by Mia March
They both turned to watch a whale that jumped out of the water; a cruise boat of people standing on deck clapped and cheered.
“I’d love to try one sometime,” he said. “So tell me, how is your mother feeling?”
“She says she feels okay, but I can see she’s slowed down considerably. She holds the rail very tightly as she comes downstairs. She’s never done that before. And I’ve been finding hairs on her pillows and in the shower.”
He nodded, sympathy in his eyes. “That’s all the chemo. How are her spirits?”
“She’s in pretty good spirits, actually. I think she likes having her nieces and grand-nephew back at the inn. Her family—what’s left of it—is back together again. I think it means more to her than any of us ever realized.”
“Family has restorative properties. And what about you, Kat? How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better. Holding up. Worried.” She shrugged.
She knew he’d have something to say to comfort her. She thought of the way he’d reached for her hand when she’d started crying that first time they’d met in the hospital, outside her mother’s chemotherapy room, and had said, “What am I supposed to do?”
“There’s no right response from you or from anyone,” he’d said, looking at her so intently. “You can cry, you can rage, you can hold in your fear, you can do any damn thing you need to.”
She’d felt such a freedom in that moment that she’d burst out crying and he’d squeezed her hand until she stopped. She found herself thinking about him, often, since.
“Could I ask you some questions, Dr. Viola? Real questions about how long my mother has? It’s so hard to get a straight answer.”
He sat up and tapped the peeling wood of the pier beside him. “Call me Matteo. And come sit.”
She slipped off her sandals and sat with her knees up and bent her arms around them. Matteo. “Dr. Samuels said she could have weeks, months, even a year, that it was impossible to say, that the chemo might prolong her life. But it’s also making her weaker.”
He nodded. “Chemo is that way. It gives and takes. And we can’t say, can’t give you a definitive time period, Kat. We can only try to make your mother’s life as comfortable as we can.”
“I know you can only tell us what you know, know for sure, I mean, but I wish you could tell me what to do with the worry. And fear.”
“Actually, I can tell you. At least what I did.”
She stared at him. “Someone in your family?”
“Mio padre. My father. I wanted to focus on oncology because of him. His cancer—of the prostate—was caught relatively early because I kept on him about testing. But just to be safe. When he was diagnosed, I was scared out of my mind. Especially because of how much I know.”
She often peeked in the windows of the Italian Bakery to see what they were offering, or to pick up some breads for breakfast or as a treat for her mother, who loved dipping good bread into olive oil. Alonzo was often chatting with a customer, telling stories about Italy. She had no idea he’d been sick.
“He’s a survivor, but I worry about him every day. It’s why I’d hoped to do my residency here. I’m lucky we have a great teaching hospital right in Boothbay.”
“You seem so focused and calm. I would never have known you had so much as a hangnail.”
He smiled. “People are like that, aren’t they? Facades. Professional demeanors. You really never know what’s going on with someone.”
She nodded. “I’ve been finding that out about my cousins. You met one of them, Isabel, the other day. I’ve kind of had them pegged all wrong.”
“It’s the great thing about life. How surprising people are. Good and bad.”
“I prefer the good.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
“So what did you do with all your worry when your dad was first diagnosed?”
“I reminded myself that he was there. Standing. Alive. That I had to focus on that—and on treatment. Not on possibilities or on fear. I focused on having him with me. And I made the best of that. We bought season tickets for the Red Sox. We took long drives. We built a go-cart with my little niece. I don’t want to sound like a greeting card, but we celebrated life—instead of anticipating the opposite. That’s not only good for you, and your cousins, but for your mother, as well.”
Kat took a deep breath, letting his words, the warm, fresh air, seep through her. She could sit here all day. Talking to Matteo. Feeling the breeze in her hair.
When he leaned back, his arms behind him, their hands touched, and for a moment neither of them moved, until they pulled away at exactly the same time.
“I’d better go,” she said. Before I fling myself on top of you and kiss you the way they do in movies. “Thanks for talking to me. It helped very much.”
