Chapter 8
Josie went to her grandmother’s study to try to calm down. It was the one place in the house that she most remembered. She would often see Nana sitting there early in the morning, reading her Bible and drinking her first cup of coffee of the day. She could still smell the lingering scent of her perfume in the room. On the credenza, she noticed a big stack of mail that would need to be sorted, but she’d think about that later.
She picked up the Bible that was sitting on the table next to her favorite chair and ran her fingers across the rough leather cover. This Bible had seen a lot of use over the years, but Nana had refused to replace it. She said that once you’ve broken in a Bible, you keep it forever. She didn’t need anything new because all of her notes were in this one, and all her prayers had seeped into every page.
Josie had never been particularly religious, although her grandmother had tried to get her into church over the years. Not that she didn’t believe in God. She just didn’t believe in religion. She didn’t believe in people.
And right now, she wondered if she believed in Nana. Why in the world would she do something like this? Why would she force Josie into the position of working with her estranged mother?
Nana had never talked about Josie seeing Diane. She always allowed her to bring it up on her own. Once she was an adult, and especially after she had Kendra, neither of them ever brought it up. It was like an unspoken rule. They didn’t talk about Diane.
So why did she do this? Josie felt betrayed, frustrated, and upset. She missed her grandmother more than anything, but she was mad at her. And she didn’t know if she would ever get over it.
What was she to do? The thought of looking at her mother every single day at work made her want to vomit. She’d left that life behind so many years ago, and now it was just dredging everything up again. If she had been on her own, she would’ve made the easy decision to leave town and never look back.
However, if she didn’t find a job soon, she and Kendra would have nowhere to live and nothing to live on. And even if she somehow did find a new job, Kendra hated school and didn’t want to go back. If she stayed here, she had a house and a business, and she could support them. Plus, maybe Kendra would do better in school and have some kind of future ahead of her.
She needed an alternative to her nana’s plan, some sort of compromise. She’d talk to Joe about it.
She stood up and walked over to look out the window. Nana’s study overlooked the side garden, and she often found her grandmother standing there staring down at her beautiful roses. She said there was nothing more soothing than reading her Bible and looking at her flowers. Josie wished she had some of that peace. Right now, all she felt was turmoil.
It was a familiar feeling, at least. It wasn’t like she’d had a peaceful life, even when she had lived with her grandmother. Although Nana did everything she could to make life normal, Josie always knew that her mother was missing. She always felt abandoned. She always felt unwanted and unloved.
How a mother could choose alcohol over her own child was beyond her. Josie made a point of drinking rarely because she never wanted to get addicted. She decided her daughter wouldn’t have an absentee mother, and she had kept that promise. It was the one thing she was most proud of in her life.
“You okay?” Walker was standing in the doorway of the study, leaning against the doorframe.
“I just want to be alone.”
“Miss Adeline loved this room. Some mornings, we would have our coffee up here.”
Josie turned back and looked at him. “I have fond memories of this room.”
“I have fond memories of the kitchen,” he said, laughing. “That woman could make a mean peach cobbler. Did you ever try her cheesy grits? They would make you slap your momma!”
Josie smiled. “Trust me, it wouldn’t take much to make me slap my momma.”
Walker laughed. “See? You can smile and joke. I knew you had it in you somewhere.”
She walked over and sat back down in Nana’s chair. “I just don’t know why she would’ve done this. She knows... knew... how I feel about my mother. I’d finally gotten past it, and now I’m stuck in this mess.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Pardon me for saying so, Josie, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve gotten past it.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But the fact that you had such an emotional reaction means that you have a lot of unfinished business with your mom. I think it’s worth having a conversation with her, at least. Clear the air. Get yourself some closure. You deserve that.”
“Are you trying to use psychology on me?”
He shook his head. “I’m not smart enough to use psychology. I repair boats for a living.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “So you think I should talk to her?”
“I do. I think you owe it to yourself, and your daughter, to be honest.”
“You’re probably right. I need to show Kendra that I tried, or she’ll be mad at me forever. For some strange reason, she loves Happy Harbor.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think it’s strange. Happy Harbor is a wonderful place.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Not for everybody.”
“So you don’t have any good memories of this place?”
“I have lots of good memories. Most of them are with my grandmother. But those get overshadowed by all the times that my mother embarrassed me, disappeared, or said hurtful things while she was drunk.”
“Look, I really don’t know Diane all that well other than the times she’s waited on me at the restaurant. But I saw the interaction between her and Miss Adeline. I don’t think she’s the same person you remember, and maybe if you give her a chance, you’ll find that out.”
Josie shook her head. “People don’t change. We are who we are.”
“That’s sad that you think that. I think people change all the time.”
“Well, I sure haven’t seen it.”
