Jennifer Golden sat at her vanity, the oval mirror showing her a woman with a pretty smile. She wore no makeup, but she’d never needed much. Now that she’d passed sixty-five, Jennifer could definitely see the lines around her eyes and in her forehead far easier than before.
It had happened overnight too, it seemed. She was young and beautiful one day, and the next, she’d aged well, and she now considered herself a senior and still beautiful.
She dabbed cream onto her middle and fourth fingers and began to swirl it gently around her face. Her thoughts did the same, but in a much more violent way.
She’d messed everything up with her daughter, Robin. Again.
Honestly, the skill with which Jennifer did that should be taught in seminars and courses worldwide. A sigh fluttered between her lips, and she finally stood from the stool and flipped off the light surrounding the mirror.
Everything in her life looked put together and seamless. From the outside. Even from inside her quaint, cozy cottage near the sea, Jennifer made sure everything had a place and everything was kept in that exact place.
The turmoil existed inside her. She wasn’t sure how she’d made it to almost seventy and still cared so much about what others thought of her. Of what the neighbors might think if she didn’t clip her grass precisely when it needed to be done, or what they might say if she left her garbage can out overnight instead of bringing it in the same day it got emptied.
Exhaustion pulled through her and on her as she settled into bed, because even that had to be perfect. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. She counted as she told herself to expand her belly, then her ribs, then her throat as she continued to take air in and in and in.
She held the breath for a moment, and all she could think was melt as she exhaled the day away. Her therapist had taught her to “melt into the table” during a massage, and not for the first time, Jennifer wondered if she should go see a different type of therapist.
One who could help her untangle the knots in her heart and mind, and not only the ones in her shoulders and neck.
She did indeed melt into the mattress, imagining the strength of it as it held her up in space and time, denying gravity the opportunity to drag her as far down as she’d go. Her neck relaxed, then her shoulders, and her back. Her hips and her legs, and finally, her arms as she curled them around a pillow.
But her mind would not shut off, as she had a lunch date with her daughter tomorrow, and Jennifer had some news she had to share before too much more time passed.
“She already knows,” she murmured to herself, and that reassurance, weak as it might have been, allowed her to finally let her mind melt into slumber too.
* * *
The following day, Jennifer worked at Dr. Benson’s office the way she normally did on Tuesday mornings. She worked all day Wednesday and then again on Thursday morning, and then she had four days off. That was when she went through the numerous holdings she’d inherited from her husband, planned her business phone calls, or daydreamed about the perfect family holiday, with candied ham and scalloped potatoes in the center of the table. All of her children and grandchildren would be gathered around, and everything would smell like pine trees and cinnamon.
She swallowed as she waited at the table inside The Glass Dolphin. She loved this new addition to Five Island Cove, and despite Robin’s protests that it was too fancy and too costly for her, she’d agreed to meet there.
Jennifer would offer to pay; Robin would decline. Even if she couldn’t afford The Glass Dolphin, she would not allow Jennifer to do anything charitable for her.
Regret lanced through her, but she lifted her chin high. Robin and Duke had been through several storms in their married life—literally and figuratively—and Jennifer believed they’d grown closer as they’d relied on each other. She and Connor, her deceased husband, had not wanted to interfere with the children and their affairs once they became adults.
“I wish you were here,” she whispered to herself, thinking of the man she’d lost so early in life. Connor had only been fifty-two when pancreatic cancer had taken him. Robin had been thirty, and Stuart, her youngest child, only twenty-seven.
They missed their father, Jennifer knew, because he’d been the emotional one. The one they went to when they needed help with their homework, another student at school…or Jennifer herself. He’d been ruthless when it came to business, but none of that had transferred to the way he cared for their children.
Without him, Jennifer had done a poor job of making sure Stu and Robin knew how much she loved them. She was either too overbearing and drove them away, or too cold and callous, which also drove them away.
Her hand trembled as she reached for her wine glass and took a sip. Robin was late. Jennifer couldn’t help a slip of impatience for her daughter as it swept through her. Jennifer loathed it when people were late, as if her time wasn’t as important as theirs.
She gently reminded herself that she’d been late a time or two in her life, and no one could be expected to be perfect all the time. The truth was, Robin was probably sitting outside in the parking lot, or on a bench down the boardwalk, psyching herself up enough to come inside for this lunch. They hadn’t been on the best of speaking terms for months now, since she’d discovered that Jennifer had tried to silently invest in Friendship Inn.
She’d asked questions about Jennifer’s finances—that Jennifer had refused to answer. She saw now that a door from heaven had been opened up wide, and she’d failed to walk through it. She felt like she had to chip away at cement now, without seam or crevice, to talk to her daughter.
