When we reach the deck of the house, Robert and Debbie are drinking their morning coffee outside.

  “He needs shorts,” I tell Robert.

  “The Sheriff? That’s crazy. He only wears clothes at night, when he puts on his pj’s. He goes full monty during the day.”

  I laugh and point my thumb at Trey. “Him.”

  “You telling me I need to take your boyfriend shopping?”

  I nod. “Pretty please.”

  Robert shakes his head, but he’s already giving in. He turns to Trey and claps him on the shoulder. “Now, son, I’m giving up my man card to take you shopping, but she’s right. I’m thoroughly embarrassed by your lack of appropriate beach attire. Surprised, too, that TSA didn’t confiscate your bags at the airport yesterday. We usually don’t let anyone into San Diego with jeans on,” Robert says, pointing to his own cargo shorts.

  They leave, and I join Debbie on the deck. The dog follows, parking himself in a perfect sit next to me and looking expectantly at Debbie with the ball in his mouth.

  She takes the ball and tosses it far away in the sand, and the dog is off like a shot.

  “Why’d you name him The Sheriff?”

  “When we adopted him, we had cats, and he was always trying to herd them and round them up, like they were his posse or something. So we called him The Sheriff.”

  “I like that name.”

  “Thank you. Would you like some coffee? Tea, or lemonade?”

  It’s only ten in the morning, but lemonade sounds delicious. “Lemonade, please.”

  She heads into the house and returns quickly with two tall glasses. She takes a sip, sets the glass down, and presses her palms against the white wooden deck railing, gazing out at the water.

  “I bet it never gets old, this view,” I say, soaking in the gorgeous sky and the sun that bakes my skin slowly, luxuriously.

  “Never does. Every day it feels new again,” she says, and then she turns to me. “So, how’s it going with the two of you? How is he with being a dad soon?”

  I’m momentarily startled by the directness of her question. She reminds me a bit of Joanne, with her bluntness. It’s such a change from what I’ve been used to my whole life.

  “He had a hard time at first, but he’s changed a lot in the last few months. Sometimes he’s too sweet for words.”

  “That’s how it should be. And you’re very serious about each other.” It’s half question, half pronouncement.

  “Very serious.”

  “I can tell,” she says, her blue eyes holding mine. “The way he looks at you. How he talks to you. And you, with him. You have this connection that goes beyond most couples. One that runs so deep it’s almost like a secret language. I think that’s how it is with true love. With soul mates. You just have it.”

  “You can tell with us?”

  She nods and taps her heart. “Oh yeah. I can tell. I have a soul mate detector.”

  “We are soul mates. I’m sure of it. What about you and Robert? Is that what you have?”

  “Absolutely,” she says as The Sheriff trots up to the porch, dropping the ball with a loud thunk then staring at Debbie. She grabs the ball and tosses it back out to the sand.

  As The Sheriff tears away, I spy a seagull careening towards the sand in hot pursuit of a french fry. The seagull lands and grabs his carbohydrate prey, gulping it down.

  I turn back to Debbie, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand. There’s something I want to know, and she doesn’t mince words, so I go for it. “My parents didn’t have that, did they?”

  “No,” she says with a sigh. “They didn’t. They tried hard. But they didn’t.”

  “Will you tell me about them? Is it okay to ask?”

  “Of course it’s okay to ask, and of course I’ll tell you. I figured you’d want to know. Let’s sit,” she says, gesturing to a pair of white wooden chairs with a small table between them.

  “What were they like together?”

  Debbie tilts her head, considering my question as a breeze gently rattles the wind chimes that hang above the screen door. The pretty tinkling sound fades away, and she turns to me. “They were like this.” She makes her hands into fists and bumps her knuckles together. “They were metal against metal. They were both brilliant. John is a very smart man, and Barb fell hard for that. She loved his brain, and she loved the way he could hold his own with her. She was taken with him, and he very much was with her, as far as I could tell. He was a political advisor, and they met when she was on an internship for a paper out here. I don’t even want to say they fell in love—it was more like they crashed into something volatile. Each other maybe. Because they argued all the time. It was as if they were always locked in a debate. We’d have dinner with them, and they were always looking for some fault in each other.”

