CHAPTER TWO
The weeks shrank to a blink, and on the morning of the anniversary party, Emily woke to a peculiar calm in the house.
But the silence didn’t last. Within twenty minutes, the kitchen was alive with the clatter of coffee mugs, the low rumble of Daniel’s voice, and the energy that always signaled an event at the inn.
Emily paced herself: one cup of coffee, then a sweep through every guest room to check for errant dirty towels and dust bunnies, then a second cup of coffee back in her own kitchen while she mapped out the seating arrangements in her head.
By nine, the rental delivery had arrived.
Folding chairs and tables seemed to almost instantly line the edge of the lawn.
She signed for the order, already eyeing the next delivery van—flowers from Raj, the florist in town, boxes of stems sweating in the humidity.
She met Raj at the back door and took charge of the arrangements, despite the man’s cheerful offer to help.
“I have a system,” Emily explained. Raj snapped for his assistant to unload, and Emily sorted the hydrangeas and roses into buckets, letting her fingers numb with the cold of the refrigerated greenery.
Once that was done and Raj sent off with payment and a promise to make sure there were plenty of cocktail shrimp for him at the party, Emily joined Daniel on the back porch.
Daniel tested the string lights he’d rigged up the night before, looping them in perfect arcs from post to post. He glanced over his shoulder, as if feeling her gaze. “You think it’s too much?”
Emily shook her head. “Not enough, if anything. We need people to see the party from the water.”
He grinned, teeth showing through his three-day stubble. “I’ll add a row along the railing.”
Inside, Emily found Roy adjusting more chairs in the front parlor, the feet of each one scraping in precise intervals as he measured the distance between them with an actual carpenter’s square. “Fire marshal’s coming to this party,” he said, never looking up.
Emily fought the urge to tell him that the man wasn’t going to check the exit plan, only the dessert table. And she noted, suddenly, that her father’s hands were shaking just a little. Worry pricked in her chest.
“Dad, you good?”
Roy cut her a sharp look and nodded, putting his hands behind his back. “We need the passageways clear and to code, that’s all.”
Instead of pushing, Emily simply kissed her father on the cheek and went onto the next thing on her checklist. She would ask him about it later, though the worry lingered as she left to tackle the next to-do.
***
Daniel opened the door for the first arrival, and Emily recognized the guest at once, though she hadn’t seen him in years.
Mr. Kapowski, the inn’s very first paying customer, now sported a silver ponytail and a bright-blue polo advertising an active-adult cruise line. A windbreaker was slung over his arm.
He stepped inside and bellowed, “Hope you’ve got more eggs than last time, or I’m out.”
Emily moved to embrace him. “And mushrooms. And tomatoes. I’ve learned from my mistakes.” The inside joke was a reference to the disastrous breakfast that Emily had made him on his first visit, and she grinned.
“The years have made you wise,” he said, but the dig was affectionate, and he hugged her tight, smelling faintly of aftershave.
He produced a small, flat-wrapped package from his jacket pocket when they parted. “For you. Maude at the historical society dug it up for me.”
Inside was a hand-drawn building plan for the house, framed, the lines faded but the script legible: 1900, with annotations about servants’ quarters and “water closet expansion.” Emily ran a finger over the paper, oddly touched.
“Thank you,” she said, feeing her eyes mist.
“It belongs here,” Kapowski said, and moved on to greet Daniel with a bear hug that nearly knocked him into the wall. He was lucky to hold onto Charlotte, who shrieked with laughter and grabbed Mr. Kapowski’s sleeve in delight.
The next wave of arrivals came in a steady trickle: a couple from pop star Roman Westbrook’s music festival crowd, bearing Roman’s regrets that he couldn’t make it (though Emily had gotten his email, as well), Ben and Madison, the influencer blonde bouncing with excitement as she dragged her affectionately suffering husband with her, and practically every contractor and electrician to have ever worked on the house.
Emily welcomed each with real warmth, and a gratefulness that grew with each arrival.
Mayor Hansen showed up in a golf outfit, despite never having played a hole in his life, and made a beeline for the appetizer table.
