and guided her from the hustle and bustle of the boardwalk to a small park near the pier.
He led her to a picnic table in the shelter of the Moonglow pear trees. Sat her down on one side, took the bench opposite her. Stared into her eyes without a word.
Gia’s heart started pounding.
Today, she had felt a dozen different things at once. Things had piled higher and higher. Her rage, her shame, her regret, her remorse, her embarrassment. And something else, a brave little flower of hope sending up a shoot through the toxic sludge, reaching for the sun.
She and her sisters had come together. They’d talked things out. Cleared the air. Now it was time to do the same with Mike.
He’d seen her at her absolute worst and he was still looking at her with that sultry gleam in his eyes.
She gulped and told him what had happened with her sisters. About the big misunderstanding that had dismantled their family. About how Shelley had taken the blame for Raoul’s misdeeds.
“I’m glad things are on good footing with your sisters.”
“Me too.”
Their eyes locked.
“What about us?” she whispered. “Did I ruin things with you?”
He stuck out his hand. “C’mon.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where we always go when we need to sort things out.”
“But what about the kiosk? You’re losing sales.”
“I don’t care about that. You’re what matters.”
He led her to his vehicle parked in the boardwalk parking lot. Opened up the sliding cover of his pickup bed, took out two kites. One was the blue fish kite she’d made him. The other was a store-bought unicorn kite.
“Allie’s,” he said by way of explanation as he handed Gia his niece’s unicorn kite.
She thought about Puff, who’d sacrificed his tail to reunite the Moonglow sisters. “I need to make Allie a proper unicorn kite.”
“She’d love that,” he said.
He was whistling the song from Mary Poppins. “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” How upset with her could he be if he was humming? Smiling, Gia joined in, singing along.
In his left hand he carried both kites. With his free hand, he took her hand and guided her back to the park. It wasn’t particularly breezy, but there was enough wind that with a little effort they could achieve lift.
There, in the afternoon sunlight, they flew their kites.
As they flew, three children joined them with kites of their own. Three little girls carrying matching red kites.
Gia watched as the oldest helped the two younger ones get their kites in the air.
Aww, how sweet. But then, once all the kites were aloft, the oldest girl used her kite to smash into her sisters’ kites. The younger sister fought back, tugging on the string to strangle the oldest sister’s kite. Soon it was an all-out kite war among the siblings as they battled for control of their part of the sky. But they were laughing and smiling the entire time.
Gia reeled in her own kite, getting out of their way. Mike followed suit, and they returned the kites to his pickup.
She glanced around, looking for a parent, but the girls seemed to be on their own. It struck her then, how much responsibility had truly been on Maddie’s shoulders. No wonder she’d been a prickly perfectionist. At only nine years old, Madison had thought it was up to her to make sure their home life ran smoothly.
Maddie hadn’t had a childhood. Not from the time their parents died, and while Grammy had tried her best to give them love and structure, Madison still felt responsible.
It was why Gia had never questioned her. Maddie was in charge and Maddie had been there. Her one solid constant.
Gia gulped. And this time the tears she cried weren’t for herself, but for her sister and all Madison had lost. She understood Maddie in a way she’d not understood her before. Why success and achievement meant so much to her. Why she pushed and pushed and pushed. Because if she didn’t, Madison feared everything would fall apart.
But now that Gia’s own world had fallen apart, she was discovering that until things fell apart, the new couldn’t come through. She realized that things falling apart was a natural part of the process and that as the old fell away, the bright and fresh could flourish and bloom.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked.
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “We’re all going to be fine. And I have you to thank for it.”
“What did I do?” he asked, smiling.
“You were there,” she said. “You were willing to lie for me