Chapter 3
Annette cleared her throat. “Now, we have always been sensible in this family, and we don’t beat around the bush.”
Sylvie sat quietly, trying to slow both her racing thoughts and her heart rate, as her mom took a deep breath.
“Sylvia,” she said finally. “I saw Dr. Tellis—”
No.
She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, and it felt like her mind filled with static as the bubble of looming dread she had been feeling all day burst, flooding her with red-hot panic.
No.
This wasn’t fair. They’d done this already!
No.
Her mind screamed at her, No! Not again…
She realized her mother was still speaking and swallowed hard, trying to clear her mind enough to listen.
“It’s back. And this time, my heart is not as young as it once was,” Annette continued. “And you know, it was affected by the treatment last time.”
“But that was over a decade ago! How can it just…come back?” Sylvie asked.
Her mom shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It just happens.”
“And Dr. Tellis is sure? Like, really sure? He’s not just guessing, right?
Because when I asked him about that pain in my foot, he told me it was plantar fasciitis, but when I had Helen do her physio thing on me, she figured out I’d actually dislocated one of those little tarsal bones, or whatever they’re called—not plantar whatever at all—”
The look on her mom’s face stopped her words dead in their track.
“That trip to Charleston with Rhonda…” Sylvie started, realizing. “That wasn’t for her seventieth birthday, was it?”
“No, baby. It wasn’t.”
“But that was months ago! Why didn’t you tell me?” she exclaimed. “Mom! This is…”
“It was my choice,” Annette interrupted, too calmly for the situation. “As was every choice I’ve made about it.”
A cold shiver ran over her as she heard her mom’s words. “What does that mean?”
“Sweetheart, please breathe and have some coffee.”
“I don’t want coffee! I want to know what’s been going on! You’ve been sick for months! You’ve been lying to me about where you’re going.”
“Are you my keeper?”
She was stunned for a moment, not expecting her mother to ask that. “No.”
“Exactly as I thought. So, I don’t report to you, do I?”
She shook her head, looking up to meet her mom’s gaze before she could fire off another question. “But you can see why this would freak me out, right?”
“Yes,” Annette admitted, surprising Sylvie.
“Which is why I made the choices I’ve made.
I wanted to deal with it and make up my own mind without having to navigate and manage your emotions while I did that.
I’m sorry I couldn’t communicate more openly with you about it and set a boundary with you at the time, but I felt—”
“Set a boundary?” Sylvie asked, exasperated. “Mom, have you been—”
Her mother gave her a tight smile, effectively cutting off her question before she could finish asking it.
“Yes. All those weekly lunch dates with Rhonda have actually been with her daughter. Rhonda is a very good therapist, apparently. She let me join a few group support sessions for terminal patients.”
She sat back in her chair, wondering if she was in some kind of fever dream. Her mother had been in therapy? She’d thought her mom could benefit from it for years, especially after losing her husband and son the way she had, but she never imagined she’d actually agree to go.
“Don’t say that word—terminal. It’s only terminal if we do nothing,” she said, regaining some of her calm. “So, what are we doing about this?”
Annette cleared her throat. “Nothing. I’m dying, and that’s all there is to it.”
It felt like someone had pulled the plug in her stomach, and her heart was being dragged down the drain. The room tilted, and the edges of her vision became dark and fuzzy. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. My heart hasn’t been good for years—it won’t last through another round of treatment.
And it’s come back worse than last time, so I would need more medication, more surgery than before.
I’d have to spend my last months throwing up, in pain, and dosed up to my eyeballs, while watching your heart break all over again, all just to have a heart attack going up the stairs.
If I had to choose—and I have chosen—I’d prefer to enjoy my time with you while I can.
See my friends. Eat whatever I want. Have two glasses of wine with dinner.
And maybe…then have a heart attack on the stairs. ”
“Mom…” Sylvie’s breath shuddered as she tried to process the news.
Annette shook her head sternly. “No, I’m not done. You, my darling girl, need to live your life. You had so many dreams, so much you were going to do. Do you remember you wrote a list?”
Nodding, she recalled the old notebook, but she couldn’t remember where it was now.
“Well, you need to finish the list,” Annette said. “I’ve changed my will.”
“What does your will have to do with a bucket list I wrote fifteen years ago?” She winced, realizing she had said the phrase bucket list.
