Chapter 17
T hat afternoon, Miss Eleanor walked into Coastal Coffee right after closing time while Beverly was clearing up the last tables. “Miss Eleanor, hi. I’m just closing up, but I can get you some coffee. I even have cream now.” She smiled.
“I know you’re closed, but I just wanted to talk to you without so many people around if you have time.”
“I do.” She frowned, wondering what the woman needed. “Let me just flip the sign to closed, and I’ll get us some coffee.”
Miss Eleanor took her usual table, and Beverly came back with coffee and sat down.
She poured coffee into both cups, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. She appreciated the quiet of the cafe after hours, though her usual post-closing routine was now interrupted. She added fresh cream to Miss Eleanor’s cup—just the way the older woman liked it—and pushed it across the table.
“Thank you.” Miss Eleanor tapped her fingers lightly on the table’s edge. “Cliff has been staying with me at Jonah’s house.”
She nodded, not quite knowing what to say to that. She hadn’t expected Miss Eleanor would ever tolerate her son’s company for more than a few hours, much less days, now weeks. Nor did she ever think Miss Eleanor would admit she was staying at Jonah’s house.
“It’s been… interesting,” Miss Eleanor continued, her lips pursing slightly. “I’m getting to know Cliff a bit better.” She took a slow sip of her coffee. “I heard he even helped with your roof repair.”
“He did.” She fidgeted with her coffee cup, rotating it in small circles. “I couldn’t find a contractor who wasn’t already booked solid with post-hurricane work.”
“Hmm.” Miss Eleanor studied her face with those sharp eyes that seemed to miss nothing. “He’s been helping all over town. I didn’t expect that.”
“Neither did I,” she admitted, remembering her own surprise at seeing Cliff with his sleeves rolled up, replacing shingles on her roof. He’d worked efficiently, barely speaking except to ask for tools or to update her on his progress.
Miss Eleanor set her cup down precisely, the small clink against the saucer sounding unnaturally loud in the empty cafe. She looked straight at Beverly and asked, “There was something between you and Cliff all those years ago, wasn’t there?”
She froze, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She set it down carefully, buying herself a few precious seconds to think. The question hung in the air between them, impossible to ignore. How much did she know? How much had she guessed?
“I…” She started, then stopped. She’d never discussed her relationship with Cliff with anyone except Maxine. It had been their secret—hers and Cliff’s—all those years ago. But now, with Cliff’s mother looking at her expectantly, she wasn’t certain how to answer.
“You don’t need to protect my feelings, Beverly,” she said. “I’m well aware that my son had a life I wasn’t privy to. Especially as a teenager.”
She took a deep breath. “We were… close for a while.” She kept her voice steady, though her heart had picked up its pace. “It was a long time ago.”
She nodded. “I suspected as much. I remember how he used to look at you when you both were young.” She sighed, a small sound that carried decades of regret.
“Theodore and I, we weren’t… We weren’t good at seeing what was right in front of us sometimes.
Or… maybe we ignored what we didn’t want to see. ”
She stared at her coffee, watching the light play across its surface. “I don’t think anyone knew. We were pretty careful.”
“Because of us,” Miss Eleanor stated flatly. It wasn’t a question. “Because Theodore and I would have disapproved.”
There was no point denying it. “Yes.”
“The Whitmores and Griffins have always had certain… expectations. Theodore was even worse about it than I was. Lineage and status meant everything to him.”
She’d never heard the woman speak this candidly before. She didn’t quite know how to respond.
“I made mistakes with Cliff,” Miss Eleanor continued, her voice softer now. “Many mistakes.” She looked directly at Beverly. “We pushed him away with all our rules and expectations.”
“Miss Eleanor, I?—”
“Call me Eleanor, please. I think we’re past the formalities at this point.”
She nodded, shocked. Though the thought of calling Miss Eleanor by just her first name felt strange after all these years. “Eleanor,” she tried. The name felt foreign on her tongue.
“You were close and then… Cliff left suddenly.”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“He broke your heart, didn’t he?”
The blunt question caught her off guard. The old pain rose up unexpectedly, fresh as if it had happened yesterday instead of decades ago. She wasn’t sure how much to share.
“Go on, dear. Tell me.”
