Chapter 10
Present Day
It was not the brilliant and warm homecoming that Juliet had privately imagined.
That first dinner was awkward: a lot of strange silences, with Celia and Ivy looking at one another nervously and Sophie trying to pick up the slack conversationally.
Unsurprisingly, Danica hardly said a word and hardly ate a thing before asking if she could go to her room.
Ivy got up midway through her meal to show Danica where she would be sleeping, and Juliet, no longer hungry, went out to the car to grab their bags and take them upstairs.
The plan was for Juliet to sleep in her childhood bedroom and for Danica to take the guest room across the hall.
This meant that, finally, after weeks of sleeping in Greenwich, they would have their own separate spaces.
It felt pathetic to Juliet that they’d had to go back to her childhood home to find that space, but she reminded herself that this was a temporary measure.
Standing in the doorway of her daughter’s temporary room, Juliet watched as Danica removed her headphones from her backpack and turned her back to her mother.
Juliet wanted a final conversation, something to set them on a good track for the months ahead.
But Danica was tired of all Juliet’s pretending and false smiles.
Juliet knew that Danica needed some time alone.
Slowly, Juliet went downstairs and took her seat with her sisters and their children.
The kids were nearly done, and half of them were getting out of their chairs, ready to head back to the water, or go outside, or watch television.
Ivy reached across the table to pour more wine into Juliet’s glass, and Juliet thanked her, her head already swimming.
She worried about telling her sisters too much of the truth. She wasn’t sure she trusted them enough to give it to them.
When the kids were gone, Celia put her elbows on the table and offered Juliet a strained smile. “What made you decide to bring Danica to Bluebell?”
Juliet stuttered. “You know, I guess I got jealous. All your kids know each other now. And they’ve been falling in love with Bluebell Cove. I guess I got nostalgic?”
Ivy and Celia looked at her as though they couldn’t possibly believe that, not after everything Juliet had said in the past. Juliet guessed this was understandable. She’d been the biggest anti-Bluebell Cove teenager that ever was.
“And, yeah. You’ve both been so instrumental in getting the Eco-Lodge up and running,” Juliet said. “I figured I could chip in? Help out? I mean, I’m a Harper Sister.”
“I guess you are,” Ivy said thoughtfully.
“But we never thought you wanted to be,” Celia said, trying to laugh. But there was nothing funny in the air between them.
This didn’t feel like the time for jokes.
“Sorry,” Celia was quick to say. “It’s just we didn’t hear from you for a long time. We’d sort of…”
“We didn’t give up on you, per se,” Ivy said. “We just. We get how complicated our family is. We’re trying to overcome that.”
“But it’s hard,” Celia said.
They looked at Juliet, as though expecting her to offer her two cents or deliver some sense of urgent honesty.
But Juliet’s tongue felt dry. She filled her mouth with wine and gazed beyond her sisters, at the dark and craggy edge of the cliff where, once upon a time, she’d told Callie she was leaving Bluebell Cove for good and had no plans to come back.
She’d hated breaking Callie’s heart, but she’d known that that was her future.
She’d gotten everything she’d ever wanted, for a time. Didn’t that count for anything?
“Anyway, it’s not like I’ll be here forever,” Juliet said, trying to lend a more formal and upbeat tone. “We’re city girls, Danica and me. We’ll try on the small-town life for a little while, but I guess it’ll make us both crazy!” She tried to laugh.
But it was clear that she’d already said the wrong thing.
In essence, she’d criticized Ivy’s decision never to leave Bluebell Cove, as well as Celia’s decision to move home.
Juliet closed her eyes, willing herself to take it back.
But before she could, Ivy was on her feet, clearing plates and bowls from the table.
Celia joined her, forks and knives clacking together.
Juliet remained at the table for a solid three minutes, her heart pounding. Why had she thought coming back to Bluebell Cove was an answer to all of her problems? Why had she thought the warmth of it would fall over her and Danica and unite them?
She’d never experienced that in Bluebell Cove before.
* * *
But Celia listened to Juliet when Juliet said she wanted to help out at the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge.
Within the first three days, Juliet found herself at the front desk of the lodge, checking in guests and greeting married couples and solo travelers and people thrilled to be in this “magical coastal town.” Juliet wore a simple white dress with a name tag that read “JULIET.” She addressed everyone happily and watched herself, as though from above, as she entered their names into the computer system and handed over their old-fashioned keys.
“Are you from here?” An older man blinked from behind round glasses, waiting as his wife returned to the car for something she’d forgotten.
“I was born here,” Juliet told him. “But I haven’t lived here in a very long time.”
“How could you ever leave!” the man said brightly.
“Oh, it was a lot easier than you think!” Juliet laughed.
Already, in the three days since she and Danica had driven in, she’d felt a harrowing sense of claustrophobia, as though the very sky of Bluebell Cove was pressing down upon her.
She’d taken to opening her calendar app and counting down the days till the apartment in Greenwich Village would be open to her and Danica again.
The man looked at her, confused, until his wife returned with her bag, and they went upstairs to take a nap before their planned hike.
Meanwhile, Juliet twisted around in the office chair to peer through the window at Ivy’s place.
From where she sat, she could see the bedroom where Danica slept, but a curtain in front of the window blocked her view.