“I’m glad. And if you ever need to talk more, just call. Anytime.”
She smiled and headed back up the pier, and when she turned to take one last look, he was watching her.
Kat lay against Oliver’s chest in the bathtub, the hot, bubbly water soothing her tired muscles. After spending a couple of hours baking and making her cake delivery, she’d helped Isabel with general cleanup, including the tracked sand (they both guessed a certain fourteen-year-old guest was responsible) and wet, dirty footprints. The inn was booked for the holiday weekend, which meant cleaning rooms and hallways and common spaces by the hour for poor Isabel. Wet footprints, crumbs from that morning’s breakfast blondies, tissues, spilled this and that—all taken care of by Lolly’s “green” cleaners and sweeper vac. All day long. Kat had been impressed by Isabel. Her cousin had either been busy handling guests or cleaning all day, and when Isabel had finally had a chance to relax, she’d made fresh lemonade and handed it out to guests in the backyard.
Oliver had picked up Kat at seven and driven her back to the cottage he was renting on Townsend. The carriage house was separated from the main house by a stone wall and evergreens, and every time Kat visited, she felt as if she were entering a fairy-tale cottage in the woods. She loved the place.
Waiting for her at the fairy-tale cottage was a grill ready to go with steaks and asparagus and baked sweet potatoes, her favorite. Over dinner he got a little pushy about the available storefronts for lease, but when she explained she was back-burnering the idea of opening her own bakery while Lolly was undergoing treatment, he seemed to understand and backed off with an “Okay, I get it.” He’d led her upstairs to his bedroom, to the king-size bed with its soft down pillows, peeled off her clothes, and given her a massage over every inch of her tired body, then made love to her with exactly the right touch.
But she’d done something terrible while they’d been in bed, something that made her feel ashamed. She’d thought of Matteo. Of his dark eyes. His hard-as-rock abs. The way those green scrubs inched down his stomach. His face, so handsome, exotic. He made her think of Italy, of Europe, of her teenage dreams to be a baker’s apprentice in Rome or Paris. Of riding around with her cakes in her Vespa’s basket.
She’d tried to focus on Oliver’s handsome, sweet face. But over and over it was Matteo’s face, Matteo’s body, she thought of.
“So do you think it’s time to tell your family our news?” Oliver asked, his strong, wet arms across her chest.
“I…” Just can’t. “I don’t think it’s right to force my mother—or my cousins—to pay attention to something so big,” she said—and meant it. “Last night, she was tired from just watching a movie. She’s worried about so much, Oliver. If I spring the engagement on her, she’ll feel forced to be all cheerful and happy and maybe even plan the wedding, not to mention pay for it, and how can I do that to her? The focus should be on taking care of her. Not me and my wedding.”
Oliver massaged her shoulders, his soapy hands untightening knots. “I get what you’re saying, but I�
��d think the news would do wonders for her. Cheer her up. She’d be so happy to know you’re settling down, taken care of.”
Taken care of. Kat didn’t want to be taken care of, though. And the word settle scared her. She’d once wanted Oliver so badly, so much, but then the years of repressing that (as her best friend Lizzie’s fiancé—a therapist—insisted) had done a number on her head. She’d had a chance with Oliver years ago and hadn’t taken it. Now, she was being offered forever with him and was too scared to take it. (That was the therapist’s take, anyway.)
“You just don’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like you for a member,” Lizzie’s fiancé had said via Lizzie. So you’ll date this guy and that. Have hot, months-long romances that fizzle or explode. Because you’re afraid of who you really are, what you really want.
“Which is?” she’d asked.
“Maybe to be right where you are. Maybe the reason you’ve never left Boothbay Harbor, left the inn, isn’t because your mother would be alone. Because you feel this burning need to give back to her. But because you love it here. Love the inn. Love your mother. And Oliver. But if you say yes to him, to this life here, you dare accept what you cherish most in life and you’re scared to death of losing it.”
