She admired the way they’d fallen into a routine so quickly, although they knew it was temporary. They ate breakfast at eight every morning. She ordered a croissant with homemade jam and he ordered eggs Benedict. They shared their plates and left half of both breakfasts untouched. Melodie had offered to cook them smaller portions for a lower price, but they always thought they were hungry enough to eat everything until they realized they were not. Miller didn’t seem to mind their lack of appetite.
After breakfast they went upstairs to get ready for their visit of a tourist attraction they’d carefully selected in advance—the Historical Maritime Site of Pointe-au-Père one day, the Regional Museum the next day, and so on. Mr. Smith had explained several times that they couldn’t handle more than one a day. They ate lunch before they got back in the early afternoon and stopped by the reception desk to chat with Melodie before they went upstairs for a nap. Later they would go out for their daily walk and dinner. They were scheduled to leave tomorrow, and Melodie knew she’d miss them—although perhaps not as much as Miller. She’d convinced them to come back in the summer to visit the Métis Gardens. “I’m so happy we got to stay in this quaint little inn of yours, Melodie. We were worried after you called us to cancel last year,” Mrs. Smith said as she had almost every day.
“I’m happy you decided to give us another chance too, but mostly I’m happy we didn’t have problems with the tides this year.” She’d given the same answer each day without much variation, but this time she couldn’t help but glance at the article that was still sitting on the desk and a heavy sadness settled in her chest. If the Smiths left tomorrow as planned, she’d be left with only one guest. Damn you, Ana.
“Our visit of the churches in Rimouski was beautiful. It’s such a shame we couldn’t visit the cathedral. It looks beautiful.”
“It is, but it’s not safe for the moment. Don’t worry, though, there are all kinds of plans to preserve it, so I’m sure you’ll get to see it eventually.” She knew that given their age and the time the city was taking to decide on the right way to preserve the historical church, they might not actually be alive to see any of those plans become reality, but she didn’t want to break their hearts.
“Well, you have a good afternoon, darling,” Mr. Smith said as he patted her hand. “We’ll head upstairs now.”
“All right, go and get some rest. I’ll see you later.”
She watched them climb the stairs slowly until they disappeared. She glanced at the article again, taunting her with its flared-up corner and catchy title. She shouldn’t have kept the inn open for winter. If it had been closed and she’d been home at the duplex where she belonged, Ana would have been forced to go somewhere else or maybe even go back home and she wouldn’t have seen her again. Ana wouldn’t have opened that wound again. It had barely started to heal. How dare she come back after abandoning her during the worst possible time of her life?
She’d been so sad after her grandmother’s death and so angry at Ana for leaving. She’d been convinced she’d lost her mind. Fortunately her father had been there to help her with Thomas. Kevin had also been a big help every time he came back from Calgary. They’d painted the outside of the inn in the summer and they’d had a great tourist season. Work kept her busy and eventually the pain became less dominant, leaving some room for laughter with her son, for light talks with her father or with Kevin. It had taken a long time but they’d started healing together.
Melodie had worried that closing the inn for winter would give her too much time to think. She wanted to keep herself busy. It had been difficult enough to remain strong as time brought them closer to the one-year anniversary of Ana’s arrival, the storm, and her grandmother’s death. Yet she’d managed to keep her composure until Ana’s return. That night, she’d cried as hard as she had the day her grandmother died and Ana ran from the hospital like a coward. Then the next morning she’d decided she’d shed more than enough tears over Ana Bloom. She wouldn’t let her get to her anymore. She’d ignore her until she saw there was no point in staying and left her alone for good. She wouldn’t even fight with her or admit how much she’d hurt her. She couldn’t let her see she had any power over her.
She took the article and hid it under the printer. There. Maybe if she didn’t see it she wouldn’t be so tempted to read it. Why the hell should she care what Ana had to say about her community? She’d left before she could help any of them put her damn ideas into motion. Some had already relocated. Others, like Melodie, felt powerless. She still believed it was the right thing to do, but she’d been too busy putting her life back together to make any concrete plans.
She knew damn well counting on the sea to freeze before the great tides every year was not the way to live. Ana had taught her that much. They’d been lucky this year, but they couldn’t cross their fingers and hope to get lucky every year. She had to do something to preserve her family business and she couldn’t take as long as the city was taking with plans to preserve the cathedral. Sea levels were rising and every future storm could potentially destroy everything they owned, including her grandmother’s legacy. Maybe that’s why she was so tempted to read that article. Maybe Ana’s written words could show her the way without her actually having to talk to her, without admitting she needed her guidance. She couldn’t risk her heart like that again. Ana was too dangerous.
She sighed with frustration and hit the reception desk with her closed fist. Reading that article was too dangerous too, though, wasn’t it? Damn it. She’d find someone else to help relocate. Ana was not the only scientist around, after all. And Melodie was resourceful enough to find assistance elsewhere. She looked at Miller, who sat patiently at the bottom of the stairs, looking up every once in a while, waiting for her to come back down. “Stop it, Miller. We don’t need her. Let’s go for a walk.”
