Chapter Forty-Seven
As the trio walked along the coastal path toward the village, Nick asked Willow, “So now that you’re the heir to everything Cameron around here, are you going to live in the house, do you think?”
Willow looked almost wistfully up at the massive house, then back at Nick.
“I’m not sure I want to. It’s too big, too”—she shared a quick glance with Catherine—“haunted to live in.” She looked around her, bright greens and blues of the ocean, the murmur of the wind in the trees and the soft roar of the sea beneath, breathed in the salt and pine, and smiled.
“But I’ll stay on in the cabin for a while.
I still have to finish my dissertation, and I can do it here as easily as anywhere else.
Our fantastic local librarian can get me books”—she flashed Catherine a quick smile—“and most of what I need I can find on the internet, anyway.”
Willow looked across the green toward the row of boulders where she had eaten Diana’s tres leches cake after Sue’s memorial. She said, “Hey, guys—I’m a little more winded than I thought; I’m going to hang out for a sec, but I’ll be there in a few minutes, okay?”
The other two paused. “You sure? We can wait with you,” Catherine said.
She shook her head. “No, I’m fine, go ahead. Order me a lobster roll. I’ll only be a sec.”
Nick shrugged. “Suit yourself. See you in a bit.”
As the two walked off toward the dock, Willow eased herself down on the large rock. Nearby sat the dark-haired teenaged girl Willow had seen there on the day of Sue’s memorial reception, reading a book. No phone, no earbuds, just a book.
That should have been Willow’s first clue.
“Hi,” Willow said softly.
The girl looked up in surprise. Without the sullen glare and goth makeup she’d had in the Boston photos, Willow might have recognized her sooner and put it together, but she knew her now. “Hi,” the girl said back.
Willow suddenly had no idea what to say. She cleared her throat and asked, “What are you reading?”
The girl held the book up. It was Weather the Storm, the same paperback that had sat untouched on Willow’s nightstand in the cabin since she arrived. Abel R. Douglas’s last novel.
“What’s it about?” Willow asked cautiously.
The girl looked vague. “It’s about a woman who travels the world with her daughter. Even though they love each other, they don’t get along, but they keep on going.”
Willow went very still.
Take down this book and slowly read, and dream, Annabel had typed for Willow, and left the note atop a pile of her own novels, including this one. And Willow had missed it completely. She, along with Patricia and Audra, had focused their attention on the wrong book.
Willow asked gently, “What about your mother? Do you get along with her?”
The girl looked down at the book in her lap, and Willow thought she might not answer. But she said, “Not really. I mean, we should have, but I was sort of awful. Now I just miss her.”
Me too, Willow thought. So much.
The girl went on, “We used to come here sometimes in the summers. I thought she might come back here, so I guess I’m … waiting for her.” Her expression went vague again.
Willow’s hand trembled, but she reached out and took the girl’s hand. At first, nothing happened, as though it was not there; then she felt the young fingers close around hers. Willow swallowed hard. “I guess I’m waiting for her too.”
The girl nodded; then she turned to Willow as though seeing her for the first time. Which, in a way, she was. “Do I know you? I feel like I should know you.”
Willow nodded, a hard lump rising in her throat. “I think so. It’s been a long time, though.”
“I guess it has.” The girl’s face clouded. “Everything seems like a long time ago.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a minute, listening to the dance of the sea. At last, Willow said, “She loved you incredibly, you know. All her life, it was there on her face. She would have done anything for you.” Her voice shook a little. “And your baby. Anything.”
The girl’s sad eyes shifted to Willow, holding doubt at first, then the dawning of hope. Then she glimpsed someone behind Willow, and her face went incandescent with joy. “Mom?” she asked, her voice quivering.
Willow swiveled on her boulder; she knew who it would be, but her heart leaped, anyway.
“Hi, Robin.” Sue sat cross-legged on the ground, the way she often had when Willow was young, oblivious to bugs or grass stains.
She wore a stretched-out blue sweater and a green sun hat over her shaggy gray hair, her luminous smile turned on her daughter.
Sue stood up, brushed pine needles off the rear of her jeans, and turned that smile to Willow. “Hi, Willow.”
After a breath-held moment of stillness, Robin launched herself from the boulder and flung herself into Sue’s arms, holding tight. Sue, ever tall and strong, lifted her off the ground and whirled her around before setting her down again.
Sue gave Robin’s hand a squeeze, then released it.
She walked with open arms to Willow, who stood to meet her; if Willow closed her eyes, she could feel Sue’s arms around her, slim and angular and familiar.
She pulled back, tears running down her face, and faced the woman she had not known was her grandmother.
Sue smiled, her face full of love and pride.
“I’m sorry, my dear Willow, you amazing girl.