  “That sounds sad,” I say, and my chest hurts for my parents.

  The Sheriff arrives again and deposits the ball. Debbie reaches for it and fires it off. The dog’s black furry legs blur through the sand.

  “But sadly, John is like that.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s not a happy man. Oh, on the surface, he’s the life of the party, but deep down, he’s not a happy soul. I love him, he’s my son, and I’d do anything for him. I could beat myself up and say I’m a bad mom and it’s all because of me, but I don’t know why he is the way he is. I just know he’s like that.”

  “Is that why you don’t talk to him much?”

  “I don’t talk to him much because he went his own way. He’s been living in Europe for years now. He made choices that I didn’t agree with, and while I love him, I don’t love his choices, and he knows that.”

  The pit in my chest deepens, threatening to tunnel its way through me. Yet I need to ask. I open my mouth, and it’s almost painful to say the words—they taste like tinfoil against my tongue. “My mom told me something. I want to know if it’s true. She said he was a sex addict, and that he was in therapy that summer I spent with you. Is he an addict?”

  Debbie stretches her hand across the small table between us and grasps mine. “Oh, sweetie. There are things between them that I will never understand. There are things between a man and a woman that need to be between them and them only, right?” I nod my agreement, and she continues, her fingers clasped tight around my wrist. “But I know this. John has been married six times. Every time, he falls in love with someone else and leaves his marriage for another. I love him, but I don’t love the addict in him. So, call him a sex addict. Call him a serial cheater. Call him a ladies’ man. What it amounts to is he is a person who has not changed, and because of that, I’m not close to him. He doesn’t want to engage on a meaningful level. But then, that isn’t surprising, is it? He wasn’t much of a father, was he?”

  “He wasn’t one at all.”

  Debbie sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, sweetie. You got the short end of the stick.”

  Her kindness and her blunt honesty pierce me straight to my core. My one-time modus operandi—lying, hiding, keeping secrets—no longer fits. “I felt all alone sometimes. I don’t know if I even realized that’s what it was. I don’t think I could name it till I was older. But when I saw your cards, I knew it was loneliness, because I didn’t know anyone except my mother.” My throat catches, but I rein it in. “Did you ever think about why I was never in touch with you?”

  She nods several times, her eyes widening, the blue in them so pure and true. “I did think about it a lot. I missed you. You probably don’t remember our times together because you were so young. But I remember them, and oh, how we loved when our little Harley was coming. You were a busy, brave, and chatty little girl, and you loved being here as much as we loved having you.”

  “I do remember it. Not the specifics, but I remember the feeling.”

  “What did it feel like?”

  I flash back to the night I met Trey, to what I told him about being here. “It felt like happiness. That’s what I remember.”

  “I’m glad, sweetie. Because that’s all I ever wanted for your life. Even when I had no idea what had happened to you.”

  “Did you ever think I was ignoring you?”

  “That thought never crossed my mind. And look, I don’t know your mom anymore. I only know the articles she writes, and the pieces I see her do. I knew her then, and she was a tough woman, and she was pretty much shattered by John. They might have butted heads, they might have disagreed, but she was crazy for him. And the summer you lived with us, she fought like hell to save her marriage. We gave them the space they needed, and we took care of you. But you know what happened…” she says, her voice trailing off, tinged with melancholy.

  “My father cracked her, didn’t he?” I ask, and I should feel some shards of sympathy for her, but I feel entirely clinical.

  Debbie shrugs, and her blonde bangs blow into her eyes with the breeze. She brushes them away. “Maybe. It’s hard to say what anyone’s breaking point is. It’s possible.”