Annette’s lips quirked into a small smile before flattening again into a serious line. “Everything. Because the Sweet Stays Inn is bequeathed to Lilly—unless you complete your Sweet Somedays.”
This had to be a fever dream—or a nightmare, Sylvie thought as her head swam.
A loud ringing sound pierced her ears, growing louder the longer she sat there, trying to make sense of what her mom was telling her.
The list she had originally started in high school, only to add to it following her divorce.
Her mother’s will. The inn going to her niece. No, that couldn’t be right.
“Lilly? She’s never been interested in this place! And she’s seventeen!” Sylvie exclaimed.
Her mother nodded. “You and Fiona will be co-caretakers until she comes of age.”
Sylvie suddenly got up from her chair and turned around, resting her hands on the dresser that faced the window overlooking the shaded garden. This was insane. There was no way her mother could possibly do this.
“Fiona? Seriously?” she exclaimed, unable to face her mother. “The woman despises me!”
“She does not despise you,” Annette said quietly. “You two have just never seen eye to eye, and after the accident—”
“She was the only one allowed to grieve Brett. No one else’s pain was enough for her,” Sylvie snapped.
Her mom was silent, but she could tell the look she was getting without even turning around.
How could her mother do this? Half of her was furious and panicked about the fate of the inn—there was no way she could ever finish that list. If she remembered even half the things on it, there were more than a few that would be completely impossible.
The other part of her desperately tried to make sense of what her mom was saying.
She was dying.
And she wasn’t even going to try to fight it.
She couldn’t even bring herself to tell her daughter she was sick again.
At this point, who took care of the inn was neither here nor there.
All she could focus on was the fact that her mother would no longer be here to help.
Sylvie would be alone. All alone. No father.
No brother. And now, no mother, either. The thought hurt so badly that she felt like her heart had literally stopped beating.
“Why, Mom?” she asked finally, her voice small.
“Because she’s the logical choice to be the caretaker. She’s Lilly’s mother, after all.”
Sylvie held up her hand, squeezing her eyes closed as if she didn’t want to ask at all.
“No, Mom, I mean, why didn’t you tell me?
I could’ve done more to help you. I could’ve driven you to your doctors’ appointments, not—oh, geez,” she said, pausing as she thought back over the past few months.
“Not left you here on your own while I went gallivanting with Juliette in Charleston over that long weekend!”
Her mind suddenly flooded with all the times she had left her mom alone in the inn during the quiet season. Every time Annette went to bed early or slept in, every headache she had—Sylvie had missed every sign.
“Sweetheart, the point of all this is for you to live your life to the fullest, not to weigh you down or make you responsible for me. You’ve always taken on so much responsibility here. I was never going to let myself be a burden to you.”
She opened her mouth to disagree, but a glint of silver caught her eye.
Protruding from the opening of a tissue box was the metallic corner of a pill packet. After glancing at her mom, who quickly looked away, Sylvie picked up the box of tissues and withdrew the empty pill card.
Pain medication. Strong pain medication.
Underneath the empty card were at least a dozen more—some of the same painkiller, along with others she didn’t recognize. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up from the packet in her hand and over at her mom, who was looking back at her with tears in her own eyes.
“Don’t worry; I’ve been managing it with a doctor,” Annette said shakily. “I wanted to be as lucid as possible, but some days the pain was…a lot. And it’s been a lot more recently. Until today.”
“Until today?” Sylvie repeated. “You feel better today?”
“Yes.”
She was confused. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
Rubbing her face with both hands, Annette sighed. “You’d think so. They told me this might happen—the girls in the terminal support group. Maybe one day you wake up feeling a bit better…but uneasy. Sometimes that’s a sign that…well, your body knows something is off and you—”
“Mom, don’t—”
Annette raised a trembling hand and met her worried gaze. Sylvie’s breath caught in her throat as her mom spoke meaningfully.
“Sylvia, sweetheart…I feel uneasy.”
She gasped. “Oh, Mom. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
Her words faltered, and she dropped the medication on the floor as she crossed the room. All thoughts of the inn and losing her inheritance vanished like smoke in the wind. The moment she sat on the edge of the bed, her mom pulled her in for a tight hug, and the tears began to fall.