Chapter 8
Kate heard the whispers before she saw the looks. She was at the hardware store, picking up paint samples, when Donna Wagner and Marie Brennan stopped talking mid-sentence. Their eyes followed her to the paint display, voices dropping to that particular pitch of gossip barely contained.
“Whitfield money,” she caught, and “buying her way back,” and worst of all, “poor Elizabeth would be mortified.”
Kate kept her back straight, selected three shades of blue as if she couldn't hear them. But her hands shook slightly as she headed to the register.
“Katie.” George McAllister, who'd run the hardware store for thirty years, gave her a sympathetic look. “Heard you're doing big renovations up at the inn.”
“Some repairs, yes.”
“With your grandmother's help.” It wasn't a question. In a town this small, everyone knew everything within hours.
“That’s what families do, George, they help,” Kate corrected, though the words tasted wrong.
George nodded slowly. “Your mother was a proud woman. Never took a dime from anyone.”
The implication hung there, that Elizabeth would be disappointed, that Kate had somehow failed by accepting the money. She paid for the paint samples and left, feeling the eyes on her back.
At the inn, she found chaos. Dani was in the lobby directing two men who were carrying out the old furniture.
“What are you doing?” Kate demanded.
“Replacing these awful chairs. They're from the seventies, Kate. And not in a good vintage way.”
“You can't just…” Kate stopped, seeing Lillian in the corner, examining the worn reception desk with a critical eye. “What is she doing here?”
“She wanted to see the improvements,” Dani said, as if this were perfectly reasonable. “And she had some suggestions.”
“Suggestions.”
“This desk should go,” Lillian announced, not looking up. “It's giving entirely the wrong first impression.”
“That desk has been here for thirty-six years,” Kate said.
“Precisely my point.” Lillian straightened, and Kate noticed how well she looked for someone supposedly dying of cancer. Her color was good, her energy seemingly endless as she moved around the lobby pointing out flaws. “The whole entrance needs updating. Something more sophisticated.”
“Our guests like the authentic Maine inn experience.”
“They like the idea of it. The reality should be more comfortable.” Lillian pulled out her phone, showing Kate images of sleek, modern hotel lobbies. “This is what travelers expect now.”
“This isn't a boutique hotel. It's our home.”
“It's a business,” Lillian corrected. “And if it's going to survive long-term, it needs to adapt.”
Kate looked to Dani for support, but her sister was absorbed in fabric samples. The men had already removed two of the armchairs Kate's mother had picked out, loading them onto a truck like garbage.
“Stop!” Kate yelled. “Just... stop.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“Those are Mom's chairs. That's Pop's desk where he used to do the books. You can't just throw away our history because it doesn't meet your aesthetic standards.”
“Kate,” Dani started, using that placating tone that made Kate want to scream. “They're just things.”
“They're our things. Our memories.”
“Memories don't pay bills,” Lillian said coolly. “I'm trying to help you create a sustainable business.”
“I didn't ask for your help with decorating.”
“You asked for my money. It amounts to the same thing.”
The words hung in the air like a slap. Kate saw Amy at the top of the stairs with Pop, keeping him from coming down into the conflict. Even she knew this was a battle Pop didn't need to witness.
“Actually,” Kate said, her voice dangerously quiet, “I didn't ask. You offered. You showed up here dying and desperate for forgiveness, and we took pity on you.”
Lillian's face went pale, then flushed. For a moment, she looked every one of her seventy-three years. Then she recovered, spine straightening.
“I see. Well, if you'd prefer to maintain your... quaint aesthetic, by all means.” She gathered her purse. “I have a doctor's appointment anyway.”
After she left, Dani turned on Kate. “Was that necessary?”
“Was any of this necessary? You didn't even ask me about the furniture.”
“Because you would have said no.”
“Exactly!”
“Kate, those chairs were falling apart. The desk has water damage. Just because Mom picked them doesn't mean we have to keep them forever.”
“You don't get to make that decision alone.”
“I'm trying to help!”
“You're trying to take over. There's a difference.”
Dani's face crumpled slightly. “I'm trying to be part of this. To contribute something besides money I didn't earn.”
Before Kate could respond, Ben appeared in the doorway. “Bad time?”
“Perfect timing,” Dani said, brushing past him. “Maybe you can talk sense into her. I'm going for a walk.”
Kate stood in the half-empty lobby, looking at the spaces where the chairs had been. Dust marks outlined their absence like ghost furniture.
“Want to talk about it?” Ben asked.
“No.”
“Want to hit something?”
Despite everything, Kate almost smiled. “Maybe.”
“Come on. I need help with some demolition upstairs.”
They spent the next hour tearing out water-damaged drywall in the third-floor rooms. Ben showed her where to hit for maximum effect, how to let the hammer's weight do the work. It was satisfying, destroying something that needed destroying, making way for something better.
“People are talking,” Kate said between swings. “About us taking Lillian's money.”
“People always talk.”
“They think we sold out. That Mom would be ashamed.”
Ben stopped working, looked at her. “What do you think?”
“I think Mom would understand. But I also think...” She hit the wall harder than necessary. “I think Lillian's trying to turn this place into something it's not.”
“Have you told her that?”
“I just did. Possibly too harshly.”
“Possibly?”
“Definitely.”
They worked without talking for a while.
Ben seemed to let her burn off whatever steam had built in her body.
After a while, her anger subsided. Kate found herself watching Ben when he wasn't looking, the way his shoulders moved under his work shirt, how his hands were gentle with the old building despite the demolition.