  “Yeah, it is possible. But you know what? That happens. Stuff happens. You need to move on, and I’m not sure she ever did.”

  Because my mother, whether she was broken by him or not, let him affect how she led her life. She has never truly moved on, as far as I can tell. It seems every choice she’s made when it comes to relationships was a futile attempt to stave off the hurt. Late-night affairs, clandestine phone calls, breezing from one man to the next, even falling for Phil—a married man with a direct conflict of interest who she could never truly give her heart to.

  Maybe my father did break her, but now she’s brittle, and I don’t feel bad. I feel sorry for her that she was never able to change.

  “Did it bother you when you never heard back from me?”

  “I wanted to see you again. I hoped to see you again,” Debbie says. “And I think I knew, deep down, that somehow I would. I just didn’t know how. But I knew that it wasn’t you keeping us apart—it was your mother’s hurt.”

  “Do you forgive her? Because I don’t think I can.”

  “I can forgive her. And I can let it go because you’re here now, and you wanted to reconnect. Can you forgive her for keeping us apart?”

  I scoff. “The list of things I have to forgive her for is so long, you’d be shocked. But I guess this one doesn’t matter, because I’m here now.”

  “Then we don’t have to worry about the past, because we have this—the present—and the future to come.”

  But the thing is, we do have to worry about the past… at least, I do.

  20

  Harley

  The café rings with the bustle of the lunch crowd. Waiters scurry by carrying plates stacked with sandwiches grilled to perfection and spilling over with cheese and sauces that make my mouth water. The sounds of the ocean and an impromptu volleyball game drift in through the open windows of Once Upon a Sandwich.

  Debbie and I are at a table in the back, a red-and-white checkered cloth spread across it. “Is it always this crowded?” I ask her.

  “Usually. We’ve had some good write-ups over the years, and it’s become an institution here along the main drag. It’s still strange for me to be on this side though,” she says, patting the table.

  “Do you wish you were serving, or cooking?”

  “Neither. Just in the office, managing the inventory, designing the menus, paying the employees. I’m all about the business side; Robert’s the sandwich master. But we only work a few days a week. Our manager runs the place so we can enjoy ourselves and not work all the time. Oh, here they are.”

  Flip-flops slap against the wooden floor, and when I raise my eyes, I’m met with my man in a completely new look. Gone are the jeans and boots, and in their place, he’s donning full beach regalia, from the shades on his head to the board shorts hanging from his hips. He holds his arms out wide and raises his eyebrows to invite me to appraise him. I can’t help myself. He looks so hot that I stand up, pull him in for a hug that’s almost not safe in public, and whisper in his ear, “You look so sexy in a bathing suit, but all I want to do is take it off.”

  He inhales sharply and growls low in my ear. “Later. That’s a promise. And now I need to sit down, or else everyone will be able to tell how much you just turned me on.”

  He sits next to me, and then Robert pulls up a chair, looking like the cat that ate the canary.

  “Well, what do you have up your sleeve?” Debbie asks.

  “How do you know I have something up my sleeve?”

  “Because of the look on your face. You’ve been up to something,” she says, and Robert’s eyes twinkle with mischief.

  “What have I been up to, or what has this young man been up to?” he muses in a mysterious voice. He answers by yanking up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a gleaming black typewriter. His faded, barely there, splotchy tattoo has been reworked—it’s the same typewriter, but now it’s been brightened, as if it was brought back to life.

  “Oh my God,” Debbie shrieks. “You filled in his old, ugly tattoo and made it beautiful.”

  Trey nods proudly.

  “How?”

  “That’s what I do,” Trey says.

  “No. I mean where? How did you just go fill this in?” she asks.

  “Yeah, how did you do this here, Trey?” I add.

  “Remember Ilyas? He hooked me up with a shop out here, and an artist he wanted me to see. So we stopped in, and I had the idea to redo it, and Robert said yes, and there you go.”

