Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
It was five thirty that same evening when Landon met Sophie at his house to fact-check the science in the article.
There on the front porch of his place, Sophie looked exhausted, her hair hanging in strings that suggested she’d been working too hard to take good care of herself.
It reminded Landon of Celia, of the version of Celia who’d thrown herself completely into writing, researching, and dreaming up new ways to push the world of journalism.
Immediately, he invited her inside for tea and sandwiches.
He felt fatherly, far more fatherly than James Harper ever had been.
He wanted to make sure she was all right.
Mallory and Isaac were already hard at work on their grilled turkey-cheese sandwiches, scraping butter over bread and dancing around to Isaac’s music. Landon watched Sophie take in the scene, a smile fluttering over her lips. Mallory and Isaac turned to look at her, bug-eyed with curiosity.
“Guys, this is Sophie,” he said. “Sophie’s a journalist. We’re working together on an article for the Bluebell Cove Gazette.”
Mallory hurried over to Sophie. “But you’re not that old!”
Sophie laughed. “I’m older than you.”
Isaac raised his eyebrow. “You sort of look like that lady who was here when we were sick.” He flipped his sandwich and gave Landon a crooked grin, as though he knew he’d betrayed him.
Sophie’s cheeks went pale, proof that she didn’t know that Celia had been here.
“I guess you’re talking about my mom? Everyone says we look the same.
She’s a journalist too.” It was then that Landon got a full picture of how desperately Sophie had always wanted to become her mother.
Celia was her number-one role model, her best friend.
As Mallory and Isaac prepared Sophie’s sandwich, they peppered her with still more questions, creating a funny little party in the kitchen that didn’t allow Landon space to think.
He disappeared into his study to reread Sophie’s article several times, considering what she was saying and how to describe the biology behind it.
The truth was obvious. Sophie wasn’t yet the journalist her mother was. But there was potential there.
Landon suddenly felt a wave of fear that he’d never speak to Celia again. Something about the afternoon they’d spent weeks ago had frightened her away from him for good. He’d texted her and tried to see her again. But it was like she’d put up a temporary wall.
After another reread of Sophie’s article, Landon reached for his phone and called Celia. His heart pounded in his fingertips. He guessed she wouldn’t answer, that she’d text him later and say, Sorry I missed your call. You okay? But he had to try.
When she answered on the third ring, he nearly fell to the floor.
“Landon, hi.” Celia’s small voice sounded soft and tired. “It’s good to hear from you.”
Landon’s own voice felt lodged in his throat. “I’m sorry to call out of the blue like this.”
“It isn’t out of the blue,” Celia said. “Um. How is the article going?”
So she knew about it. Landon filled his lungs and gave her a few details about Sophie’s work, tiptoeing around the idea that Celia was a far greater journalist than her daughter, if only because she had more experience. “I think she needs your eye, CeeCee,” he said, breaking his own heart.
“Have you ever tried to advise a young person like that?” Celia laughed.
Landon groaned. “I know what you mean. But I know she respects your opinion more than anyone’s. I know she wants you to be involved, one way or another.”
Celia sighed. “I said some things to her that I regret. I told her I didn’t think being a journalist was a good idea anymore.
I told her that the world has changed. Or maybe I just know too much about the world to put my trust in it.
I don’t know. I feel like she’d be better off doing almost anything.
Finance? Or real estate? Listen to me! I sound so nihilistic. I don’t like this side of myself.”
Landon tilted back in his chair, listening as Sophie, Mallory, and Isaac burst into a raucous round of singing. It was almost as though Sophie was their older sister, back from college, here to regale them with stories from far away. Here to excite them about their future.
“Do you hear your daughter laughing with my kids?” Landon asked.
Celia took a sharp breath. “Is that what that is?”
They sat in silence for a long moment, both craning to hear their children singing. Landon blinked and blinked and told himself to keep it together.
“Listen,” Celia said. “I’m wrapping up a few things with my sisters here at Ivy’s place. But I’d really like to see you, if you have time.”