He caught her looking once and smiled, making her stomach do that flutter she was trying to ignore.
“Katie!” Pop's voice from downstairs, confused and urgent.
She ran down to find him in the lobby with Amy, staring at the empty spaces.
“Where's the furniture?” he asked. “Someone's stolen the furniture!”
“It's being repaired, Pop,” Kate lied smoothly. “Remember? We talked about it.”
“We did?” He looked lost, older somehow without the familiar landmarks of his life.
“Why don't we go to the sunroom?” Amy suggested. “I made tea.”
But Pop wasn't ready to be redirected. “This is wrong. It's all wrong. Elizabeth chose those chairs. She sat right there,” he pointed to an empty corner, “when she was pregnant with Tom. Said her back hurt and that chair was the only comfortable spot in the whole inn.”
Kate's chest tightened. She hadn't known that story.
“We'll get them back, Pop.”
“You will?”
“I promise.”
After Amy got him settled, Kate called the furniture removal company. The chairs were already at the dump. Irretrievable. Like so many things lately.
She found Dani on the porch, crying.
“I'm sorry,” Dani said. “I thought I was helping. Lillian said the inn needed updating, and I wanted to contribute something, to be useful.”
“You are useful.”
“No, I'm the pretty one who left and had a glamorous life in New York City. You're the practical one who stayed.” Dani wiped her eyes. “I don't know how to be here, Katie. I don't know what my role is.”
Kate sat beside her sister on the porch steps. “Maybe we're both trying too hard to be what we think we should be.”
“What do you mean?”
“You're trying to be helpful. I'm trying to be independent. Maybe we should just try to be sisters.”
Dani leaned against her shoulder, something she hadn't done in years. “Lillian seemed really hurt. What you said about dying and desperate.”
“I know.”
“She actually looked sick for the first time. Like, properly ill.”
Properly ill? Kate thought about that. Every time she'd seen Lillian before, the woman had been perfectly put together, energetic, commanding. Today, after Kate's harsh words, she seemed fragile.
“I should apologize,” Kate said, though the words stuck in her throat.
“She should apologize too. She was overstepping.”
They sat together as the sun started to set, sisters on the porch of their childhood home, trying to figure out how to be a family with all these complicated pieces.
Marcy came out with a tray of tea and cookies. “Thought you could use this.”
“Marcy, did you know about the chairs?” Kate asked.
“Saw them being loaded this morning. Figured it would cause a fuss.”
“Why didn't you stop them?”
“Not my place. But…” Marcy paused, choosing her words. “Your mother wouldn't have cared about the chairs. She cared about the people in them.”
After Marcy went back inside, Kate noticed Ben's truck was gone. He'd left without saying goodbye, probably sensing she needed space. The man had an uncanny ability to know when to push and when to retreat.
“He likes you,” Dani said.
“Ben? He's just…”
“Kate. Everyone can see it. The way he looks at you. The way you don't look at him.”
“I look at him.”
“You look and then you look away, like you're afraid of looking too long, of wanting something for yourself.”
Kate didn't deny it. She was afraid. Afraid of wanting, of needing, of opening herself to the possibility of loss.
“Tom called,” Dani said, changing the subject. “He worked with Brian on the mortgage. The bank officially accepted the payoff. The inn is ours, free and clear.”
Ours. The word should have brought relief. Instead, Kate felt the weight of it, the inn was saved, but at what cost? They were tied to Lillian now, to her money and her opinions and her need to be part of their lives.
That evening, Kate found Pop in his room, looking through an old photo album Amy had found for him.
“Look,” he said, pointing to a picture. “Elizabeth with her chairs.”
There was her mother, young and pregnant, sitting in one of the chairs they'd thrown away today. She was laughing at something off-camera, one hand on her belly, the other reaching toward whoever was taking the picture, probably Pop.
“She was beautiful,” Kate said.
“Inside and out.” Pop turned the page. “That's what her mother never understood. Elizabeth's beauty wasn't in the fancy things. It was in how she made everyone feel at home. I’m just glad her father recognized how special his daughter was.”
“Grandfather? No one ever talks about him. What was he like?”
Pop continued to look at the photos. “He was a good man, and Elizabeth loved him so. Such a heartbreak when he died.”
Kate wished she knew more about her grandfather. Except for a few photos, there was little about the man anyone had shared with her and her siblings.
Kate thought about Lillian's suggested renovations, the sleek modern lobby that would impress but not comfort.
“Pop, what would Mom think about the changes we're making?”
He looked at her with surprisingly clear eyes. “She'd want the inn to survive. But she'd want it to stay ours.” He patted her hand. “Don't let them change us into something we're not, Katie-girl.”
But Kate wondered if it was already too late. The money was in the bank. The nurse was in residence. The repairs were underway. The chairs were at the dump. Change was happening whether she wanted it or not.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Ben: Salvaged something from the renovation. Come to the barn tomorrow morning if you want to see.
Despite everything, Kate smiled. Tomorrow she'd face Lillian, deal with Dani's decorating ideas, figure out how to balance preservation with progress. But tonight, she allowed herself one small warmth, the thought of Ben saving something just for her.
Outside, she could hear the town settling into evening, with shops closing and the streets clearing of tourists. And, somewhere, people were probably still gossiping about the Whitfield money, about poor Elizabeth's family taking handouts from the woman who'd disowned her.
Let them talk, Kate thought. They didn't know what it was like to choose between pride and survival, between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go.
But as she helped Pop get ready for bed, she wondered if she understood these things any better.