She’d written it off as psychobabble. Therapist-speak. But it had so many kernels of truth that Kat tried not to think too hard about it.
“Kat,” Oliver said, scooping up the lavender bubbles and caressing her breasts, her stomach, her inner thighs, “until you tell your family, I can’t tell anyone, either. And I want to scream it from the rooftops.”
“I know,” she said, trying to focus on the sensation, on the rhythm of his hands. “I’m just letting everyone adjust to Lolly’s news before I spring something everyone has to be happy about.”
“Have you told Lizzie we’re engaged?”
Sigh. “No,” she whispered.
“So maybe the reason you’re not telling your family and your best friend is because you’re not sure,” he said, his voice edged with anger. Or frustration. “Maybe that’s really why you’ve been so scarce all week, Kat.”
She stared down at the bubbles. “I’m not sure if I’m not sure, Oliver.” She shook her head. “God, listen to me. I’m ridiculous. Not sure if I’m not sure.”
He took her hands. “I know things are very rocky right now, Kat. Between your mom and your cousins—it’s one of the reasons I proposed now instead of waiting. To support you, make sure you know someone seriously has your back.”
And she appreciated that. But— But, but, but. What was the but? That she didn’t need someone to have her back? That she needed to find her way through this herself? That she felt she was supposed to experience something else before she settled down forever in this one place? Now that her mother was— It meant the inn would fall to Kat. Isabel and June would go back to their lives eventually. The inn and Oliver would be her life, just as they’d always been.
“Kat, I want to be here for you. I want to spend my life with you. But if you said yes in a weak moment and you meant ‘I don’t know’ or if you meant no, say so. Don’t play with me.” His voice had become hard.
“I just… I just don’t know exactly right now.”
He turned her shoulders so that she would face him. “Do you want to marry me or not, Kat?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Can you give me a little time to process everything?”
“I care about you very much. And of course I’ll give you time. But I believe a person knows how they feel, Kat. In the deepest parts of themselves, they know. I think you know, and the fact that I’m not sure which way you feel worries me. A lot.”
“Just give me some time, okay?”
He got out of the tub and left the bathroom, and she suddenly felt cold.
CHAPTER 10
Isabel
Not long ago, Isabel lived in a fancy Connecticut house, cleaned by a housekeeper twice a week. Now Isabel was in the Osprey Room in a borrowed pair of Kat’s old jeans, with her sweeper and yellow rubber gloves and cleaning supplies. She’d already taken care of the Bluebird and Seashell rooms, saving Griffin’s for last. Given her secret little crush on him, she felt a bit funny being in here. As though she were spying.
But she was indeed here to clean. She was out of practice, certainly, but over the past week she found she actually liked stacking the dirty plates in the dishwasher, scrubbing down the counters and sweeping the floors and giving them a once-over with the lemony-scented mop, picking up after guests, and straightening the rooms. She liked stripping beds and making them up new again, smoothing down quilts and fluffing pillows. Carrying the sheets and pillowcases and towels in the wicker basket down to the laundry closet off the kitchen made her feel purposeful. For the first time in a long time. It wasn’t that she loved cleaning so much as she liked taking care of the inn. More than she ever imagined she would.
At least she was better at cleaning than she was at cooking the family dinners. Last night, no one had taken seconds of her chicken cacciatore or her Caesar salad. Nor the night before of her lasagna, one of Charlie’s favorites, though the garlic bread she’d made was okay. She wasn’t a good cook, clearly, but she enjoyed cooking, following the steps in Lolly’s Julia Child cookbook. She’d had no idea how good it felt to make dinner every night for people she cared about. She and Edward had often picked up dinner at their favorite gourmet takeout or gone out to dinner or to dinner parties at clients’ and firm partners’. Or she’d been alone for dinner with the housekeeper’s labeled frozen meals, especially the past few months. She’d try to become a better cook. Maybe take a class. She’d always wanted to do that.
