by Jenny Hale
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled. “Enjoy your planning, Miss Simpson.”
“Thank you,” the woman said.
“Hi,” Charlie said, his face welcoming and happy as he opened the door and allowed Emily to enter, but when she didn’t return the sentiment, he studied her guardedly.
“Hello,” she said, trying to keep the atmosphere businesslike, but it was more difficult after last night and then this morning—her emotions were all over the place. She walked into the sitting area and sat down in the wingback chair, the sun streaming in around it.
“How are you?” he asked, sitting down in the other chair. He was still dressed up.
“How did you get your car from our house?” she asked, ignoring his question purposely. “I didn’t hear you this morning.” She knew if he really heard how she was, he might get an earful and she was trying to work. She had three more clients coming in today and she didn’t want to be a blubbering mess, nor did she want them to hear the shouting that she would be doing at the inn’s owner.
“I had two guys from housekeeping pick it up for me. Libby vouched for them.”
“Oh.” When she woke up this morning, she’d been hoping he’d pick it up himself but that would’ve made for an interesting breakfast. He’d better be glad he hadn’t been there. She shifted in her chair. “How has your morning gone?” she asked to keep herself together.
“Excellent. I met with the board of supervisors today. I’ve convinced a few of them to listen to my plans for expansion.”
She clamped her jaw shut, her breathing speeding up as he watched her. Was he baiting her?
“I’m wondering…” He sat rigidly in his chair, his stance cautious. “By looking at your face… You’ve talked to your grandmother about—”
“Yes,” she said, standing up. “Why in the world didn’t you tell me you already own our land? You’ve known the entire time! How could you not tell me?” She was yelling, but she didn’t care.
He rose from his chair protectively but she pushed herself past him and walked over to the large window. A tear slipped down her cheek.
“It wasn’t my place to break that news to you,” he said from behind her. “I tried to convince your grandmother to tell you last night! I was pleading with her in the kitchen. I felt awful, but I wanted to allow your grandmother to explain it. What can I do, Emily, to make this whole thing better for you? Is there anything? Do you want me to see if I can have your grandfather’s house moved to another lot?”
She stood quietly, trying to organize her thoughts into something that would explain her feelings on the matter. She turned around and tried to keep her voice as even as possible. “The path through the woods leading to the pier—you can’t move that. You can’t move the spot where my dog is buried. You can’t take the tree that holds my childhood swings to a new lot. It’s not just the house; it’s all of it.”
He nodded, looking down at his shiny leather shoes in thought.
For a tiny instant she felt bad for him. It wasn’t his fault. Gram had sold him that land before he had any knowledge of how she felt, but the fact of the matter was that he was going to destroy it all, and she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but anger about that. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore or she’d end up sobbing right there in front of him.
“I can’t talk now,” she said, turning away.
She walked to the door, and she felt the brush of Charlie’s hand as he tried gently to stop her, but he let her go.
“Charlie’s comin’ over,” Gram said as Emily walked into the sitting room after work. Gram was reading a book.
It had been a busy and emotional day and Emily was tired. She squeezed her shoulder in an attempt to relieve the pinch that had lingered all day.
“Why?” she asked, trying not to spit the word at her. Gram didn’t seem to care one bit about anything sentimental and it was driving her crazy. She looked at the faded floorboards, trying to keep her anger in check. She didn’t want to shout at Gram.
“He’s offered to restore that old boat by the pier.”
Emily’s head snapped up. “What?” she said a little too loudly. Papa’s boat hadn’t moved since he’d put it there on the beach. He’d built it for her, to help ease her pain, and they’d been the only two who’d ever touched it. Even Rachel hadn’t been in it. She wanted to be the one who decided when and if it should be restored. She tried to keep herself together, noticing how it seemed that she was the only one who wanted to completely freak out about all this.
“I thought it might be nice,” Gram said.
“Doesn’t it have any sentimental value to you in its current state?”
“I’ve told you,” she said calmly, marking her place in the book with her finger. “All this,” she waved her hands in the air, “they’re just things to me. They aren’t Papa. But I know we’re all different.”
Emily was crushed again by Gram’s nonchalance.
“Charlie will be over in just a few minutes. I told him he could use whatever’s in Papa’s shed.”
Papa’s tools? Without even a response to that, Emily slipped on her boots and ran out back to Papa’s shed, ready to stand guard. There was no way Charlie was getting in there. The evening sun cast long shadows across the path as she walked through the salty breeze, her head throbbing with every step. The water was still today, making the bay look like an enormous sheet of rippled glass, but it wasn’t helping her to calm down tonight. She pulled the rusty latch on the shed door and unhinged it. It creaked out its age as she opened it up and anchored it to keep it from shutting on her. She pulled the chain for the interior light and looked around the space.
The sight of every item was a reminder of Papa. It made her miss him more. There was a hammer still lying on the counter next to a few loose nails. She wondered what he’d been working on. He always put things away. His plans for a birdhouse were still sitting on the stool, a pencil resting in the fold of the paper. Had it been that? Had he been planning to surprise Gram? Emily fought her tears as she looked down at it. Papa was the last person to set it there. She didn’t want to turn around, feeling like any minute, he’d walk in, put his hand on her shoulder, ready to tell her about his latest project. She missed him so much it caused an ache in her chest and an intense guilt that she’d left him for those three years—three years she’d never get back.
