J

I bake cookies, the good kind that I haven't had in years. After putting them in a basket like I'm Little Red Riding Hood, I take them to Lisa's house.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." Duke ties the chestnut horse to a post and ambles toward me as I make my way down the long drive.

"Hey. How are you?" I keep walking as he joins me.

"Mighty fine and yourself?"

"Never been better." I toss him my best smile.

"You been baking?"

"Sure have. I'd offer you one, but I think you should wait until you're done with work. They're the relaxing kind of cookies."

"Ah, I see. Barrett will love you."

"I hope so."

Because I sure do love his daughter.

"He's not doing well."

My steps falter. "The cancer?"

"Yeah. They want to do more chemo. Barrett says no, but Lisa insists she keep fighting."

I nod slowly. "And what about Jisoo? What does she want?"

"That girl is hard to read. She don't come around but a couple times a year. And for a few days, she fusses over Barrett then leaves. I can't say for sure if her distance is because she doesn't care enough to be here more or if she can't emotionally handle it. Seeing your dad fight cancer from a wheelchair has to be hard. Lisa is a saint."

If only she felt like one.

"Well, I'm going to see if I can get the Manoban family high so they all chill for a bit."

Duke barks a hearty laugh. "I like you."

"I like you too, Duke. See ya later." I give him a parting smile as he heads back toward the barn, and I continue to the house.

There's a gray car parked next to Alice. I assume it's Jisoo's rental car.

Raised voices leak through the partially closed door like this old house is bleeding. I rest my hand on the screen door handle, trying to hear what's being said, but I can't make it out.

"Those for me?"

I jump back. Barrett opens the door the rest of the way and wheels out onto the porch.

"You scared me. I wasn't eavesdropping."

"You were." He takes the basket from me.

"Okay. I was." My nose wrinkles as I slide my hands into the arms of my sweatshirt and sit in the chair next to him.

"Jennie, right?"

I nod. Damn it's chilly this evening.

"Haven't seen you in a long time. Lisa said you were exploring indefinitely. She used to show me the postcards … then it stopped." Barrett's vacant eyes give me a sluggish inspection as he takes a shaky bite of a cookie, slumped into his chair slightly to the right like his spine won't let his fragile body remain upright any longer. It's sad because he also looks like he's lost half his body mass. His thick blond-gray hair is gone, and so is the easy smile he used to share with me. In two years, he's aged a decade, maybe more.

"Yes. I traveled the world exploring."

"Atta girl. You said you were going to do that. I'm proud of you, kid. Did you learn anything along the way?"

"Hmm … you'd think so. Right?" I chuckle. "Nothing too scholarly. But I met a lot of genuinely amazing people, and in some small way they all imparted a bit of knowledge onto me. But more than anything, it gave me a greater appreciation for my home and the people in my own life like …"

Lisa. Just say it!

"Me?" Barrett winks.

I giggle. "Exactly."

He tries to straighten a bit, causing a grimace to wrinkle his face.

"Need help?" I take the basket of cookies from his lap and stand to help him.

He shakes me off. "I'm good in a dying-of-cancer-crippled-old-man sort of way."

Lisa told me her dad is fifty-six. That's not old. But she didn't tell me about the chemo and Barrett not wanting to go through it again.

"What kind of cancer?"

"Hell if I know anymore. Started with my liver. I think it's working on attaching itself to every organ in my body and eating me alive."

"Maybe they'll find a cure."

He grunts, looking out at the horse barn while taking another bite of his cookie. "Sure."

I've got nothing. There's no grand response to cancer is eating me alive.

"Whose car is parked by Lisa's?"

"Jisoo's. My daughter. She's leaving in the morning to go home to Kentucky. Lisa goes to this big music thing every spring—well I make her go because I get tired of her grumpy ass. But … she loves it. I can tell every time she gets home. She's a different kid. Usually Duke and Etta old-man-sit me, but Jisoo's no longer training horses full-time, so she came." He nods toward the house. "That's what you were eavesdropping on—my grown-ass kids fighting. I'm used to the occasional bickering, but today I'm certain they were trying to tear each other's throats out."

"Fighting over the TV remote?"

Barrett flips me a grin. "I like you, young lady. Maybe I could adopt you and get rid of those two in there. We could get deliriously high every day. And one day … when I don't wake up, you can just bury me in the pasture and smoke a joint in my memory." He winks. "Deal?"

What can I say? There was a day when the idea of getting deliriously high until life ended appealed to me like it does to Barrett. I was recovering. He's not recovering. He's slipping away, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

"Deal." I only half mean it.

Barrett bobs his head in agreement. "You're my person."

I haven't been anyone's person, so I'm not sure what all that entails, but I can bake cookies and smoke a few joints with Barrett if that makes his days a little better. Burying a body might not be in my personal repertoire, but I keep that to myself. He's happy at the moment, so that's all that matters because we are only a moment.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

"Hello …"

I turn toward the door and the female voice.

"Jisoo, come meet my friend, Jennie."

Jisoo is petite with a dark-haired long pixie cut and sable eyes, nothing like Barrett or Lisa. She's clearly the spitting image of the woman I saw in pictures on the living room wall.

"Hi." I smile.

