Baked Alaska Page 8

  As an adoptive parent, Sadie had read about birth-family relationships. She knew natural sibling relationships were almost as anticipated as reuniting with birth parents—but Maggie didn’t seem excited about connecting with Shawn, and Shawn hadn’t seemed excited to meet his sister either. Why was that?

  “You know,” Sadie said, taking a half step closer, a reckless idea grabbing hold of her. The wind had picked up, and she pushed her hair out of her face. “You and Shawn haven’t really gotten to know one another, and yet you share something important.”

  “He’s made himself pretty clear about not wanting a relationship with me,” Maggie said. The bitterness in her voice was impossible to mistake for anything else.

  “Really?”

  Maggie nodded. “It’s okay. He’s already got a sister, right?”

  Sadie was surprised. Shawn had obviously been interested in his birth parents, why not his birth sister too? “I’m sorry,” she finally managed.

  Maggie looked away, but Sadie saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes and wished she felt like she could comfort this poor girl.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help,” Sadie said, “anything at all, I’d be happy to do it. It’s too bad that we all can’t help each other heal a little bit more.”

  “Like I said, Shawn doesn’t want me around.”

  Sadie had no idea what Shawn’s thoughts were on this topic so she didn’t push the issue. She talked Maggie into trading cell phone numbers with her and offered, again, to help any way she could. Maggie thanked her, and Sadie wished her luck before they descended the stairs together, three eager faces watching them as they came down. Before reaching the end of the steps, Sadie took a deep breath and prayed for peace, and forgiveness, and healing. For all of them.

  Chapter 12

  The small talk at the base of the stairs was awkward, and Sadie watched Maggie avoid even looking at Shawn until the conversation had begun to ebb. “Are you coming to the hospital?” Maggie asked suddenly, looking at Shawn for the first time.

  “No,” he said without looking at her.

  Maggie didn’t seem surprised and turned away from him in order to say good-bye to Sadie one last time.

  It took conscious effort for Sadie not to search Shawn’s expression for a reason behind the tension between the two of them. She instead focused on Maggie and smiled. “I’d love to know what your plans are, once you have them figured out. And if for some reason you choose to stay on the cruise, we would love to get to know you better.” The words just kind of came out, and yet they felt right to Sadie.

  Maggie blinked in surprise, but there was a glimmer of interest that validated Sadie’s spontaneous suggestion. She wasn’t sure that Pete or her children were as convinced that this could be a good thing, but none of them argued the idea.

  As they exited the ship a while later, Pete and Shawn fell in step with one another and pulled ahead. Sadie wondered what they were talking about but didn’t try to catch up. She still had so many thoughts in need of processing, accepting, and understanding.

  “Mom,” Breanna said, once Pete and Shawn were out of eavesdropping range. “I’m so sorry about the way everything happened this morning. Are you okay?”

  “I’m getting better,” Sadie said, answering Breanna’s apologetic look with a forgiving smile. “I certainly didn’t see it coming. When did he tell you about her?”

  Breanna tucked her hair behind her ear, and Sadie noted that Breanna wasn’t pulling her hair back as often as she used to. For years she had worn her hair in a ponytail or French braid. Wearing it down made her look older, more grown-up. “March,” she said. “Not long after Liam officially proposed. For what it’s worth, I told Shawn to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t he?” Sadie asked. They both watched the pavement at their feet while they talked, as though eye contact would make this conversation more difficult.

  “He was really worried about hurting you, Mom, and with everything that’s happened—Boston, your anxiety, my being so far away—he didn’t want to add to it. And I think he was still trying to decide if he’d done the right thing. We’ve talked about this stuff before, ya know—our birth parents.” She lifted her hands and fluttered her fingers. Sadie wasn’t sure what she was trying to insinuate, but Breanna followed with an explanation. “When you grow up knowing that you weren’t made by the people you belong to, you can’t help but wonder who those other people are, where they are, why they didn’t raise you themselves, and if they would look like you or act like you or like the same things you like.”