She knew she had time to walk to the church and back before the Smiths came down from their nap, and she desperately needed fresh air. She dressed Thomas in his snowsuit and grabbed Miller’s leash. She’d heard Ana make comments like, “you’re getting fat, buddy. Let’s go for a run.” It was so infuriating. Maybe she didn’t take him by the beach to run every day like Ana had since her return, but she’d taken him for walks two or three times a day ever since her grandmother had passed. She’d fed him, talked to him, petted him, even let him sleep in her bedroom. She’d taken care of him as well as she could for nearly a year despite her state of mind. She wouldn’t let Ana make her feel inadequate. She’d run away. She’d abandoned Miller and the rest of them and she had no right to come back and act like a hero now.
Once outside she secured Thomas in his stroller and put her hand through the loop at the end of Miller’s leash before she walked with the powerful energy provided by her frustration, pain, and fury. Damn you, Ana.
Chapter Thirty
Ana heard the doorbell as she went down the stairs and saw Melodie, Thomas, and Miller come in, followed by Jerome. He was carrying his precious tool belt and father and daughter were in the middle of a conversation in French so she waited at the bottom of the stairs. His hair was still long, held in a ponytail. His beard was neatly trimmed, which was a change for the better, but the biggest change was in his eyes. They were clearer and brighter than she remembered. They took off their jackets and placed them on hooks behind the reception desk and didn’t notice her. As soon as Melodie unhooked the lead from his collar, Miller ran to Ana and she petted him. Jerome freed Thomas from his snowsuit and put him on the floor as he chatted with his daughter and adjusted his tool belt around his waist. Thomas walked to Ana and petted Miller with an excited smile. She focused on the boy and the dog for a moment. When she looked back up, Jerome was staring at her, looking as pale and stunned as if he’d seen a ghost. Obviously Melodie had not told him about her return.
“Hi, Jerome,” she simply said. Melodie turned at the sound of her voice but immediately made herself busy behind the reception desk.
“Hello, Ana,” he said weakly
before he quickly added, “I better go check on that toilet in room three.” He stepped around her to reach the stairs and climbed them without turning back.
“Your dad looks good,” she dared commenting, convinced Melodie wouldn’t answer.
Instead, Melodie dropped the pen she’d been holding over a pile of paperwork, walked around the desk to pick up Thomas, and looked her straight in the eye. “He’s doing great. We all are. So if that’s what you came here to find out, you can go now.” Ana watched her walk down the hall, standing straight and proud with Thomas in her arms. When she got to her room, she stopped in front of the door and turned back to call out in a light, energetic voice, “Come here, Miller.” The dog obeyed and Ana was left alone in the lobby.
She wasn’t here to make sure they were all doing well. She’d always known they’d manage without her. She was here because although she could, she didn’t want to manage without them anymore. Sooner or later, Melodie would realize that. For the first time, however, she thought there was a possibility Melodie might choose not to take her back even once she understood all the reasons why she’d left and now returned. She shook her head. She wasn’t ready to consider that possibility more seriously.
She climbed the stairs and noticed Jerome had left the door of room number three ajar. She hesitated for a few seconds before she pushed it open and slowly walked inside. “Do you need help?” she offered, her mind automatically going back to the basement windows they’d replaced together. They’d bonded then. He liked her then.
“Thanks, but I think I can handle it,” he said as he turned off the water supply behind the toilet. The cover of the toilet tank had already been removed and rested on the floor. “I’ll replace the flapper later but the problem now is that the tank level is too high.”
“How do you fix that?” she asked.
“Easy. Simply need to adjust the fill valve.” She watched as he reached into his tool belt and used a screwdriver to turn the screw on top of the valve. “There, that should do it.” He turned the water supply back on and flushed the toilet to test it. It worked perfectly. He put back the cover of the tank carefully.
“Wow, that was an easy fix.”
“Sure was,” he said as he headed out. She thought she wouldn’t get more out of him, but he stopped, sighed, and asked without turning to face her, “What are you doing here, Ana?”
The question surprised her but it was honest and she could only answer it as honestly, “I love your daughter, Jerome. I want to be here, with her.”
He turned then and smiled weakly as his eyes filled with tears. “But why now? You broke her heart, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” she admitted as she lowered her gaze.
“Why did you do it?”
That question was as honest as the first one but much more difficult to answer. She hesitated, ran her hand through her hair a few times, but finally decided telling Jerome was a close second to telling Melodie, who might never give her the opportunity to explain. She sat on the bed and found comfort in the fact that it squeaked exactly like hers. Jerome closed the door and stepped closer to the bed, facing her.
“You might not know this, but my mother died just before I came here last year.” He nodded and held a finger up before he walked to the antique desk in front of the window looking out on the sea. He pulled the wooden chair that nested under the desk and dragged it in front of Ana. He sat backward on it, his arms crossed comfortably on the back of the chair, ready to listen. “My relationship with my mother was not the best. It was pretty shitty, actually. So when she died I didn’t feel the need to mourn her. I didn’t know how to mourn her, to be completely honest. How do you mourn someone when you’re not even sure you’re sad they’re dead? I know it sounds awful, but that’s how I felt after she died. So I left right after the service, came here, and got busy.” He nodded again.
