“Let’s walk after dinner,” she said, hoping she’d know more by then.
He smiled. “It’s a date.”
Emma must not have lookedat her phone, Kate decided as they all cooked a “welcome home, Eli” meal together.
Well, notall. Jonah said he couldn’t spend one more minute in a kitchen and disappeared with Atlas downstairs, and Meredith texted that she’d be working late.
But Peter came over to spend the evening with Vivien and have dinner with them, and Nolie set the table with Crista’s supervision. Mom and Maggie sipped cocktails on the deck, while Eli grilled some burgers and Kate made a salad and fries.
After a long time upstairs alone, presumably showering off the beach but not crying her eyes out, Emma joined them looking remarkably…normal.
Or was she? It was hard to tell, but she seemed okay.
They all ate and talked, catching Eli up on life at the Summer House without him, enjoying a gorgeous summer night at the big table outside.
Periodically, Kate would check in with Emma, who was talking to Nolie and Crista, laughing at things Maggie said, and acting as if nothing had happened.
Maybe it hadn’tyet.
After dinner, Eli wasted no time sliding his arms around Kate from behind, nuzzling into her neck. “Don’t clean up. Let’s walk.”
“Oh, but I want to…”Talk to Emma.“Finish here first,” she said instead.
“No, I got this, Mom.” Emma appeared from…somewhere. Bright, smiling, nudging Kate to the side. “Go,” she urged, giving her a look. “Ask him!” she mouthed.
She couldn’t have read those texts yet. But it would be awkward to ignore the order, so she pressed a kiss on Emma’s cheek and left with Eli a minute later.
Almost immediately after hitting the sand, Kate felt better. They opted to go barefoot and walk in the surf, which was heavenly, taking in the sky in shades of peach and coral reflecting off the turquoise water.
Eli walked beside her, clearly relieved to be moving after spending half the day in the car.
“Emma seems great,” Eli said, unprompted.
She looked up at him, so grateful for his skills of perception. “She is now, but…”
“But?”
On a sigh, she told him everything, from the way Emma had danced out to the beach to the conversation with Matt, to the endless texts that showed enough on the screen to put two and two together and come up with…disaster.
And he reacted exactly as a father would—empathetic, dismayed, angry, and concerned.
“What can we do?” he asked.
The “we” touched her. “Wait for the bomb to detonate, I guess.”
“I mean long term, Kate. Are you going to let her face that in a few weeks? Fight with the coach to keep her place? Change schools?”
“That seems drastic,” Kate said, but she knew if given that list of options, Emma would transfer in a heartbeat. “Doesn’t that teach her to run from her problems?”
“A little,” he conceded. “And it will blow over, but…senior year. Not fair.”
She loved that he understood that.
“And…” she said, dragging the word out. “It kind of affects…us.”
He slowed his step and eyed her. “Us?” He actually sounded hopeful, as if he wanted there to be an “us” so badly—another thing she loved.
“Well, this weekend.”