Page 6 of The Sun and the Moon

Sydney

I’m pacing the floor, my stomach full of sashimi and gyoza and some of Joe’s hamachi because he didn’t order me enough considering the sheer amount of stress rattling my system right now, lighting up my limbs, firing through my brain, and making me absolutely ravenous.

Every time I unlock my phone to call Dad back, my fingers freeze up as they hover over his name in my speed dial.

“Just call him,” Joe spits from his reclined position on the couch, remote control poised in his hand. He’s desperate to start the next episode of Selling Sunset , which he was in the middle of binging hard before my freak-out turned into a meltdown.

“I’m a horrible liar,” I say, stopping momentarily in my pacing. Right in front of the TV. His eyes grip the screen behind me. “You know I can’t hide anything in my voice.”

“You aren’t great at masking with me, or your dad, or Dr. Jackie,” he says, referring to our shared therapist.

“Which is relevant considering Dad is the person I am trying to hide my true emotions from right now,” I exclaim, almost dropping my phone into the mess of empty sushi take-out dishes, discarded soy sauce packets, and chopsticks.

“Don’t you want him to be happy?” he asks, giving me a bewildered wave of his hands.

“Jesus, of course I do. That’s not what this is about.” He lifts his brows in disbelief and then flattens them almost as fast. “He just met this woman—online—and, what, a month later they’re engaged?”

Now his brows turn into caterpillars of skepticism. “Try three months. You’ve been on the road a lot lately, so I get that your concept of time might be different than ours, but it’s been three months.”

“No way,” I protest. He just nods. But I decide to double down. “Whatever, that’s still fast.”

“He’s old, Syd. Time is running, there’s a ticking clock, he’s got needs. Who knows how long it’s been since he’s been intima—”

“Oh God, please do not talk about my dad’s intimacy needs.”

“Daddies have sex, too, darlin’.”

“Ughhh.” I shiver. “Don’t say daddy .” I almost throw up in my mouth.

“Daddy is a stone-cold silver fox.” He’s doing this on purpose now.

I mime vomiting, but it works to momentarily pop the crazy bubble. I deflate onto the couch beside Joe, who tugs me against him, his hand gently rubbing my shoulder. He smells like his spicy bodywash mixed with the sharp scent of ginger and wasabi on his breath.

“He’s more salt-and-pepper,” I reply, “but I get your meaning, weirdo.”

“Call him. Hear him out. That’s the mature thing to do, and you know it.

” I roll my eyes. So mature. But I know he’s right.

The least I can do is let him tell me, in his own words, how this whole thing came about.

I’m good at reading people, and especially good at reading Dad.

I’ve had to. Us against the world was more than just a saying.

Dad didn’t have siblings, and his parents passed before I was born, so it really was just us after Mom died.

I lean up and unlock my phone. I can do hard things .

My finger taps his name, and Joe shoves at my ass, brows furrowed, remote pointed at the TV screen. “Other roooooom,” he commands.

I shoot up, padding across the floor and down the hall as the call connects. I flop onto my bed and curl my legs up beneath me. One ring. Two rings.

“Hello there, Birdie,” he answers. His voice is bright. A deep but friendly sound.

“Hey, Dad,” I reply.

“I was beginning to worry,” he says. I hear the trepidation in his voice. Now I feel guilty that I left him hanging while I had a (maybe slightly immature) freak-out.

“I needed a minute to process the engagement invitation in my mailbox,” I say, and it takes all my focus and self-control to leave it at that. I just hope my voice is steady.

Unreadable.

“I can understand that,” he replies. “And now that you have had a moment?”

This is the question I do not want to answer, at least not honestly.

Pull it together, Sydney.

My mind races. What can I say that will get him talking but won’t invite much input from me? I do want to ascertain—at the bare minimum—the events, as many of the particulars of the story as possible, and try to get a read on his mood about the whole thing.

“I would love to hear the story of how this all came about,” I say, raising my own voice to an octave that feels unnaturally high. I have never used the phrase came about in my life. Goddamn.

He laughs a big belly laugh. “Of course you would! It’s a great one.

On our first date, Moira said she knew the moment she saw my picture I would sweep her off her feet—a hefty order to live up to considering it has been a hell of a long time since I swept anyone off their feet.

” He chuckles again, and I swear to Christ it sounds like a girlish giggle. Is he high?

My mind doesn’t know which part to latch on to first. The concern that my father has been drugged—probably shrooms—or that the woman, Moira, said they were destined.

Who tells a person something like that? Especially on a first date when everyone—universally!

—is supposed to be on their best behavior.

“But it wasn’t hard to fall for her, to be her knight in shining armor,” he continues.

Her knight in shining armor . The outdated nature of that phrase aside, shouldn’t a single woman of her age be comfortable in her independence? I would hope that if I’m still alone at that age, I’m not seeking someone to save me from it.

