Letters and Lace (The Ronan's Harbor Series)

by M. Kate Quinn

  She pressed the box closer against his body. “I am confident that you will make sure the changing of our daughter’s wedding venue will be a seamless effort. I’ll do whatever you’d like to assist in making the occasion as lovely as possible. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a few things to do, as you can see.”

  She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin. “And, Gary, I’d like you to stop, I mean it, just stop referring to me as Sarah Doodle. No more. Do you understand?”

  He slowly took the rattling box of votives into his hands, eyes on her piercingly, his face a stoic plane. “I didn’t realize it bothered you.”

  “That’s my fault, then. But, now you know. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He gave her a slight nod.

  The door opened again and this time their daughter blew into the entryway with a suitcase at each hand. Her face was flushed. Her long, usually smooth, hair was windblown and splayed around her shoulders.

  She strode closer and stood at the threshold of the sunroom. She dropped the suitcases at her sides.

  “The wedding is off.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They all waited in the inn’s main kitchen. Silence hung in the air like fog.

  Gary sat perched on the edge of a stool; his body rigid, arms folded onto the butcher-block surface as though he were the chairman and this were the boardroom.

  Gigi sat quietly examining the napkin she had folded into a little paper fan.

  Hannah, in patterned leggings and a long, sloppy sweatshirt, paced. She babbled while marching back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery. She was making Sarah dizzy.

  “Slow down, sweetie, you’re wearing out the floorboards,” Gigi said.

  “Hannah-bear,” Gary cooed. “Please clarify. I’m confused. You’re not making any sense. You’re not marrying Ian because he didn’t buy you an opal? Is that really what you said? For heaven’s sake, look at that rock on your left hand. Doesn’t that trump an opal?”

  “Gary, let Hannah speak.” Sarah turned to her daughter. “Hannah, where’s Ian.”

  “He’s in New York. Oh, and I quit the temp job, too. And then the agency quit me. So, I’m unemployed and I’m homeless.”

  She started to cry, her hands flying to her face. Sarah jumped from her stool and rushed to her.

  Gary rose from his stool and joined them. In an instant their crying daughter was enveloped in their arms, the meat of their parent sandwich.

  Hannah continued to cry loud heartbreaking sobs; sounds that Sarah guessed were too deep, too guttural to be new. These tears, this anguish, had to have roots and at last this needed to expel. Though it was more of an explosion.

  Sarah felt a hand on her arm and looked up to see Gigi’s glistening eyes. She mouthed “I love you,” and discreetly left through the back door.

  “Please stop, baby,” Gary said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  His face was ashen. In spite of his youthful attire and his nifty haircut, Gary looked his age. His slate-blue eyes were clouded with worry.

  Oddly, Sarah’s heart lurched. The man was a lot of things, that was for sure, but Gary loved his daughter. There was no denying that.

  “Gary,” Sarah whispered, “Let’s give her some air.” She stepped away and gently touched Gary’s hand where it held onto Hannah for dear life. “Come on, back up a little.”

  Gary did as he was told and took a couple of steps away from his child. He stood with his hands by his sides. Sarah realized it was the first time she’d ever seen him look helpless.

  “Gary, sit down. I’ll get us some tea. Hannah, sit by your father.” The two sat like zombies, one sniffling and trembling.

  Sarah poured hot tea into three cups. She delivered the steaming tea with a hushed warning to “Be careful, it’s hot.”

  “Okay, Hannah, let’s go over this again. I’m gathering that this isn’t some whim. This is something you really feel you need to do, correct?”

  “Yes, Mom, I do,” she said, the words riding on a jagged-sounding sob. “But it still sucks.”

  “It does,” she agreed. “It sucks.” Her mind wanted desperately to go right to listing, one of her sanity-saving compulsions.

  Instead, her thoughts ricocheted against the walls of her brain. There were calls that would have to be made, cancellations, returned gifts…

  “I still don’t understand,” Gary said, coming to life. “I mean, I thought you and Ian were perfect.” Gary’s voice became a whisper. “Just perfect.”

