“Hey, you guys should have called me out here for this,” Rachel said, bounding into the yard.
“You really want to be in charge of the garden?” Amelia said. “It’s a big responsibility.”
“Are you doubting me?” Rachel said, hurt.
“No. I don’t doubt you at all. I just don’t think you realize how busy we’ll be in the spring if we open the inn—”
“When we open the inn,” Rachel corrected.
“The spring is a whole different issue,” Blythe said. “I’ll coach you through that over the phone. For now, the next few weeks are crucial. While it’s still hot, you really have to water twice a day. Whenever the top two inches of soil are dry.”
“How do we know when to pick the lettuce?” Rachel asked.
“You’ll see when it’s a full plant. You can either pick a few leaves at a time—you’d be surprised how little you need to make a salad—or cut the entire head at soil level with a sharp knife.”
She glanced at her watch. There were still other seeds to plant and all the maintenance to teach them. Tips for harvesting.
“Will you come back in the spring?” Amelia said.
Blythe nodded. “Sure. I’ll be back after the last frost or during the summer at some point—”
“No,” Amelia said. “I want a promise that you and Marin will come back after the baby is born. Once the winter is past.”
Blythe smiled. That’s right; by the spring, the baby would be here. “Of course. I promise. We’ll all be back. And when we are, I want to see this ground bursting with vegetables. Don’t be intimidated! Trust me, the plants want to flourish. They will reach for the sun. All you have to do is nurture them.”
Her last morning in Provincetown.
Marin woke up early and tiptoed around a sleeping Julian. Her bags were packed (how had she accumulated so much stuff in just two months?), the gas tank in her car was full, and she’d said her good-byes. Most of them.
She’d left the most difficult for last.
She hadn’t gone back inside Kelly’s studio. She thought maybe she wouldn’t, that she would preserve the memory of the room as it had been with Kelly alive and creating, full of blunt conversation. But to leave without one last visit to the space felt like unfinished emotional business.
Still, every step up to the third floor was filled with trepidation. Marin opened the door to the studio very slowly. As quietly as possible. It felt like trespassing, like breaking in. She turned on the overhead light, and it flickered twice before it went on.
The scent of spicy vanilla still hung in the air; this—more than the sight of Kelly’s art on the wall, the rows and rows of bins left filled with Amelia’s decades’ worth of beach collecting, the scattered blue tiles and smalti on the floor where Amelia had knocked them over the night of Kelly’s death—hurt.
“Oh, Kelly,” Marin said, her heart seizing in her chest. She stopped in the middle of the room and pressed her hands to her forehead. She should leave. And yet she felt compelled to be there. After standing still and agonizing over it, she finally realized why.
It took her a few seconds to find it.
Kelly had set up a scrim, shielding one drafting table from view. Marin peeked behind it, knowing she would find the Beach Rose Inn sign. What she didn’t expect to find was a handwritten note on top.
Hey, Marin—
I knew you’d come back to finish this! You rock.
Sorry for the hasty exit. But I think you understand. You have to know when it’s time to stay and when it’s time to go. Right?
So: The mosaic. I know you can do it.
Congrats in advance on the baby. It gives me comfort to know Amelia has something awesome to look forward to this winter.
XO Kelly
Marin wiped away tears. She traced the shiny arc of tiles forming the base of the rose. Okay, she told herself. It’s going to be okay. She put the note in her pocket, left the studio and closed the door behind her, then walked back to her room. Julian was just waking up, and he smiled at her.
“Where’d you run off to?” he said. “Did I oversleep?”
“No,” she said, kissing him. “It’s still early. But now that you’re up, I need help getting one last thing into the car.”
Amelia knew the box was in the attic somewhere, one among dozens.
The overhead light was out, so she went in search of a flashlight and then resumed her hunt through a forest of cardboard. Some were labeled M?e, from back in the days she’d packed up the house after her mother’s death. Some belonged to her former husband, Otto. (She made a mental note to go through those and clear them out. It was time.) There were other, more generic labels: Books, Winter Clothes, even simply Hats. She knew one day she would add more to the pile, boxes labeled Kelly. But she was far from ready to do that. The very thought of it made her feel claustrophobic, and it was difficult to breathe. She had to force herself to push through; she was, after all, there for a reason.
The boxes she wanted were near the farthest wall, underneath a pile of albums (Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water) and an old hat stand. After brushing off the dust and more than one cobweb, she slid a few boxes away from the congested corner so she could get a good look at the contents. The one she wanted was marked Nick/Baby.
She sliced through the tape with an X-Acto knife. The first thing inside, at the top of the pile, was the blue-and-white blanket her mother had crocheted. Then a blue sweater with a red elephant on the front. Oh, she remembered that one. She couldn’t recall who gave it to her, but Nick looked so adorable in it. A baby-blue knit cap, a navy sailor suit, a hand-knit onesie. Footed pajamas with a turtle pattern. Another blanket, baby-blue cotton edged with a navy satin trim. She shook them all out, then folded them in her lap.
There was something else she wanted, and she felt around at the bottom of the box until her hand reached cool metal. It rattled as she pulled it to the surface, a sound that took her back to another life.
She gathered it all in her arms and headed back down the stairs to the second floor. She found Marin in her room, sitting by the window with her packed bags at her feet, scrolling through messages on her phone. She looked up sheepishly when she saw Amelia.
“I’m already half back in the real world,” she said.
“I know it’s that time, my dear. But before you go, I wanted to give you a few things.” She sat on the edge of the bed, and Marin set her phone down and joined her.
Amelia unfolded the blue-and-white crocheted blanket.