Chapter 4
It was Ruth’s fourth day in Maine, which, according to the Eco-Lodge records, was meant to be her final full day in Bluebell Cove.
This felt laughable. She was still nowhere near reaching her goal, nowhere near reaching the courage required to begin.
Goodness, what was she waiting for? After a brief pep talk in the bathroom mirror, she put on a pair of jeans and a blouse, then went to the foyer to find Celia and Celia’s sister, Juliet, peering at something on the computer. At the sight of her, they grinned.
“Good morning!” Juliet said. “You must be Ruth.”
Ruth flinched, then fixed her face into a smile. “I am, yes.”
“Celia tells me you’ve been on your own all week,” Juliet said.
“It’s too bad. We get so many great people coming in and out of the Eco-Lodge.
We wish you could be here during a more active time.
A time to meet people. A time to really feel what it means to be a guest at the Eco-Lodge.
It’s a singular experience. At least, we think so. ”
Juliet looked out the window, and Ruth followed her gaze to what seemed like a frigid spring day, the wind so violent it seemed eager to rip the new leaves from the trees.
Celia snapped her fingers and narrowed her eyes. “That reminds me. Ruth, I’ve figured it out. I know who you are. You can stop pretending.”
At this, Ruth nearly shot into the ceiling. Was it possible that Celia had really figured her out? Who’d told her? Who did Celia know in Bluebell Cove?
Ruth had thought the Eco-Lodge was a safe space, but she should have known better. Nowhere in Bluebell Cove was safe.
At Ruth’s aghast expression, Celia grinned and explained herself. “You’re the journalist,” she said. “You’re here to review the Eco-Lodge for Tourist Monthly. I’d forgotten you were coming.”
At this, all the panic melted out of Ruth’s heart. “Oh yes. How did you figure it out?”
Celia laughed. “Your editor emailed about three weeks ago, asking for official photographs of the Eco-Lodge. Last year, Wren took bucketfuls of pictures for us, so I sent some of them along. I assume they work for the piece? If not, we can have her take more.”
Ruth had, in fact, peeped the photographs that her editor had secured for the article.
But she hadn’t so much as opened a Word document and written a single note about the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge.
As it was already day four of her five-day stay, she needed to ask for an extension on both the room and the article.
It was impossible to explain why she’d forgotten the reason she’d “officially” come here.
“But I wish I had known,” Celia said. “We haven’t even opened the kitchen for you! Not once. I feel like a failure. I guess I can’t ask you not to include that laxness in the article?”
“I think our readers will respect that you’re keeping tabs on the environmental effect of opening the kitchen for a party of one,” Ruth said. “It’s an eco-lodge, after all.”
Celia grinned wider at that. “Thanks for saying so. You’re too kind. But really, Ruth. Tell me now. Can we help you with anything?”
Clearing her throat, Ruth explained that she wanted to extend her stay at least another five days, if not more. “I’ve barely scratched the surface on this town,” she said. “It all has to go in the article.”
“I understand,” Celia said. “How about I reserve that room for another two weeks? After that, we can reassess.”
“That sounds incredible,” Ruth said, breathing easier.
“It’s all on the magazine’s dime, right?
” Celia winked. “I remember those days, when I expensed every meal, every hotel, every rental car. Everything was paid for. Oh, but Ruth, today I have to insist. We’re having dinner at Ivy’s again tonight.
Fewer of us will be there. Just the sisters. You have to come.”
Ruth hesitated, searching first Celia’s face, then Juliet’s. It was clear she couldn’t get out of this. And after four days all alone in that room upstairs, her thoughts chasing themselves in panicked circles, she knew a little conversation would do her good.
“What can I bring?” she asked.
At seven that evening, Ruth appeared on the front porch of Ivy’s place—what they called the Harper House, as they’d all grown up there with their father James—with a bottle of red wine.
It was still rainy and cold, and she shivered in her winter coat, which she’d brought up from New York City, fearful of Maine springs.
She remembered what Quentin had always said about them: that they could leach into your bones.
The door flung open a moment after she knocked, revealing a smiling Ivy.
“Ruth, you made it!” Ivy said. “Come in.”
Ruth stepped into the foyer and scanned leftward to find the teenage boy from the previous dinner party, watching television and sort of doing his homework on his lap.
“That’s Tyler,” Ivy said. “He should be working harder than that, but I’m too tired to fight him.”
Ruth laughed and waved at Tyler. “I’m Ruth.”
“Hey, Ruth,” Tyler said, barely looking up. His voice was deep and strange, as though it had only just dropped.
Ivy led her to the kitchen, where Celia, Juliet, Wren, and baby Nelly all sat, Nelly in Wren’s arms. Bottles of nonalcoholic wine and normal champagne sat on the table, along with an empty glass waiting for Ruth.
“Ruth! We’re so glad you came.” Celia stood to give her a light and easy hug, as though they hugged like that all the time. She took the wine and opened it immediately. “Finally, some good, robust red.”
It had been ages since anyone had touched Ruth, and she continued to flinch long after Celia let her go.
“You’ve met Ivy, I guess. And Juliet. This is our baby sister Wren, and her baby, Nelly,” Celia said.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Ruth said, sitting across from Wren. Nelly was asleep in Wren’s arms, so pink and small and perfect that it made her heart ache. It hadn’t been so long since she’d held a baby, but she was petrified to do it now. She prayed they wouldn’t ask if she wanted to.
