Chapter 17 #2
Serena fled, and Kate couldn't blame her. Pop stood in the lobby, breathing hard, his face red with exertion and anger.
“Pop,” Kate said gently. “Mom's not here.”
He turned to her, and the anger drained away, replaced by confusion and then grief. “She's not?”
“No, Pop. She's been gone a long time.”
“But I can smell her perfume. Roses. She always smelled like roses.”
Kate's throat tightened. The restored chairs did smell faintly of roses, from the new upholstery fabric Ben had chosen to match the original.
“I know, Pop. I smell it too.”
He let Amy lead him away then, all the fight gone out of him. Kate stood in the lobby, looking at the chairs that had caused such upheaval. Beautiful and restored, but still capable of triggering Pop's confused grief.
“I should go apologize to Serena,” Dani said.
“Let her go. This isn't a destination property. It's Pop's home. Our home.”
“For how much longer? Katie, he's getting worse.”
Kate knew Dani was right. The confused wandering, the anger, the moments of complete disconnection were increasing. Amy was wonderful, but she was one person. Soon Pop would need more care than even she could provide.
Ben appeared in the doorway. “Heard shouting. Everything okay?”
“Pop had an episode,” Kate said tiredly.
“The woman with the phone ran past me looking terrified.”
“Dani's hospitality consultant. Pop didn't appreciate her suggestions.”
Ben's mouth quirked slightly. “Good for Pop.”
Dani made an exasperated sound and left. Kate stood with Ben in the lobby, suddenly aware of her appearance... the ratty robe, her hair in Dani's braid, her face bare and probably blotchy from the cold morning on the ice.
“You went fishing,” he said. It wasn't a question.
“Needed to think.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
He stepped closer, “You look...”
“Terrible. I know.”
“I was going to say real.” He touched the braid gently. “This is new.”
“Dani did it.”
“It's pretty.”
The word sat between them, foreign and uncomfortable. Kate couldn't remember the last time anyone had called any part of her pretty.
“I should get dressed.”
“Kate.” His voice stopped her. “There's nothing wrong with being practical. With being strong. But you're allowed to be other things too.”
“Like what?”
“Soft. Vulnerable. Pretty.” He smiled slightly. “Even beautiful.”
“I'm not beautiful.”
“You are to me.”
The simplicity of it, the certainty, made her chest tight. She fled upstairs before he could say anything else, before she could do something stupid like kiss him right there in the lobby with Pop probably watching from somewhere, with her in her ratty robe and her face a mess.
In her room, she looked at herself again in the mirror. The braid did make a difference, softening her face, revealing cheekbones she'd forgotten she had. Maybe there was still something of that younger Kate in there, buried under years of responsibility and grief.
Maybe Ben could see her because he was looking.
Maybe it was time she started looking too.
But first, there was the inn to run, Pop to manage, her siblings to coordinate, Lillian's money to figure out how to use, and a hundred other responsibilities that wouldn't wait for her to figure out who she was beneath all of that.
Kate unraveled the braid, pulled her hair back into its usual practical ponytail, and got dressed in her usual practical clothes. There would be time for pretty later.
There was always later.
Until there wasn't, a voice in her head whispered. Lillian had six weeks. Pop was disappearing day by day. Even the ice on the pond would be gone soon.
Everything was temporary. Everything was changing.
Maybe she should change too.
But not today. Today she had work to do.
Kate was in the kitchen at five-thirty the next morning, enjoying the quiet before the inn woke up, when Dani appeared in the doorway.
Her sister was already fully dressed and made up despite the early hour, wearing designer jeans and a cashmere sweater that probably cost more than their monthly coffee budget.
“You're up early,” Kate said, pouring her sister a cup of coffee without asking. After months of working together, she knew Dani's habits.
“I heard you tell James that you were going ice fishing this morning. I know you get out there early so I thought I’d try to talk to you before you left. Once you disappear to the pond, I know I won’t see you for hours.” Dani wrapped her hands around the mug. “I have a proposition.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I want to go ice fishing with you.”
Kate nearly dropped her mug. “You want to what?”
“Ice fishing. Today. With you.”
“Dani, you hate fish. You hate cold. You hate…”
“I know what I hate.” Dani set down her coffee with determination. “But I realized something yesterday; we don't really know each other anymore. Maybe we never did. You were always with Mom, I was always... elsewhere.”
Kate studied her sister's face, looking for the joke, the punchline.
“This is your thing,” Dani continued. “Your escape. Your peace. I want to understand it. I want to understand you.”
Kate smiled. “Well, okay. If you really want to go you’re going to have to dress for it, none of your designer clothes. It gets really cold out there.”
Dani shrugged. “I know. I’m sure I have something I can wear. I mean, how cold can it be?”
An hour later, Dani wrapped in so many layers she could barely move, sat on a camping chair, shaking.
Pointing to a shack on the pond, Dani asked, “I don’t understand why you don’t have one of those cute little houses. I bet they’re all warm and cozy.”
Kate tried not to laugh. “Let’s just say, I like to feel the cold.”
“You like it?”