She looked up at Miss Eleanor— Eleanor . “We… we were supposed to meet at the ferry. Run away together.” She hadn’t planned to share so much, but the words spilled out. “He never showed up. And then I never heard from him again. Well, until he showed up for this development of his.”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly. “I didn’t know that part.”
“Why are you asking me about this now?”
“Because I’m trying to understand my son.
The man he’s become. And I’m starting to think I never really knew the boy he was either.
” She set her cup down with a finality that suggested she’d reached some kind of decision.
“I’ve spent days watching him help people around town.
Fixing things. Talking to people—really listening to them. It’s not the Cliff I thought I knew.”
She considered this. The Cliff who’d fixed her roof had been focused, hardworking, and surprisingly considerate, making sure to clean up after himself and disturb her business as little as possible.
It wasn’t the entitled developer who’d stood up at the town meeting, insisting his high-rise was the future Magnolia Key needed.
“People change,” she offered, not sure if she believed it herself.
“Do they?” Eleanor’s face held a look of sadness. “Or do we just finally see parts of them that were there all along?”
“I think…” She hesitated, unsure if she should continue. “I think he always wanted your approval. Even when he was doing everything he could to make you angry.”
Eleanor nodded slowly. “Jonah said something similar. It’s… difficult to face these things at my age. To realize how much damage I may have done.” She straightened her shoulders slightly. “But that’s my burden to bear, not yours.”
“Why tell me all this?” she asked.
“Because whatever was between you and Cliff isn’t entirely in the past, is it?” Eleanor’s gaze was piercing again. “I see how you look at him. How he looks at you too.”
Heat rose to her cheeks. “That’s not?—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Eleanor interrupted gently. “I just thought you should know that I’m seeing my son differently these days. And perhaps it might be worth your while to do the same.”
Beverly didn’t know what to say to that. The idea of seeing Cliff differently, of letting go of thirty years of hurt and resentment, felt both impossible and strangely tempting.
“And there’s something else you should know. About the night Cliff left town.”
“What about that night?” She sat up straighter. She’d spent decades trying not to think about that night, pushing away the memories of standing alone at the ferry landing, clutching a small suitcase, waiting for a boy who never came.
Eleanor took a deep breath, her shoulders rising with the effort. “Theodore and I had an argument that night. A terrible one.”
She watched Eleanor’s face, noting how the lines around her mouth deepened as she spoke. She’d never seen the woman look so… vulnerable.
“Theodore found out about some trouble Cliff had gotten into. I don’t even remember what it was now—something trivial.
But Theodore flew into a rage.” Eleanor’s gaze drifted to the window, looking out at nothing in particular.
“He said Cliff was worthless. That he would never amount to anything. That… he regretted the fact we ever had Cliff…”
A chill ran through her. She remembered how Cliff had always craved his father’s approval, how devastated he would look after one of Theodore’s cutting remarks.
“Theodore stormed out of the house after that. He was gone for hours.” Eleanor’s voice had dropped even lower, forcing Beverly to lean in to hear her. “I’ve always feared that Cliff heard us arguing that night. That he heard what his father said about him.”
She sat back, stunned by the revelation. “You think that’s why he left?”
Eleanor nodded, her eyes suddenly bright with unshed tears. “I’ve always feared so. The timing… It’s too much of a coincidence. He was just… gone the next morning.”
She tried to process this new information. All these years, she’d believed Cliff had simply abandoned her, chosen something—or someone—over their plans together.
“Did you ever ask him? About whether he heard you?” she asked.
Eleanor shook her head. “No. By the time I saw him again, years had passed. He was different. Harder. More like his father than I wanted to admit. And I… I was too proud.” She gave a small, sad smile. “Another failing of the Whitmores. We excel at pride.”
“I always thought…” She hesitated.
“You thought what?”
“I thought he’d found someone else. Or that he just didn’t care enough.” A weight lifted as she finally voiced the fear she’d carried for so long. “I never considered that he might have left because he felt he wasn’t good enough.”
Eleanor reached across the table and placed her hand over hers—another unprecedented gesture. “I failed my son in many ways. But I think one of my greatest failures was not seeing what was happening between you two. Not understanding what you meant to him.”
She stared at their hands—Eleanor’s thin, age-spotted one covering her own. “I don’t know what I meant to him. Not really.”
