“I know we haven’t been really close…”
“No,” her mother said, her voice shaky. “I’ll tell you. I’m alone a lot. I used to think that being alone would help me get better, figure out what I needed. I craved the silence, trying to make everything calm down in my head, but now that I have it, it just feels empty. I think about you… Wonder what you’re doing.”
“You don’t have to be alone,” Callie said. “Come stay with us sometime. We have plenty of room.”
When she didn’t respond, Callie said, “The sea air will clear your head better than anything else. I speak from experience.” She heard the small breath before her mother’s smile.
“Maybe I will.”
“You have my number. Just text or call whenever you want to come.”
Twenty-Five
The next day, they all sat around a table at The Beachcomber discussing their parts in the repairs to the bed and breakfast. Everyone except for Luke. Aiden had said that they could do with Luke’s help, but Callie wouldn’t let him ask. He’d had too much to deal with already without putting her own burdens on him, and she still wasn’t sure if he’d ever forgive her for telling him about Frederick. Gladys had returned home and come over to see the damage, and she was beside herself, but Aiden assured her that it would be just fine.
“How long would you estimate repairs to take, Aiden?” Gladys asked. “I know Callie and Olivia are on a time crunch to get it done by next week.”
“It would take two weeks or more usually, but we could do it in less time if we get a whole crew on it. The problem is that I’m not sure I can get a whole crew because builders are in short supply at the moment, as you can imagine, so I’m hoping we can all plan to pitch in.”
“Of course,” Juliette said.
“I’ll be here too,” Frederick said.
They worked all day and all night then the whole week on The Beachcomber. Aiden, Frederick, and Juliette helped every minute they could and Olivia and Callie worked around the clock. Even Lillian and Gladys pitched in for small things.
“We’ve been going full speed,” Olivia said over her plate of oysters.
Once everyone had gone home for an early evening to have a much-needed rest, Callie and Olivia took their showers and finally decided they deserved a night out so neither of them would have to cook. They were both exhausted, and they needed to discuss what they were going to do about the guests arriving before all the work would be finished. So they’d had Gladys watch Wyatt and put some food out for Poppy and gone to a little beachside restaurant. They sat outside on the deck, and tried to come up with a plan.
“We still have to paint the kitchen, we have to finish the porches—they’ve eaten up all our time—and get furniture, and the walkway hasn’t been landscaped. Even if we go back home and keep working all night, we just won’t be finished in time.”
“You’re right, the porches are taking forever,” Callie said, rubbing her forehead. “With Frederick and the rest of us redoing the entire walkway, Aiden has been basically doing the porches by himself. I know he’s going as fast as he can, but we just need more people.” She sucked down the rest of her cocktail—some kind of pineapple rum concoction that she’d asked for at the last minute when she’d ordered her dinner. She’d needed a drink. Everything they’d worked for, every moment they’d spent this summer, came down to this, and it was slipping away from them.
Olivia flagged the waitress and ordered them both another drink. “I’m really worried. I have no clue what we’re going to do.”
Callie looked out at the beach; someone was flying a kite—a rainbow triangle with tails so long they almost touched the sand. The sparkly surface of its fabric shimmered in the sunlight. “I don’t know either,” she said, turning back to Olivia.
A band was setting up in the corner. They both sat quietly, watching them as the sea breeze blew in off the ocean. The waitress set down the next round of drinks.
“Why don’t we invite Aiden and Frederick to come out? Aiden always has such a level head. We could see if he and Frederick have any ideas. If not, they might enjoy the band and it would take our minds off of it.”
“You’re right,” Callie said. “Text Aiden. I’ll text Frederick.”
Callie hadn’t seen Frederick all afternoon. He’d worked in the morning and then spent the rest of the day with Luke. He and Luke had met up just a couple of times, but whenever they had, Frederick had come back beaming. They seemed to be really hitting it off. They’d both gotten involved with a nonprofit Luke had found called Bring Us Home that was rebuilding residences with major damage. The charity was operating on a very strict budget, the destruction in other villages using nearly all their funds for disaster relief. Luke had made a donation, but had also promised he would bring light to their efforts.
“This is the kind of stuff that the media should be covering,” he’d told Frederick. “And if my family name will bring it to the forefront, then so be it.”
Frederick had joined him on a few building sites. The more they worked, the easier it became for Frederick to be near him. Today, he had been planning to go surfing and Callie had told him not to worry about them. He’d already helped so much with the walkway.
Their new-found closeness made Callie think about Edward. He’d remained in New York without a solid answer about his feelings for Luke or the business; he hadn’t been able to see the way the family rallied to help each other, how they’d spent lots of nights around the dinner table laughing over funny things that had happened. Luke had asked him to come home, Frederick had told them one night, but he’d said he had work to get done. Callie wished things could be different with him.
She tried not to think about Luke, but it was proving difficult. She missed him so much, and she felt terrible about how things had turned out. She yearned to have those lighter times, those wonderful moments with him again, and feared with a heart-splitting sadness that she wouldn’t experience them again. This was the person she was meant to be with, and yet he would barely speak to her. She knew she needed to get her head straight and just move on, but for the first time in her life, she was struggling to do it.
“I told Aiden we need his help to make a plan,” Olivia said. “He said he’ll be at the house when we get home. I’ll tell him when we’ll get there.” Olivia tapped on her phone with a silly grin on her face.
Over the week, Olivia and Aiden had been flirty, and whenever Callie had needed Olivia, she’d always been able to find her outside on the porches, getting something for Aiden, holding something for Aiden, checking on him. They both got all their work done, but they could always be found together.