“If you want to get to know me, what you need to understand is that when life gets to be too much for me, the cold makes me forget my troubles.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “I guess that’s one way to numb your feelings.”
“I wouldn’t call it numbing my feelings. It’s just that the problems don’t seem so big when I’m out here.”
After a few minutes of quiet, Dani had another question.
“And another thing. Why don’t you have one of those electric drill things?
Why did you make me turn that auger all by myself?
” Pointing to the other fishermen, Dani said, “Those guys over there dug their holes really fast with their augers. Those things went down into the ice really quick. Why don’t you have one of those? ”
Kate smiled. “I do.”
Dani sat up tall. “What do you mean, you do? You mean to tell me that you intentionally had me turn that thing manually for no reason?”
Kate laughed. “I had a reason. I wanted you to experience what it was like for me when Pop showed me how to fish the very first time. I thought I should do the same for you.”
Dani looked like she was ready to kill Kate.
“Thanks a lot but that was a long time ago. Clearly, they’ve come up with a better way since then.”
“Dani, so far since we’ve been out here, you’ve complained that your white parka got dirt on it.
You almost threw up when you had to touch the bait, you complained how hard it was to dig the hole, and you’ve complained about the cold from the moment we got out of the car.
What exactly where you hoping to accomplish by coming out on the ice this morning? ”
Dani looked down at the ice. “I wanted to get to know my sister. I wanted to understand what peace looks like to you. Is this it?”
“This is it.”
“It's very... quiet.”
“That's the point.”
They sat in silence for a moment, then Dani asked, “Do you ever think about doing something else? Besides the inn?”
Kate shrugged. “The inn is our life. Our legacy.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Kate was quiet for a long moment. “Sometimes. But it doesn't matter. Pop needs care, the inn needs managing, you all need…”
“We need you to be happy,” Dani interrupted. “Katie, you're thirty-five years old and you've never done anything just for yourself.”
“Have you?”
Dani laughed, but it was bitter. “I've done nothing BUT things for myself and look where it got me. Failed gallery in New York, failed boutique in Boston, failed... everything. Now I'm back here, and I have no idea what’s next.”
“You're twenty-eight. You have time to figure it out.”
“Do I? Or will I wake up one day and be thirty-five, still here, still wondering what I'm supposed to be?”
Kate watched the tip-up, avoiding her sister's eyes. “There are worse things than being here.”
“Name one thing you want, Katie. Just for you. Not for the inn, not for the family. Just you.”
The words almost escaped: Marine biology. Graduate school. To study what's under this ice instead of just sitting on top of it. But Kate swallowed them back.
“I have what I want,” she lied.
“You’re lying.” Dani's words hit hard. “You know what I think? I think you're so used to sacrificing that you don't even know how to want things anymore.”
“And you want too much.”
“Maybe. But at least I admit it. I want to matter, Katie. I want to build something that's mine. I want someone to look at me the way Ben looks at you.”
“Ben doesn't…”
“Oh please. That man has been in love with you since the moment he first laid eyes on you. And you're so busy being responsible that you won't even see it.”
Kate's tip-up flag suddenly went up, saving her from responding. As she pulled in the fish, a decent bass, Dani shrieked and scooted backward.
“It's just a fish, Dani.”
“It's slimy.” But Dani was laughing now, the heavy moment breaking. “Take a picture of me with it. My friends won't believe I actually did this.”
As Kate watched her sister pose with the fish, her manicured nails holding it as far from her body as possible, she thought about their conversation.
Dani was right. She didn't know how to want things anymore.
Except she did want. She wanted it so badly it hurt: to go back to school, to study the ocean she loved, to be more than Pop's daughter who saved the inn.
“Your turn,” Kate said, baiting Dani's hook again. “And this time, when you get a bite, you're touching the fish.”
“I'd rather die.”
“Drama queen.”
“Ice queen.”
They grinned at each other, sisters who'd found their way back through frozen water and honest words.
“You know,” Dani said quietly, watching her line, “whatever you're not saying you want? You should want it. Out loud. To someone besides the fish.”
“Maybe.”
“And I should probably figure out what I want my future to look like.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
They sat quietly after that, two sisters, one in her twenties and the other in her thirties, both lost in different ways. Kate thought about the UNE catalog hidden in her nightstand. Dani probably thought about whatever dreams she was afraid to name.
When they finally packed up, Dani's designer boots thoroughly destroyed, she turned to Kate.
“Thank you for this. For letting me into your space.”
“Want to come again next week?”
“Absolutely not. This was a one-time sisterly bonding experience. From now on, I'll support your fishing habit with hot coffee and warm kitchens.”
As they walked back to the truck, Dani linked her arm through Kate's. “But seriously, Katie. Whatever you want but won't say? It's not too late. Thirty-five isn't dead. Hell, twenty-eight isn't dead. We're both allowed to want more.”
“When did you become philosophical?”
“Somewhere between touching that disgusting bait and freezing my butt off. Suffering builds character apparently.”
They laughed, but Kate carried Dani's words with her: It's not too late.
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe wanting something for herself wasn't selfish.
Maybe she could have both, the inn and her dreams.
But first, she had to be brave enough to want it out loud, just as Dani recommended.