Chapter 15
Three days after the storm, Kate woke to find Pop in the kitchen at four in the morning, methodically packing canned goods into a cardboard box. He was still in his pajamas, feet bare despite the cold floor, humming something she couldn't quite place.
“Pop? What are you doing?”
He looked up, and for a moment his eyes were completely blank. Then something flickered, not quite recognition but at least acknowledgment that she was familiar.
“Storm's coming,” he said, returning to his packing. “Need to get supplies to the shelter.”
“The storm already passed, Pop. Three days ago.”
“No.” His voice was firm. “Elizabeth called. Said the church needs donations. Big storm coming.”
Kate's heart sank. Elizabeth had been dead for years, but in Pop's mind she was still making phone calls, still organizing charity drives. Kate watched him carefully wrap a can of soup in newspaper, the movements precise despite his confusion.
“Okay, Pop. But it's too early to go to the church. Why don't we wait until morning?”
“This is morning.”
“Later morning. When the sun's up.”
Amy appeared in the doorway, already dressed despite the hour. She took in the scene with practiced calm.
“I've got this,” she said quietly to Kate. “Go back to bed.”
But Kate couldn't sleep after that. She made coffee and sat at the kitchen table, watching Amy gently redirect Pop back to his room, the box of canned goods left on the counter like evidence of a crime.
By the time the sun actually rose, painting the harbor in shades of pink and gold, Kate had already reviewed the insurance paperwork, answered emails from worried guests about future reservations, and made a list of everything that still needed repairing after the storm.
Tom found her there, list in hand, staring at numbers that didn't quite add up even with the insurance payout.
“You're up early,” he said, pouring his own coffee.
“Pop was packing for a storm that already happened.”
“Ah.” Tom sat across from her. “Amy handled it?”
“She always does.” Kate set down her pencil. “That's the problem.”
“Most people would say that's the solution.”
“She's so competent. So perfect. Pop doesn't fight her the way he fights us.”
“And that bothers you.”
“Shouldn't it? Some stranger manages him better than his own daughter?”
Tom was quiet for a moment, then said, “Maybe it's easier for him with her. No emotional baggage, no memories to get confused about. She's just the nice lady who helps him.”
“While I'm the daughter he sometimes doesn't recognize.”
“Kate...” Tom's lawyer voice softened. “It's not about you. The disease doesn't care about fairness or who loves him most.”
Before Kate could respond, they heard a truck in the drive. Through the window, she watched Ben's vehicle pull up, followed by another truck she didn't recognize. Ben got out and began unloading something from the back.
“What's he doing now?” Kate muttered, heading for the door.
She found Ben and another man carrying furniture toward the porch.
Not just any furniture: her mother's chairs, restored to their former beauty.
The wood gleamed with fresh polish, the upholstery had been replaced with fabric that matched the original pattern so closely Kate had to look twice to see the difference.
“Surprise,” Ben said, setting down his end carefully.
Kate stood frozen, staring at the chairs. They were perfect. They were exactly as her mother would have wanted them.
“You said you weren't done with them.”
“I lied. Wanted to surprise you.” He guided the chair into position in the lobby, right where it had always been. “What do you think?”
What she thought was that she might cry. What she thought was that this man had spent weeks secretly restoring something precious to her, had saved it from the dump, had cared enough to match the exact pattern of roses her mother had chosen thirty years ago.
“I think...” she started, then stopped. “Thank you.”
Dani appeared, gasped at the chairs, and immediately sat in one. “Oh, Katie, they're perfect. Mom would have loved this.”
“Mom did love them,” Kate corrected. “That's why Ben saved them.”
She looked at Ben, his patient expression suggested he could wait forever for her to figure out what everyone else already seemed to know.
“I should pay you. For the restoration.”
“No.” His voice was firm. “This wasn't a job. This was...”
“What?”
“A gift. Can you just accept a gift?”
Before she could answer, Lillian arrived. She entered through the front door, using her walking stick, and stopped short when she saw the chairs.
“Those are Elizabeth's chairs,” she said, her voice strange.
“Ben restored them,” Dani explained. “Aren't they beautiful?”
Lillian approached slowly, ran her hand along the wood.
“She picked these out when she was pregnant with Thomas. She sent photographs in a letter.” She looked up at Kate.
“I wanted to convince her to buy something more expensive, more elegant. But, I never answered her letter. She said these were perfect because they were comfortable and beautiful. Function and form, she said.”
It was another shared memory of her mother that was tinged with regret.
“Sit,” Kate said impulsively. “Try it.”
Lillian sat carefully, settling into the chair with obvious relief. Her walking stick rested against the arm, and for a moment she closed her eyes.
“I imagine her sitting here,” Lillian said quietly. “During my last visit, before... before everything went wrong. She was nursing Dani, telling me about her plans for the inn. She was so happy.”
“You visited after Dani was born?” Kate asked, surprised.
“Once. I showed up out of the blue. I’d never answered her letters, so of course, she was surprised to see me.
We fought about money, about the inn's mortgage, about Daniel working himself to death on the boat.” Lillian opened her eyes.
“I said things. She said things. I left and never returned. I had a lot of guilt about what I’d done. It was difficult to explain… still is.”
They all stood in awkward silence, the weight of lost years heavy in the air. Then Pop wandered in, Amy trailing behind him, and his face lit up when he saw the chairs.
“Elizabeth's chairs! They're back!” He moved to the empty one, sitting with obvious pleasure. “She'll be so pleased.”
“Yes,” Lillian said softly, looking at her former son-in-law. “She will be.”