  I lean in and kiss him on the cheek. “You are so talented.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Robert says. “He showed the owner his portfolio online, and they were all pretty much tossing their panties at him in admiration.”

  Trey blushes, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him this red. “You’re embarrassed that you’re so good,” I say, poking him in the side as I tease.

  “They were just nice to me. That’s all.”

  “Humble brag,” Robert says under his breath. Then he raises his voice. “It was more like ‘How did you do that cherry blossom tree, that heart, that butterfly?’”

  “You’re becoming known for your cherry blossoms,” I say, beaming with pride.

  “And your heart.”

  “You can do cherry blossom trees on others, but no one gets my heart and arrow,” I say possessively, gripping my shoulder.

  He crosses his heart in a promise, his eyes never leaving mine. “No one else, ever.”

  Debbie chimes in. “Like I said, Harley, I can tell.”

  My heart feels both light and heavy. She can see the love between us, but what would she think if she knew who I was for all those years in between?

  The ocean waves lap my thighs as Trey bobs in the water. We’ve waded out several feet, though it’s still shallow, so he’s actually sitting in the water, while I stand.

  “It’s true, what my mom said,” I say, recapping my morning for him. “My dad is an addict. And if you think about it, my mom is kind of one too. I’m just like them. It’s like it’s in my genes or something,” I say as a gentle wave rolls by, sending the waterline to my hips.

  “I don’t know that it’s some sort of done deal. But so what if it’s in your genes? What matters is you stopped it,” he says.

  “I guess, but I also feel bad for my parents. They must be so unhappy. I used to think my mom enjoyed everything. Now I think it was all a mask. She was hiding all her hurt, and I’m not saying that makes it okay. She must be the most miserable person in the world, and, hell, she deserves it. But it doesn’t sound like my dad’s any better.”

  “Addiction has a way of sapping happiness from you. It’s like this suction device that steals everything good,” Trey says, and I arch an eyebrow. He’s not often this philosophical. He pushes a hand through his wet hair. “It’s something my shrink has said, and I believe it. I also believe you don’t have to be like your mom or your dad. It’s not fate. It’s not destiny.”

  “But don’t you see? I am like them. I can fool myself and say I’m like Debbie, that I’m good and pure because I like sandwiches and the beach, but those are the surface things that let me think I’m okay when I’m not. I’m an addict, Trey. I’m born from all the problems in my family. Fine, I’m a recovering addict, but I’m still an addict—and now there are two of us, so what’s going to happen to our baby?”

  Through the water, Trey reaches for me. He stands and tugs me gently so I’m deeper in with him, the warm waves hitting my chest now. “We break the cycle, Harley. Don’t you see? We end it here. With us. We make a choice to end it. We already made that choice when we stopped, and then went to SLAA, and then stayed in SLAA, and then fell in love. And we keep doing it, every single day. Every day we live differently from our parents, and every day we break the cycle. The ugly beautiful, remember? That’s what we have and what we are, and that’s what he or she will know,” he says, now palming my belly. “Our baby will know we can be different, we can be more than those things we left behind. Look at this. Look at us. We’re these two New Yorkers, raised on fumes and skyscrapers, boxed in by the noise and sirens and cigarettes in that city, and now we’re here, in the ocean, under the sun beneath a clear blue sky. Because of you. Because you chose to keep looking. To find your family,” he says, brushing the wet strands of hair off my cheek, keeping his green gaze locked with mine.

  “But it’s not real,” I say, as I splash a spray of salty water away from us in frustration. “This is perfect, yes. This is beautiful, but we’re only here for a short time. We go back to New York in a few days. We go back to fumes and skyscrapers.”

  “You have this now though,” he says, in a strong, passionate voice. “You know this now. It’s a part of you, and it doesn’t go away even when we leave California. Just being here and coming here is another step in breaking the cycle every day. By living differently from your parents, you’re breaking their patterns. I’m trying to do the same too. To be honest and truthful and not shut down. We are changing, and they never did.”