CHAPTER ONE #2
“Same for me, but with honey on the peanut butter, and can I have carrot sticks and not the baby ones, but the big ones, cut into, like, sticks, not circles?” Chantelle said, then immediately: “Can we do the party?”
Emily sliced bread and let the last question linger, feigning deliberation while she admired the girls’ ability to slide so smoothly from detailed lunch orders to remembering Emily’s idea from the walk up. “You like the idea of a birthday party for the inn?”
Chantelle grinned, her gap-tooth smile still unfamiliar to Emily, who sometimes half-expected her daughter’s lost baby teeth to reappear overnight. “You said it. But you didn’t say yes about the big cake.”
Emily lined up the sandwiches, moving with her usual kitchen efficiency. “It’s a big occasion. And I think we can make it fun for everyone, not just the history nerds.”
Bailey shrugged. "History is fine, but cake is better."
“That’s so true. We can have a big, big cake.
” Emily plated the sandwiches as the girls cheered, added a pile of carrot sticks—cut just so—and set everything on the table, then poured the girls each a glass of lemonade from the pitcher at the back of the fridge.
The lemonade was store-bought, not fresh, and had the artificial tang of something concocted in a lab, but both girls drank it in giant gulps, as if they’d spent the morning in the Sahara (and walked back) rather than a semi-shaded cove a quarter mile away.
She checked on Charlotte, who was methodically dropping the teether, then craning to see if Emily would pick it up.
“No, ma’am. You’re not getting me with that game today,” Emily said, though she was already bending to retrieve it, pressing a kiss to Charlotte’s hand before returning the toy.
Charlotte squealed in satisfaction, a sound so pure and happy that for an instant, Emily’s heart felt the size of the entire kitchen.
Emily handed Charlotte a pouch of chicken and rice baby food, which she happily began to slurp. Emily scattered canned peas on the highchair tray corner, then put a finely diced strawberry on the other corner. Then, she plonked down into the chair next to Chantelle.
“So, what’s the plan for the party?” Chantelle asked, shoving half a sandwich into her mouth.
Emily put her elbows on the table and let her mind wander through the steps. “First, I want to make invitations. Handwritten, maybe with vintage stamps. We’ll invite people from town, maybe even guests who’ve meant something to the inn.”
“We should do a scavenger hunt,” Bailey said.
Chantelle lit up. “But for grown-ups and kids. And the winner gets something big.”
“Like what?”
“A night in the haunted room,” Bailey said, in a tone that dared someone to call her bluff.
Emily chuckled. “Room thirteen’s not haunted. It’s just drafty.”
“Only someone possessed by the ghost who doesn’t want to be found out would say that,” Bailey muttered, and then she and Chantelle dissolved into laughter, spilling lemonade onto the table and each other.
Emily stood, grabbed a towel, and mopped up the spill with brisk, practiced swipes. “If you’re both helping, I think we can come up with something everyone will like. Chantelle, you can be on decoration duty. Bailey, can you help with games?”
Bailey saluted. “Yes, Captain.”
“Good. Because it’s going to be a lot of work.” She glanced at Charlotte, who was sucking the last drops from her pouch, eyelids drooping. The peas and strawberries were gone.
There was a lull as the girls ate the rest of their lunch and Emily wiped Charlotte and her highchair down.
Emily put Charlotte down in her living-room playpen, where she roused and began to play with her foam blocks.
Then, she went to rinse plates at the kitchen sink, eyes trained on the window above it.
The view was imperfect—the angle caught more of the parking area than the beach—but at this time of day, if she squinted, she could see a shimmer of the harbor.
For a moment, her mind spun backward: to the first winter she’d spent here, when the inn had been half-condemned, her residency in Sunset Harbor brand new and showing immediate signs of wear.
She remembered the cold that seeped through the windows, the empty rooms she’d tried to fill with optimism (because there hadn’t been money for much else).
Sometimes she’d stand in the foyer, hand on the old stair rail, and wonder if she’d ever feel at home.
Now the kitchen here echoed with children’s voices and the sweet, sticky scent of jam, and the house—her house—felt less like a money trap and more like a shelter for the life she’d built, with Daniel, one day at a time.
“Earth to Mom.” Chantelle’s voice cut through, and Emily realized she’d been scrubbing the same plate for a full minute. “Can we go outside again? Bailey wants to show me something.”
Emily blinked, snapped back to present. “Sure, but stay where I can see you. And don’t go back to the cove without me. Put on new sunscreen.”