“Tonight?” Landon’s blood pressure dropped.
“Yeah. Maybe we could grab dinner?” Celia suggested. “I can call Sophie and ask her to stay with your kids for a few hours.”
Landon admitted that it sounded perfect, hoping that his joy didn’t overwhelm her enough to make her cancel. He could hear her smile through her voice. “Pick me up in an hour?” she suggested.
* * *
With a pounding heart, Landon drove the few blocks to Ivy’s place, the same house where Celia had grown up, the two-story next to the inn.
When he cut the engine out front, he half imagined James Harper storming out of the house and demanding of Landon why he was distracting his eldest daughter when she had so many chores to take care of, an inn to run.
But the only person who came outside was Celia herself, dressed in a dark blue dress that buttoned up to her chin, yet showed her sculpted, long arms and tan legs.
Landon got out to meet her but struggled to decide whether to hug her.
Eventually, they settled on a brief and not-so-intimate hug before returning to his truck and heading off.
“I thought we could get Italian?” he said timidly, squeezing the steering wheel. He’d wanted to pick somewhere sort of romantic and adult, something to impress the woman who’d lived in the big city for twenty-four years.
Celia was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m craving something messy. Something hearty. Something that will calm me down.”
Landon smiled. “You want Ralph’s Burgers?”
Celia snapped her fingers. “I want Ralph’s Burgers.”
Hilariously, Landon ended up parking right in front of his house so that they could walk the five minutes to Ralph’s.
There, they sat at a corner table lined with old newspapers and ordered the exact burgers they’d ordered back in the ’90s and early ’00s: a blue cheeseburger for Celia and a bacon, mushroom, and swiss for Landon.
They shared a french fry-onion ring mix that, they agreed, scared them much more now than it had back then.
“My arteries!” Landon joked, crunching into an onion ring.
Celia looked at him the way he remembered his first wife looking at him on their first date: with curiosity, with something brewing like love.
He put a french fry down and felt his smile melt off his face.
“I’m sorry,” Celia said suddenly, dropping her own fry. “I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you. Being back has been really emotional for me. I’ve had to face some things about myself, about my mother, about my family. I’m trying to own up to what my daughter and my sister are saying about me.”
Landon pressed his lips together. “What are they saying?”
“That I ran away when things got hard,” Celia said. “That I’m always giving up when the going gets tough.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Landon said hesitantly. “Your career alone is proof of that.”
Celia raised her shoulders. “I had nothing but success in my career until very recently. I was always rising in the ranks, getting incredible assignments, and meeting essential people. I had no reason to doubt myself, not the way I doubted Bluebell Cove or my ex-husband.”
Landon pressed his palms on the table, fizzing with curiosity about her ex.
“He’s long gone,” Celia admitted. “But maybe Sophie’s right. Maybe I didn’t give him enough of a chance.”
“It sounds like he messed up,” Landon said tenderly. “Marriage isn’t easy. Both parties have to make sacrifices and learn to build something. And it’s like the rules of the game change every few years. You have to recalibrate if you really want to love someone well.”
Celia looked at him as though she’d never seen him before.
From the speaker in the corner came “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a song they’d loved as teenagers.
They’d known all the words. They’d belted them out across the cove, half sure that their musicality reached the ears of people in Iceland and England and the rest of Europe.
“My wife passed away,” Landon said. “She had cancer. It happened really quickly. The kids and I have been trying to get our bearings ever since. They still remember her, but I know their memories are fading. They’re recalling the stories I tell them rather than their own.
That’s hard. It’s like she gets less and less real every day. ”
Celia reached across the table and took Landon’s hand. Their half-eaten burgers were suddenly too large for their middle-aged stomachs.
“I am so sorry that happened to you,” she breathed. “You are so capable of love. I know she felt your love till the very end.”
Landon felt like butter, oozing onto the table. He watched as Celia got up, collected two boxes of their burgers, and packaged the food to go.
“I want to go to the cove,” she told him. “We can eat the rest of our food down there.”