“I want to collect a few things to bring back to New York. To remind me of this trip.”
“Go along with Amelia tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love it. Okay, are you ready to get to work?”
“Yes,” Marin said, surprised by how excited she felt to do something productive.
“Okay, so you see these mosaics are constructed of hundreds of little pieces. Some are tiles, some are glass, some are smalti…all need to be cut. That takes time, and if you can do some of the cutting, that frees me up for working on the actual sign.”
“Don’t you have a lot of this stuff already cut? I mean, all these shelves…”
“I ordered specific materials for Amelia’s piece. Like this metallic smalti that’s too expensive to buy for no reason.”
“Smalti?”
“It’s special material produced in Venice just for mosaics. It gives us more options than tile because it has various opacities and the colors are extremely vivid. It arrives in sheets and has to be cut by hand.” She picked up the odd tool that looked like gardening shears with wheels at the top. “A wheel cutter. Amelia calls it a nipper.” She handed it to Marin. “Are you ready?”
“It’s worth a try.”
Blythe stood outside on her bedroom balcony hoping for decent reception and dialed Kip’s phone. Straight to voice mail. Undeterred, she called his office. His secretary started giving some song and dance about a meeting, but Blythe—uncharacteristically—cut her off and said, “Just get him on the line.”
“Blythe, this isn’t a good time,” Kip said when he picked up.
“Have you spoken to Marin?”
Kip sighed. “Not since the middle of last week. I’ve left messages on her phone. You said you were heading up to the city. Are you still with her?”
“Yes. Actually, I thought she should get away for a few days, so we’re in Cape Cod.”
“A change of scenery is probably good for her.”
“It hasn’t been good for her. She’s getting worse.” Of course, she was omitting a large piece of the Marin puzzle. It was impossible to convey Marin’s mental state without telling him the truth about what was going on. But she didn’t want to have that conversation over the phone.
“She’s had a rough few weeks. She’ll rally,” Kip said. “Do you want me to talk to her? Put her on the phone.”
“She’s locked in her room. She’s depressed. I’m really worried.”
Blythe realized that the only way Marin would accept the situation was if Blythe and Kip showed a united front. She would have to tell him the truth. What was the worst that could happen? He was filing for divorce. Their marriage was over. She didn’t want to hurt him, but if it meant saving Marin’s sanity, she’d do it.
Kip sighed. “When are you getting back? I’ll drive up and spend some time with her.”
“I think you should come out here.”
“To the Cape? Blythe, I’m bogged down here. I can’t just pick up and fly out there right now. Get her back to New York and I’ll talk some sense into her.”
“Kip, I realize we are getting divorced. I am not asking you for me, I’m asking you for our daughter. For once in your life, put family first.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Amelia waited until the house was settled. After years of running the inn, she had a sense of when the inhabitants were in their rooms and it was time to unwind.
Next to her in bed, Kelly brushed out her hair with one hand while holding her e-reader with the other. Amelia couldn’t understand how she could choose that device over actual books, but Kelly insisted it was easier on her eyes.
Amelia was irritated with Kelly. It was rare for her to feel that way, and the emotion took her by surprise, so much so that she was almost paralyzed by it. All day, she’d been waiting for the feeling to pass, but it hadn’t. And so now it was time to say something.
“Can you put that down for a minute?” she asked, taking off her glasses. She pressed her fingers to the creases of her eyes. She was exhausted; it was one of those days when she felt her age.
“Is something wrong?” Kelly asked, sensitive enough to know the answer to that question.
“I’m a little disappointed by the way you’re handling Marin’s fragile emotional state.”
Kelly sat straight up and placed the e-reader and the brush in her lap.
“What do you mean?”
“Getting her drunk in the middle of the afternoon? Getting tattoos? Her mother is very upset and I can’t say I blame her. Marin should be spending this week getting fresh air, taking long walks, talking. Discovering the town. We should be helping her deal with all of this in a healthy, constructive way.”
Kelly had always been impetuous; she did what she wanted, when she wanted. She was a rule breaker. It was a trait Amelia loved, and it was that fearless exuberance that had helped shake Amelia out of the rut of her marriage, out of her life of resignation, of duty. It was what had made it possible for Kelly to drop everything and move to Provincetown all those years ago. But it was also the thing about Kelly that frustrated Amelia the most.
Kelly sighed. “Okay, when you put it like that, it sounds bad.”
“And Paul is a terrible influence on you.”
“This has nothing to do with Paul. Listen, Marin was leaving, okay? She was not going to spend another night here. If I hadn’t found a way to connect with her, she’d be back in New York at this very moment, probably never to be heard from again. Instead, she’s asking me if you will take her on your morning walk tomorrow. She wants to go with you.”
Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yes. I told her you’d wake her in the morning.”
Silence settled between them. “So what you’re saying to me is the ends justify the means?”
Kelly nodded. “Something like that.”
“Kelly.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe I went too far. I’m sorry. My heart was in the right place.”
Amelia squeezed her hand. “I know. It always is.”
“So much for a calm, uneventful summer,” Kelly said, turning off the light on her side of the bed.
Amelia propped herself up on one elbow, gazing at her wife. Kelly’s long hair was loose, and her bare face looked not a day older than the girls’. It was that Irish skin, shielded from the sun out of necessity year after year. She leaned over and kissed her.
“It’s just one week. Things will get back to normal,” Amelia said.
“I’m not complaining! I love having a full house. And I know you do too.” Kelly smiled, a hopeful, almost childlike expression taking over her face. “I was thinking we should ask them to stay another few weeks. They really should experience a proper Provincetown Fourth of July.”
“Do you think they’d want to?”
Kelly shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”