Seaview Inn (3 page)

She also knew her fears were compounded because for
years she’d been so certain about what she wanted—a career in graphic design. But now that she’d been studying for the degree that would get her that career, now that she’d proved she could handle it, the path she’d chosen had lost some of its luster. She feared the same thing could happen if she rushed into marriage. Maybe it was morning sickness, maybe it was hormones, but her world had tilted on its axis and left her reeling. She simply couldn’t cope with a decision as huge as getting married right now.

“I can’t, Jeff. I can’t do it.”

“You’d rather quit school and run home to your mom?” he asked incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. You’re actually giving up the very thing you claim you want.”

“Temporarily,” she insisted. “I’ll go back to school after the baby’s born. Maybe by then I’ll have figured out if graphic design is what I really want, after all. Why get a degree in something and then decide it’s not what I’m passionate about?”

“Okay, let’s say you do take time off,” he said reasonably. “How will you manage college a year from now or two years from now, especially if you decide you want a degree in something else and have to practically start over?”

Kelsey frowned. “I don’t know exactly, but I’ll make it work.”

“Look at me,” he commanded. “Kelsey, look at me. You’re not still thinking about adoption, are you? Because I won’t go along with it. I want this baby, even if you don’t.”

There was an unyielding note in his voice she’d never heard before. Why, when it came to this, did he have to change from an easygoing, come-what-may kind of guy into one determined to have his own way?

Tears stung Kelsey’s eyes. How had things turned into
such a mess? A few weeks ago, her life had been totally on track. She’d aced most of her final exams. She was excited about her new courses, even though she was starting to question her career goals. She was with a guy she adored. And now, because of one careless moment, everything was at risk.

“You should go,” she told Jeff. “We’re not going to settle this tonight and I’m leaving first thing in the morning.”

“But you’re coming back?” he asked. “You’re not going to disappear and do something behind my back, are you?”

“I can’t believe you asked me that,” she said, surprisingly stung. “You know me better than anyone. I promised you I wouldn’t do anything crazy and I meant it. I promised my mom the same thing.”

“Did she buy it?” he asked.

Kelsey sighed. “Not entirely. Look, whatever decision I make, I will come back here and I will tell you. That’s the best I can promise.”

“I suppose I’ll have to live with that,” Jeff said, then met her gaze. “For now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I have a stake in this decision, too. You need time right now, I’ll let you have it. But not too much time, Kelsey, or I’ll follow you and do everything in my power to make you see this my way.”

Kelsey looked deep into his eyes and saw the determination there. She realized that Jeff’s powers of persuasion were what scared her most of all.

Hannah used the twenty-minute ferry ride to the mainland to finally broach the subject that had brought her to Seaview Key. The waters were calm, the breeze balmy by mid-morning as they made the crossing. She
and her grandmother stood by the railing and watched as the mainland grew from a distant speck to an impressive skyline.

“Gran, have you ever thought about living on the mainland?” she began carefully.

“Why would I do that when I have a perfectly good home where I am?”

“You’d be surrounded by more people your own age,” Hannah explained, injecting as much enthusiasm as she could into her voice. “You could get involved in more activities. You’d be closer to doctors and a major hospital. The clinic on Seaview Key isn’t prepared to cope with anything more than a minor emergency.”

“Do you honestly think I would ever move into one of those retirement communities?” she asked derisively. “That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Putting me out to pasture like some horse that’s outlived its usefulness.”

“Not at all,” Hannah said, doing her best to remain upbeat. “I think it would be great to be able to do so many things anytime you wanted to without worrying about the ferry schedule. Plus, you’ve spent your whole life catering to other people’s needs. It’s time for you to think about
your
needs.”

“I don’t have many needs and I don’t worry much about the ferry schedule,” Grandma Jenny replied tartly. “I have it committed to memory. Besides, now that I don’t drive much, it’s been months since I’ve needed it at all. Anytime I need anything from the mainland, I can find someone to fetch it for me. I’m not like you. I don’t need to be on the go all the time. I’m happy right where I am.” She gave Hannah a hard look. “Intend to stay there, too, so don’t go getting any ideas.”

