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serious?”
    â€œNope. Like I said earlier, Mom’s job kept us fed and sheltered and happy, but we never got to go on vacations. Not even to the number one vacation destination in the world.” I spoke as though I were a voice-over in a commercial. “Mom used to say we lived in a vacation village, be happy with that. So Jon and I made our own adventures every summer. It was the best we could ask for. Plus she did manage to pay for my dance and Jon’s tennis.”
    â€œYou’re close, you and your brother.”
    â€œVery.”
    â€œWhat about summers with your dad?”
    â€œOnce or twice we went. Maybe three times. But, we were both so uncomfortable with the others.”
    â€œYour stepmother and half siblings?”
    I didn’t answer; it was all too painful. Memories of sleeping on half-pumped air mattresses while the others slept on comfy beds . . . of having to ask every time I wanted to open the refrigerator for a drink of water while the rest pulled out bottles of cola without so much as a request. Wishing I could have just ten minutes alone with my father instead of watching him play “dad” with the three who got to spend every day of the year with him. Even when I’d asked, “Dad, can you and Jon and me go somewhere for lunch, just the three of us?” Dad admonished me, reminding me we were part of a larger family now.
    We were, but we weren’t.
    â€œI’m grateful my girls are close,” Ross now said from beside me.
    â€œThat is a blessing.”
    â€œEspecially when Joan got sick. She needed them, they needed each other.”
    â€œHow long was she sick?”
    Ross stared off again. Swallowed. “Long, long time . . .” His voice trailed. “Too long.” The words sounded as though they’d been forced past a knot in his throat.
    I looked down, noticed his hands resting on the tops of his thighs. I laid my hand over one of his and squeezed. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
    He turned his hand over, and our palms fell flat againsteach other. This time, the shudder nearly undid me. What was it about this man?
    I smiled inside, thinking of Lisa then. She’d say, “There’s that father complex again, Anise.” But she knew me well. I did not fall in love—or anything remotely close to it—easily. I’d only allowed myself to be swept away—ridiculously away—by one man.
    It had only been five years before. I’d met Garrett O’Dell when he’d stopped by the floral shop to purchase a plant for a funeral he’d come into town for. There had been instant chemistry between the older man and me, something I’d never really felt with anyone before. Not that I’d dated much over the years; Seaside Pointe was much too small a community for my interest in older men to be met without scandal.
    Garrett worked for an office supply company, which kept him on the road a good deal of the time. As he once said, “About half the month I’m in my car.” He lived in Portland, he said, in a small apartment perfect for a bachelor who’s just not home enough to even hang a picture on a wall. He enjoyed his job but missed having things like a yard to mow and then relax in, a dog to love and be loved by. Those kinds of things. “Heck,” he said, “I can’t even have a goldfish.”
    I asked him, on one of our many dinner dates, how it was that a man as fabulously good-looking as he managed to remain unmarried for so many years. He shrugged like a schoolboy and said he’d just not met the right woman . . . until now.
    Garrett was ten years my senior; I was thirty-three, he was forty-three. Our birth dates were only days apart. We often laughed about how easy it would be, in the years to come, tocelebrate our special day. We’d take lavish vacations, Garrett told me. We’d go to Hawaii . . . to Europe . . . to