At some point, Ben appeared, summoned by someone though Kate didn't know who. He assessed the situation and disappeared, returning an hour later with a professional cake decorating kit he'd borrowed from somewhere.
“My sister's friend decorates cakes,” he explained, setting up the tools. “She taught me a few things.”
Kate wanted to thank him, to apologize, to say something about that night in his workshop, but there wasn't time. The cake needed to be ready by tomorrow afternoon, and they were racing against physics and chemistry and the brutal honesty of gravity.
They worked through the night. Around two in the morning, with the layers finally cooled and the frosting achieving theright consistency, Kate found herself beside Ben, both of them carefully smoothing buttercream with tools she hadn't known existed.
“This is insane,” she whispered, not wanting to wake the guests trying to sleep above them.
“This is team effort,” he corrected. “This is what you've built, Kate. People who show up when disaster strikes.”
“You showed up, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”
“I’ll always show up.”
The weight of that truth, the consistency of his presence even when she'd pushed him away, made her throat tight. She wanted to say something real, something that acknowledged what he meant to her, but James chose that moment to knock over a bowl of frosting, and the moment dissolved into cleanup and starting over. She was so exhausted by that time that all she could do was laugh.
By dawn, they had something that looked like a wedding cake. Not professional, not perfect, but three tiers of vanilla and lemon with buttercream frosting and sugar flowers that Dani had crafted with surprising skill. It leaned slightly to the left, and the frosting wasn't completely smooth, but it existed.
“It's beautiful,” Dani said, exhausted.
“It's crooked,” Tom pointed out, but he was smiling.
“It's authentic,” Marcy declared. “Made with love and panic, the two essential ingredients.”
They all stood there, exhausted and covered in flour and frosting, admiring their imperfect creation. Kate felt something she hadn't experienced in years: pure, uncomplicated joy. They'd faced disaster and overcome it together. Not her solving it alone, not her directing others, but all of them working as one unit.
The wedding reception that afternoon was a blur of controlled chaos. The bride cried when she heard the storyof the cake, declared it more meaningful than anything a professional could have made. The guests loved the “rustic authenticity” of the handmade dessert. Dani documented everything, turning disaster into marketing gold.
But Kate barely registered the success. As the reception wound down, as guests danced on the porch Ben had reinforced just for this purpose, her phone rang.
“Miss Perkins?” The hospice nurse's voice was gentle. “Your grandmother is asking for you. All of you. You should come now.”
Kate gathered her siblings who got into Tom's BMW, none of them speaking. Kate thought about her last conversation with Lillian, about forgiveness and hatred and the exhaustion of carrying both. The cottage was on the other side of the square, which took less than five minutes by car.
They found Lillian in a hospital bed that had been set up in the cottage's living room, facing the window that looked toward the inn. She was smaller than seemed possible, her body having consumed itself in the cancer's final assault. But her eyes were alert when they entered.
“You all came,” she whispered.
“You're family,” Dani said, taking her hand. “Complicated, difficult, but family.”
Lillian's eyes moved to each of them, lingering on Kate. “I don't deserve forgiveness.”
Kate stood at the foot of the bed, her throat tight with conflicting emotions. This woman had destroyed so much, had caused such cascading damage through two generations. But she was also dying, alone except for hired nurses, paying the ultimate price for her choices.
Something pulled at Kate, watching this frail woman searching her face for absolution. Her mother would have forgiven. Her mother DID forgive, and if she was a bettingwoman, she’d bet her mother would still have forgiven Lillian for all of it. There wasn’t anything more to do but forgive her grandmother. In that moment, Kate knew that nothing was as important as giving this dying woman peace.
“I forgive you,” Kate said, the lie coming out steadier than truth ever did. “We all forgive you.”
The relief that transformed Lillian's face was almost unbearable to witness. Her whole body seemed to ease, as if she'd been holding tension for so many years and could finally let it go.
“You do?” Lillian whispered, tears slipping down her sunken cheeks.
Kate moved closer, took her grandmother's hand. It was cold, bird-light, trembling. “Mom forgave you. How could we do less?”
It wasn't true, not completely. The anger still sat in Kate's chest like a stone. But what was the point of that anger now? What purpose did it serve to let this woman die in anguish?
“Tell Daniel,” Lillian breathed. “Tell him... tell him his boats were beautiful.”
