“We heard,” Cissy says, her voice etched in false concern. “Nate told us.”
I nod. Told them what?
“What brings you here?” I ask, searching for the right words. “It’s so nice of you to support me my first week.”
“We thought we needed a getaway from work and the kids,” Cissy says.
“You came to the right place,” I say.
“Yeah, we felt we needed a change of pace,” Trey says. “Felt like roughing it for a new experience.”
Roughing it?
“Well, I’m sure Nate told you this was my family cottage, and I’ve turned it into an inn,” I say. “I’m so proud of all the changes, and I think you’re going to have a magical stay.”
“So,” Cissy starts, her Botoxed face attempting to show confusion. “You work here?”
“Yes,” I say. “I own and run the inn.”
Cissy stares at me.
“It’s my business,” I clarify. “I’m an entrepreneur now.”
“Oh,” she says. “How interesting.”
Interesting?
“Well, I’m sure you’re exhausted from the drive, so let’s get you checked in so you can relax and unwind,” I say. “But first...” I hold out a sparkler for Cissy and Trey. Neither one moves.
“This was something my mom and dad did at the start of our summer holiday,” I say. “It’s a bit corny, I know, but the purpose is for visitors to leave their troubles at the door, which is the first rule of the cottage.”
“So,” Cissy says, her face again pinched in confusion. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”
“Here,” I say, reaching into my jacket and pulling out a small postcard I had made for guests listing all the cottage rules with the inn’s contact information at the bottom. “I light your sparklers, and we recite the rules before they go out.”
“Doesn’t that seem silly?” Cissy asks. “Childish?”
“Doesn’t that pose a legal concern?” Trey asks. “What if someone burned themselves?”
“It’s a sparkler,” I say. “It’s innocent fun.”
Cissy and Trey look at each other with a tinge of sadness and amusement, and then give me a patronizing look, just like they used to do the servers at any restaurant we went to if they didn’t meet their standards.
“We’ll pass,” Cissy says. “But cute idea.”
“Just make sure you’re covered under your insurance’s umbrella policy,” Trey adds. “People sue for anything these days.”
My heart sinks, and I open the front door for them, quietly sliding the sparklers and lighter back into the basket before stepping inside and behind the stand.
“How quaint,” Cissy says. “Oh, look, Trey. The Al Capone bullet hole Nate told us to look for.”
My head jerks upright like when Sonny hears the word cookie.
Nate?
Cissy looks at Trey, her face registering what I think is guilt. “Nate told us all about this place years ago,” Trey says. “He just loved it here.”
No, he didn’t, I think. That’s a total lie.
“Well,” I say, acting as if nothing is wrong, “you’re in the fish house.”
“The what?” Cissy asks.
I laugh. “I’m sorry. It was once a cold storage outbuilding for fruit and fish that was being shipped to and from Chicago,” I explain. “It’s on the historic registry. It’s been completely renovated and turned into a private guest cottage. I think you’ll love it.”
I can see Cissy is still unsure. “And,” I continue, “it’s away from all other guests. You wanted a getaway. This is a getaway.” I look at my laptop. “You’re paid in full, and here is your key. If you’ll follow me.”
I grab two of their bags and wheel them through the dining room and kitchen, over the patio and to the guest cottage. Trey tosses a bag over his shoulder and carries two more, while Cissy carries her Kate Spade.
“I hope there’s heat,” Cissy says, shivering. She pulls her tiny arms around her tiny body. She looks like a pretzel.
I unlock the door and turn on the lights.
“This was my father’s favorite place,” I say, wheeling their luggage toward the closet, “and it’s decorated with some of his favorite things in the world.”
Cissy walks toward one of the Helmscenes.
“What is this?” she asks.
“Turn the little knob on its side,” I say.
She does, and it flickers to life.
“Wow,” she says. “This really is roughing it.”
I take a deep breath. Exhaustion—and the attitudes of my first day’s guests—is getting the best of me. My head is now pounding so loudly I can barely see. “The bed has luxury linens, the bath features designer products, I’ve stocked your refrigerator with coffee and orange juice and baked some fresh muffins in case you just want to stay in your room in the morning.” I walk over to the large window at the back of the guest cottage and open the curtains. “And you have breathtaking views of Lake Michigan.” I try to contain myself, but I can’t, so I say as politely as I can, “This guest cottage may have a throwback design and feel, but I’d hesitate to call it roughing it.”
Cissy looks at Trey, her eyes wide. She’s not used to being talked to in this way or challenged.
“Well,” Cissy huffs, “it’s too quiet out here in the wilderness. I’m used to all the noise and buzz of the city. Where’s my sound therapy machine, Trey?”
I can feel my eyes bulge.
Trey sets his phone down on a table by the door, shuffles through a bag and pulls out a small machine. He sets it on a nightstand next to the bed and plugs it in.
“What sound would you like, my dear?” he asks.
Cissy cocks her head. “How about ocean waves?” she says. “That always lulls me to sleep.”
Trey flips on the machine, and the sound of rolling waves fills the room.
“Aaahh,” Cissy says. “Now I can sleep.”
