Chapter 4
Several days after the town hall meeting, Lauren arrived at the inn just after sunrise, determined to make a dent in her ever-growing punch list before the next round of phone calls and permit paperwork.
The main floor was still mostly a construction zone, but she’d carved out a patch of normalcy in the dining room: two armchairs dragged from the estate sale heap, set beneath the least-cracked of the tall windows, facing the water.
She’d even managed to wipe the worst of the grim from the glass.
She worked for hours, lost in the rhythm of sandpaper against wood and the meditative silence that came with being the only person in a hundred-year-old house.
Her mind drifted as she stripped the last of the varnish from the windowsill, wondering what sort of person would invest so much time in making a patch of sunlight just right when the rest of the place was still in shambles.
Probably her mother, or at least, the version of her mother that existed in Lauren’s head—a woman who believed in small luxuries, even if the world around her didn’t.
It was almost noon when the creak of the porch boards pulled Lauren from her thoughts.
She listened, stilling her hands to catch the sound.
Another creak, then the crisp snap of a purse latch.
She set her scraper aside and wiped her fingers on the hem of her work shirt, steeling herself for another town inspector, or worse, a reporter from the local paper.
But when she peeked around the edge of the half-hung door to the foyer, she saw a woman standing just inside the vestibule, blinking against the change in light.
“Hello?” Lauren called, her voice softer than she intended. The woman didn’t flinch, only straightened the strap of her purse and stepped forward, the soles of her shoes nearly silent on the bare floor.
“Ms. Henshaw?” Her voice was crisp, but not unkind. “Margaret Delaney. I hope I’m not intruding.”
She was small, maybe five foot two, with pale, tightly waved hair that had been set in place so meticulously, it seemed more helmet than style.
Her blouse was printed with small blue flowers and buttoned all the way up; her slacks were the color of weak tea and pressed with care.
The purse was quilted, faded in the way only a favorite object gets, and she held it with both hands in front of her as if it might be snatched away.
Lauren stepped into the foyer, brushing sawdust from her hands. “Not at all. I’m sorry for the mess—I’m kind of in the middle of fixing the place up.”
Margaret’s gaze darted from the bucket of tools by the stairs to the jumble of paint cans by the door. “I was at the meeting a few nights ago. You made quite an impression.”
Lauren smiled, hoping it came off as gracious rather than strained. “Thank you. I’m just hoping I didn’t leave anyone more nervous than before.”
The woman’s mouth twitched, like she was suppressing a private joke. “This building’s been waiting for someone with nerve. It’s nice to see the lights on again. For years, it looked like it was holding its breath.”
She let the compliment hang, as if giving Lauren the option to pluck it or leave it untouched. Lauren took it, letting herself relax a little. “Would you like to come in? I can offer you tea, but fair warning, it’s just Lipton bags in a camping kettle. The kitchen is still an archaeological site.”
“Tea would be lovely.” Margaret followed Lauren through the dining room, her gaze tracing the patched walls and the plastic drop cloths that shrouded the old sideboards like furniture in mourning.
Lauren set the kettle on the portable induction burner she kept by the window, then fished two mismatched mugs from a cardboard box labeled “breakables.” Margaret perched on the edge of an armchair, careful to keep her slacks from brushing the dust on the seat cushion.
“This is the best spot in the house,” Lauren said, nodding at the view.
The lake was a sheet of pewter under low clouds, the horizon bleeding into the sky with no line to divide them.
“Even when the rest of it looks like a construction site, the light in here makes you feel like you’re somewhere finished. ”
Margaret looked at the floorboards, running her fingertip along the seam where two planks met.
“I remember when this room smelled like roast chicken every Sunday. My father brought us here for Easter dinner. The innkeeper always wore a white apron and a red carnation. I must have been eight or nine.”
Lauren grinned. “I didn’t realize so many people actually came here for the food. A man at the meeting mentioned the inn restaurant, and I hadn’t even thought of opening that up. The historic society archives only ever mention the view.”
“Oh, there was always a view. But people remember a place by what it feeds them.” Margaret smiled, the lines around her mouth deepening with something like fondness.
“You must have inherited your mother’s hands.
Patricia was always fixing something—sewing, gardening, baking.
I used to say she could mend a soul with a roll of tape and a cup of coffee. ”
Lauren was startled. “You knew my mother?”
Margaret tilted her head. “Everyone in Willow Point knew your mother, at least a little. She had a way of making the ordinary feel...reliable. You were away at school by the time we really met, but she spoke about you with pride.”
Lauren blinked, the sudden weight of nostalgia mixing with embarrassment. “Thank you. I wish I’d gotten that gene—she was good at making people feel at home, even when home was a mess.”
A pause settled between them, filled by the sound of the kettle beginning to rattle. Lauren busied herself with the teabags, pouring the water and apologizing for the lack of sugar. Margaret waved it off, saying she’d given up sweets on doctor’s orders.
They sipped in silence, the bitter tannin of the tea offset by the comfort of holding something warm. Margaret’s eyes roved the room, always returning to the window as if checking for something just out of sight.
“I hope it’s not out of line to ask, but...what brings you here? I don’t mean the purchase, I mean—” She gestured, as if to encompass the peeling wallpaper, the drop cloths, the endless work. “This is a calling, not a job. Most people your age would have run the other way.”
Lauren felt the familiar urge to deflect, to give the neat, practiced answer about legacy and “meaningful work” she’d rehearsed for donors and the occasional local reporter.
Instead, she shrugged. “After my mother died, I just needed something that felt more permanent than a list of emails. I thought, if I could fix something real, then maybe it would stick.”
Margaret made a soft noise, not quite approval, but close. “Some people need to see proof.”
They finished their tea, and Lauren offered Margaret the walking tour.
She pointed out the tin ceiling in the parlor and the spot in the entryway where they’d found two layers of original wallpaper under the drywall.
Margaret trailed her hand along every surface, making mental notes out loud—“This trim is pre-war, I bet”—or pausing to recall a long-ago gathering where someone had spilled lemonade on the stairs.
The sharpness of her memory made Lauren envy her a little, and it made the house itself feel like less like a project and more like a living thing, with roots deeper than she’d realized.
They returned to the armchairs, settling in as the gray afternoon deepened. Lauren hesitated, then opened the notebook she’d left on the windowsill, flipping to the plastic sleeve that held the old photograph. She slid it free and set it on the table between them.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Lauren said, her voice quiet. “You’ve probably seen more of this place than most people. Do you recognize her?”
Margaret picked up the photo with both hands. Her posture instantly stilled as she brought it close to her face, the corners of her mouth tightening. For a long moment, she only stared.
Lauren waited, feeling her breath slow to match the other woman’s.
Then Margaret’s lips parted, just a little. “Yes. I remember her.”
She set the photo down, smoothing its edge with a practiced thumb.
“Her name was Katherine Morgan. Katie, she went by. She worked here for a few summers. The last year”—she searched the air, as if the right date might drift down from the tin ceiling—“1971. I was just out of high school. She was, too, but she had a way of seeming older than the rest of us.”
Lauren felt a prickle of recognition. She pictured the girl in the photo—dark hair parted in the middle, strong jaw, a smile that looked like it belonged to someone who’d seen the future and found it funny.
Margaret exhaled, the memory loosening something in her. “Katie Morgan,” she said again, quieter this time, as if it had been a long time since anyone called that name.
They sat together in the fading light, the photograph anchoring their silence. It felt, to Lauren, like the room had finally exhaled—just a little.