Page 28 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

Hawthorne has abandoned Lola and me in our walk through the grapevines after he met the vintner and learned he could go see the machine where the grapes are smashed.

He smacked a kiss on Lola’s cheek, requiring him to nearly double over because of their height difference.

Even though my main objective in this one-on-one with Lola is to try to get information about Kismet out of her, I have to admit, it’s nice to be in her company.

In a lonely childhood, Lola was often my only friend.

Even if the three-year age gap meant we never shared any classes in school and were usually out of sync in our development.

“I didn’t see you come by yesterday to go through your boxes in the garage,” she says, in the beat of silence that follows her explanation of how she met Hawthorne and why she isn’t calling him her boyfriend: They met at a Ren faire where she was working a friend’s jewelry booth as a favor.

He works at the Ren faire and is leaving soon for a circuit in the Midwest. He’s good in bed and he’s nice to me, but I know it’s temporary .

She sounded surprisingly melancholy when she said that last part.

“Oh,” I say, trying to think of an explanation that isn’t an outright lie. “I ran into Rick, and he invited me to take a backlot tour of Universal.”

She nods approvingly. “Getting to know the future stepdad. I dig it.”

I balk openly at the use of the word stepdad to describe Rick, which garners a laugh from Lola.

“Calm down,” she says, her voice breaking over the chuckle. “You don’t have to call him that or anything.”

Technically, she’s correct. He would be my stepdad, but I find it difficult to wrap my brain around that reality for more than one reason.

Thinking of a man as a stepdad because he’s marrying my mother, who I have been estranged from for years, feels weird.

Moira only gets the label Mom when I let my guard down.

Even if they wind up married, it’s not as if I’m planning to come back into her life in a more consistent or permanent way.

But beyond that weirdness, there’s the whole thing about how I never knew my biological father, have never called any man Dad , and don’t plan on starting now.

It’s not often that I think about him, the man who helped Moira make me.

Not as an adult, anyway. There was a time when his secret identity used to intrigue me, serving as a mystery to fill the space in my childhood and adolescence.

But Moira thwarted me at every turn, refusing to let me seek him out; she made finding out his identity a source of tension between us.

I used to care about easing the tension in any way possible.

Walking the tightrope she hung for me. And even my realization that I didn’t want to do that anymore—even if it meant I barely saw her—didn’t make me any more sure I could find him without her help.

It’s a cruel joke to know your trust in a person is eroded so deeply that you don’t want to answer their calls but you still deeply fear that one day they’ll actually stop calling altogether.

“He’s a nice dude,” Lola is saying. She’s smiling, and I know I should smile back. I should agree with her. It’s the socially appropriate response. I suck at socially appropriate responses, but I don’t disagree with her about Rick.

“He is,” I reply, seeing a window of opportunity opening up. “I don’t understand what he sees in Moira.” It won’t surprise Lola for me to say something like that.

“You mean besides the fact that she’s an ageless beauty and thoughtful communicator,” she says, and the way her lips jump and flatten in rapid fire makes it clear she’s messing with me.

“Did she pay you to say that?” I retort. Lola owes a lot to Moira, but she isn’t fooled by her. Despite everything she’s been through, Lola has always had a strong sense of self, one Moira doesn’t mess with. My mother made sure Lola finished high school. She gave her work and freedom.

Two things she never seemed to want to give me willingly.

“Cade, come on, when was the last time you saw her like this?” Lola flicks her eyes up, looking over the rows of grapevines to where Moira stands with Rick.

She’s smelling the grapes. Rick is looking over her shoulder admiringly, with Chicken on a leash sniffing the same vine, just closer to the ground.

Rick leans in, nuzzling her ear with his nose.

She giggles, turning to close her arms around him in an embrace.

The whole display sets my nerves on edge.

“I’ve never seen her like this,” I say. “That’s why I’m suspicious.” Lola halts at that, face jumping in surprise.

“What do you mean suspicious ?”

Fuck. Way to step in it, Cadence.

“I’m always suspicious of her,” I say, trying to save it with my signature bitterness. “I have good reason to be.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with you there,” she says, looking back at the two of them. “But they’re in love. I can tell by the way she’s changed at work.”

At work. The mention of Kismet is such an organic gift that it could be considered a blessing from the Universe. If I still believed that the Universe was in the habit of granting me favors.

“You’ll have to fill me in,” I reply, trying to snuff any audible expectation out of my voice. Lola takes a drink from her wineglass, and I follow her lead.

“She’s just not as intense about retaining clients, getting new clients. It’s almost like she would rather go on lunch dates with Rick than do a reading for a stranger.”

“So if she isn’t working, is Kismet in trouble?” The bank papers for Kismet could be related to the business and not the house. I can readily admit that I don’t know enough about these types of things to be able to tell the difference at a glance.