  “Daddy, we haven’t ever been perfect. Nobody is anyway. Nobody’s perfect. People are flawed. We all are, Daddy.” She caught a sob, swallowed it. “But, Ian and I don’t make each other happy. I haven’t been happy in a long time.”

  “And this Jeremy Hudson makes you happy? Is that what you’re telling us now?” His voice started to rise. “Out of nowhere, poof, you’re throwing away everything for the kid at the beach?”

  Hannah jumped from her stool. “You see, Daddy? This is what you do. You condescend, you dictate, you control. Stop. It’s my life.”

  Hannah looked to Sarah. “Mom, I didn’t break off my wedding so I can go off with Jeremy. That’s not what I’m saying, you get that, right?”

  Sarah did know.

  But Gary had selective hearing and she was sure that all he heard was that his virtually hand-picked son-in-law candidate was being kicked to the curb for the surf-loving kid operating a sundries store.

  “Tell us what you are saying, Hannah.” Sarah shot Gary a look. “We’re listening.”

  She watched Hannah take a deliberate, deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “I have to find out where my head’s at, and I need the time and the space to do that. But there are a couple of things I do know for sure.”

  She waited to see if Gary and Sarah were still with her. Apparently satisfied that that was the case, she continued as if reciting a list of her own. “I’m sure I do not want to marry Ian. I’m sure that there’s something unresolved between Jeremy and me. I’m sure I do not want to work in a big city in a big office doing things that don’t matter to me. I want to pursue the career that has always meant so much to me—The Seeing Eye.”

  Over the years Gary had managed to steer his daughter away from the low-budget philanthropy, into the direction of bigger, more glamorous work and it had failed. Sarah now felt at fault for not seeing this more clearly and calling him on it. But, ah, hindsight didn’t need glasses to read, and Sarah did.

  Sarah was glad that Gary didn’t interject. He let Hannah speak. She had an appointment with the local branch of the organization to learn the requirements for becoming a trainer. The girl, in all her anguish over her tough decision, had already begun a plan for herself. Sarah’s heart swelled with pride.

  When Hannah had gone to the powder room, Sarah cast Gary an assessing eye. A kind of pity washed over her. He looked like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon that had sprung a leak. All the gusto had drained from him and he sat in a slack bunch of defeat.

  “She’ll be okay,” Sarah offered.

  Gary lifted his downcast head and met Sarah’s gaze. His mouth bent in an anemic grin. His cell phone sounded and he reached into a pocket for it.

  While he was busy, Sarah went to greet Hannah when she reentered the room. “Mom, I’m beat. Mind if I go flop on my bed upstairs?”

  “That’s a good idea; I’ll be up in a little while.”

  Hannah motioned her head toward Gary. “Daddy going to be okay with all of this?”

  “He’s fine. Go flop.”

  Gary had gotten up from the counter stool and was standing as he spoke into cell phone. She saw his mouth curve into a grin. “I know, babe. I know,” he said. “Me, too.”

  The call ended and he turned to Sarah.

  “Where’d she go?”

  “To take a nap.”

  Gary nodded dully. “Well, I guess we’ve got some calls to make, huh?”

  “Yes. I’ll keep you posted on how she’s doing.”
Sarah walked Gary to the front door.

  “Piper says she’ll do whatever we need to help handle, you know, all the details.”

  “That’s great,” Sarah said. “Be sure to tell her thank you from me.”

  He looked at her. “I will. Thanks.”

  “Hannah will get through this, Gary. She’s pretty resilient.”

  “I have no doubt,” he said. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”

  ****

  Up in her apartment, Sarah tiptoed to the door of Hannah’s room. It was ajar, the crack open enough for her to see Hannah on her side with a throw over her body asleep. The poor kid said she hadn’t slept the night before.

  Sarah thought of her own night. There she’d been, blissful in Benny’s arms, while her daughter anguished over her own life. A ball of sadness filled her throat. Oh Hannah.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Over a pot of hot coffee the next morning, Sarah and Hannah made a list. Piper had called and volunteered to help with some of the cancellations. Periodically, Hannah released a sigh, looked at her mother, and repeated one phrase. “What a mess.”