I turn to the window, unlock it and throw it open. “Why don’t you try cracking a window?” I ask. “Listen. It’s the real thing.”
“It’s too cold,” Cissy says, again throwing her arms around herself.
I inhale, walk to the wall and show them the thermostat. “You can control your own temperature here,” I say. “There are extra blankets in the closet, and—if you get too chilly—you can flip on this little electric fireplace.”
I turn and head toward the door. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
I am about to leave when a hear a phone buzz. I feel for my cell in my pocket, but it is quiet. I look down, and Trey’s is buzzing.
Incoming call, it flashes. Nate Clarke.
What in the world? I think, looking at Trey and Cissy. Is he just being nosy? But then the penny drops. He sent them here to spy on me.
I smile as if all is right in the world. “Well, get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”
“Good night, Adeleine,” they say in unison.
Adie Lou, I think. It’s Adie Lou.
I shut the door and walk casually across the patio. Once inside the cottage, I sprint to the front desk and open my laptop. I search the Caldwells’ reservation.
My eyes scan when it was booked and how. Online. In late March.
I rub my eyes. But they seemed to know so little about the place or the cottage they’d booked.
I open the reservation.
A woman named Betty booked the room for Trey Caldwell, I read. I don’t recognize the phone number she left with the reservation. I must have assumed it was Trey’s assistant. Who did I send the confirmation email to?
I click on the screen again.
[email protected]
Oh, my God! Nate’s university. That must be his assistant! Why would he book t
his for them?
My head pounds, and I feel sick to my stomach. I head into my room, rub some lavender on my neck and take Sonny out to tinkle.
I look up at the sky and immediately locate the Big Dipper. It now appears as if it’s fallen on its side and is dumping the entire constellation directly on my head.
Before I crawl into bed, I crack the window despite the temperature. The sound of the lake fills the room and instantly calms me.
I pull the sheets around me, set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. and call Sonny to my side.
“How was your first day, Adie Lou?” I ask myself, stroking Sonny’s fur. “Oh, just terrific, Sonny. Perfection. Everything I dreamed.”
I think of Nate and the Caldwells, my head spinning. The front door opens, and I can hear Mildred’s voice echo in the entry. “Mark, go check and see if there are any more chocolate-chip cookies! If so, get four!”
Go Jump in the Lake, Mildred, I think, releasing a little giggle before falling into the deepest sleep of my life.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I lift my head and smile.
The sun is glinting over the edge of the woods that back the cottage, quickly melting the light frost that has coated the grass and casting the earth in an otherworldly glow. The light gleams through the fronds of the newly unfolding ferns, green arms stretching as if they’ve just woken up. May apples cover the forest floor, and the early light makes the Michigan forest resemble a jungle thicket. The bark on the trunks of the spindly pines—the ones that creak in unison and sympathy with the cottage during a windstorm—glows red, a stand of white birch dots the woods like uniformed sentinels, while the smooth, pale gray bark of the beech shines, for once demanding attention.
Beyond the color, however, the early-morning sun has divided the world into two distinct halves. Half of the world remains cloaked in darkness, while the other half is awash in light.
Perhaps that is how we all tend to see the world, I think. Either filled with light and hope, or darkness and despair, depending on our own light level.
I look over at Sonny, who has angled himself into a shaft of light. When he sees me staring at him, he thumps his tail on the wet ground and belly crawls toward me, rolling over on his back. His world, too, is divided in half, filled with both light and darkness. Sonny thumps his tail even harder as I stop to scratch his stomach.
He only chooses to see the light, I think, in spite of everything that’s happened to him.
I take a seat on my pad, and Sonny puts his head on my lap. For a moment, I stop moving.
I have been awake since 4:30, and yet I feel abuzz with energy. Although my first full day as an innkeeper was trying, to say the least, I woke this morning with a sense of purpose. I woke with a sense of “light.”
I zip up my jacket, blow on my hands and stare at my little garden, also awash in light. The ferns on my burgeoning asparagus—which, unfortunately, I cannot pick the first year they’re planted—look in the light like spiderwebs floating in the sky. The dew on the grass sparkles, and a misty fog is rising from the forest floor.
I return my attention to the rhubarb I’m picking, moving Sonny off my lap and then moving onto my knees on the cushioned pad. Sonny paws at the damp earth like he’s assisting my efforts. I cannot take a full harvest of rhubarb my first season, so I cut only three large, firm stems, enough for my rhubarb sour cream coffee cake.
Like last night, I can hear my father talking to me in the quiet of the morning, like he used to do when we’d rise early and work in his veggie garden.
Remember, you can only harvest rhubarb in months without an r, he would tell me. May, June, July and August.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say to myself, before turning to Sonny. “Ready?”
He jumps up excitedly and runs in a circle on the patio. I open the door, and he sprints inside. I get him his breakfast and then start on the guests’.
I look at the kitchen clock: 6:30 a.m. Lots more to do, I think. Better pick up the pace.
I start the coffee and fill the big urn in the dining room. On my last trip, I run my hands over The Summer Cottage Inn mugs that I designed, taking and filling one for myself. I shut the door to the kitchen, knowing there will likely be a few early risers who, like me, will want coffee ASAP.