She waited another ten minutes, then twenty. Robin didn’t appear and she didn’t text. Impatience ate away at Jennifer, who finally looked at her phone. With a rush of adrenaline that quickly morphed into horror, she realized she’d had the device on silent.
Robin had called—three times. She’d texted twice that many.
Mom, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make lunch. Maybe you haven’t left yet. Something’s come up in the city, and Duke and I are on the way there to see what we can do to help Mandie.
Odd that you’re not answering… Maybe you’re in that dead zone by the orchids.
No emergency in the city. Mandie just got hit by a bicyclist. Duke’s staying here with Jamie. I’m going to make sure she’s okay.
Jennifer tapped to call Robin, whose texts and calls were only about a half an hour old. “Mom,” her daughter said, her voice tight and rushed. “There you are.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, words that very rarely left her mouth. “I had my phone in my purse, and it was on silent. I didn’t realize, and I never heard it chirp.”
“That’s what silent means,” Robin said. Commotion and chaos sounded on her end of the line. “I have to go. Stu’s only twenty minutes from the hospital, so he’ll know more than me. Call him for more details. I’ll catch you up later.”
The call ended, and Jennifer looked down at her device. Sadness and disappointment cut through her, the same way Robin’s words from last year had.
She couldn’t call Stuart, for he currently wasn’t talking to her.
“Are you ready to order?” a young woman asked, and Jennifer looked up at her.
She immediately shook away all of the negative. Never mind that her daughter didn’t need her. Or that her son wouldn’t speak to her. Both of those things were her fault anyway. “Yes,” she said smoothly. “I’d love the lobster-stuffed blue crab, please.” She lifted her wine glass. “And another glass of this.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The young woman left, and Jennifer looked out the wide expanse of windows. All she wanted was to get away. Get away from this restaurant. Lose herself in the sound of the sea. Have only the wide, blue sky overhead. The scent of the salt, and the call of the gulls as they raced alongside a ship.
“A ship,” she whispered. She’d taken holiday cruises for the past two years, and her heartbeat did a jump and a bump inside her chest. Could she find a cruise line that wasn’t booked for the holidays?
She’d recently cruised with Grand Adventure and then High Caribbean, but all of their Christmas cruises were booked. Telephone numbers sat at the top of the screen, and she could call and try to get a last-minute cancellation or be put on a waiting list.
She didn’t want to do either of those. There had to be dozens of cruise lines in the world, and Jennifer had more money than she could ever spend. While she waited for her fancy lunch to arrive, while life in the cove moved around her, her thumbs flew across her screen.
She typed in best cruise for single women over sixty, and the list that populated took less time than it took for her to breathe to appear on her screen. She scanned the list, her eyes catching on the words “luxury” and “voted best cruise line for singles for ten years running” under one bolded listing.
After tapping there, a gorgeous website bloomed to life, and Jennifer’s breath caught in her throat. The Silver Sails cruise line was immaculate. They touted themselves as the premier vacation for anyone in the prime of their life, with private suites, all of which had balconies, huge buffets, and nightly entertainment.
Two requirements looped at the top of the page, and Jennifer read them out loud. “Are you single? Over sixty? Then our luxury yacht is for you.”
“Here you go,” the waitress said, and Jennifer jerked her eyes up as the plate of food got set down. The crab looked buttery and delicious, with chunks of real lobster meat spilling from the insides. “Can I get you anything else right now?”
Some sanity, Jennifer thought. She painted a perfect smile on her face. “No, thank you, dear.”
The waitress left, and instead of immediately diving into her lunch, though it smelled rich and salty and delicious, Jennifer went right back to her phone. Surely a cruise line like this wouldn’t have any availability in only two weeks. She tapped anyway, her finger trembling for an entirely different reason now.
Spend Christmas on the open sea! it read at the top of the page. Still booking for our longest, highest-rated cruise for singles over sixty.
Jennifer needed this escape. She craved it. Perhaps away from the cove, away from the tension with her daughter and the silence from her son, she’d be able to work out what to do with the warped and broken relationships in her life.
Perhaps the ship Sweet Sea Dreams would have all the answers for her.
She shook her head, the practical side of her roaring back to life. A yacht couldn’t mend years of harsh words and hurt feelings, and Jennifer knew it.
Still, she tapped, and typed, and before she even took a single bite of her lunch, she’d booked herself a luxury, fifteen-day cruise aboard the Sweet Sea Dreams. Now, she could only pray that leaving the cove for the third Christmas in a row wouldn’t add more wedges between her and Robin…right when Jennifer was trying to figure out how to get rid of them.