“Well, perhaps that’s something you should find out,” Eleanor said, withdrawing her hand and straightening in her chair. Some of her usual composure had returned, though her eyes remained softer than Beverly had ever seen them.
She sat in silence, trying to absorb everything Eleanor had shared. Could it really be that Cliff hadn’t abandoned her on a whim but had fled from his father’s cruel words? Had he truly believed he needed to prove himself before he deserved to be with her?
The pain of that night had shaped her in ways she’d never fully acknowledged. It had made her cautious and reluctant to risk her heart again. And now, with this new understanding about Cliff, she felt as though the ground beneath her beliefs was shifting.
Beverly carried the empty coffee cups to the kitchen, her mind still reeling from Eleanor’s revelations. How could one conversation change so much? Thirty years of hurt and assumptions were suddenly cast in a new light, making her question everything she thought she knew about Cliff’s departure.
The kitchen door opened, and Maxine walked in. “I just saw Miss Eleanor leaving. She looked… different. Almost emotional. What was that all about?”
She rinsed the cups in the sink and placed them in the dishwasher before turning to her friend. “She came to talk about Cliff.”
“Cliff? What about him?” Maxine’s eyebrows shot up.
“She told me something I never knew.” She stopped cleaning and leaned against the counter. “Something about the night Cliff left town. The night he was supposed to meet me at the ferry.”
“You mean when he stood you up and broke your heart?” Maxine’s protective tone was familiar. Always on her side.
“It turns out there might have been more to it.” Suddenly tired, she walked over and sat down on a chair at the small table in the kitchen.
Maxine joined her. “Miss Eleanor—oh, she told me to call her just Eleanor. Can you believe that? Anyway, she said she and Theodore had a terrible argument that night. About Cliff.”
“Wait, I’m still dumbfounded that Miss Eleanor told you to call her Eleanor. But, go on.”
“According to Eleanor, Theodore said some awful things. That Cliff was worthless. That he’d never amount to anything.” Her voice caught. “That he regretted they’d ever had him.”
Maxine’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, wow. That’s harsh, even for Mr. Griffin.”
“Eleanor thinks Cliff overheard them. She thinks that’s why he left so abruptly.”
“And never showed up to meet you,” Maxine added softly.
She nodded. “Maybe he felt he had to prove himself first. That he wasn’t good enough for me.”
“That would explain a lot.” Maxine moved closer, placing a hand on Beverly’s arm. “How do you feel about this?”
“Confused. Sad.” She sighed. “For thirty years, I’ve believed he just didn’t care enough. That I wasn’t important enough to him.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what to think. If he really left because of what his father said…” She trailed off, the implications too overwhelming to voice.
“But I still can’t get used to you calling her Eleanor.”
A small smile tugged at Beverly’s lips. “I know. But she was… different today. More vulnerable than I’ve ever seen her. It’s hard to keep calling someone Miss Anything when you’ve seen them nearly cry.”
“Well, I’m shocked.” Maxine pretended to fan herself. “You’re on a first-name basis with Eleanor Griffin? The Eleanor Griffin? Town matriarch and keeper of all things proper?”
She laughed, grateful for the moment of lightness. “I know. Who would have thought?”
“Do you think I’ll ever reach that level of familiarity with her? Should I start practicing? ‘Good morning, Eleanor. Lovely weather we’re having, Eleanor.’”
Beverly grinned. “I really don’t know. She might revoke my privileges if she hears I’ve been spreading the news.”
They both laughed, but her smile faded as her thoughts returned to Cliff. All these years, she’d carried around this story of abandonment, letting it shape her decisions and her heart. What if she’d been wrong? What if Cliff had been carrying his own painful narrative all this time?
“So, what are you going to do?” Maxine asked, reading her thoughts as she often did.
“I don’t know that either. I’ve spent so long believing one version of the story. It’s not easy to just… change that.”
“But if what Miss Eleanor said is true?—”
“Even if it is, it doesn’t erase thirty years. It doesn’t change the fact that he never tried to contact me, never explained.”
“Maybe he couldn’t.” Maxine’s voice was gentle. “Maybe he was too hurt or too ashamed.”
She looked up at her friend. “Maybe. But where does that leave us now?”