I preheat the oven and then prep the sausage-egg casserole and the vegetarian tortilla casserole, continually referring to the flour-flecked, handwritten recipe cards from my mom and grandma’s old recipe box. I had found it hidden in the back of one of the cabinets and spent countless nights thumbing through all the recipes, not realizing they would be the foundation for what I would make at the inn.
In the city, cooking had seemed like such a luxury. We always seemed to be in a rush, and that defined the way we ate. Cereal or English muffin for breakfast, lunch delivered in, takeout many nights for dinner. It was ironic to me that Nate—like the Caldwells—was such a foodie, and yet he didn’t like to cook.
Maybe he didn’t like my cooking, I think. Maybe what I made was just too homey and old-school.
My grandma loved to bake. She sold her own pies and cakes at their grocery in Chicago, and customers begged her for the recipes, but she’d never share them.
“They’re like family,” she told me.
My mom and dad loved to cook, too. They made what they termed “big, lake breakfasts,” which were really brunches centered around my dad’s blueberry pancakes or my mom’s Belgian waffles and Cap’n Crunch French toast. They made their own jams and jellies—strawberry, blackberry, red raspberry, apricot—so even my PB&Js were downright haute cuisine.
I cover the two casseroles with plastic wrap and slide them into the refrigerator, before washing the rhubarb, drying it in a dish towel and placing it on the cutting board, where I chop it into small pieces. An errant piece falls to the floor, and Sonny hurriedly scoops it up, turns it around in his mouth, before spitting it out directly at my feet and shooting me a dirty look.
“Tastes better in a coffee cake with lots of sugar,” I tell him.
I pull out cinnamon, flour, sugar and brown sugar, all while referring to the recipe card for my grandma’s rhubarb sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel topping.
“Oleo,” I laugh, reading the old-school name for the margarine she once used. “Butter’s back, Grandma,” I say, pulling it from the refrigerator.
Though the only thing I used to make was reservations, as Trish joked, and despite the fact I’m juggling all new recipes on my very first morning turning out breakfast for guests, I am not nervous. In fact, I am calm. As I mix ingredients, there is a stunning peace to waking at dawn and cooking, a rhythm to the routine, a great satisfaction in what I’m creating.
I make two huge coffee cakes and slide them into the oven. As I slice cantaloupe and strawberries, I hear a coffee cup clinking in the dining room. I dry my hands and stick my head out the kitchen door. A middle-aged man in jeans and a hoodie with Ohio State University emblazoned on it is stirring creamer into his coffee. An iPad is in the crook of his arm.
“Good morning, Mr. Donovan,” I whisper.
“Morning, Adie Lou,” he says. “And, please, call me Steve.”
He turns, takes a big sip of his coffee and continues. “You’re up early.”
“Breakfast,” I explain.
“Already smells amazing,” he says.
“You’re up early, too,” I say. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby,” he says. “The sound of the lake is like a sleeping pill. Do you mind if I sit in the living room and do some work while I drink my coffee? Thought the moose might keep me company while my wife sleeps.”
I smile. “His name’s Darryl,” I say. “He’s very quiet, but he’s great company. And he’ll look over your work when you’re done. Those eyes catch everything.”
Steve laughs. “You have a beautiful inn.”
The emotion in his voice catches me off guard. “Thank you,” I say, my heart quickening its pace. “I appreciate that.”
“Shame you have to work while the rest of the world is on vacation,” Steve says.
“What about you?” I ask. “This is supposed to be a respite from the real world.”
“Is there ever a respite from the real world?” he asks, his voice tinged with sadness. “This place reminds me of being a kid. My grandparents had a little cabin in Wisconsin. I loved it there. Used to go up for most of the summer. Swam, fished, read books, skipped rocks. Dreamed I’d be an author, writing books there.”
“What happened?”
“My dad sold the cabin after his parents died,” he says. “Dream kind of died along with it.” Steve looks at me. “Real world came calling.” He stops. “Is this what you always dreamed of doing?”
“I wanted to be Wonder Woman,” I say, “but this is turning out to be pretty darn close.”
Steve shakes his head, a big smile on his face. “I admire you, Adie Lou.” He nods toward his iPad. “I have a hundred emails to answer. They just keep regenerating. They’re like Gremlins. Remember that movie?”
I laugh and nod, and then sniff the air.
“Excuse me, I think my coffee cake is about ready. You get some work done. Enjoy the quiet, and let me know if you need anything.”
I literally whistle as I work, dancing around as I cook to the ’80s station that Alexa is softly playing. A half hour later, I emerge to check the coffee again, and the entire living room is filled with guests, a mix of men and women of all ages, all of whom are working on their laptops even though it’s a holiday weekend. Their faces are etched in exhaustion and stress.
I think I’ve already forgotten my former life. While I now have a job that also consumes me—I mean, I can’t even leave my office—it no longer feels like work. Even the darkest days have been tinged in excitement and light.
“More coffee?” I ask.
“Thank you,” they say, barely looking up from their laptops.
I fill their cups and, a little before 8:30, I bring Alexa into the dining room and tell her to play classical music, despite last week’s run-through guests who objected, I guess, to the sound of violins.
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