Emily watched as he downed six small quiche bites in under a minute, then retreated to the porch to check out the music setup.
Bailey and Chantelle, dressed in coordinated sundresses, tumbled down the main staircase.
By late afternoon, the lawn had filled, and the party—her party—began to take on a life of its own.
Every staff member she had, front of house, kitchen, maid service, reception, were all there as guests, too.
Emily cycled between the parlor, back porch, backyard, and kitchen, refilling buffet dishes and dispensers of lemonade.
Daniel found her in the butler’s pantry, arms elbow-deep in a crate of backup glassware. “It’s going well,” he said.
She blew a stray hair from her face. “You sure?”
“People are smiling. I saw Madison cry already—good tears, I think.”
Emily smiled, thinking of her friend’s often-overflowing emotions. “You’re keeping score?”
“Only the important stuff.” He bumped her shoulder with his. “You should come out and see it.”
She hesitated, then wiped her hands on a nearby towel and followed him through the kitchen to the back door, where they looked out over the back lawn.
The afternoon light had mellowed, giving everything a honeyed glow, and the guests on the back lawn looked, for a rare instant, like characters from an illustrated storybook—varied and odd, but somehow belonging together.
She caught sight of Mr. Kapowski, holding court at a folding table, holding Charlotte on his lap, telling some long-winded tale while gesturing with a breadstick that the baby kept trying to grab.
At the next table, Bailey and Chantelle oversaw the lawn game scorecards, looking self-important.
Patricia and Cassie walked Mogsy and Rain, who sniffed everyone they passed in hopes of a dropped treat or two.
For a second, Emily let herself stop moving, just to watch.
This, she realized, was the point—not the flawless execution, but the way people filled this place with stories and laughter, layering new memories over the old.
The house felt both lighter and sturdier, as if it’s very bones had been reinforced by all this joy.
Daniel, sensing her mood, squeezed her hand. “You did good,” he said.
Emily squeezed back. “We did,” she corrected.
He raised his eyebrows, conceding the point, and they stood together in the late sun, listening as the inn—their inn—sang with life.
But the party was only just beginning. The first warning was the scent—heady, floral, and so persistent it seemed to overpower everything else around.
Emily heard a single, booming voice. “My darlings! The energy in this gathering is simply luminous.”
Madame Zelda had arrived. It wasn’t a surprise, per se, since she’d been invited, but it was always an experience.
Emily turned in time to catch Zelda’s grand entrance.
She swept through the kitchen doors from the main house, behind Emily and Daniel, like a cruise liner gliding into port, emerald caftan billowing and studded with constellations of gold thread.
Her jewelry—bracelets, rings, a breastplate necklace that looked fit for a jousting tournament—clinked with every step.
Zelda’s perfume swept fully over Emily as the woman embraced her.
It was like someone had distilled the contents of an apothecary, doused it in bourbon, and set it on fire.
Emily’s eyes watered as Zelda managed, as always, to pull her in without so much as a lipstick smudge, squeezing Emily’s shoulders with surprising strength.
“I can feel it,” Zelda whispered theatrically into Emily’s ear. “This celebration’s midnight will be unforgettable.”
“It’s three-thirty in the afternoon,” Emily whispered back to the psychic, grinning.
“For some of us, time is just a suggestion.” Zelda released her, kissed Daniel’s cheek, and swept onward into the backyard, gathering a trail of awestruck guests and fascinated children in her wake.
She stopped only to bestow more kisses on both cheeks of Roy, who’d materialized near the lemonade, then immediately pulled him aside with a conspiratorial arm.
Emily stepped out to lean on the porch railing and listen in.
“I have been longing to see your aura,” she told Roy, who blinked as if caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck. “It was positively smoldering last time.”
Daniel and Emily watched as Zelda set up an impromptu reading table on Bailey and Chantelle’s games table, rearranging the score cards and fanning out a deck of enormous tarot cards.
Within minutes, a line had formed, all craning for a glimpse of what Zelda might reveal.
