Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
Franny headed downstairs and both Beth and Riley looked at her curiously. She’d only been upstairs for a few minutes. She walked over to them and sat for a quick moment.
“It seems like each week my sister will want me to visit some of our favorite places, to remind me why she loved it here so much—and why I used to, too. We both grew up here. I moved away to Albany, New York, when I married, and Ella stayed. My husband and I visited for at least a week or two most summers and often saw Ella and her husband on the holidays.”
“Do you think she’s hoping you’ll move back to Chatham?” Beth asked.
“Possibly.” The thought had definitely occurred to Franny. “I know she was hoping I might move here when my Tim passed. But we had an established business in Albany and I took over running it.”
“Are you still involved in the business?” Riley sounded surprised.
Franny nodded. “I’m not as hands on as I once was. I’ve turned most of the responsibilities over to several managers who do a wonderful job. I pop in the office one day a week now and keep abreast of everything by email and Zoom. So, I probably could move here at this point, if I wanted to. I’m not sure that I do, now that Ella is gone. I still have plenty of friends in Albany.”
“Maybe you’ll just want to come for longer stretches, like a month or two in the summer?” Beth suggested.
Franny smiled. “That is what I will most likely do. I’m not in any hurry to sell my sister’s house and thought in a year or so, maybe I will feel more comfortable about staying there.”
“Do you want a paper cup to take a coffee with you?” Riley asked.
“Oh, that would be lovely. Thank you.” Franny had assumed she’d have to stop by a coffee shop.
Riley hopped up and returned a few minutes later with a big paper cup full of black coffee, the way Franny liked it. Franny said her goodbyes and headed out. She’d been using Ella’s car since she’d arrived. It was a late-model navy-blue Mercedes sedan. And it felt bittersweet to drive it, as she thought of Ella every time she looked at it. Ella had always loved that car. Franny had to admit it was fun to drive. She’d always had more practical cars herself, Hondas or Nissans. She’d once thought luxury cars were a silly indulgence, but she understood now. It rode beautifully and the leather seats were so soft. Franny drove slowly down Main Street and headed toward the lighthouse.
A few minutes later, she reached it, and pulled into a parking spot. Even this time of year on a chilly December day, there was someone else there, too. A man sat in his car, sipping his coffee and reading the paper. Franny had brought her copy of Chatham Living magazine along. She’d read about half of it so far. But first she wanted to just sit and take in the view.
The lighthouse stood tall as it looked out over the water. The sun was shining brightly and it really was a beautiful day—chilly, but clear. Franny knew the history of the lighthouse—she and Ella had long been fascinated by it and looked it up one day. She knew that it had been there since 1808 and there had originally been two lighthouses, located east of this one. She also knew that it was now run by the Coast Guard and was one of the few remaining lighthouses in the country that was operated twenty-four hours a day.
Originally the lighthouses were set back two hundred feet from the bluff, but the seas shifted and erosion in the 1870s was so bad that they lost thirty feet of bluff each year. By 1877 there was only fifty feet of bluff left between the lighthouses and the ocean, and the decision was made to build two new ones farther back, at the current location. 1n 1923, the lighthouses were separated and one moved farther down the Cape to Nauset. Technology had changed so they could now tell the lights apart by the interval of the light’s rotation.
She and Ella had ridden their bikes here so many times as children. They’d put coins in the public telescope, which gave an incredible view of the harbor, and they’d sit and dream about their futures. Ella had always wanted to be a journalist and she’d done it for a time, working at the Cape Cod Times as a junior reporter before she had their one child, Henry. He was born with cystic fibrosis and though he managed as best he could, attending college and working in finance, he still passed in his early thirties. Victor had encouraged Ella to go back to work then. Not because they needed the money, but because Ella needed something to focus on. She’d taken a part-time job at the local weekly paper, the Cape Cod Chronicle, and had loved it, working there until she was nearly seventy.
Franny thought back to her own dreams. She’d wanted to be a lawyer back then, but after falling in love with Tim, she’d settled for working in a law firm as a secretary and then a paralegal. She’d enjoyed the work and the hours. When she left the office at five, she knew that many of the junior attorneys would be there for the better part of the evening. Tim had encouraged her to go to law school if that was where her passion lay. But her interests had changed and she preferred the balance of work during the day and spending time with her husband in the evening.
They’d never had children and it had always been just the two of them. Franny loved to cook and though they both had enjoyed going out to dinner, her favorite memories were of the quiet evenings they spent together at home, talking about their day and enjoying a cocktail. Tim had been a businessman and built a small shop into a big department store and then multiple stores. Franny had never worked in the business until the year before Tim passed. She’d learned the ropes then, at his insistence. He’d always believed in her and wanted the business to continue, in her hands, when he passed.
And she found it all so interesting. There was a learning curve, of course, but Tim had hired good people who were patient with her, and over the many years of discussions over dinner, she had a good understanding of the business. One of the first things she did, after Tim passed, was to add an online store. Tim had resisted doing it, but Franny knew it was where the future was headed. They didn’t put the entire store online, but they put the things that were unique to them—the custom clothing that could only be found at their stores.
Franny sipped her coffee and gazed out at the water, at the few boats in the distance, fishing boats probably this time of year. Fishing was year-round in Chatham. But everyone else pulled their boats out of the water for the winter and stored them safely indoors or trailered in their yard.
Franny loved Chatham, but she’d separated herself from it since she married. For Ella there was no other place on earth that she wanted to live. Occasionally over the years, she’d suggested that Franny move home, but the timing had never been right. And now that she was in a position where she could consider it, Ella was gone. Franny sighed. There was a sense of peace here, she’d always felt it; from the minute she crossed the Cape Cod Canal there was a feeling of coming home, and of a weight lifted.
She could definitely spend most of the summer here. Possibly as soon as next summer, which was only six months away. She’d have to see how she felt then, and if she could stay in Ella’s house without Ella there. Ella had a lovely home. It wasn’t large, but it was on the ocean, farther down Shore Road. When Victor bought the property, they’d just married and were living in his parents’ home in a cottage on the grounds.
The house on the property had been tiny and falling down, an old shack. The land was worth far more than the house. Tim had removed it and built a new one and it was Ella’s dream house, with big windows, three bedrooms, and a screened-in porch where they ate their dinner most nights.
Franny’s coffee grew cold as she sat there remembering and forgetting to drink it. Finally, after about an hour, she decided to move on and head home. Ella would be pleased as Franny’s trip down memory lane had accomplished what Ella had intended. Franny was more open to moving home to Chatham—at least for the summer. She was even more curious about the rest of the letters now.