Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lanie
I was still puttering around my apartment when my phone buzzed. Mom. I hesitated before answering. “Hey.”
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, her tone light but expectant. “I made Greek salad. You hungry?”
Glancing at the half-unpacked bag on my bed, I wasn’t hungry but craved a distraction from my thoughts. “Yeah. Be down in a minute.”
Just one floor below mine, my mother’s apartment always felt like stepping into another world. Where my place was cozy and cluttered with secondhand furniture, hers was sleek, modern—curated. The walls were a trendy soft gray, the furniture a mix of clean lines and bright pops of color. Trinkets from her travels with her friends—weekends in Montreal, trips down the East Coast—lined the shelves, little reminders of a life well-lived.
Portsmouth had been good for her.
“You look tired,” she said, handing me a glass of wine as soon as I sat down. “Was it that bad?”
I shook my head. “No. It was nice.”
Taking a seat across from me, she arched a brow and sprinkled feta over a large bowl of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and Kalamata olives.
“Was everything so much smaller than you remember?”
I thought about that. The streets weren’t as wide as they had felt when I was a kid, but they were still full of people I cared about. Before leaving town, I had stopped by Mr. Martinez’s house, fully expecting him to have forgotten about me. Although he was shorter than I remembered and his hair had more gray in it, he had greeted me with his familiar big wave and an offer of a cup of strong coffee.
Of course, I accepted it.
I had nearly started crying when I saw how many photos of local people he had scattered throughout his house. Some were of my classmates the way I remembered them, then more as they grew up, graduated, married, and had children. He was featured in many of the photos with them. The photos told a story so beautiful I was sorry I had missed it.
When I saw a picture of Mark and one of our old classmates carrying a well-crafted wooden table, Mr. Martinez had said, “Mark, he is so talented. I told him he should open a store to sell his furniture, but he donates everything he makes to the church on Green Street. They help struggling people find places to live, and Mark makes sure no one is sleeping or eating on the floor.” He thumped his chest. “I provide the wood because, you know Mark—he’s not so good with money. Always too generous with it.”
Too generous? Mark had stayed—not only visited Mr. Martinez like we had promised, but also worked with him to help people in need?
How could that man also be cruel enough to seek me out on a dare?
It didn’t make sense.
Pulling myself from that memory and back to the present, I filled my plate with salad. “Not smaller, just a little... confusing.”
She made a concerned sound. “In what way?”
“A lot of it was good. Eliza and Julian. They’re incredible together. You should see them—he still looks at her like she’s the only person in the room. They’re so happy. It made me miss when we were all together.”
“All?” She set the salad bowl on the table and passed me a plate. “I don’t remember you having many friends in Maplebridge.”
I winced because she was right. Back then, my focus had been on her and the piano business. In fact, it was only since my grandfather’s death I had allowed myself to ask what I wanted.
My mother could be high-strung and emotional, but she wasn’t cruel. So why did she want me to be unhappy about visiting Maplebridge? Want it enough that she didn’t care how her words hurt me?
“Small towns can be so oppressive.” She took a sip of wine, watching me. “You weren’t happy there.”
That wasn’t how I remembered it. Yes, I had been socially awkward and my time there had been full of drama, but Maplebridge hadn’t been all bad. There were more good people than bad, and I regretted how much importance I had placed on the few who hadn’t been kind.
But I held my tongue because there was no doubt my mother had blossomed when she left Maplebridge. Gone was the sullen recluse. In Portsmouth, she had made friends and found her joie de vivre, cultivating not only a new life but also a new version of herself. Even now, on a day when I doubted she had plans to go anywhere, her makeup was subtle but expertly well done. Her casual attire had become tailored slacks, flowy blouses, and small but expensive pieces of jewelry. She looked ten years younger than her age—and not at all like someone who had ever lived in a small town.
“ You weren’t happy there,” I murmured.
She raised and lowered a thin shoulder, then stabbed an olive with her fork. “What was there to enjoy about it? No museums, no theatres... few financial opportunities. It’s the kind of place people only stay in when they lack the motivation to go somewhere better.”
“Wow.”
I stopped there, unwilling to fight with her. “Anyway, Eliza and Julian are doing well, and I’m excited for their wedding.”
She sighed. “Too bad they couldn’t have it here on the beach.”
“The location they chose is stunning. It’s a castle—”
“Such a shame.”
Had she even heard me? I couldn’t tell. “Mom, I’ll be going to Maplebridge a lot over the next year, and I’m excited it’ll give me an opportunity to—”
“I hope Eliza appreciates what a good friend you are.”
Frustrated, I sat back in my chair. “Eliza was recently snatched out of her bed by space aliens, but thankfully, they returned her before morning.”
“Too bad you couldn’t persuade her and Julian to move here.”
“Mom?”
She looked up from pushing her salad around on her plate. “Yes?”
“I may move back to Maplebridge.”
