3. Three
Three
Juliet
T he lake I was dying to explore came into full view as we circled around the inn, revealing an expanse of deep, breathtaking blue under a cloudless sky.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” I whispered.
I was no stranger to smaller bodies of water, coming from Minnesota, but my hometown wasn’t very close to the Great Lakes. The water here stretched as far as the eye could see. Gentle waves rolled against the rocky shoreline, lapping at the far edge of the exquisite garden.
“Nan chose this property because of that view,” Gerard replied, smiling over at me. “The inn was her lifeblood, but these gardens were her pride and joy. She spent much of her free time out here.”
I knew very little about gardening, but the blossoms bursting from each carefully tended bed were bright and cheerful. Some quote about the earth laughing in flowers sprang to mind; I could almost imagine my grandmother working along the little pathways between beds, weeding or painting among the colorful blooms.
My mother had loved flowers, despite her self-professed black thumb. I pictured her playing in these gardens as a little girl—it seemed a perfect wonderland for a young child’s imagination.
The cottage wasn’t visible as we followed the narrow path out of the garden, but it came into view just after we passed a tiny stand of fruit trees.
My heart leapt straight into my throat.
If the inn itself looked like something from a Renaissance faire, the cottage was straight out of a fairy tale. Its gray stone walls were accented by climbing green vines and topped with a sloping shingled roof. Though the garden flower beds we’d passed were neat and linear, the cottage was surrounded by a sea of wildflowers. We were barely a hundred yards from the inn, but the apple and pear trees blocking the view made it like another world back here.
Gerard handed me a keychain, smiling a bit mistily. “Here you are, my dear. You’ll find everything you need inside. I pinned a list of phone numbers beside the fridge. The main number for the inn and my cell phone are on there. If you have any questions, just give me a ring.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“You can move your car from the parking lot into the driveway,” he said, pointing to the other side of the flower-filled yard. “Do you need help unloading your things?”
“No, I’ve got it. I appreciate the tour.”
“Of course, dear. Hopefully I’ll see you in the morning.”
As he ambled back away, I soaked in the sight of the cottage, committing every stone, every curl of ivy to memory.
My mom’s house had never felt like mine, not even after she died six months ago. It was too big, too full of memories for me to bear staying there on my own, so I’d focused my energy on packing it up to sell instead of letting grief swamp me. It needed new life, and so did I.
As of a week ago, we’d both been given just that.
The prospect of running an inn was too huge to take in just yet, but this little house? It was making everything feel very real. Even the sharp fury Henry had provoked was dimmer now, like this place was working its magic on me already.
With a deep breath, I walked up the cobblestone path to the front door, which was surrounded by beds of purple and white violets. The dark wood was weathered, worn to a beautiful sheen. A wreath of dried flowers encircled the hand-painted welcome sign hanging over a bronze door knocker.
I looked down at the keys in my hand. One bronze key was engraved with the initials L.I.—I took that to stand for Lakeside Inn. There was a similarly sized silver key that must belong to the door in front of me, then a tiny gold key beside it, too small to fit into a regular lock. All three hung from a single ring, accompanied by a silver compass rose keychain.
I closed my fist tightly around the keys, squeezing until the edges bit into my palm, then I forced my hand to relax, unlocked the door, and swung it open.
For several long moments, I stood there in the doorway, taking in the sight of my new home. Sunlight danced through the windows, glimmering off of stray flecks of dust in the air. The effect was magical, like tiny fairies dancing in the beams of light.
I turned and surveyed the rest of the living room. Like the inn, it had been decorated with love, each trinket and piece of art positioned just so.
Drawn to the small selection of photos perched along the mantle, I moved toward the stone fireplace and ran a careful finger along the edge of one silver filigree frame, studying the little girl in the photo. She wore a frilly little party dress and a lace-trimmed bonnet with pale golden ringlets peeking out.
With a pang, I realized it must be my mother.
“Mom,” I whispered into the silent room, “why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why would you keep this from me? Keep me from my family?”
I felt like a voyeur as the word family echoed in my mind like a gong. Another photograph showed a tall, skinny man in a dark suit holding hands with a woman who could only have been my grandmother. The colors were faded, but there was no mistaking the red hair under her lacy veil. They stood in front of a stone lighthouse with the lake stretching out behind them.
Is this what everyone sees when they look at me? The ghost of Nan?
We might share a face and a head of unruly red curls, but the rest of me was all my mom—wide hips, strong shoulders, soft belly, muscled legs that we put to good use each summer of my childhood for bike rides and paddle boats. For a moment, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I'd inherited all that from her. It was like a layer of armor against the discomfort of resembling someone I’d never met.
As I let my gaze wander across the other photos, I realized the man who must be my grandfather was only in a handful of them before he was gone. Dead? Divorced? I was struck by the pattern in this family—single daughters raised by single mothers. It seemed like an odd coincidence. I'd never known my father, because my mom always said he died before I was born.