She read palms, studied birthmarks, and pronounced the mayor’s energy “deeply green, with underlying notes of old gold.” The mayor looked both baffled and honored.
At least, Emily thought, she hasn’t brought up the statue.
The behemoth nude figure study that Zelda had donated to the inn had been damaged during a hurricane, and it had been relocated to the gardens.
Now, inside, all that remained were the patched places in the front lobby’s floor where the anchors had been, if you knew where to look.
“Emily! Come, join us!” Zelda’s voice rang out, and she gestured dramatically to the chair next to her.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for a reading,” Emily said, but her protest was weak.
The crowd around Zelda cajoled, and Daniel egged her on from beside her, so Emily caved and padded down the porch steps.
She eased into the seat next to her father, noting that Roy seemed genuinely relaxed, his posture easy.
Zelda clasped Emily’s hands in hers, the rings cool against her knuckles, and she flipped Emily’s one palm up. “Your energy is radiating. You are the sun and moon for the people in your care. It is beautiful, but you must also remember to replenish yourself.”
Roy grunted, but not unkindly. “She’s been running the place on fumes for years. Maybe you’re onto something.”
Emily scoffed, too. “We all have been. It’s a group exhaustion. One I wouldn’t trade.”
Roy reached out to grab Emily’s now-free hand.
She smiled and squeezed. It was good for anyone to say that Roy was energetic, especially given his still-too-recent cancer diagnosis.
They sat together, watching as Daniel took refills to the buffet table and as the guests—neighbors, friends, even a few total strangers—formed knots of conversation around the lawn.
Daniel caught Emily’s eye from across the grass, and she raised her eyebrow and looked over at Mr. Kapowski, who was now relegated to a walking assist for Charlotte, who was gripping his hand and wobbling around the lawn.
Daniel grinned back and went to rescue the older man.
Zelda patted Emily’s shoulder. “It’s a rare thing, to see someone’s dream become a reality in so many ways.”
Emily looked around. “I guess it is,” she said proudly.
***
By dusk, the lawn glowed with string lights.
The party had shifted: the music softer, the laughter more subdued.
The kids, tired from hours of scavenger hunts, lawn games, races, food, and sun, now sprawled on picnic blankets, their chatter a white noise wave.
Emily let herself sink into the porch swing, the gentle give of the cushion as she swung lulling her.
The screen door creaked, and Daniel stepped onto the porch, plate of pastries in hand. He set them on the rail, then joined her on the swing, their knees touching. The silence between them was weightless. He glanced at her, eyes soft.
“Charlotte’s out. You okay?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s been a perfect night.”
He looked at her with that sideways smile. “You say that, but your foot hasn’t stopped tapping.”
She stilled it, and then laughed. “I can’t help it. The second I stop, my brain starts writing tomorrow’s to-do list.”
“We could leave it for a day,” he said. “Let tomorrow happen tomorrow.”
“The world might end,” Emily said, grinning.
“Or it might keep spinning.” He laced his fingers through hers. They watched as a trivia game was brought out to the back lawn, to the cluster of blankets on the grass.
Daniel squeezed Emily’s hand. “Should we join them?”
“In a minute,” she said. She tilted her head back, letting the last scraps of sunset wash over her face. “I want to just… watch for a bit.”
He nodded, content to share the quiet. The porch swings creaked as they rocked gently, the rhythm matching the rise and fall of voices from below.
In that simple, repetitive motion, Emily felt the kaleidoscope of her day come briefly into focus.
She watched her mother, Cassie, and Roy, chatting at the edges of the game.
She thought of her own children, who would one day outgrow all this but might remember—just barely—the way an ordinary summer evening felt when everyone who mattered was there, the night sticky and magical.
Emily watched the lights Daniel had hung flicker against the dark sky.
The world would spin, and there would always be more work to do.
But for now, she held Daniel’s hand tighter and let herself rest in the warm, unrepeatable present.
But even in her contentment, she couldn’t get rid of the thought that lingered in her mind as her gaze returned to Roy.
Why had his hands been shaking earlier today?