Her hand spasmed, and the olive on her fork shot across the room. “Oh.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Her attention briefly settled on the stray olive, but she made no move to retrieve it. “You’ll do what you want to do, I suppose. You always have.”
That cut deep, and I rose to my feet. “No, I’ve always done what you wanted . I didn’t ask to move away from everyone I knew to come here.”
Not meeting my gaze, my mother sipped her wine before answering. “You were an adult. You could have stayed. I didn’t force you to do anything. If you regret leaving, that’s on you, not me.”
I was shaking with anger. “You needed us. Gramps and I put everything aside for you—”
Her chin lifted. “And you both made sure I never forgot that. But you’re twenty-eight, Lanie. It’s time to stop blaming everyone else for why your life isn’t the way you want it to be.”
“I don’t—” I stopped. Even though I wanted to tell her how absolutely wrong she was about me, I couldn’t.
She’s not wrong.
I did blame her for why I felt disconnected from a place I had once loved, but no one had held me prisoner in Portsmouth. It was only a few hours away. I could have driven back, faced whatever residual embarrassment I had instead of always making Eliza come to me.
I wanted to stomp my foot, storm away, call Eliza, and tell her how cruel my mother was. That’s not how Gramps would have handled the situation. He would have told me to sit back down and talk it out. So I did. I sat.
But I didn’t speak for several minutes.
Neither did she.
She was the first to break the silence. “I’m sorry. I did relocate all of us. All I wanted was to spare you from making the same mistake I did.”
That had my head snapping back. “What mistake was that?”
“Mark. He wasn’t good enough for you.” She took a deep breath, then finally looked me in the eye. “I didn’t want you to marry a man instead of following your dreams. I used to hear music in my head, and it flowed out of my fingers to the piano keys effortlessly. Music filled me with a happiness so intense, it was rivaled only by the first time I held you in my arms.”
“You still could. It’s not like our life hasn’t been filled with pianos.”
She clasped her hands together on the table. “Your father was a good man, a hardworking one, but he was content to live out his whole life in Maplebridge, moving and tuning pianos. He didn’t like the idea of me leaving to study music and thought if I had a career that included touring, we would never stay together. Shortly after we married, he asked me to give up playing the piano for the sake of our family.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I promised I would.”
The raw pain in her expression filled my eyes with tears. “And then he died.”
Her voice was tight with emotion. “And so did the music in my head.”
I reached across the table, taking one of her hands in mine. “I’m so sorry.”
She gave my hand a squeeze and regained her composure. “None of that was your fault. Those were decisions I made, and I’m the only one responsible for how my life turned out.”
Ah.
I sniffed. Her harsh words made sense to me then. Tough love for herself. Attempted tough love toward me. She’d stayed with Gramps so he wouldn’t lose his business because she had promised to put family first. My heart broke for her. “Mom, you’re forty-nine. I’m still figuring life out, and I’m seven years older than you were when you had me. You were a young, new mother when you lost Dad. Of course the music in you quieted. You went into survival mode.”
“I suppose.”
“We all did. Gramps too. You didn’t leave him when he needed you, but he didn’t leave you either. We made it through—together.”
She blinked away tears. “We sure did.”
“The music is still there. Start playing again, Mom. Let go of your promise and choose music this time. It’s inside you, waiting for you to return to it.”
She looked away. “I doubt I’d be any good at it now.”
Whomp. Whomp.
Now I see where I get my optimism from.
“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I’m too old,’ I will come across this table and kick your ass.”
She laughed at that, her eyes flying back to meet mine. “That’s no way to talk to your mother.”
I squeezed her hand. “It is when I realize we both need to hear the same advice. I don’t have a big dream, but I know what makes me happy. Maplebridge. I don’t know why I haven’t allowed myself to act on that.”
“Because you put taking care of your grandfather and me above what you wanted.” She pressed her lips together before saying, “I thought if I got you out of Maplebridge, you would see how big the world is and realize you could be whoever you wanted to be. I didn’t realize I was asking the same thing of you that your father had asked of me. Love shouldn’t have to be like that. It shouldn’t make you choose it over all else.”
It took me a moment to digest what I was learning—both about my mother and myself. “Mom, we all did what we needed to make it through.” I stood, walked around the table, and hugged my mother. “When I was little and fell down, you would sit with me and tell me how much better I would feel as soon as I stood up again. So, let’s do it. Let’s stop apologizing for caring too much or worrying if we’re good enough and just stand up. For you, I hope that means playing the piano again. For me, it’ll mean going back to Maplebridge and figuring out if there is still anything there for me. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe all I’ll do is help make Eliza’s wedding magical and realize I’d rather live here or elsewhere. But I can’t move forward until I go back. Does that make sense?”
She hugged me back. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to hear about Maplebridge. Do you mind if I go back with you sometime? Maybe if I do, I’ll find my way forward as well.”
I sniffed again. “You’re determined to make me cry today.”
She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes, then in a lighter tone requested, “While you’re up, could you grab the olive off the floor?”