Hannah dropped the subject for now. She’d check
online to locate the best facilities in the area and call for brochures. Maybe on their next trip to the mainland, she could persuade her grandmother to at least look at a couple of them.

“Any idea where you’d like to go for lunch?” she asked, changing the topic to something neutral. “I think we should eat first, then run all the errands.”

“I like that cafeteria well enough.”

Hannah bit back a groan. The last time she’d tried a slice of pie there, the whipped cream on top had the texture of plastic foam. “I suppose you’re going to want the liver and onions,” she teased, resigned to choking down a tasteless meal.

“Of course. I learned a long time ago that I’d be wasting my time fixing that for you. You’d gag every time I set it on the table.”

“Which ought to tell you something,” Hannah said. “But if that’s what you want, that’s where we’ll go.”

Her grandmother gave her a knowing look. “Don’t think buttering me up is going to work, young lady. You can agree to everything I suggest from now till Christmas and I still won’t look at one of those retirement places.”

“Whatever,” Hannah said, then had to bite back a smile the instant the word was out of her mouth. She’d sounded exactly like Kelsey at her most annoying. Apparently the universe was intent on reducing her to a petulant child again, too.

“What did Gran have you doing today?” Kelsey asked her that evening.

“Picking out paint and looking at fabric for the cushions on the porch,” Hannah told her. “We managed to get the paint at the first place we looked, but we had
to go to four different fabric stores before we found anything that satisfied her. I looked at so many flowered prints, I came home dizzy.”

“Have you told her yet that you’re not staying?”

“I have,” she said. “That hasn’t stopped her from trying to change my mind. Now, tell me about you. Were you able to get a reservation?”

“My flight’s tomorrow,” Kelsey confirmed, then gave her the details.

“And your return flight?” Hannah asked.

Kelsey hesitated. “I just bought a one-way ticket in case I decide not to come back right away.”

“Kelsey!”

“It’s no big deal, Mom. I can always book the return flight as soon as I get there. Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide that you and Grandma Jenny can use an extra pair of hands.”

Hannah saw no point in arguing. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, then. Have a safe flight, sweetie.”

“I will. Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Is it hard being there, you know, without your mom?”

Hannah wasn’t sure how to answer. If she stopped for a second and let herself think, she’d say it was incredibly difficult, which was one reason she’d let her grandmother persuade her to do all these renovations. It left little time for thinking, especially about her mother’s losing battle with cancer. And she had yet to walk into the suite of rooms that had been her mom’s. She’d spent too many hours in there right before she died.

“I don’t think I’ve let myself focus on that at all,” she admitted.

“How can you
not
think about it?” Kelsey asked. “She was so much a part of Seaview Inn. You must see her
everywhere you look, like those old sand pails she collected. They looked like rusty junk to me, but she’d get all misty-eyed when she told me about how they reminded her of when she was a girl.”

Hannah choked back an unexpected sob. She could recall her mother’s excitement every time she came across one of the tin litho sand pails with their colorful images in one of the antique shops she haunted. Her eyes would light up as if she’d just recaptured a hundred old memories, all good ones. Hannah had deliberately avoided looking at the shelves that held the prized collection. Only now did she see how much of the past two days she’d spent in denial.

“She loved them, all right,” she said, when she could speak again.

“Oh, Mom, are you crying? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“I think I’ve just been pretending since I got here that everything was normal, that she was just away on a trip or something. I haven’t wanted to deal with the reality that she’s gone forever.”

“Maybe having me there will be a good thing, then, huh?” Kelsey said. “I can distract you.”

“Given the reason you’re coming, I’d say that’s a sure thing,” Hannah said wryly. “See you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Bye, Mom. Love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said slowly, and disconnected, only to have the phone immediately ring again. She was tempted not to answer it, but given the work crisis she’d missed yesterday, she didn’t want to risk another lecture from Dave about her inopportune absence. Glancing at the caller ID, though, she saw that it wasn’t Dave at all, but Sue Nelson, who’d been her best friend since Hannah had arrived in New York nearly twenty years ago.