“Hi,” she heard from behind her. She turned around to find Charlie. He was dressed down tonight, a slight stubble showing on his face. “Your grandmother said I could come around back. I hope that’s all right.” He took a step toward her, his face showing slight concern. “I wanted to see you. …To make sure you were okay?”
“I’m fine,” she lied. The laughter from last night still lingered between them like a dream. Laughing with him last night was the first time she’d felt alive in a while; she felt robbed.
“Do you think we could get the boat on the tractor somehow?” he asked, his hands in his pockets, his eyes studying her. “We could probably row it over. Structurally, it seemed fine.”
That sadness that was teetering on the edge of anger was tipping uncontrollably. Charlie was going to disturb that boat, shift it from its spot and change it. It wasn’t his place to do that. If anyone chose to move the boat, it should be her. She couldn’t speak, she was so upset. Finally, when she had enough breath, she said, “I don’t want it if you restore it.”
Charlie looked down at her and silence hung between them for a moment. “Please let me do this,” he said softly. “I feel terrible about how much this is hurting you.”
“You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to try to be the nice guy while you’re breaking my heart.”
He nodded and looked down then opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, she cut him off.
“You think a boat can make up for taking my home?”
“I know how much that boat means to you.”
Her skin prickled with that statement. He only knew b
ecause she’d opened up to him, because she’d felt more at ease with him than she had with anyone, ever.
“Please let me do this,” he said again. The concern on his face wasn’t put on, she could tell.
Was it his fault Gram had sold him the farm? Did she really want to close the door on Charlie? She felt like screaming. He waited as she mentally scrambled for answers, knowing there weren’t any easy ones.
“We’ll have to walk all the way over there if we’re both coming back by boat. I don’t want to leave the tractor by the pier,” she clipped.
“Thank you,” he said as he stared into her eyes. He stood quietly, and she wondered if he was giving her the space to determine their next move. In this moment, he wasn’t taking charge; he was allowing her to do that.
She nodded in acknowledgement. Emily took in a deep breath and let the evening air fill her lungs. It remained quiet between them, the sound of a jet ski off in the distance competing with the rustling of the trees in the woods as the breeze came off the bay.
“It’s a nice night.” He leaned past her into the shed. “Mind if I have a look to see what I’ve got to work with?”
Heat shot through her veins as he stepped toward the shed. Whatever calm she’d tried to create slipped right out of her body again. She watched every move, just willing him to dare to disturb one of Papa’s things. She’d let him have it. Charlie entered carefully, studying the worktable. He reached out, his fingers grazing the hammer and she caught herself standing straighter, rising up almost on her toes. She was ready to pounce. She bit her lip.
Emily watched him gently picking up tools, looking them over, and setting them back in their spots. He acted as if he thought everything in there was as fragile as her emotions, like he understood. He opened a small clear drawer on a box containing washers, screws, nails, and other odds and ends. With his finger, he pushed a few of them around before shutting the drawer. Then, he walked over to the back wall where Papa had stacked old paint cans. “Any of these still good you think?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. They’re most likely from when Papa did the house.” She grabbed two wooden oars that were propped in the corner and stood outside the door to get out of the stuffy heat in the shed before she fainted.
Charlie pulled the chain to turn the light off and stepped out beside Emily.
“What color would you like the boat to be?” he asked as they started walking across the yard toward the path that led through the woods. He took the oars from her, his height making them easier to carry.
She was really doing this. She was going to let him restore Papa’s boat because doing that meant something to Charlie. And, in turn, that meant something to her. He understood he had hurt her, and he cared enough to try to make it right. But she still had to work to keep herself together. “When Papa made it, originally, it was light blue.” She noticed his leather flip-flops and thought about his feet as they walked along the brush in the woods. The path hadn’t been raked or tended to in quite a while. She’d put on her cowboy boots—what she always wore whenever she had to go into the woods. They were faded, worn in just the right spots to make them comfortable. Things didn’t always have to be new and shiny to be perfect.
“Would you like it to be light blue? Or do you want to make it your own?”
“I want it just like he did it,” she said, her jaw tight with emotion.
“Okay.” He’d propped the oars up behind his neck and across his shoulders, holding them in place at either end.
She stepped on a twig; it made a snap as it cracked under her foot.
“I was prepared to spend my free time on the beach. I didn’t know I’d be hiking through the woods,” Charlie said, clearly trying to fill the heavy silence with conversation. They stepped around a huge tractor tread in the dirt. “I don’t even own a pair of boots,” he said, peering over at hers with interest.
“Once you get a good pair, you’ll never need another,” she said.
He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He smiled, reminding her of his face during the card game. She pushed the thought away.
