Chapter 11
Allison
“Wow, this was quite a place at one time,” I say as I look at the newspaper clippings and pictures in front of me.
Luke and I cleaned the table off after we were done eating while Judy brought a big binder in which she had kept snippets from the inn’s history. Jim is sitting at the table with us, commenting on everything. Apparently, he’s owned the inn for almost seventy years. For most of that time, it seemed to be a popular, bustling place. It was just in the last twenty years that the place had gone downhill, as Jim had lost his ability to keep up with the repairs.
Judy is his second wife, although they’ve been married for almost fifty years. His first wife’s family had owned the inn, and it had been her parents’ wedding gift to them. When they had been gifted it, it had been run down and almost uninhabitable, if the pictures were any indication.
“It sure was,” Jim says, sounding proud and weary at the same time. “It gave us quite a living over the years, didn’t it?” He looks at his wife with fondness.
She looks back with the same kind of look. It stirs my heart. Will I ever find someone who would spend fifty years with me and still look at me like that?
Am I the kind of person someone could stand to spend fifty years with?
Maybe someone who kept their word would stay for fifty years, but I don’t want my husband staying just because he said vows, and he couldn’t get out of them. I want him to stay and enjoy that time with me, feel like it is too short, wish he could spend more. Look at me like that.
I don’t know why, but as I’m thinking that, my eyes drift to Luke.
He’s looking at me, and it’s not a look of adoration and love, but it’s a look of interest. Maybe it’s just because he’s finally caught the bug and he really wants to decorate this inn from top to bottom for Christmas.
“What’s going to happen to it?” Luke asks, and I’m interested to know that myself. Do they have children who will inherit it?
“I guess the state will get it when we’re gone. Unless one of our long distant relatives show up. I’m an only child, and we never had children.” Jim’s gnarled fingers trace the edge of the binder, as though he is sad, but there is nothing he could do.
“I wanted children so bad,” Miss Judy says softly. There is no mistaking the sadness in her eyes.
Again I feel Luke’s gaze on me, and my eyes seem drawn to him no matter what’s going on in the rest of the room.
This time, I can’t read it. It seems hooded, and maybe that’s because Miss Judy was talking about children. Luke hardly seems like the kind of man who longs for a family. He seems like the kind of man who is quite content to be single, working on his business, and having fun, no-strings-attached weekends.
That’s not quite fair. I do think I see something deeper in him. But on the surface, that’s the feeling I get.
“Allison and I would love to decorate this for you this evening,” Luke says.
I nod my head, looking at Jim and then Miss Judy, who seems so grateful that her eyes fill with tears.
“It would be glorious to see this place decked out in Christmas finery again,” she says, looking at her husband, who nods slowly.
“I’d love to sit here and watch it if I could,” he says. “But it’s all I can do to try to stay upright at the table. I’m going to need to go to bed. But I want to come out first thing in the morning.”
“If you show us where the decorations are and give us any instructions you want us to have, we can handle the rest. I don’t have much experience in decorating, but Allison seems to be an expert.”
I’m not sure where he got that, but I do love to do it. Taking spaces and making them look beautiful is something I love.
Miss Judy puts a hand to her heart, and then she tells us where the decorations are, saying that they are clearly labeled if they have a certain place they need to be, like the Christmas tree.
There is a storage room off the kitchen, and that’s where we find everything.
“I really appreciate you doing this. I got the feeling that decorating really wasn’t your thing,” I say as we stand in the room, surveying the boxes. There is a lot of them.
“Decorating isn’t really something I enjoy, but I know that beautiful things attract people, and it also helps them pay more.” He grins a little. “Something I’ve learned over the years, although... I like the idea of making beautiful things available to everyone.”
“Like town decorations? Those kinds of things where everyone gets to enjoy it?”
“I do think that helps the town stick together, when they take pride in how they look and their appearance to the rest of the world.”
“I agree,” I say, thoughtful. He doesn’t seem like a small-town kind of guy, either.
“I’ve never really thought about it before, but my business has always been focused on helping other people commercialize. But there’s something about a man who’s been in the same place for seventy years, pouring love and sweat and tears into giving people a beautiful vacation.”
“Did you notice that’s what he talked about as much as he talked about how much he loves the inn?”
Luke nods. “I think that’s what started to get to me. He talked about the experiences that people had while they were here. The friends he made, and the people he’d served. It was...inspiring.”