Ben had disappeared during this family moment, but Kate found him on the porch, leaning against the railing, giving them space.
“You didn't have to leave,” she said.
“Seemed like a family thing.”
“You're...”
“What?”
She didn't know how to finish. You're practically family? You're important? You're scaring me with how much you care?
“You're always doing that,” she said instead. “Showing up, fixing things, then disappearing before anyone can properly thank you.”
“I don't need thanks.”
“What do you need?”
He turned to look at her fully. “You really want to know?”
Kate's heart pounded in her chest, but she nodded.
“I need you to stop looking at me like I'm going to leave. I need you to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I need you to consider, just for a minute, that maybe I'm exactly what I appear to be: a man who cares about you and isn't going anywhere.”
“People always go somewhere.”
“Your mom didn't. She died, Kate, but she didn't leave. There's a difference.”
The truth of it hit her hard. Her mother hadn't chosen to leave. Neither had Pop, not really, even as his mind wandered further from them each day. The only people who'd chosen to leave were the ones who'd come back: Tom, James, Dani. Even Lillian, in her way.
“I don't know how to do this,” Kate said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Trust. Hope. Believe that something good might actually stay good.”
“You don't have to know how. You just have to try.”
Rosa appeared in the doorway. “Miss Kate? There's a problem with one of the guest rooms. The ceiling is leaking.”
Kate sighed. “The storm damage. I thought we'd patched everything.”
She followed Rosa inside, Ben coming with them. The leak in Room 5 was significant, water dripping steadily onto the bed, the ceiling stained and buckling.
“That's not storm damage,” Ben said, examining it. “That's a pipe. Probably burst during the freeze-thaw cycle after the storm.”
“How much?” Kate asked, already dreading the answer.
“To fix properly? Couple thousand, minimum. Need to open up the ceiling, replace the pipe, repair the damage.”
Kate wanted to scream. Every time they got ahead, something else broke. Even with Lillian's money handling the mortgage and major repairs, these constant small disasters were drowning them.
“I can do the work,” Ben offered. “Cost price on materials.”
“No.”
“Kate...”
“No. I can't keep taking from you. Your time, your labor, your materials. I can't owe you any more than I already do.”
“You don't owe me anything.”
“I owe you everything!” The words exploded out of her. “The roof, the tree, the chairs, now this. Every time I turn around, you're saving something, fixing something, giving something. I can't... I can't be that person.”
“What person?”
“The one who needs saving.”
Ben stepped closer, and Kate could see frustration in his eyes for the first time. “You think accepting help makes you weak? You think your mother was weak for accepting your father's love? For letting him provide for her?”
“That's different.”
“How?”
“They were married. They were partners.”
“And we can't be?”
The question hung between them, loaded with possibility and terror. Kate couldn't answer, couldn't move, couldn't breathe properly.
“Katie?” James appeared in the doorway. “We've got another problem. Pop's missing.”
Everything else forgotten, Kate ran downstairs. Amy was in the lobby, clearly upset.
“I turned my back for two minutes,” Amy said. “He was in the sunroom, then he was gone.”
They scattered to search. Kate checked the garden, Tom the basement, Dani the guest rooms. James ran to check the parking lot. But it was Ben who found him, standing at the end of the dock at the harbor, still in his slippers, staring out at the water.
“He’s here!” Ben yelled out.
Kate ran to him and together they approached Pop slowly, not wanting to startle him.
“Pop?” Kate called gently.
He turned, and his face was streaming with tears. “I can't find it.”
“Find what, Pop?”
“My boat. The Sarah Elizabeth. Someone stole my boat.”
“Pop, you sold that boat years ago.”
“No.” He was adamant. “It was right here. Elizabeth christened it. Right here.”
Kate's throat was tight. “Pop, let's go home.”
“This isn't home. Home is with Elizabeth.”
They got him back to the inn, with Amy taking over. But Kate stood in the lobby, shaking, the weight of everything crushing her.
“He's getting worse,” she said to no one in particular.
“Yes,” Lillian said. She was still in the chair, had been there the whole time. “He is.”
“I don't know how to help him.”
“You can't.” Lillian's voice was gentle but firm. “Some things are out of our control, Katherine. They can only be endured with grace, but at some point you have to let go.”
“I don't have any grace left.”
“Then borrow some.”
Kate looked at her grandmother, this dying woman who'd lost her daughter, her pride, years of family life. “From where?”
“From the people who love you. From the man who restores chairs and saves buildings and looks at you like you hung the moon. From your siblings who came home. From me, if you'll let me.”
Kate sank into the other restored chair, her mother's chair, and finally let herself cry. Not the angry tears she'd shed before, but deep, grieving sobs for everything already gone and everything slipping away.
Ben appeared beside her, didn't say anything, just handed her a handkerchief. An actual handkerchief, probably his grandfather's, soft with age.
“The ceiling can wait,” he said quietly. “Everything can wait.”
Kate nodded, unable to speak, clutching the handkerchief like a lifeline. Around her, the inn creaked and settled, damaged but standing, full of people who were trying to help her even when she didn't know how to let them.
Maybe that was enough. Maybe it was the only thing that mattered.
Maybe accepting grace wasn't weakness but the only way to survive when everything you loved was falling apart.
The chairs her mother had chosen, now restored, held them in the lobby while the sun moved across the floor and Pop dozed upstairs and the ceiling in Room 5 dripped steadily into a bucket Rosa had placed beneath it. Everything broken, everything breaking, everything somehow still holding together.
For now.