Chapter 16
The hammering on the front door had Jenna calling out only slightly irritably, “All right, all right , I’m coming.” She stood up from where she’d been making a display of Christmas baking items, dusting off the knees of her overalls before hurrying to the front door of the mercantile.
It had been nearly a week since she’d seen Jack, since they’d had that almost-nothing, which was the only way Jenna could let herself think about it.
He’d texted her the next day to say he wouldn’t be around this week, as he was going into the city to see friends and then spending Thanksgiving with his mom, but he hoped to see her when he got back… whatever that meant.
Jenna had no idea anymore. She’d worn herself out, over-analyzing her conversation with Jack, the things they’d both shared, the things they’d almost said—or not—and whether any of it actually meant anything.
Why, on the verge of what had felt like something wonderful, had he gone out so readily with her brother to see the barn?
Had he been looking for a reason to leave? Had he been relieved ?
She couldn’t let herself obsess about it, even as she recognized she already was. It was hard not to, but she had so many other things to think about—especially getting the store ready for its grand opening during the Winter Wonderland Weekend, just two weeks away.
Already Starr’s Fall was transforming itself into something like a Norman Rockwell painting—wreaths on every door, lights spangled along the lampposts on Main Street, and this morning Jenna glimpsed a hard frost on the ground, sparkling like silver.
It really did feel like Christmas was around the corner.
“Well, it’s about time,” a voice harrumphed before Jenna had completely opened the door.
She blinked, surprised to see Henrietta Starr standing on her new-and-improved porch.
Instead of a lumpy old sofa, there were Adirondack chairs, as well as an American flag and a sculpture of a grizzly bear that Zach had sourced from a local artist, and a hand-carved welcome sign by the door.
“Miss Starr…” Jenna greeted her in surprise. She peered out into the empty parking lot, looking for a car. “Did you come with Laurie?”
“No,” Henrietta replied in the same tetchy tone. “I walked on my own two feet.” She glanced down at her feet, encased in sensible brogues, her wool stockings pooling in wrinkles around her ankles.
“You walked ?” Jenna didn’t manage to hide her surprise. Miller’s Mercantile was half a mile from the center of town, and Henrietta had told her at the boardgame night it was too far for her, which had been something Jenna had no trouble believing.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Henrietta demanded, straightening her tweed skirt before she admitted grudgingly, “It took me some time. But if I don’t move these old bones every so often, I’ll never be able to. Or so Laurie keeps telling me.”
Jenna smothered a laugh. “Wise advice,” she told Henrietta.
“Would you like to have a look around? Or rest for a minute.” She gestured to the armchair by the window.
“We’re not quite open yet, so things are still a little jumbled, but if I can help you find anything…
” She trailed off, for Henrietta was already shuffling through the store, leaning heavily on her cane.
Jenna watched her go with a funny little ache in her chest. There was something both so dignified and desperately sad about Henrietta Starr’s careful steps through the store, the way she stopped and peered at something on a shelf, before giving a little harrumph.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Jenna called, before heading back to where she’d been working.
Now that the store was finally coming together, she was feeling positive and even excited about its re-opening.
The resistance she’d felt to changing it seemed silly now, the temper tantrum of a child, although Jenna knew herself well enough to accept that it hadn’t been childish stubbornness that had kept her from renovating Miller’s Mercantile, but simple fear.
An unexpected bonus of this whole endeavor had been how much she’d enjoyed it.
Despite her resistance, it hadn’t been nearly as painful a process as she’d feared, and she’d really enjoyed the creative challenges.
Although if she let herself, she still felt nervous that the whole thing would be a flop; the customers wouldn’t come, she wouldn’t be able to repay the regeneration grant, and she’d be eating the salad bar leftovers every night.
Most of the time, though, she could talk herself down from that particular ledge. She had reason to be optimistic; Jack, with all his investment experience, seemed confident that the changes she’d made to the store were the right ones. And she trusted Jack…
Which was why she wished he’d said something slightly less oblique in his text message. Something she could pin some possibility, some hope , onto. But never mind, because she wasn’t obsessing.
“The store looks different from what I remember,” Henrietta remarked as she stumped toward Jenna.