“I want to know why I had to find out from your secretary that you’ve skipped town again,” Sue demanded when Hannah answered.

“Sorry. The trip came together pretty suddenly.”

“Jane said your grandmother was having a hard time coping without your mom. Is that why you went?”

“Pretty much. I’m hoping to convince her to sell the inn and move to a retirement community.”

Sue chuckled. She’d met Grandma Jenny and could imagine her reaction. “And how’s that going?” she asked.

Hannah laughed with her. “About like you’d expect. I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth before she was warning me off in no uncertain terms.”

“Then why aren’t you heading home? I’d think being there right now would be really hard. Besides, don’t you have a three-month cancer screening coming up?”

“I postponed it.”

“Hannah!” Sue protested. “You can’t do things like that. This is too important.”

“Don’t overreact. I only postponed it a couple of weeks. I’ll go in the day after I get back to New York.”

“Can I get that in writing? I know you’re dreading it.”

“Well, of course, I’m dreading it, but I’m not stupid. I know I can’t put it off indefinitely.”

“What’s the new date?”

“Why? Do you think I’m lying?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you, but that’s not why I’m asking. I want to put it on my calendar, so I can go with you. I told you when you first got diagnosed that you’re not going through any of this alone.”

Hannah’s eyes stung for the second time that night. “You’ve been wonderful and I will never be able to thank you enough,” she said. “But you’ve spent enough of your
time babysitting me through surgery and chemo. I can go to one appointment on my own.”

“But why should you have to?” Sue asked. “Especially when we can go out afterward and splurge on an outrageously expensive dinner to celebrate that you’re just fine.”

“Hush. Don’t say things like that. It’s just asking for something to go wrong.”

“I thought you weren’t superstitious,” Sue teased.

Hannah thought about how recent events had conspired to make her question that. “I’m reexamining my beliefs on that subject.”

“Oh?”

“Long story, and you and John must be about to have dinner.”

“He won’t mind waiting for a few minutes,” Sue said. “Tell me why you’re suddenly leery of black cats and walking under ladders.”

“It’s not about cats and ladders,” Hannah told her. “But trust me, bad things do come in threes.” She paused, then announced, “Kelsey’s pregnant.”

“Oh, my God, you’re kidding!”

“Not something I’d kid about,” Hannah said.

“No, I don’t suppose you would. When did she tell you?”

“Last night.”

“How did you react?”

“You know me. I’m a control freak. I ordered her to come down here before making any decisions. I need to see her. I want to see for myself that she’s okay.”

“And she’s coming?”

“Tomorrow,” Hannah confirmed.

“Okay, now tell me how you’re really feeling.”

“I’m mostly numb, to be perfectly honest,” Hannah replied. “I never expected this.”

“I doubt mothers ever do, unless their daughters are wild ones, which Kelsey definitely is not,” Sue said. “Is Kelsey okay or is she totally freaking out?”

“She sounded calm, but I know she’s falling apart. She’s definitely not thinking clearly. Right now her solution is to quit college and move back to New York with me.”

“Oh, boy! I’m amazed I didn’t hear your reaction to that all the way up here.”

“So am I,” Hannah said.

“Anything I can do?”

“Just knowing you’re there when I need to talk is enough,” Hannah told her.

“I could fly down there and mediate, if it would help,” she offered.

“I’d have to give you combat pay,” Hannah joked. “No, I’ll muddle through this. Just start shaking the martinis the second I get back to New York.”

“You’ve got it, and the minute you decide you need anything more, all you have to do is call.”

“Thanks, Sue. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Thick and thin, that was our deal all those years ago,” Sue reminded her, then added dryly, “Too bad some of my marriage vows didn’t last the way our friendship has.”

“Only because you had extraordinarily bad taste in men before you met John. He’s a keeper.”

“Yeah, I think so, too, which means I’d better get in there and feed him. We miss you, sweetie. Hurry home.”