“But when Yvonne died, I was crushed. And then my mother’s death got mixed up with Yvonne’s in my mind and I couldn’t take it. I was angry with my mother for coming back to haunt me that way, but mostly hurt. It was too much pain all at once and I ran. I’m not proud of it, but that’s what happened. I had to get away from that hospital, from both of you, from all that grief. I had to figure out where all of it was coming from, and my instinct was to run away.” A silence followed and she tried to read Jerome’s expression but couldn’t. “It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“Some of it does. You had to take the time to mourn your mother, and I guess you had to go back home to do that. What I don’t understand is why you couldn’t say that to my daughter before you left. You broke her heart,” he repeated.
“I know. But I couldn’t explain it to her then because I didn’t know what was going on myself. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe here anymore. I had to go,” she said before she started sobbing. She’d practiced her explanation so many times in her mind, but now that she was voicing it, she couldn’t understand why she’d ever imagined Melodie would forgive her. She’d been selfish. She’d hurt her and there was no turning back. She felt Jerome’s large hands take hers and squeeze them the way he’d done that day in the hospital.
“Were you able to mourn your mother while you were gone?” She nodded as she sniffled. “Good. I’m glad you did.” She watched him reach for the box of tissues on the nightstand and hand it to her.
She blew her nose and he walked toward the door. “Can you forgive me? For leaving and breaking her heart?”
He turned to her again, sighed and smiled. “If Melodie can find it in her heart to forgive you, I guess I will too. But you have to understand I’ll be on her side no matter what.”
“Do you think she can? Forgive me, I mean.”
He shrugged and left, closing the door behind him. She stayed in a room that wasn’t hers to cry a little more before she could finally regain her composure and go back to her own room. Tomorrow she’d start looking for an apartment. She no longer believed she could be forgiven. She certainly no longer believed she deserved it. She’d get out of Melodie’s hair for good. She owed her that much.
Melodie sat on the bed, playing distractedly with Thomas’s stuffed rabbit while he slept by her side and Miller snoozed by her feet. She envied them. She’d thought the fresh air from their walk would bring her enough peace to close her eyes for a power nap, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Ana and the article that hid under the printer. Hiding stuff didn’t really work if you were the one hiding it, did it? She’d be tempted to read that damn thing until she put it through the shredder, and she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She clicked her tongue in irritation. Then she heard a knock on the door and smiled. Her father knocked exactly the same way her grandmother had. Two quick strikes followed by a pause and one last, softer knock. “Come in, Dad.”
He pushed the door open and whispered so Thomas wouldn’t wake up, “The toilet is fixed.” Miller was already up and wagging his tail. He stepped inside to pet him.
“Great. Thank you.”
“I didn’t know you still kept this room,” he said as he looked around the space.
“I don’t, really. I don’t keep anything here anymore. I even rented it a few times this summer when we were full. But we still come here to rest once in a while.”
“Or to get away from Ana.” She met his gaze, annoyed that he knew her so well. “Why didn’t you tell me she was back?”
She squared her jaw and averted his gaze. She hadn’t told her father about Ana’s return because it would have made it real and she refused to acknowledge it.
“It didn’t come up, I guess.”
“Come on, Mel. We share a house. We have dinner together every night. I’m sure you could have found a moment to tell me. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I don’t want her to be here. I don’t want to talk to her or about her. I don’t want to acknowledge her presence in any way. I just want her to be gone.” She wiped away the tears that fell to her cheeks and grunted, angry to find out she
could still cry over that woman. “Don’t you think I’ve cried enough already? I don’t want to talk about her, Dad. I want her to leave us alone for good.”
“Then maybe you should hear her out.”
“What?” she hissed furiously, insulted by her father’s suggestion. He sat on the bed on the other side of Thomas, who turned his head in his grandfather’s direction but kept sleeping.
“Hear her out. Let her explain what she came here to explain. I’m sure that if you still want her to go after that she’ll respect your decision. She won’t impose on you, baby. She simply wants to tell you why she left and apologize.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“No.”
She squinted at him the same way her grandmother used to squint at her, which she did more and more often. With her father, with Thomas, even with Kevin. “Did she explain it to you?”
“She might have. A little,” he admitted.
“Then tell me. Let’s get this over with. I’ll tell her you shared her explanation with me and that it doesn’t change anything and she’ll leave at last.”
“It’s not my story to tell. Talk to her.” He flattened his large hand onto Thomas’s back, kissed his forehead, and stood up. “I’ll see you at home tonight.”
“You’re really not going to tell me what she told you?”
“Nope,” he answered before he left the room. She grunted and threw Thomas’s stuffed rabbit at the closed door.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kevin came to pick up Thomas before dinner that Friday. Father and son spent all their weekends together when Kevin was in town. Melodie was used to it now and trusted him entirely. She even wished he could find work closer to town so Thomas could spend more time with him. “Don’t forget, he’s super quick now, and he gets into everything,” she warned as they stood in the lobby of the inn, Thomas dressed in his snowsuit and standing proudly by his dad.
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