Jisoo gives me a wary once-over before relinquishing a ghost of a smile. "How do you know my dad?"

"I live up the way, and we met after I took a guided tour on Angelina."

Her ruddy lips purse to the side. "What's in the basket?"

"Cookies," Barrett answers.

I give a stiff smile.

"Want one?" he offers.

Oh God …

"I'm good. The wine I had with dinner was a Moscato. I don't need anything sweet."

Phew …

"They're double chocolate. Your favorite. And Jennie makes the best cookies."

Why must he press this? They're double chocolate to tame the cannabis taste.

"Maybe just half."

My nose wrinkles as I give Barrett a this-is-not-a-good-idea look. He winks at me, giving her a whole cookie.

Jisoo takes a bite, her nose scrunching a bit like mine. It's a recipe I've perfected over years. My mom says they're really quite good, and she's never been a big cannabis fan.

"Not bad." She shrugs.

"What's not—"

Lisa freezes when she sees me. I return a toothless smile with wide eyes.

"Jennie's back in town, Lisa. She just brought over some cookies. I gave one to your sister."

Lisa's gaze swells with concern as it ping-pongs between me and Jisoo.

Her dad holds up the basket. "Lisa?"

She shakes her head. Women who get high and totally shitfaced then put their fathers in wheelchairs for life don't touch drugs or alcohol.

Barrett shrugs. "Your loss. After embarrassing yourselves with your bickering while Jennie could hear you, I think you both could use a cookie. Maybe two."

Lisa tosses me an uneasy look. "I didn't know your friend was here."

It's probably strange that I'm oddly turned on by this game where I'm Barrett's friend until Lisa has me alone with my clothes off. We're back to the forbidden. I didn't think I wanted that forbidden thrill anymore, but I was wrong.

"I prefer her to both of you at the moment."

Lisa cringes like Barrett's little jab really pains her. Jisoo? She's finishing the whole cookie, inspecting it before each bite as if she's trying to figure it out. I don't think she's heard a word Barrett's said about their fighting.

"Did our dad tell you he's going to die without chemotherapy?" Jisoo asks.

"Jisoo. Don't," Lisa warns.

Rolling my lips together, I wait for Barrett's reaction.

"Because he is…" she continues "…he's going to die without the chemotherapy. And he won't listen to Lisa because he feels sorry for Lisa." She coughs a laugh. "Which is utterly ridiculous because Lisa's the reason he's in a wheelchair."

"Jisoo." Barrett narrows his eyes at his daughter while giving her a barely detectable head shake.

Lisa looks out past the drive toward the horse barn while running a rough hand through her hair.

Jisoo sits in one of the wooden rocking chairs like a queen taking her place on the throne. "If Jennie's your friend, then she should know the truth about the Manoban family."

My heart and my head struggle with Jisoo's attitude. Yes, she's being cruel to both Lisa and her dad, but I know it's because she's not only angry about the circumstances, she's hurting too. That makes me sad for her. She's lost her mom. Her relationship with her sister is toxic. And she's dealing with the real possibility she could lose her father.

Lisa is her scapegoat.

"I'm going for a ride," Lisa mumbles while walking down the ramp in her jeans and cowboy boots.

"You do that," Jisoo spits out. "I've only been watching him for the past week so you could escape, pretending you didn't mess everything up. But yeah …" She leans back in the chair with her hands laced behind her head and a stiff smile carved into her bitter face. "Since I leave in the morning, you'd better squeeze every last bit of freedom that you can out of me."

"Fuck you."

"Lisa!" Barrett's voice booms with more strength than I thought he had in him. "Don't you ever talk to your sister that way."

Resting her hands on the ramp railing, Lisa hangs her head. Jisoo has the audacity to look offended while their dad releases a long exhausted breath. I feel so out of place, yet another part of me feels like I need to be here. I traveled the world to discover the place I wanted to be more than anywhere else is in Lisa Manoban's arms.

Easing out of the squeaky chair. I give Barrett a sad smile.

"Don't go," Barrett says while Jisoo keeps rocking and Lisa remains statuesque with her head tucked between her outstretched arms and hunched shoulders.

The wood planks creek beneath my feet as I walk down the ramp. Lisa doesn't move. I duck my head and slide my body between her arms so she's now caging me between her body and the railing.

"Jennie," she whispers, closing her eyes. "Don't do this.

My palms slide up her cheeks. "Jennie and Lisa forever," I whisper.

The rhythmic wood-against-wood whining of Jisoo's rocking chair stops. I don't have to see her to know she's frozen, wondering what's going on between me and her sister.

"Take me for a ride, Lisa." My thumb grazes across her lower lip. I let us be in our own little bubble.

The pain deepens along her forehead, but she leans into my touch.

"Because I love you so fucking much, the rest of the world can't touch us."

Her hand moves from the railing to cup the back of my head, and she brings our mouths together in a slow kiss. We kiss like no one else exists—slow and passionately.

Crickets are all that can be heard around us. Without looking at her dad or her sister, she grabs my hand. "I'm taking Jennie for a ride with me. Don't wait up."

If there was any question whether or not I would forgive Lisa for letting me go the way she did, there isn't now.

I forgive her. I love her. And it's so much more than temporary.