  The insurance company’s representative arrived just before noon. Dennis Madison, a squat man with a bushy moustache, introduced himself with a clipped, staccato-toned authority. Accompanying Dennis was an independent inspector, who went by the singular name “Whitey.” Whitey had been hired by the insurance firm to assess the situation.

  The two shuffled back out through the front door and down the stairs to the yard. Sarah watched through the side window, squinting into the wavy glass.

  Would they confirm the doom that now resided inside her bones? Would Whitey warn her to pack up her belongings and leave the inn before she and her daughter got hurt? Her mind reeled with movie preview-like scenarios.

  She returned to her phone-calling tasks. The daunting ordeal became tedious. Every invitee that she spoke with offered words of wisdom and sympathy. All were kind. But, relaying the vanilla version of their rocky road predicament wore Sarah out.

  “My eyeballs are squirrelly,” Hannah lamented as she crossed another item from her list. “The chairs are cancelled and the linens as well.”

  “I’m starved but I don’t have it in me to make us anything,” Sarah said. “Right now all I want is a candy bar.”

  “Tell you what, Mom. I’ll take a walk to the deli and get sandwiches. I could use some air.”

  “Super,” she said with a lackluster use of the word. “Oh, and get us a chocolate bar.”

  “King size big enough, Mom?” Hannah’s eyes were sullen and her mouth curved sideways at an apologetic slant.

  Sarah had to give the kid credit—she was doing her best to mask the repercussions of her decision. She knew, too, that Hannah’s conscientious efforts to bulldoze through their tasks were her kid’s way of taking ownership of the aftershock. That knowledge only served to fuel Sarah to dig deeper and help lighten her daughter’s load.

  She reached up and massaged the tender area above her shoulder blade. The cluster of knots in her muscles was a familiar byproduct dealt by motherhood’s determined hand. They’d smooth out eventually and the soreness would fade away. At least Sarah knew that much.

  With Hannah gone, Sarah itched to walk and get a bit of a stretch. She threw on her cable-knit work sweater and went outside. It couldn’t hurt to check on the insurance agent’s doings and get an idea of what this Whitey guy had to say.

  She walked parallel to the variegated flowerbed along the old foundation. She could not keep from examining the winter-hardened mound of mulch where her flowers would soon emerge. The timing couldn’t have been more precise, the blooms in full glory in time for the wedding. Her heart quickened. Only, now there would be no wedding.

  Now the question of the day was whether or not the tulips she’d so strategically placed bulb-by-bulb would awaken to another season of The Cornelia Inn or would they sprout in the foreground of a condemnation notice? She didn’t know the answer, but with each step she took, her need for something definitive grew stronger.

  She rounded the corner of the building and spotted the men and their clipboards. She braced for the news. “So, any verdict?” Oddly, her voice came out normal, almost friendly, as if the men were deciding on paint color for the shutters.

  “We’ve got more data to gather,” Whitey stated. He glanced up at Sarah briefly before holding a camera in front of his eye.

  The agent took a step in her direction. “Who was it that told you the foundation was sinking? Your carpenters?”

  “No, actually, it was a private citizen looking to purchase the inn. After talking with my carpenters, they concurred. Or at least they agreed with the necessity to investigate the condition, anyway.”

  “Well, you’ve got some serious damage going on, Mrs. Grayson, so in that respect whatever led you to make the call was a good thing,” Dennis said. His twitching moustache reminded Sarah of a dizzy caterpillar. She was feeling a little dazed herself.

  “A good thing,” she echoed.

  “But, the source of the water will determine more, right Whitey?”

  The inspector looked away from his lens. “I’ll need to access the crawl space.”

  Sarah led them to the sunroom where they navigated the clutter. She saw their eyes scanning the disheveled mess.

  “My carpenters were, uh, stopped in mid-project,” she explained. “Now everything’s on hold.”