She was carrying a nylon shopping bag that had a few lumpy items in it which looked like soup cans.
Jenna hoped she’d found the ones she’d stocked with more heft to them, as Henrietta herself had suggested.
“I’ve been giving it a makeover,” Jenna told her cheerfully. “Do you like it?”
“Hmm…” Henrietta looked around critically. “Better selection of food, I suppose.” She turned to Jenna with a narrowed, bright-eyed gaze that was close to a glare. “Although I don’t like beef in canned soup. The meat is always so stringy.”
“Noted, thank you,” Jenna murmured. “May I take that for you?” She reached for the bag, and Henrietta handed it over, somewhat grudgingly.
“What happened to your parents?” she barked as Jenna took the soup cans out of the bag. “How come they’re not running this place anymore?”
“They retired,” Jenna replied. “They’re living in Florida.”
“Hmm.” Henrietta pursed her lips. “I’d thought they’d died.”
Jenna smothered a startled laugh. “No, not yet,” she replied as she rang up the first can of chicken noodle with vegetables.
“Your father was always a bit of a looker, wasn’t he?” Henrietta remarked. “Charming with the ladies, as I recall.”
Jenna’s eyebrows rose. That was the first time she’d heard that , although admittedly her father had been—and still was—a handsome man, charming to his customers. “I suppose he was,” she told Henrietta. “He and my mother love each other very much.”
“Well, your mother certainly loved him,” Henrietta replied shrewdly, before adding quickly, “I always thought they were a good-looking couple.”
What, Jenna wondered, was the old lady implying?
What had she noticed—or maybe even seen ?
All Jenna’s childhood, her parents had been wrapped up in each other, often to the exclusion of their two children.
At least it had felt that way to Jenna… but it had been that way, hadn’t it?
Her memories couldn’t be that messed up.
“In any case,” Henrietta resumed, “I hope they’re enjoying their retirement. Life is short enough.” She paused before continuing in a trembling voice, “In fact… I just learned my daughter died.”
Jenna nearly dropped the soup can she was holding. “Your… your daughter?” she exclaimed, startled, before quickly adding, “I’m so sorry.”
“I never knew her.” Henrietta’s expression turned distant; every wrinkle and line in her face seemed to be etched even more deeply.
“I gave her up for adoption when I was just a young woman, barely all of twenty.” The corners of her thin lips turned up in a wry, crooked smile, although her eyes drooped with sorrow.
“I met a man in New York and fell in love with him, more fool me. It ended up being rather inconvenient… for him especially, as it turned out.”
“I’m so sorry…” Jenna didn’t know what else she could say. She could hardly believe Henrietta Starr, the matriarch of the town, was sharing such painfully intimate details of her life.
Henrietta shook her head, in both acceptance and dismissal.
“It was a long time ago. I let it affect me for far longer than I should have. And it took me nearly seventy years to try to find my daughter… and then it was too late. I just found out she’d died a year ago, of breast cancer.
Her son wrote me after he’d checked her—oh, what is it called, Face-something? ”
“Facebook,” Jenna filled in quietly.
“That’s right.” She nodded and then straightened. “In any case, life is too short for regrets. You should learn from your mistakes, not let them fester, and worse, affect your future.” She gave Jenna an uncomfortably beady look. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Jenna said after a moment, swallowing hard. “I do.” Henrietta had sounded like she’d meant the remark personally. Had even she heard the gossip about her and Jack, or was Jenna just projecting? She glanced down at the cans of soup. “That’ll be four-fifty.”
Henrietta reached for her voluminous pocketbook, taking out a little embroidered change purse before counting out the amount in quarters with painstaking precision.
“I could give you a lift back,” Jenna offered once she’d taken the money, “if you’d rather not walk?”
Henrietta gave her an imperious look, her nostrils quivering. “I am perfectly capable of managing the walk back, thank you,” she said, and, throwing back her bony shoulders, she strode out of the store.
Jenna put the money in the register before slowly walking back to the shelves she’d been stacking.
Her mind was buzzing with all Henrietta had said—both about her own life and Jenna’s.
What had she meant, saying that about her parents?
It almost had seemed as if she’d been implying that Jenna’s mother loved her father more than he loved her back, and that thing about her father being a looker and so charming…