Chapter 36
I ALMOST GO BACK FOR A WHIFF.
BILLIE
Monday—a.k.a. day one without Peter—is fine. Totally fine. I’ve been on my own for thirty-five years. I can handle a few days without a man who alphabetizes his spice rack and calls me Beth in a voice that makes me forget I ever hated being called anything other than Billie.
Day two is also fine. I rip out a client’s rotting deck boards with a level of satisfaction that borders on therapeutic and only check my phone eleven times. Twelve. Twelve times. And that was just while I was at work.
By day three, I’m annoyed at myself.
I don’t miss people. That’s not how I’m wired.
I like people, sure. I love my crew, I love Neve, I love my family in the complicated, jagged way you love people who’ve let you down more than they’ve shown up.
But I’ve never been one to feel someone’s absence like a physical thing.
I’ve never walked into a room and noticed the void where they should be.
Except now I’m standing in Peter’s kitchen—because I needed to check on the work on the guesthouse anyway, not because I wanted to be in his space, shut up—and the house is so quiet it hums. His coffee mug is still in the drying rack from Monday morning, and I think, oh, this is bad.
I leave before I do something embarrassing like sniff his pillowcase.
I almost go back for a whiff.
Work saves me, the way it always has.
There’s a rhythm to a job site that my brain latches onto in a way it can’t with most things.
The ADHD makes offices unbearable—fluorescent lights, sitting still, linear thinking—but a construction site is organized chaos, and organized chaos is my native language.
There are fifteen things happening at once, and I can track all of them.
Move between them. See how they connect in ways other people’s brains can’t map.
It’s the one place I’ve never felt stupid.
We’re framing a garage addition in Bridgewater, and I’m up a ladder, adjusting a header, when my phone buzzes with a text from Neve:
Bureau meeting prep this weekend? I have wine and color swatches.
Right. The second Business Bureau meeting.
The one where we present the marina revitalization plan that I somehow ended up co-championing because a certain brown-eyed investment banker made a compelling case.
I save the text to respond to later—something I’ll forget to do and then remember at 2 a.m. while staring at the ceiling—and refocus on the header.
“Billie!” Steph, one of my part-time crew members, calls from below. Something in her voice makes my stomach drop before I even look down. It’s the tone my crew uses when there’s a problem they can’t handle, which is rare, because my crew can handle almost anything.
But they can’t handle my father.
Tim Cameron is standing at the edge of the lot with his hands in his pants pockets and the posture of a man who’s come to deliver an opinion no one asked for.
He’s wearing the same Carhartt jacket he’s had since I was a teenager, and his truck is parked on the road like he didn’t want to commit to actually being here.
That tracks. Commitment has never been his strong suit.
“Hey, Dad.” I come down the ladder with a calm I don’t feel, wiping my hands on my jeans. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a father visit his daughter at work?”
He can. He just doesn’t. Not unless he wants something, or unless he’s heard something he has an opinion on, which is the same thing.
“I need to talk to you about this marina project.” He says marina project with the same disdain someone might say root canal. “That’s not how this was supposed to go, you know? Lizzie, what are you doing?”
“Working. Which is what you interrupted.”
“I’m serious. You’re getting involved with the town council? The bureau? This tourist trap nonsense?” He shakes his head, and the disappointment on his face is so familiar it barely registers anymore. Almost. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
There it is. The word he’s been reaching for my whole life without ever quite saying it.
Embarrassing. As if my existence—the ADHD that made school a nightmare, the PMDD that made me “difficult” and “dramatic,” the bisexuality that he still refers to as a “phase,” despite the fact I’m thirty-five years old and phases don’t typically last two decades—is something that happens to him rather than being my reality.
“I’m embarrassing myself,” I repeat flatly.
“This isn’t what you do, Lizzie. You build things. You’re good with your hands. That’s your lane.” He gestures at the framing behind me like it’s evidence. “Leave the business stuff to people who—”
“Who what, Dad?”
He has the decency to hesitate, but not the decency to stop. “Who are built for it. You know what I mean. You’ve always been better with the physical work. The planning, the organizing, the politics of it all… That’s not you.”
That’s not you has been the thesis statement of every conversation I’ve ever had with my father.
You’re not the academic one.
You’re not the focused one.
You’re not the one who sticks with things.
You’re not the kind of woman men take seriously.
You’re not built for more than what you already have, so stop reaching.
The worst part is how calm he is. He’s not yelling. He never yells. He states things like they’re facts. Like the sky is blue and his daughter isn’t capable. And then waits for you to agree.
I used to agree. Not out loud, but in the quiet, corrosive way that seeps into your bones. I’d hear his voice in my head every time I took on something new, every time I pushed past the lane he’d drawn for me.
That’s not you, Lizzie.
And I’d wonder if he was right. On the bad weeks—the PMDD weeks, when my brain is already telling me I’m worthless and the world would be easier to navigate without me in it—his voice and the disorder would harmonize into something I couldn’t argue with.
But I know my truth now. He can’t undo all the work I’ve done.
“The marina project is going to bring year-round revenue to this town,” I say, my voice shockingly firm.
“I’m working with the bureau because you brought me in.
Because I know this community, and I know construction, and I know what these buildings need.
That’s not embarrassing, Dad. That’s called being good at my job. ”
“You’re overcomplicating things now that you’re dreaming about what can be done with that Toronto fella’s money.
” It’s a statement laced with condescension, which makes no sense because he was the one sidling up to Peter when they first met.
“I’ve heard things about him, Lizzie. Some rich guy who bought a cottage and now thinks he can play small-town savior—”
“This conversation is over.” Yeah, no. He’s not going to get to shit-talk the same person he originally thought would be on his side. This is so typical of him. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he attacks. Regardless of who it is.
“I’m trying to look out for you.”
“No, you’re not.” My words come out with a steadiness I’m proud of, even as my insides are shaking. “You’re trying to keep me in a box that makes sense to you. You’ve been doing it my whole life. I’m done making myself small enough to fit in it.”
He stares at me for a long moment, but the wheels are turning—the recalibration, the search for a different angle. I don’t give him one, though. I hold his gaze until he looks away. And when he turns to walk back to his truck, I don’t call after him.
Steph appears at my elbow the moment he pulls away. “You okay, boss?”
“Yep.” I climb the ladder, pick up where I left off, and pretend my hands aren’t trembling.