Griffin was neat, she noticed. Alexa wasn’t. Her clothes were in a jumble in the open drawers, as though the girl couldn’t decide what to wear and had half pulled out everything. Alexa’s face came to mind, that sweet heart-shaped face with the angry dark-blue eyes. I understand you, my girl, she said to the tangle of clothes. All too well. She had an urge to tidy everything, fold it all neatly, but according to Lolly, if guests left dresser or closet doors open, you could close them, but not touch anything inside them. Isabel closed the drawers, shaking them a bit to let the tumble of shorts and tanks and jeans fall in.
She collected the sheets and pillowcases and tossed them into her laundry basket, then grabbed the fresh bedding and made both kids’ beds, turning over the starfish quilts and fluffing the pillows.
She saved Griffin’s bed for last. As she slowly stripped the pale blue sheets off the bed, she imagined him lying there, naked. She imagined herself lying with him, on top of him, under him.
“Oh, sorry to interrupt. I didn’t realize you’d be cleaning in here. I’ll come back in a bit.”
She turned to find Griffin standing in the open doorway with his room key. She wondered if her cheeks were as red as they felt. He was staring at her. Almost as though he knew what she’d just been thinking. Which made her blush again. “No, no worries. Just get what you need and don’t mind me.” She dropped the sheets in the basket, then grabbed the pillows. They smelled like him. Masculine. Fresh, like his shampoo.
“To tell you the truth, Isabel, I have been minding you since I checked in.”
She glanced up at him, so surprised that she dropped the pillow on the floor. He moved closer and picked it up, taking off the case and dropping it in the basket.
“I think you’re beautiful, for one. And for another, I’ve liked spending time with you and working with Happy.”
Griffin had spent the past few afternoons working with Isabel’s dog, Happy (aptly named by Charlie), giving Isabel lessons on the basics of dog training while Alexa watched Emmy on the deck. Often Isabel would be so mesmerized by his face, by his eyes, his voice, that she’d realize she’d missed a full minute of what he’d said. That she was attracted to another man, th
at she had this… crush, amazed her. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, that she’d have room inside her head, inside her heart, that she’d be capable of thinking of Griffin Dean naked. And now here he was, saying that he had similar thoughts.
She was so surprised, so… delighted and suddenly shy like a teenager that she couldn’t speak for a moment. “Um, it’s Movie Night at the inn tonight. Well, it’s Sunday and not our regularly scheduled Movie Night, that’s Friday Night. But my aunt, Lolly Weller, you’ve met her, of course, she sometimes decides it’s Movie Night just because. So we’re watching Heartburn. Meryl Streep. Jack Nicholson. It’s a classic. Funny. I mean, as funny as a movie about an affair could possibly be.” Oh, God, had she just said that?
“I know all about how unfunny affairs are,” he said, and she sobered. Instantly.
Had he had an affair? Is that what all the family strife was about? The angry teenager? The vacation at an inn in the same town?
“What time?” he asked.
“Nine o’clock. There’ll be popcorn. And Kat’s amazing Movie Night cupcakes. Wine and beer, if you’re interested.” Stop rambling, Isabel.
“I’ll be there.” He gave her a smile of sorts, then headed toward the door. He stepped into the alcove and appeared again with Alexa’s iPod and Emmy’s pink sun hat. He looked at her again, then was gone.
After dinner—Isabel’s Julia Child meat loaf and garlic mashed potatoes were a hit, especially with Charlie, who had seconds—Isabel went back down to the basement for a third time. When Isabel had reported to Lolly the other day that she hadn’t found the diaries in any of the trunks, Lolly said she was sure she’d put the two red journal books in one of the trunks with stickers. Isabel conceded—to herself—that she might have looked through most of the trunks quickly, hoping not to find the diaries, which made her feel awful. Her aunt wanted them, needed them to feel better—the chemo was doing quite a number on her stomach and making her so fatigued. And Isabel was being selfish by not trying harder to find them. She wouldn’t leave this stale, airless room without them.