  Sadie wanted to cover her ears. What she wouldn’t give for her and Neil to have been the only parents in her children’s lives. She remembered the years of infertility and hoping and longing that had been her life before she and Neil had made the decision to adopt. Biological children would never have fantasized about their other parents...but then again, if she’d had biological children, they wouldn’t have been Breanna and Shawn. This situation and the feelings it had triggered were complex, but her love of her children and deep assurance they belonged to her was simple, real, and certain.

  “You understand why I couldn’t tell you what was going on with Shawn, right?” Breanna asked after they’d walked in silence a little longer. They fell into line behind a dozen or so other passengers waiting for the bus to arrive that would take them from the pier to Juneau, just a mile or so away. Pete and Shawn were several people ahead of them, and Pete said something that brought a smile to Shawn’s face, softening Sadie even more. She’d wanted to see how Pete and her children got along on this trip and, difficulties aside, she could not have hoped for better connections to be developing between them.

  “I do understand why you didn’t tell me,” Sadie said, choosing her words carefully so as not to take out any of her hurt on Breanna just because she could probably get away with it. “And I’m glad you were a good sister to him. When did you know she was on the ship?”

  “This morning,” Breanna said, looking toward the driveway leading to the pier. The bus wasn’t yet in view. “You were still asleep, and I didn’t know what the breakfast plans were so I went to Shawn’s room. I’d have slapped him upside the head for not telling all of us as soon as he knew Lorraina was here if not for the fact that he’s pretty tormented by all of this. He really does feel terrible for the way everything happened, and I don’t think he slept a wink last night. I’m not sure what he’ll do if she...doesn’t make it.”

  They both looked toward Juneau automatically. Somewhere in that city was a hospital, and in that hospital was Shawn’s birth mother, fighting for her life. What would Shawn do if she died? And what had Maggie meant when she said she didn’t think Shawn was as fulfilled by his relationship with Lorraina?

  “Are you okay?” Breanna asked softly.

  Sadie smiled as genuinely as she could at her daughter just as the bus turned the corner into the pier. “I will be,” she said. “I just need to process through this—we all do. But we’re a family, and we’ll get through it.”

  They got on the large bus to Juneau and then transferred to a small shore excursion shuttle that took them toward the river where they would pan for gold. It wasn’t until they were on the shuttle and listening to the history of Juneau that Sadie wondered if they shouldn’t have skipped this activity entirely. Talking with Maggie and Breanna had helped her feel better prepared to talk to Shawn—really talk. But that was impossible to do on a bus with twenty-five other people while a cute college girl dressed up like Jessie from the Toy Story movies entertained them with trivia over a loudspeaker. Maybe Sadie should have encouraged Shawn to go to the hospital. What if the reason he wasn’t going was because he thought Sadie would be hurt if he did? Maybe he’d be right.

  Pete and Sadie were sitting next to each other, and he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She took it as an apology and squeezed back in hopes he would know he was forgiven, though she still wanted answers when the time came. It was nice to feel as though she�
�d worked through her initial anger. She wasn’t mad anymore, but there was still a lot to come to terms with.

  At the shallow river, their guide showed them how to pan for gold—the tiny bits of gold dust were already seeded in their pans, but it was fun to try not to lose them back into the river. After the instruction, the tourists spread out across the shoreline, staking their “claim,” and tapping their pans while swishing the water in hopes that the flecks of gold, which were heavier than everything else, would fall to the bottom of the pan.

  Sadie was on her third pan—she’d already put fourteen flecks of gold in her tiny plastic container—when she heard someone come up behind her. She looked over her shoulder and felt her stomach flip. Shawn’s smile looked repentant, and Sadie braced herself for what might be a difficult discussion—difficult but necessary. She liked that he’d come to her, though. She liked that a lot.