  Dennis crouched in front of the basement’s hatch. He aimed the beam of a flashlight into the space while Whitey slipped through the passageway.

  “How’s it look?” Dennis asked.

  “Wet. Lots of water.”

  Sarah turned on her heel and strode out from the sunroom needing to be beyond ear shot of what they were saying. She found herself back in the kitchen staring out the back door’s windowpane. The grounds needed a spring cleanup. It was getting near the time when she’d usually call the landscaper to come and work his magic, tidy up the lawn and the shrubbery. She stepped away from the scene.

  Hannah returned with the sandwiches just as Sarah ended her call to Melrose Caterers.

  “I got tuna subs.” Hannah withdrew two cylindrical packages from the bag. “And chips. I need chips today.”

  She withdrew an extra-large rectangle of chocolate and waved it in the air. “And the brick you ordered. Maybe I’ll take a bite of chip then a bite of chocolate…you know, go right straight to hell.”

  Sarah shook her head but felt the signs of a true smile playing across her lips. “You’re so my daughter.”

  She grabbed for the chip bag and tore it open, offering it to Hannah to reach in for the first handful.

  Hannah motioned with her head toward the handset Sarah had just placed into its cradle. “Who was that?” she asked with a mouthful of crunch.

  “The caterer. She was so wonderful about everything. And genuinely sympathetic.”

  “I’ll pay you back for the deposit, Mom. It’ll take a while, I’m afraid. But, I will.”

  Sarah did not respond, deciding that Hannah simply needed to say the words aloud.

  They unwrapped their sandwiches and each took a bite.

  “I can’t believe I’ve put you all through this,” Hannah said after she swallowed. “If I could undo it, Mom, I would.”

  “Hannah, look, imagine if you went through with the wedding and then came to realize it wasn’t right. So, let’s be grateful for that, even if it took you until now to get here.”

  “You know, Mom,” Hannah said with a cock to her head. “You’re really handling this way better than I’d have imagined.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You are. I mean, I like it.”

  A grin broke out across her lips. “And, I’m also liking that you’ve opened yourself up to the idea of a relationship of your own.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but her daughter held up a hand. “Please, I saw two mugs in the upstairs sink, two dishes in the drainer, a few damp towels in
the bathroom…”

  “Okay, your honor. I plead the fifth.”

  The sound of their shared chuckles warmed Sarah’s heart despite the fact that she didn’t really know what was going on with her and Benny.

  Their night together had been amazing, and she knew she liked him—more than liked him. But what that all meant, well, there was no way to tell. She only knew the thought of his leaving town, moving away from Ronan’s Harbor, made her ache inside.

  Dennis Madison called out. Sarah and Hannah rushed to hear the news. They found him standing in the foyer looking over Whitey’s shoulder as they both perused the inspector’s open notebook.

  Dennis lifted his gaze and smiled with another caterpillar-like twitch. “Mrs. Grayson, these are just preliminary remarks, obviously, and we’ll have to prepare our final report, but for now I can tell you that the culprit of your damage comes from faulty plumbing.”

  “Okay…” she said, not knowing whether this was bad or worse news.

  “And, that means that your policy will cover the damage. Minus your deductible, naturally.”

  Without thinking her hands flew to grip his arms. “Really? Oh, thank God, really? I won’t lose The Cornelia?”

  “Lose it?” Whitey made a face. “No way. It’ll take some overhauling and time. But trust me; you’ll be able to get your inn in shape.”

  She couldn’t help it. She started to cry. In the flash of that moment, she had allowed her greatest fear to surface. Hannah slipped an arm around her mother and tucked her close.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said as she swatted the tears on her face. “I was just so worried. I’d been told the place was going to be condemned.”

  The agent patted her arm as if she were a lunatic. But, she was one relieved lunatic. The two men shook Sarah’s hand before taking their leave.

  “I didn’t realize how worried you were,” Hannah said. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad it could have been?”

  “And, add that to your barrel of fun?” Sarah said. “I knew you’d been tense about something. I wanted to spare you more concern.”