not one of your clients, Mom. Why can’t you just tell me why she’s been stalking our house?”
The woman rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s none of your business, Sarah. It’s really not, and since I follow rules of propriety, I won’t tell you anything more. Now, excuse me. I’m going to find your brother and father.” Then the slap of her sandals on the wood angered her daughter so much that Sarah gripped the wooden posts, and her hands filled with little icicle-like splinters.
THE SUN WAS bright over the next few days of their trip. It streamed down on them in blankets of yellow, coating their skin in darker hues of tan, and lightened golden streaks in their brown hair. Zach and Scott had an incredible time on a nighttime dolphin cruise, while Helena paraded around the outdoor outlet mall for fun in the afternoons. Sarah attended all events with her family, savoring each moment, because she’d been without them for the greater portion of the past year. Florida was definitely different than California, but every time she looked out into the cerulean of the Gulf, she felt a burst of emotional withdrawal from her friends back in Los Angeles, including her on-again, off-again boyfriend Kyle.
She thought of them for a few minutes at a time, before something came back to her about how much she had missed Zach when she had been away from him. No matter what, Sarah now belonged to two distinct worlds, and it was hard being apart from either of them.
On the second to last day of their trip, they took a shoreline drive to a small beach community with pink, green, and yellow summerhouses. They walked along the beaches with ice cream cones and touristy shirts, and eventually, Scott sidled up next to his daughter while Helena and Zach skipped along the watery sand ahead of them.
“Mom mentioned you had questions about Misty Temprend.”
Sarah felt like she’d been scolded. She looked up at her dad’s friendly blue eyes. She wondered if he was going to admit something big to her, like infidelity, or even something weirder, but she nodded her head and smoothed out her shorts. Her left hand fiddled with the fishtail braid in which her chocolate strands were placed.
Scott smiled. “Misty Temprend is a family friend, sweetie.”
Sarah shook her head. “Please don’t lie to me, Dad. She and her daughter passed us at the restaurant in Paradiso Bay. You guys said nothing to each other. Don’t lie to me, please.” Memories resurfaced of the pain she’d experienced in her family. When it came down to it, her parents were good. But they repeatedly lied to her, kept things from her, and even things were strained between themselves.
Her father sighed again, stopping. His feet were underneath countless granules of sand. “Misty, your mother, and I are old friends. We went to high school together. Anyway, she has a child named Sofia, who is adorable. We didn’t see Misty or Sofia at all until they moved to Breezewater this past fall, so she could be a teacher at the elementary school. You see, neither your mother nor I even remembered Misty until we saw her at a restaurant. Well, Misty started driving by our house, informing us she knew no one around town, and she needed a friend.
“Eventually, she revealed the reason why she moved here. And she’s been harassing us because she wanted explicit details into the life of Sofia’s father, who lives in Breezewater too.”
“Well, who’s the girl’s dad?” Sarah had a hard time believing any of this. It seemed too random, like this was all another big joke. Another lie.
Her dad paused. “You have to promise to keep it locked low, and I mean it, Sarah. I seriously mean this.”
“Okay.”
“Well, the girl’s father is Joel Sealet’s father, Ethan Sealet.”
Sarah’s world careened to a stop. It was like a light had blown out inside her soul. Did Joel know? Did he care? He had a younger sister? Ethan had cheated on his wife? He had another child? And the child’s mother was harassing her parents? But why?
“Sarah, I mean it, you have to keep this quiet. This is not public knowledge. I doubt Joel and Chloe know anything about this, and you have to promise me…”
Little pinpricks dotted her skin. The heat emanating was building like a wildfire, uncontrollable. “Dad, you know I can’t do that.”
“Why can’t you?”
Sarah gulped.
“He’s not your friend, or anything like that. You guys went to high school together. That’s it. This is not your thing to get involved in, do you understand me?” His tone was stern now. He expected her to obey orders when all she wanted to do was rush to Joel and scream at him, “Sofia Temprend is your sister!”
Instead, she stood rooted to the spot as her father pulled her into a cold hug. He whispered things to her, about how proud he was, and how there would be a good time for Joel to find out, but now was not the time. And it surely wasn’t Sarah Towson—who had nothing to do with a boy like Joel Sealet—who had the place to say anything about this illegitimate child. All Sarah could think that the child was absolutely legitimate and calling her anything less was like a blow to the stomach.
She felt numb for twenty minutes. The ocean lost its luster, the sky lost its ethereality, and Sarah lost her ability to reason.
When she found her phone in the car, she desperately wanted to text him. She wanted to tell hi
m everything in the world. But then with a look at her parents’ calm demeanor, she shuddered. She saw Zach, who smiled that wide, Zachary Towson smile, and she remembered how she had destroyed them with the betrayal involving Karli. Could she risk it all again? Her parents were forgiving people, but they might lose all faith in her if she told Joel.
But unlike her parents, truth was rooted deep in her core.