Maybe she was talking about herself more than anyone else. No matter how many times she’d tried to change her personality over the years, it just seemed to get worse. She was more untrusting than she had ever been. Being a control freak didn’t help matters either. Having the childhood she did, Josie did everything she could to keep in control as an adult.
When she was in control, she was safe. Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“I’d better get going. I have a couple of boats to work on today. I hope you make the right decision for you and your daughter. But please let me know what you decide, so I know where to send my rent check,” he said, smiling. She saw those dimples of his, and that made her mad. Tall, broad shoulders, muscular, and dimples? Plus a thick head of sandy-brown hair? It was like he stepped right out of some men’s magazine, and she was having a hard time not staring at him.
“Will do.”
He turned and walked down the hallway, his work boots banging against the old hardwood floors. She heard the back door shut, and she reached for the Bible again, placing her hands on top of it.
Closing her eyes, she let out a long breath. “Nana, I don’t know why you did this crazy thing to me. I’m mad at you. But I love you. I miss you. Please tell me what you want me to do.”
* * *
Diane Campbell was anything but a quitter. Her daughter was as stubborn as a mule. It ran in the family, and sometimes a person couldn’t help genetics. When her mother, Adeline, had come up with this insane idea to leave the house and restaurant to Josie and force them to work together, Diane had told her no. No way. Not doing it. She threatened to quit the restaurant and move back to Mobile, Alabama, where she’d lived for several years before coming back to Happy Harbor.
But her mother needed her.
Adeline was getting sicker and sicker, but she wanted to hide it from Josie. She didn’t want her to leave her life in Atlanta to “take care of an old lady,” as she put it. When Josie would video chat, Adeline would make Diane hide in the other room, and she’d put on her happiest face, so Josie had no idea she was so sick.
Diane missed her mother now more than ever. For so many years, they’d been at odds because of Diane’s alcoholism. Not only had she lost time with her daughter, but with her mother too. And even her granddaughter. So many times, she’d cried to Adeline about her regrets, and her mother would rub her knee and tell her one day she’d get a second chance.
That chance was right now.
As Diane walked down the quiet street, a canopy of centuries-old oaks hanging overhead, she thought about how different her life was now than just a few years ago. After trying to get clean for decades, one morning she found herself sitting in a park near Mobile, hungover from the night before. Her “friends,” a.k.a. drinking buddies, had left her there, growing tired of waiting for her to wake up to start drinking again. Diane was rubbing her eyes when she noticed a young woman with her toddler playing on the playground across the street. The woman was smiling and chasing the little girl, who was giggling so loud Diane could hear her laughter over passing buses. She smiled as she watched the pure joy on both their faces. When they finally fell to the ground, cackling with laughter, Diane felt warm tears streaming down her face. An ache overtook her chest, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
What had she done?
She had one lucid moment—finally—after years of being so toxic with alcohol, and in that moment she felt the weight of everything she’d lost. All the time. The relationships. The respect of her daughter.
She stood up and walked to a community center down the street and found the huge bulletin board. On it was a hotline that said it would help find a rehab center for people with no money. She reached into her pocket and found her prepaid cell phone, which had five percent battery left. Praying, she dialed the number and asked for help.
To her surprise, this time it actually worked. Something inside of her had changed, and she never had another drink from that day forward. Of course, every day she had to decide to stay sober. She had to have support and attend meetings. She had a sponsor she spoke with daily, and sometimes several times a day. Staying clean was work, and she considered it a job, just like the one she had at the restaurant.
After being clean for a few months, she gathered her courage and called her mom. Adeline had cried and cried when she heard Diane was clean, and she invited her to come home. By the time Diane arrived, Adeline had found every twelve-step meeting in a ten-mile radius.
The support of her mother had been critical to staying sober, and without her, Diane knew it was going to be a challenge. Alcohol was how she’d managed her emotions in the past, and losing her mother had brought up the strongest emotions she’d ever felt.
“Hey.” She heard a voice behind her, and she held her hand to her chest as she turned around.
Diane smiled. “Kendra. So good to see you, honey. I wish we’d reconnected under different circumstances.”
Kendra nodded. “Same here. Sorry my mom got upset like that. She tends to have a temper.”
“Well, she gets that honest, unfortunately. Wow! You’ve gotten so big since I saw you last.”
She laughed. “Well, I was maybe, what, six years old?”
They started walking. “About that, I think. You were very into soccer and climbing trees, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t a girly girl back then. Still not much of one.”
“I never was either.”
It was weird catching up with her only grandchild. She should’ve been an actual grandmother all those years, baking cookies and going on fun adventures. Instead, she was boozing it up with strangers and people who didn’t even matter.
“I guess we’re going back to Atlanta.”
“I’m so sorry, Kendra. I told Nana not to do this, but she insisted that Josie was the right one to run the restaurant. I tried to quit, but she wanted us to reconnect and try to forge some kind of relationship.”