I give a noncommittal “Uh-huh, that’s so great” as I slide off my bed and over to my briefcase, unzipping it to reveal my laptop tucked inside. I yank it out and open it. Fuck, it’s dead. As I fish around in my bag for the charger, Dad continues.

“We didn’t play coy—who has time for that?” he says. I assume it’s rhetorical. I shove the charger into the wall outlet. The computer slowly boots up once it’s connected to power.

“It really has been the most seamless, joyful journey. I thought I was out of chances to ever feel this happy again.” I’m tapping out the login password as he says this, which makes my stomach momentarily twist with guilt. “Moira said it was written in the stars that we find each other.”

I bite back a snort.

“That’s fun.” I know I am not nailing the tone of voice I want, but the pseudo-spiritual phrases this woman uses are setting my teeth on edge.

LA origins aside, I don’t actually buy into this shit.

“So, who asked who?” I cut to the chase because it’s clear Dad isn’t going to.

My internet browser opens, and I type Moira Connelly into the search bar.

“It was really both of us,” he replies. My finger hovers over the Return key.

“How can it be both of you?” I ask, a little too accusatory.

“Well, Birdie, I got on one knee and she got down there with me. The sun was setting. Chicken was curled up on her porch. We’d had a bottle of wine between us, and she’d been helping me master three-card monte,” he says, referring to the well-known swindler street trick.

“The perfect day. The kind of day I want to have for the rest of my life. I just dropped to my knee, and she laughed and joined me. She said no man was going to ask for her hand, but she sure could give it.” He laughs.

I snarl and hit the Return key to load up the search.

The results are instant and fairly prolific. I will have to wait to dive in until I have him safely off the phone.

“Well, this is really something ,” I say. Weak, Sinclair, weak.

“Oh, Birdie, it is. And we would love to have you for dinner tomorrow—a fancy place she loves in her neighborhood. I’ll send you the details.”

“Fancy?” I ask, still too accusatory. Fancy is what you do for an out-of-town guest, not your daughter. He wants me to be swayed. He knows I’m not yet.

This sends a cold trickle down my spine. I hate disappointing my dad.

My eyes flick over the Google search.

Madame Moira

Psychic

Self-published author

Kismet: metaphysical shop and portal to your destiny

There’s that word again. Destiny .

“I’ll be there,” I say, clicking on the link that leads to Kismet.

?The deep dive does not make me feel better about Moira Fucking Connelly putting a ring on my dad’s finger. As far as I can tell, she is a snake oil salesman disguised as one of the Witches of Eastwick (probably Cher, because of the mane of black hair and searing green eyes).

“But for real, I need you to find out who does her work,” Joe chimes in.

Selling Sunset is still on in the background, but he has cleaned up the take-out debris to make space for me to set my laptop on the coffee table.

“It’s better than every single one of them.

” He points to the TV. “I am always in the market for a mentor.”

“This is the woman marrying my dad, and she’s wearing velvet,” I say. “On purpose.”

The photo on Amazon that accompanies her author page is the same one as on the website for her metaphysical shop, right above the neon-purple button to Book a Reading Now .

It goes to a form. And as far as I can tell, it’s only for in-person readings.

I stare at the photo. She’s pretty.

“We don’t know when this photo was even taken,” I say. “Or how photoshopped it is—”

Joe points his finger to the screen below the pic where a photographer’s copyright is displayed in tiny yellow font: 2023 . “And as an avid Facetuner of all varieties, I can assure you that this pic has been hardly touched. You can see freckles. You can see tiny crows.”

She does have an ageless quality about her face, but not in a way that screams. If she’s had work done, it was really by a wizard, because she looks closer to forty than sixty. She also doesn’t look plastic.

Joe stands up and shuts off the TV, yawning and stretching like a cat.

“Bedtime,” he says. “Busy day tomorrow—lots of foreheads to flatten.” He smacks a kiss on the crown of my head. “Don’t stay up stalking her too late.”

I mumble a response that I hope passes as affirmation.

My phone chimes with a text from Dad, and I check the time on my laptop.

It’s ten p.m.

He’s usually asleep in his recliner by now. Still in his button-down and khakis.

Hi, Birdie, Moira and I are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.

Then a photo appears of him and Moira sitting on the porch together as the golden-hour sun washes over their faces. I flip back to the pic of her from her website. Not only does she look almost identical as she did in 2023, she also doesn’t look any more retouched in this texted selfie from Dad.

Love, Dad.

There’s a fist of guilt around my heart. I should at least give the woman a chance to make a case for her right to my father’s heart. But that isn’t stopping me from doing a little reconnaissance of my own tomorrow morning. Kismet opens at eleven, and I’ll be there with a disguise on.