Woman,” she amended. “So much stronger and braver than I ever was. I should have told you long ago. I thought I would have time…” She trailed off.
“But you came back. You came back, and I could see you, see you struggling and in danger, but I couldn’t break through… ”
“It’s okay,” Willow reassured her. “You’re here now.
” She did not tell Sue, any more than she had told Nick and Catherine, about her brief visit to the Cameron House graveyard yesterday at dawn; that would be her secret.
Even Rina, who had gone with her, hadn’t understood, not really.
To Rina, it had been a loving ritual of closure, as together they buried the little box containing the simple gold ring Rina would have given Sue on their wedding day.
Rina had not noticed as Willow slipped a single gray hair, retrieved from the lining of Sue’s old green coat, into the little hole in the earth with the ring.
Rina and Willow had hugged and cried and, after refilling the hole with dirt, had walked back to the inn together, leaving a little piece of Sue—literally—behind in the Cameron family resting place.
Rina had not seen the dozen or so Camerons who walked with them, but Willow had.
As though she sensed the direction of Willow’s thoughts, Sue asked softly, “And Rina? How is she holding up?”
“She’s … holding up,” Willow said. “I mean, she’s grieving, like, a lot, but…” She thought a moment. “She’s carrying you with her, you know? All the way. Like she can feel you here with her even though she can’t see you.”
Sue smiled. “That’s not because I’m still here; that’s just …
love.” She looked toward the dock, and Willow turned to follow her gaze.
Rina was stepping out of the Pottery Shop, heading down to the Dockside, where the remainder of her Little North family waited.
Before stepping into the restaurant, Rina paused and looked out at the bay; the wind caught her hair as she lifted her face to the sky.
For an instant, Willow saw Rina as though through Sue’s eyes: glowing with life and strength, passionate and powerful, as beautiful as the island that was her home.
Willow turned back to Sue, who nodded. “Rina will heal,” Sue said softly. Then her eyes shifted from Willow’s toward the rocky beach beside the dock. “Is that…? Willow, who is that?” she asked in a low voice.
A tall man in a gray pin-striped suit and fedora, handsome as any film star, stood on the shore beside a simple dinghy; behind him, a few yards out into the water, a gleaming single-masted sailboat waited. Peter Talbot looked, for the first time since Willow had encountered him, happy.
“That’s Peter,” Willow said. Then, haltingly: “Your father.”
Sue was already walking toward the man in the boat, her steps slow and dreamlike. Willow and Robin remained where they were, watching as father and daughter met one another and embraced.
From the ocean path, a dog barked; Finn had, of course, gotten out of the cabin and decided to join the lunch party, perhaps realizing his former human had stopped by the village.
He launched himself across the green, a short-legged fuzzy blur, and headed straight for Sue.
She crouched down to greet him; from across the green, Willow heard her say, “Hey, Finn—good boy. You take care of my Willow now, okay?” He barked in response.
Finn trotted obligingly toward Willow, though not without looking back over his shoulder several times.
With one more brilliant smile for Willow, Robin turned and ran to Peter and Sue as well. Peter Talbot gallantly helped his daughter and granddaughter into the dinghy. He gave Willow a little bow and tipped his hat to her, then pushed the dinghy off the shore and rowed away.
Finn bounded around Willow, pawing at her legs and whining, till she crouched down and let him frantically attempt to lick her running nose and tearstained face and any part of her he could reach.
You left me home, he seemed to say, but I was able to correct your error and come out to see how you’re doing. Plus lobster rolls.
Willow gave the dog a watery grin—it was hard to stay sad under this onslaught of energy. “Okay, fur face. Lobster rolls. Best on this or any island.”
Willow wasn’t sure exactly when the three spirits faded from view; when she looked up again, she and Finn were alone on the point.
She turned and looked back at Cameron House. A woman stood on the widow’s walk, long white hair blowing in the wind. She raised a hand to Willow and waved enthusiastically.
Willow waved back.
She and Finn turned and made for the dock. Nick was standing in the doorway to the restaurant, watching for her. “Got us a table on the patio,” he said. He looked again. “Hey, you okay, Stone?”
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
His eyes were kind, and he didn’t press. “Then hurry up and get in here. You gonna make us wait all day?”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s not like the lobsters are going to swim away, you know. Have a little restraint. People might think you come from Texas or something.”
“Be nice to me, or I’ll give Mac your fries.”
Bickering good-naturedly, they took their seats with the others—Rina, Catherine, Diana, and Mac—on the deck of the restaurant. Willow gazed out at the water, feeling relaxed and at home for the first time in more than fifteen years.
Out in the bay, a familiar lobstering dory sailed by. Its captain gave her an approving nod.