When Juliet had left that morning, Danica had still been in her bedroom, reading and making notes in her notebook.
Juliet had reminded her to get out of the house at least once, to go for a walk with her cousins or head downtown to check out the library. But Danica had groaned into her pillow.
Now, Juliet called her daughter to check in. But Danica didn’t answer and instead texted her a few seconds later.
DANICA: hi.
Juliet felt shivery with anger and a lack of control.
Years ago, when she and Alvin finally decided to let Danica get a cell phone, they set up a service so they could see everything she did on it.
This way, they could monitor what Danica saw, what she was involved in, and whether she was being bullied by kids at school.
(This was a big fear Juliet had, especially after watching a documentary on teenage bullying and how out of control it was in the digital age.)
But in the wake of the separation, Juliet had neglected watching what Danica was up to on her phone. Alvin had pulled all the way back, parenting-wise, and Juliet had been reeling from her job loss, so Danica’s online habits had fallen out of her mind.
Now, with the boundary between Danica and Juliet thickening, Juliet found herself itching to peer into Danica’s mind again. Who was her daughter? What was Juliet doing to Danica in bringing her to Bluebell Cove?
Juliet pulled up the app on her phone. She immediately entered the world of Danica: a world of googling bands Juliet didn’t know about, of reading horror-adjacent short stories, of reading blogs from rich and famous girls from across the world, and of texting Mary.
Juliet forced herself not to read over the dialogue between Mary and Danica, although she did catch something like can’t believe this is happening to me.
But it didn’t take long for Juliet to discover Danica’s blog.
It was titled Manhattan Girl in a Trash World.
Juliet’s head rang with fear. Danica hadn’t listed her own name or any links to who she really was, which meant that she wasn’t necessarily putting herself in danger by publishing this. But it also meant that Danica really didn’t think her mother—or anyone—could read it.
It meant she could be really and truly honest online—with strangers.
Case in point was the most recent blog post, published that morning. It was titled “Why I Think My Mother Gave Up.”
So shocked at what felt like a violent title, Juliet threw her phone to the other side of the desk. Her breathing came in rapid bursts. Danica thought she’d given up. Danica thought Juliet was such a loser that she wanted to broadcast this—poetically—on the internet.
Juliet didn’t know what to make of it. She felt foolish and achy and so terribly sad.
Perhaps because she’d heard the clatter of the phone, Celia came into the lobby, her smile curious. “Everything okay out here?”
Juliet pocketed her phone again and smiled back. The last thing she wanted was for Celia and Ivy to learn about Danica’s true, thought-out feelings about Juliet.
“It’s nice to be back,” Juliet said sweetly.
Celia let out an ironic laugh, then sipped her coffee.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “A friend of mine is moving and offering up her house. The rent is cheaper than cheap, and it’s just down the road.
” She tilted her head. “Two bedroom? Kitchen, porch, living room? Just enough space. And a lot bigger than that apartment you had back in Greenwich.”
Juliet had mentioned the square footage of the Greenwich Village apartment. Celia and Ivy had been in shock at how tiny it was.
“Oh, that’s nice. But we’re only going to be here for the summer,” Juliet said primly. “That Greenwich Village apartment is ours for the time being, at least until I can find us something better.”
Celia leaned against the front desk. She looked on the verge of demanding what was really going on. “I can’t remember a time when you didn’t complain about working at the inn,” she said tentatively.
“You hated working at the inn, too,” Juliet remembered. She could count back hundreds of arguments between their father and Celia. She remembered how solemn and angry Ivy had been when Celia had left Bluebell Cove, never to be seen again.
“Sure. Yeah, I did. But I was young and naive, and I really didn’t understand the world.
I didn’t know what I was leaving behind.
” Celia inhaled sharply. “A thing I’ve been thinking about since I got back is that Dad was never honest with us, you know?
And it meant that we could never really be a family.
We could never live in love. We didn’t know how. ”
Juliet wanted to laugh at that. She wanted to point out how sappy it was. But she could see from Celia’s expression that she fully believed what she said.
“Can I ask you something?” Juliet asked, surprising herself.
“Of course.”
“Did Sophie think you had, like, given up? When you came back here?” Juliet immediately cursed herself for being so open, for letting Celia see this inner ache.
Celia blinked a few times, as though she were burrowing back through time.
“Sophie forced me to reckon with who I was. She forced me to see that I was still that person, regardless of whether I lived in Washington, DC, or here in Bluebell. And because of that, I’ve done more good than I ever could have done back in the city.
I’ve grown, I guess.” She laughed at herself.
“I’m still growing. You should hear how often Ivy and I get into little spats. ”
“But that was always your way,” Juliet remembered.
Celia raised her chin. “It’s hard for me to accept that you remember anything from your time in Bluebell. You were always on your way out.”
“I was following after you,” Juliet said.
Celia and Juliet held one another’s gaze, trying to make sense of the other until a family of eight burst through the door of the Eco-Lodge, eager to check in. Celia and Juliet broke apart, their meanings unsaid, their hearts still aching with previous hurts.
Juliet found herself itching to get out of Bluebell Cove again—if only to prove to her daughter that she was still herself. If only to prove to her sisters that she wasn’t weak.
But she knew she had nowhere else to go. And this was devastating beyond measure. It nearly brought her to her knees.