“I don’t know about that—it’s not like she lets me look at the financials—but her attitude has been different. That’s all I’m saying. And I do kinda get it.”

“Because she’s in love?” I cut her a look of disbelief. She elbows me lightly, starting to walk again. I don’t follow right away.

“Because her industry is changing like crazy.” She turns back to look at me but doesn’t stop moving. I have to follow her. “People can get a psychic reading on an app. They can order crystals from Amazon. Why would they trek through LA to a spooky house in Pasadena just to sit with her in person?”

“Loyalty?” I question. Despite everything, the idea that my mother might be pushed out of a profession she’s been in for over three decades gives me a sinking feeling. Who is she without the thing she’s worked so hard to make her whole identity?

Who am I if not estranged from her because of that?

“ Hello , have you met the internet?” Lola guffaws. “There’s no loyalty there. Sure, she has her clients, but she doesn’t offer Zoom readings, and she’s not on any of the apps.”

“Have you noticed a drop-off in her clientele?”

“There’s been a drop-off in everything to do with Kismet,” she says. We round the end of the row of vines just as Moira and Rick reach the ends of theirs. I feel her eyes on us, watching, and my paranoia spikes.

Lola seems to experience the same creepy sensation, because her volume shifts down to almost a whisper. “It just wouldn’t surprise me if she was planning for her second act.”

She catches sight of Hawthorne emerging from a large outbuilding with the vintner and waves. Her smiles cracks open her features. She looks genuinely happy to spot him, but she’s probably also grateful for the excuse to escape this conversation.

“With Rick?” I question. I know she’s going to read my skepticism as something to undercut Rick, even if that’s not how I mean it. Her eyes narrow.

“No offense, Cadence, but why do you care?” I’m surprised by the sharpness in her voice just as much as I’m surprised by the question.

“Of course I care.” I don’t know why, but I feel the sudden urge to defend myself.

“Really? You left LA, you don’t visit, you’ve made it clear that none of this matters to you.” Her words feel like a slap. I have to double down; it’s the only way I know how to put up my armor.

“Moira and I don’t mesh. It’s better for us to be in each other’s lives as little as possible.”

“ Is it better?” Her massive eyes shouldn’t be so cutting. But her normally doe-like expression becomes a knife. “Or just easier?”

“Lola, that’s not fair,” I say, surprised by the sting.

“Not fair? That’s not the only thing that isn’t fair.” She turns to go.

“I’m sorry about vanishing on you,” I say before she walks away. Because I did. It’s the truth, even if I never saw it that way before now, and even if I don’t have any idea how to possibly mend it.

“I’m used to it,” she says. A truth that crushes me.

“I get that you need to shut her out—I do.” She drains her wineglass in what I assume is an attempt to drown her feelings.

“I don’t mind her overbearing bullshit, her thinking she knows everything because the cards said it or she vibed on it.

” A snort tempers her words. I feel a smile creeping my lips up.

“It never bothered me, but I know it was hard between you two. I know she wanted something from you that you couldn’t give her—or maybe it was the other way around.

” She shrugs. “I don’t get it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe you’re doing what you think will protect you—or something.

” She pauses, looking me over. “But you could have called me . I was there, not going anywhere.”

I should say she’s right, let her know that I miss her, too. But I never told her I appreciated her growing up, and it’s really hard to start telling her now.

“It was easier to put Kismet in its entirety behind me.”

She nods, as if I’ve said exactly what she suspected and she’s not mad, she’s just disappointed. “So why are you here now?”

It’s rhetorical, which becomes clear when she walks away without giving me a chance to explain. I watch her move, with a stiffness in her posture as she crosses a section of grapevines to meet up with Hawthorne. I turn in the opposite direction, not sure what to do with myself.

Lola’s hurt pricks beneath my skin, and as much as I want to ignore it, I can’t.

When I left Kismet behind—put LA in my rearview mirror and tried to lose every number, box up every memory—Lola got thrown in and closed off without me ever considering another option.

It’s true that I was lonely as a kid, as a teen, but I often forget that Lola and I had a lot in common.

We both had messed-up relationships with our moms, and we were both only children.

But even though we could have had each other, we never really figured out how.

Or I just didn’t try hard enough.

I scan the area, my eyes stinging, my heart aching, until I see her.

Sydney.

She’s emerged from the barrel room, her hair down from her high bun and streaming free in the light breeze.

It’s foolish how much seeing her calms me down.

How I want to tell her what I learned about Moira’s work, but I don’t want to leave out the part where I realized I was a shitty friend to one of the only people in my life who really feels like family.

This longing to be seen by her is a new sensation, one I am unfamiliar with wanting.

One that scares me more than whatever scheme Moira is trying to pull. More than her being right about my soulmate.

Even more than her knowing she might be right.