  Shawn crouched beside her and dipped his pan, already full of dirt and rocks, into the water. “I’m really sorry, Mom,” he said a few seconds into their shared pursuit of treasure. “If I’d had any idea things would turn out the way they did, I’d have told you a long time ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me a long time ago?” Sadie asked, proud of herself for keeping her voice calm and non-accusatory. “I’ve been aware of this possibility all of your life; I would have understood.”

  “Yeah,” Shawn said, agreeing without explaining. “It’s just...I guess...I knew it would hurt your feelings.”

  “I’m not so fragile and delicate,” Sadie said, looking up at him and reviewing in her mind the murderers she’d faced off with and the peril she’d found herself in many times over the last few years. “It makes me feel like you don’t trust me.”

  Shawn said nothing, and Sadie wondered what she’d done to lose his trust. “I don’t know how to explain it, Mom, but I just didn’t want to talk about it. Not with anyone. If I’d told you, you’d have asked questions, and it was all really intense, and I couldn’t handle more than what I was already dealing with. I guess that doesn’t make sense, but it’s how I felt.”

  “You told Bre.”

  He was quiet for another few seconds, and Sadie waited him out. Finally, he dipped his pan again, continued swirling, and nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “I’m not critical of that. It makes sense,” Sadie said, offering an olive branch. “She has a birth mom out there, too, so it’s reasonable for you to go to her.”

  Shawn sighed and sat back on his heels. “I thought she’d be supportive.”

  Sadie looked at him, reading the heaviness of his words and remembering Breanna’s tone when she’d told Sadie about Shawn confiding in her. “She wasn’t?”

  Shawn shook his head. “She doesn’t feel like she needs to know her birth parents—at least not right now—and she was mad that I lied to you about Christmas.”

  Sadie mentally gave Breanna ten bonus points for having such integrity.

  “I’d planned to talk to you about everything on this trip.”

  “But then Lorraina was here.” Sadie was down to some dirt and a few small pebbles in her pan and could see tiny flecks of gold as she swirled the water. She tried to plan where to take the conversation, feeling glad to be having it at all. “Maggie said she didn’t think you knew they were going to be on the ship. Is that true?”

  Shawn picked the larger stones out of his pan and threw them back into the river. He shook his head.

  “No, it’s not true, or no, you didn’t know she would be on the ship?”

  A slight smile touched his lips. “I didn’t know she’d be on the ship. I’d told her we were going when you first booked it, but I had no idea she’d follow me here. When I saw her after we boarded, I couldn’t believe it, and it threw me for a loop. I’m sorry, Mom. I should have told you right then, or months ago, or last night. I thought I was doing the right thing, but then the way it came out couldn’t have been worse. I just kept thinking that a better moment would come around, ya know?”

  Sadie put her pan to the side and placed a hand on his arm. She remembered Pete saying that Shawn didn’t owe her every detail of his life. She had to accept the fact that her boy could make his own choices and that she wasn’t entitled to know about each one of them. Lorraina was part of his story that had taken a difficult turn. Sadie didn’t want to make that any harder for him than it already was. It certainly helped that he was repentant, however, and wanted things to be okay between them. He looked at her hand on his arm, then into her face, and she could see the hunger for her reassurance in his eyes.

  “I love you, and there’s nothing you could do that will change that,” she said quietly. “I hope that Lorraina will be okay and that you can continue building your relationship with her.”

  Shawn looked away, but not before Sadie saw a flicker of guilt in his eyes. Maggie had said that Shawn’s relationship with Lorraina might have had some problems. But how could she ask about that right now? It would feel so self-serving.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Shawn said. He rinsed his whole pan in the river and stood up. Sadie winced at the potential treasure he’d just washed away—two or three dollars’ worth of gold!

  Raised voices a few feet away caused both of them to look upriver.

  “I don’t need you to do it for me,” a redheaded woman said, standing with her hands on her hips as she looked down at a bald man crouched at the edge of the water with his back to her.

  “I’m not doing it for you,” the man said, obviously frustrated. “I’m just showing you how to do it right.”

