He half smiles. Not wide, but enough to feel like I’ve passed some sort of test.
I brush the crumbs from my fingers and fold my napkin into my palm. “I really think we need to talk.”
His smile fades. He sets his mug down. “Els, last night—”
“Not about that.” I shake my head. “I mean ... yes, last night, but not what you’re thinking.” He waits. “After the power went out, I panicked. I thought it was retaliation. For lying to you. For wanting to sell. And if that sounds ridiculous, I don’t care. But I said I’d do the trust.”
“I won’t hold that against you,” he says softly. “The promises we make in the dark are—”
“—desperate ones,” I finish for him. “Yeah. I thought maybe that’s all it was, a panic response. But I walked it over this morning. And maybe ... maybe it really would be the best decision for everyone.”
Not just a compromise, but the most viable second option aside from selling. I could stay on for a while, draw a modest stipend, help the transition. Keep the inn in the family without having to shoulder it alone. And in the end, I can still leave.
He blinks once, slowly. “You think so?”
I nod. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“What I want,” he says, “is for you to keep it. To run the inn. To reopen it someday. To keep your grandmother’s work alive.”
I sip my coffee, which now tastes too sweet. “And what I want is ... to sell it to someone who could run it better than I ever could. Someone who wouldn’t be so afraid of touching it wrong. Someone who wouldn’t worry about ruining everything.”
He’s silent. Maybe he wants to fight me on it, though I don’t understand why. The trust is a valiant second choice if I’m not staying. It’s something between abandoning it and trying to be something I’m not. But it’s obvious the thought doesn’t make him happy.
I see it in the shift of his jaw, the small tap of his boot on the tile. Lately, I think, he’s started seeing something in me I can’t see myself. Arguing with me now would only make him cruel, and for whatever reason, he refuses to be.
“And I think the trust is us meeting in the middle,” I say. “It separates me as much as it can without selling it off to someone else. It honors the family. It stops me from completely abandoning it.”
He watches me. Doesn’t interrupt once.
“Could you . . . tell me a little more about how it would work? Before I make a decision.”
“I could.” He nods. “Or I can have someone else walk you through it. A lawyer in Camden, if you want it clean.”
“No. Thank you, but no. I’d rather hear it from you first.” I take a breath. “I just want to explore my options. And I know we still have a few weeks left in the holding period, so you don’t have to worry about me calling a buyer.” My voice softens. “I’m trying not to make another rash decision.”
“I don’t want you to, either.”
We sit there, quiet. Me trying not to pick at the napkin. Him looking like he’s holding back half a dozen things he could say but won’t.
Finally, I clear my throat. “I think I’m going to get another roll. The first one barely counted as breakfast.”
“Addiction confirmed.”
I stand and take my plate to the counter. Behind me, I can feel the weight of his gaze. Something inside me quiets for the first time in days. Not because anything’s been solved, but because I’m beginning to believe it could be.
Tied up tight and pretty with a ribbon, my gift to Blue Willow.
23
WELLS
Only one weekleft in January, and still, an entire season’s worth of winter hangs heavily over this quiet stretch of Connecticut. The storm’s long gone, but it left everything waterlogged and wind strewn.
We won’t see green again for months. We won’t feel thaw for longer.
Though today, at least, the sun seems to be making amends for the weekend’s tantrum. It’s pale but persistent. And I’m working in it, stacking what’s left of the woodpile, releveling the step that finally gave out, hammering in the damn nail that’s been catching on people’s shoes for weeks.
It’s the kind of work that doesn’t require thinking, which is exactly why I’m doing it. If I don’t keep my hands moving, my thoughts go to places I can’t control. Places like the shape of Elsie’s breath in the dark. The sound of her voice when she whispered my name. The way she looked at me like she’d never wanted anything more.