“We’ll stay in the yard,” Bailey promised, then dragged Chantelle by the wrist, both of them barreling toward the door to the hallway. Within seconds, their shrieks had faded.
Emily washed the last of the dishes, dried her hands on a flour-sack towel, and checked the clock.
She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee—still warm, miraculously—and pulled her battered planner from the counter.
She paged to an empty spread and started a list of potential guests for the anniversary event, writing names with careful, deliberate strokes.
In her mind, she was already sorting through logistics: invitations, food orders, maybe a raffle for a free winter weekend. This was her element.
Emily startled a bit when Patricia let herself in through the side door, followed by Cassie, whose sneakers left a trail of damp grass along the linoleum.
Both her mother and mother-in-law wore sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats, as if their walk around the block had required preparation for a solar flare.
Cassie glanced at Emily’s open planner, then the mug of coffee in her hand.
“You’re not eating?” she asked, sounding more like an accusation than a question.
Emily smiled. Daniel’s mother, since her own recovery from a liver condition only a few months back, was now the health and nutrition chaperone of the house.
“I had a late breakfast,” Emily said, setting her cup aside. “You two want sandwiches?”
Patricia pulled her sunglasses off with theatrical care. “We’d kill for egg salad,” she said. “But only if you’re making it.”
Cassie nodded, already pulling out a chair. “You always have the right ratio of paprika to onion to mayo. Unlike my son.”
“Daniel doesn’t make egg salad,” Emily replied, reaching for a carton of eggs. “He makes some kind of too-smooth sludge and calls it lunch. And he uses Miracle Whip, not mayo.”
“Ew. I thought I raised him better.” Cassie’s face flickered with a brief, wry fondness. “If you ever want a full culinary experience, ask Daniel to make his grandma’s sardine salad.”
“I’d rather eat a brick,” Emily said. She set a plastic container of boiled eggs on the counter and fished the rest of the ingredients from the fridge, then positioned herself so she could watch her daughter and Bailey, visible out on the lawn through the window, heads bent together in some new scheme. The crab pail was involved.
Patricia watched her, then said, “You’re in a good mood.”
Emily shrugged. “Productive day.”
Cassie folded her arms. “You only get this perky when you’re plotting something.” She lowered her voice: “Did Daniel agree to adopt a third dog?”
“Not yet,” Emily said, keeping a straight face. Their current two pups—Mogsy and Rain—were in town with Roy and Daniel, but the thought of a puppy to also wrangle was an amusing one. “Chantelle’s working on him.”
Patricia reached for the mail that had accumulated at the end of the table. “So, what is it?”
Emily turned to face them. “I want to throw a party. For the inn.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows. “A party?”
“An event. The inn just turned a hundred and twenty-five. I want to invite everyone who’s ever meant something to us, or to this place. Maybe do a scavenger hunt, a bake-off. Cook. Music? I don’t know. Make it a thing.”
Cassie let out a low whistle. “You’re a glutton for punishment. You’re busy enough!”
“It’s not too much if everyone pitches in,” Emily said.
Patricia, flipping through a pile of real estate flyers, nodded. “That’s true.” She thumbed the edge of one flyer with a neatly manicured fingernail “Remember the guy with the parrot? The bird would shout ‘Last call!’ at three in the afternoon.”
Emily smiled at the memory. “I’ll put him on the list. And his parrot. I’ll convince the kids he’s a pirate. They’ll be thrilled.”
Emily chopped and mixed, and as she assembled the sandwiches for Cassie and her mother, she started rattling off names: the retired lounge singer who’d insisted on playing the lobby piano every night for a week, the pair of college kids who’d gotten engaged on the porch, the Boston lawyer who always left a tip folded like an origami crane.
Patricia and Cassie laughed along, and Emily joined the women at the table, sliding plates into their waiting hands.
Cassie took a bite, then sighed in approval. “You could sell this by the jar.”
“Business number seventy-three,” Emily joked.
Cassie and Patricia exchanged a look, something affectionate, and Emily felt a jolt of gratitude that their relationships had all mellowed to something she treasured.
“So, when is this party?” Cassie asked, brushing crumbs from her lap.
“End of July,” Emily said. “I want to do it right. Plenty of time for the details.”
Patricia nodded. “We’ll help with the invites. And you should ask your father for his help—he remembers townspeople like they’re all part of the family tree.”
“I’ll text him after lunch,” Emily said.
Outside, the girls’ voices rang out, clear and persistent, the purest sound of summer joy. Emily looked at her planner, at the list of names.
It was going to be the kind of party people remembered.