I now realized it was an eerily similar story to what I'd been told about my grandmother, the famous innkeep of Spruce Hill, who had actually been very much alive until recently.
My train of thought was interrupted by an emphatic buzz from the phone in my pocket. I tugged it free and couldn’t hold back a laugh when I saw that I'd missed half a dozen texts from my best friend Sarah, who was now in Prague with her husband.
It had taken all my powers of persuasion to convince her not to rush back home after I told her the news about my mysterious grandmother and this surprise inheritance, but I knew my friend too well to think she wouldn’t spend a great deal of time wondering what was happening here.
I read through each text with a smile, imagining Sarah surreptitiously typing as they toured cathedrals and historical monuments. She wanted to know if I'd arrived safely, how the drive had been, what the inn was like, if I'd learned anything yet about Nan.
Sarah, you won't even believe this place. It's incredible. I can't wait for you to see it.
Her response was too quick for me to believe she’d been doing anything other than waiting for an update.
Already added a stop to our itinerary when we're back in the country!
With one last glance at the mantle photos, I slipped the phone back into my pocket and decided to explore the rest of the cottage before fetching my bags from the car. There was a cozy little kitchen through an archway off the living room, and while it was nowhere near as modern as the inn’s, it was clean and bright. A tiny dragonfly suncatcher hung in the window over the sink. I drew a deep breath as I listened to the faint tinkle of wind chimes from somewhere outside the back door.
Off the kitchen was a short hallway leading to a bathroom—which, fortunately, was far more updated than the kitchen—and a decent sized master bedroom. Clean sheets and a colorful quilt were folded at the foot of the bed. The afternoon sunlight streamed through delicate lace curtains to illuminate a large framed painting of a landscape, but the rest of the walls were bare.
Waiting for me, maybe?
I moved closer to study the artwork, realizing that it was a picture of the lake behind the inn with the inn’s gardens in the foreground. A tiny signature graced the lower right hand corner, the same one I’d found on the little watercolor painting at the inn.
I sucked in a breath of appreciation for Nan’s skill. I'd often questioned where my artistic talents came from, given my mother’s inability to draw much more than stick figures.
Right here, I realized, running my finger over the signature. This is where it came from. The knowledge that I shared more than just physical traits with Nan was both inspiring and heart-wrenching.
I stepped back from the painting, soaking in the sweeping curve of each careful stroke of paint until my phone buzzed again with a single line of text from Sarah.
Remember, we love you.
The simple sentiment soothed my travel-weary soul. I replied, echoing my best friend’s words, and bid the artwork farewell as I went to explore the second story.
The upstairs portion of the house consisted of a single bedroom, empty except for a narrow mattress on a wooden frame and the same lace curtains as the master bedroom, plus a crawl space filled with dusty boxes and trunks of clothing. I decided to leave sorting through them for another day, especially when I started sneezing within a few seconds of searching for the light switch, so I backed out of the crawl space and returned to the kitchen to start a pot of tea.
The view of the lake, even from this distance, calmed me. I stood for several minutes, gazing out at the shimmering surface until the knot in my chest slowly unraveled.
When the kettle finally uttered a shrill whistle, I rifled through the cabinets for a mug, then set my tea to steep while I went to move and unload my car. The small parking area at the end of the driveway was cleverly disguised from view, tucked away in a little grove of trees off to one side of the cottage. I grabbed my laptop and the biggest of my suitcases out of the car and began the long process of unloading and unpacking.
On my third trip, the ancient suitcase I’d found in my mother's closet split open, spilling underwear and socks all over the gravel path. While I struggled to control my frustration, I spotted something colorful in the grass.
“What the hell?” I muttered, reaching for it.
The object was a small painted rock, covered in daisies. My breath left my lungs in a whoosh when I turned it over in my palm and saw my mother’s name in a childish scrawl on the bottom of it. For a moment, I could only stare at it, eyes burning, but six months ago I’d cried every tear inside me until my eyes were as dusty as the boxes Nan left behind.
Then, beneath the ache of loneliness in my chest, a tiny curl of warmth kindled, spreading outward into my limbs, like my mom was standing right beside me again, encouraging me to go on.
Maybe this wasn’t a mistake, after all. Maybe this was where I was meant to be.
I tucked the painted rock into my pocket, gathered up the items that had burst from the suitcase, and got back to work unloading the car.
Several trips and one aching back later, I collapsed across the bed and declared myself officially moved in. I was more exhausted than I could remember ever having been, but it was tempered by a euphoric sense of accomplishment.
Though I was tempted to go for a walk along the lake, exhaustion seeped into my limbs and I decided it could wait one more day. I got ready for bed, sorted out the pile of sheets and quilts to make the bed in the downstairs bedroom, and fell swiftly into a deep, dreamless sleep.