am I to judge? And she’s never forgiven me for what I said the day she left home.”
She looked out at the shoreline as Synchronicity Too’s engines started. Slowly, they headed out into the channel.
“All I wanted was to stop her from making the same mistake I’d made. If you think I’m a good violinist, you should hear her play sometime. She was my one crowning achievement. The child who would have the life I threw away because of a stupid boy.”
“I can see why you didn’t want her to run off when she was seventeen.”
“Did you have a big fight with your parents when you opted not to go to Juilliard?”
“There were doors slammed. My mother cried. But they let it go.”
“Good for them.” She exhaled deeply. “I suppose if Ella had wanted to go to college or join the service or something, I might have come around. But she ran off with a guy I didn’t like. And to this day, I feel as if I should have made more of an effort to get along with Cody. Maybe if I hadn’t disliked him so much, she might have come home to visit from time to time. But I didn’t, and she’s gone, and without her, Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas.”
The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. Brenda had every reason to be sour on the season. The light of her life—the daughter she’d sacrificed for—had abandoned her.
Jim couldn’t imagine spending the holiday without Dylan. His son had been his reason for living each day after Julianne died. If someone took Dylan away from him, he might end up the same way. Sad and lonely and not terribly interested in celebrating a holiday that was supposed to be about joy.
There was nothing joyful about feeling abandoned and alone.
* * *
Heat crawled up Brenda’s face. What was she thinking to spill out her unhappiness that way? Now Jim would know how badly broken she was. Not sick or in need of medical attention, but damaged beyond repair.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the salty scent of the bay and then turned toward the doctor. He was really something, standing there wearing that red frock coat with the brass buttons up the front and over the cuffs. What did he want to do? Heal her hurts? Make her happy?
Good luck with that.
She turned away from him, making her way to the front of the boat while he followed behind saying nothing. And she thanked heaven when Jenna St. Pierre pulled him away to tell stories to the kids. Brenda found a little corner on deck protected from the chilly breeze, and she watched as Jim gathered the clinic kids around him and started telling the story of the dread pirate William Teal, whose ship had gone down in the inlet back in 1713.
It took about half an hour for the boat parade to form and begin its sail south along the coastline. There was a pretty big crowd on the public dock by Rafferty’s as they sailed by. But then they circled around Lookout Island for a northward tack along the mainland where the crowds were much larger.
At that point, the kids had grown tired of pirate stories. Jenna St. Pierre herded them belowdecks for hot chocolate in the boat’s state-of-the-art galley. Freed from storytelling duty, Jim found Brenda’s hiding place and tugged her to the railing.
“I’m not sure I want to get too close to the edge,” she said, resisting him.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he said, linking his arm with hers. “Now wave.”
“What?”
“The people onshore are waving at us. They think we are very cool in our pirate costumes. It would be rude not to wave back.”
She waved. And waved. And after about fifteen minutes of waving, her arm was tired.
“You’re almost smiling,” Jim said after a while.
“I am not. I’m grimacing.”
His hand touched her back, below the annoying life vest. “You’re cold.”
“Only a little.”
“Come on, the parade is breaking up. Let’s go see what Jude’s new boat is like belowdecks.”
They headed down the companionway into a salon that had a Christmas tree in the corner where the clinic kids were opening presents.
“No Christmas, huh?” Brenda muttered.
“I’m incorrigible,” Jim said. “But we don’t have to stay here. Jude and Jenna are playing host. And you can lose this,” he said, turning her toward him and unbuckling the flotation device. “We only wanted to make sure people wore them abovedecks in case someone fell overboard.”
He drew