After they’d walked so long that their silence had become easy, they arrived at the stretch of beach with Papa’s pier and the old boat that sat in the sea grass on the edge of the sand. Emily had thought about restoring the boat at times, but now, that it was actually happening, she wasn’t sure she wanted to disturb it. But, she reminded herself, if she moved it, her reward might be greater than if she didn’t, so she walked over to one side and tried to lift it, her arms feeling like jelly.
Charlie set the oars in the boat and picked up the other side.
The boat was small and surprisingly light with Charlie on the other end, lighter than Emily remembered when she and Papa would push it up on the sand together.
“If you guide it toward the water, I’ll lift it enough to move it,” he said.
Together, they maneuvered the boat until it bobbed in the tiny waves. Emily watched it for a moment. It was like jumping off a cliff—there was no going back now. She slipped her boots off and set them on the wooden seat that Papa had built inside the boat, like she’d done when she and Papa had gone out fishing. The thought of him on his side of the boat, smiling from under his mustache, waving at her as she approached, was like a punch to the gut. She splashed down into the water until it was around her calves. Then she climbed in. Charlie had put his flip-flops in the boat as well, and he got in across from her, sitting in Papa’s seat on the opposite side.
He began rowing. The little boat glided through the water fast and even, faster than she’d ever gone before. It was as if she were sliding on a sheet of ice.
Surprised, Emily said, “You’re good at this.”
“I was on the rowing team at Harvard.”
“Oh!” She watched the ease in which his arms moved, the circular motions of his shoulders.
“I’ll have us back to the house in no time,” he said with a grin.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to be back at the house. She wanted to stay out there on the water, away from all her thoughts and memories. She didn’t want to have to face it all again. Right now she was surrounded by the ripples in the bay, the beating sun, and the wind as Charlie rowed.
“Take your time,” she said.
Ten
Emily was slightly out of breath from carrying the boat all the way across the yard. Charlie had taken most of the weight, but it was still quite cumbersome to lift it for so long. She sat on the edge of it to catch her breath as Charlie rooted around in the shed.
“Let’s set it on these sawhorses I found,” he said, dragging two wooden frames from the shed and setting them apart from each other. She stood up to assist him with lifting the boat up onto them. “We’ll clean the wood today and then let it dry overnight. Do you have something to use to clean it?”
She retrieved a bucket, two sponges, and some soap while Charlie stretched the garden hose from the house, across the patio. He turned on the water and Emily used the force of the water pressure to make suds in the bucket.
“Did you go out on this boat a lot?” Charlie asked as he dipped a sponge into the bucket and began to scrub the side of it.
“When I was younger,” she said. “Before my teenage years. Then I was too busy being girly.” She watched how his hand moved along the surface of the boat as he scrubbed, the movement of the muscles in his forearms and hands. She turned her attention toward the wood in front of her, scrubbing the abrasive build-up that had left a ring around the bottom of the boat. “We used to go fishing.” She reached down into the bucket and filled her sponge with soapy water. “Papa used to put his fishing-tackle box right here,” she said as she squeezed the sponge over the seat, the sudsy water running down to the floor of the boat.
Charlie stopped scrubbing to look.
"We caught a ton of croaker using bloodworms. I always made Papa bait my hook.” She made a face and Charlie smiled. She didn’t want him to smile. She looked away.
Charlie reached for the hose to spray off the boat. She grabbed her boots and his flip-flops and set them aside, standing out of the way of the spray.
The relentless sun and the work she’d done carrying the boat had made her thirsty. As the boat sat, dripping, she asked, “Would you like something to drink? I’m going to get something.”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
“Lemonade okay? I’ll make us each a glass and we can take them down to the beach.” She still wasn’t happy with him for taking Oyster Bay, but she also didn’t want to veer from the plan. The more she talked to him, the more she thought she’d be able to make him fall in love with the farm. She’d been sure it was working last night and she didn’t have to give up hope just yet.
“Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Charlie began hosing off the sponges as she headed inside. Gram was at the kitchen table, sorting through a box of books, odds and ends, and old photos.
“Hello,” she said, the kitchen table wobbling slightly from the uneven floor that had settled with the house over the years. Emily liked the wobble. She felt it was part of the house’s character. “It looks like you and Charlie are enjoying yourselves. You two look awfully friendly.”
Emily pulled two glasses from the cabinet and filled them with ice.
“Well, we aren’t that friendly.”
“I’m glad you have someone to spend your evenin’s with anyway,” Gram said, setting a photo on one of the piles she’d made.
Emily offered Gram lemonade but she declined. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sortin’ these so we’ll each have a pile.”
She poured the lemonade from Gram’s crystal pitcher and set it back in the fridge. Picking up the two glasses, she peered down at the stacks.
“This one’s yours,” Gram said.
Emily set the glasses on the table and flipped through her stack of photos. The image flew past her and she stopped, turning photos until she saw it again: Papa holding a fish, the blue boat in the background. She ran her finger over the image of him, emotion welling up, and then looked away, straightening the stack. She wished she could hold onto her Gram; she wished she could keep everything from changing. With a steadying breath, she said, “Charlie and I will be on the beach,” while opening the door and picking up both glasses and her photos. She kissed Gram on the cheek and headed outside.