  “Oh,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “because you’re an expert at panning for gold, now?”

  “No, because I paid attention when they showed us how to do it. You have to hold the pan like this.”

  Sadie was about to look away, embarrassed for them both, when the woman lifted one foot and kicked the man in the tush, upsetting his center of gravity and sending him face-first into the shallow water. He dropped his pan and spread his arms in an attempt to catch himself, but ended up spread-eagled in the muddy water.

  An awkward hush fell over the rest of the gold-panners as the woman marched toward the shuttle parked several yards away behind some trees. One of the tour guides went after her while the man got out of the river, spitting water. He turned toward the woman’s retreating form as he wiped mud from his face. “For heaven’s sake, Tanice!” he said, storming in her direction.

  Sadie watched Pete and another guide hurry in the man’s direction, intercepting him before he covered too much ground. Sadie stayed put, repeating the woman’s name in her mind. “Tanice,” she said aloud. “Like Janice but with a T.”

  “What?”

  Sadie looked up at a confused Shawn.

  She stood, still holding her pan in both hands, looking at the place where the woman had disappeared into the trees. “The wine bottle Lorraina had last night had a gift tag on it for Ben and Tanice.”

  “A gift tag? What gift tag?”

  Chapter 13

  “Didn’t Officer Jareg tell you about the gift tag? That’s why I thought Lorraina’s name was Tanice.”

  “He told me about the wine but he didn’t say anything about a gift tag. Lorraina had someone else’s wine?”

  “I guess so,” Sadie said.

  “And that woman”—he nodded toward the trees—“is named Tanice? The same name from the gift tag?”

  “Same name, yes. But I have no idea if it’s the same Tanice, though it can’t be a very common name. I’ve never heard of it before.” The pure coincidence that the Tanice and Ben from the gift tag might be on the same shore excursion as Sadie’s family seemed far-fetched, but she could feel her investigative mind clicking into place all the same. She wondered if Shawn was experiencing the same thing.

  “I wonder how Lorraina got their wine,” Shawn said.

  “Or when,” Sadie added. “I saw her just a couple of hours before Pete and I found her on deck. Even then she hadn’t dru
nk much of the wine after she got it.”

  “But it was enough,” Shawn said quietly, sadly.

  Sadie looked at the man still standing on the shore, talking with Pete and the guide. Was that Ben? The guide left, and Pete led the man over to a fallen tree where they both sat down. Sadie could tell, even from a distance, that Pete was working his magic; he was a master at calming people down in intense situations. Heaven knew he’d calmed Sadie down more than once.

  “Ten more minutes,” Jackpot Jessie, one of the guides, called out to the tourists. Some were still bent over the river, others were standing around the rickety tables placed here and there, picking the gold out of their pans with tiny eyedroppers. “When you’re finished, please return the pans to the equipment box. I hope prospecting helped you work up an appetite ’cause we’ll be taking you to the salmon bake just as soon as we finish up.”

  Sadie looked at the gold and dirt still in her pan, then at Shawn who was watching an eagle circling in the sky above them. He seemed deep in thought.

  Sadie finished swirling her pan, ending up with four more flecks of gold. She was one of the last to get her gold into her little container, but Shawn and Breanna waited for her. Pete had walked back to the shuttles with the man Tanice had pushed into the river, but then sat next to Sadie when they got on the bus. Tanice was sitting in the very back row of seats fiddling with her iPhone, making the most of having cell service. Her companion sat at the front, behind the driver, Nugget Nick, with a garbage sack spread over the seat to protect it from his muddy pants.

  Sadie let Pete get comfortable before asking him, in a whisper, what he’d talked to the man about. Pete kept his voice low as he explained that apparently the couple’s marriage had been rocky for a few years and this trip was supposed to help repair their relationship.

  “I don’t think it’s working,” Pete said when he finished.

  Sadie nodded in agreement. “Um, did you happen to catch the man’s name?” she asked, not sure if she’d told Pete about the wine bottle gift tag either.