“I don’t want to go. I was looking forward to staying here. Plus, being near the beach and cute, tanned boys sounded like a marvelous idea.”
Diane laughed. “Don’t be too boy crazy. They are the root of all female problems.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t want to go back to Atlanta.”
“It’s a nice city, so why wouldn’t you want to go back?”
Kendra shrugged. “I don’t feel accepted there. Everyone at my school hates me.”
“I’m sure they don’t hate you. We all feel that way in high school.”
They stopped and sat down on a bench that was on the edge of the local park. Kids were running around, laughing and playing. “No offense, but you being here is kind of ruining my plan of getting my mom to stay here,” Kendra said, laughing.
Diane nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. But your nana wanted this, and I love my job. I can’t leave. For the first time in my life, I have roots. I know you can’t understand this at your age, but it’s very hard to start over when you’re older. I’ve longed my whole life for stability, and I have it now because I’m sober.”
“So you’re telling the truth about that?”
She smiled. “I am. I work very hard at it every day, but I’ve been sober for several years now.”
“I don’t think Mom believes you.”
“She doesn’t. And she has every right not to believe me. I’ve let her down more times than I can count. I was a horrible mother to her.”
“Maybe it’s too late for you to fix this,” Kendra said.
“I hope not, but all I can do is try.”
* * *
Josie stomped down the sidewalk toward Joe Strand’s house. She knew his office was closed today, but that didn’t stop her from hunting him down like a drug-sniffing beagle.
It’d been years since she’d seen his house, and she had almost walked up to the wrong front door. Finally, she found the house and knew it was his by the “Strand” sign near the front door.
It was a small house compared to Nana’s, but it was cute with its white picket fence and newly bloomed azalea bushes surrounding the pathway to the front door.
She knocked on the door and waited. A few moments later, Joe opened it, surprise on his face.
“Josie?” He looked like he’d been sleeping, which was odd given that it was after nine in the morning.
“We need to talk.”
“Darlin’, today is my day off. Can we schedule a time tomorrow?”
“No.”
He sighed and unlatched the screen door before walking out onto the porch wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants and a ratty old T-shirt.
“Sorry for my attire, but I wasn’t exactly expecting a guest.”
Josie walked over and sat in one of the white rocking chairs on the porch. Joe sat beside her.
“This isn’t going to work, and I need to know my options.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not willing to work with my mother, so if I’m going to run this restaurant we need to figure something out.”
“Oh, Josie, I do wish you’d reconsider. Adeline wanted you and Diane to?—”
She held up her hand. “No offense, Joe, but I don’t need anyone’s opinion on what my reject of a mother and I need to do. I’ve spent my whole life protecting myself from her, and now that I’m an adult, I don’t have to subject myself to her shenanigans.”
“Diane has been a pillar of the community for the last several years, Josie.”
She let out a loud laugh. “I feel like I’m living in The Twilight Zone. A pillar of the community? My mother? The woman who was found sleeping on the mayor’s porch with a giant teddy bear she stole from the traveling amusement park?”
Joe stifled a chuckle. “That was many, many years ago, Josie. People change.”
“Everyone keeps saying that. But people do not change. They fake change to get what they want. All I need to know is what happens to the house and restaurant if I choose not to take them?”
He sighed as if he didn’t want to say it out loud. “Adeline prepared for that possibility.”
“What did she decide?”
He rubbed his palms over his ruddy face. “If you don’t run the restaurant and live in the house for at least six months, the house and the restaurant will be donated to a school.”
“Oh, well, that’s not so bad. Any particular school?”
“It’s a unique school...”
“Just spit it out, Joe.”
“It’s a training school for mimes.”
She stood up and stared at him. “That’s not funny. Everybody in this town knows how I feel about mimes. I hate them. They freak me out almost as much as clowns.”
“They also train clowns at this school.”
“Joe, you cannot be serious! My nana wouldn’t do that!”
“Darlin’, she did. I promise. I have it in writing at my office.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “Your grandmother was a lovely, giving woman, but she was also stubborn as a mule, much like you. She wanted you to do this. She knew you’d never want all that money given to a mime school.”
Josie had to admit that it was just like Nana to do something so silly. What a great manipulation. She was correct that Josie would never allow that money to go toward bringing more mimes and clowns into the world. The more she thought about it, the harder it became to be mad. Laughter spilled out of her mouth until she was sobbing.
“I can’t believe she did this...” she said, laughing so hard she was afraid she’d wet her pants right there on Joe’s newly painted front porch. “What a crazy woman!”
Joe joined in the laughter until the two of them were spent. Josie sat back down and caught her breath.
“So, are you gonna stay, then?” he finally asked.
She thought for a moment, understanding that her answer was a commitment. “Yes. I’ll stay for six months, and then my work here is done.”
Joe smiled. “Oh, my dear, but Happy Harbor just might reel you back in.”
She shook her head. “Never.”