“Celia was just telling us that she’s trying to bribe you into writing a good article about our Eco-Lodge,” Wren said teasingly. “Don’t let her sway you one way or the other.”
Celia and Juliet laughed while Ivy looked at Wren as if she couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Already, Ruth felt as though she were picking up on the family dynamics. They wore their relationships like old sweaters: they itched but were warm and would never be thrown away.
Ivy pulled appetizers from the oven: fish-filled biscuits with spices and plenty of butter. The first that Ruth nibbled on melted across her tongue. She closed her eyes and said, “Goodness.”
Juliet laughed. “There’s the first bribe, I guess.”
“We have so much more than that,” Celia assured them all. “That’s Theo’s recipe. He’s Juliet’s guy. He owns that restaurant I was telling you about. The Dockside. Have you made it out there yet?”
“Not yet,” Ruth admitted. It had been ages since she’d had a proper meal.
“Where have you eaten in town?” Ivy asked, tilting her head from where she stood at the counter, putting the finishing touch on their meal.
“Goodness, I’ll have to look at my notes.” Ruth smiled. “My memory for names is terrible.”
The truth was, all Ruth had done was walk hooded through Bluebell Cove, scouting the place, searching.
She’d survived on tiny snack-based meals of cheeses and breads and crackers and sliced veggies.
But she half remembered a few names of places she’d passed by and listed them now, grateful that she could pretend to have a real journalistic interest in Bluebell Cove.
She truly was here to write an article. At least, that was what her editor thought.
She’d pitched him the idea herself. “Eco-lodges are very in right now. There’s this new one off the coast of Maine. The way I envision it, the article’s about how small towns are pivoting to become more environmentally friendly. Thoughts?”
Her editor had loved it. But her editor had always said yes to whatever Ruth pitched him.
She was a veteran writer, with previous experience in publishing houses before moving to the tourism magazine.
He respected her more than she respected herself, she knew, which was a rare thing at any magazine.
“My sisters say you’re from the city?” Wren asked Ruth then.
“I am,” Ruth said. “But not originally.”
“I think I can hear a bit of a twang in your accent,” Ivy said. “Is that right?”
“I’m from the South, yes,” Ruth said, shame burning across her cheeks. It was rare for people to call that out. “But I haven’t been back since I was a teenager.”
“Which state?” Celia asked.
Ruth hated saying so. “Virginia. It’s beautiful, and I loved growing up there, but it was hard. My family didn’t have much. We were on our own as soon as we graduated.”
Of course, they’d been on their own long before that, but Ruth didn’t want to get into it. She sipped her wine and tried to smile.
“I take it you went to college somewhere up here?” Wren asked.
“Yes,” Ruth admitted.
“Somewhere prestigious, I bet?” Ivy asked.
Ruth wasn’t sure she wanted to say that aloud, either. “I went to Yale,” she said finally. She felt as though she were giving herself away.
“Oh! Yale. That’s incredible,” Celia said. “Your parents must have been so proud.”
“They didn’t really care,” Ruth said, laughing gently. “They barely knew what it was.”
“Is that right?” Celia’s eyes widened with surprise.
“They don’t run in those kinds of circles,” Ruth said. “It’s okay. It never bothered me.”
The truth was, when she’d told her mother she was heading to Yale, her mother had asked her, “What on earth do you think you’ll do there? Who do you think you are? They’ll see right through you, you know. Mark my words.”
“What happened after that? You majored in something with writing, I guess?” Wren asked.
“Yes. Literature and creative writing,” Ruth said passively. It was easy to outline her life without giving any real details. “I got a job in publishing in the city, then eventually moved on to tourism journalism. I guess that’s about it.”
“Did you ever have any kids?” Ivy asked, eyeing Ruth’s naked ring finger.
“I didn’t,” Ruth said, although saying so felt like taking a sword to her stomach. “Kids are cute, though. Nelly’s adorable. Maybe in another life.” She smiled at Wren, then cursed herself for showing so much emotion. It wasn’t like her, not now.
Soon enough, Ruth turned the questions over to her new friends, asking them about their first husbands and, if applicable, their second husbands, about their children and the lives they’d had before they’d come to Bluebell Cove.
It was clear that they all had fascinating stories.
Wren, especially, captivated Ruth, as she’d been a wild-hearted freelance photographer who’d lost her beloved Angelos in a sailing accident.
“I was pregnant,” Wren said. “And broken. My sisters helped me recover. And then, I met Ben.”
As it happened, Ben was the brother of Celia’s new husband, Landon.
He was a veterinarian with, Wren said, “the very best heart.” She explained that tonight he was at home, studying in detail how to conduct a surgery on a horse tomorrow.
“He takes every life very seriously,” she said.
“When he loves you, it’s the warmest thing in the world.
I’ve never felt so safe.” She explained that he welcomed baby Nelly as his own, that they hadn’t stumbled once en route to becoming a family of three.
“And he’s bonded already with Angelos’ parents.
They’re Greek, but they’re going to visit all the time. ”
Ruth shook her head, amazed at the tragedy and the heart behind each of their stories. For hours that night, she sat in the Harper kitchen and listened to their stories. For hours, she was wonderfully and mercifully allowed to forget her own.