“That's good, then. My uncle went that way. Near the end, he thought I was his brother come back from Korea.” Charlie picked up his gear. “You're a good girl, Katie. Always have been.”
Kate watched him trudge back toward his truck, his ice cleats scratching with each step. A good girl. The one who stayed. The one who couldn't imagine leaving.
Her phone buzzed again. Then again. Kate pulled off her mittens with her teeth, fumbling for it. Three texts from Marcy at the inn.
That contractor is here early.Says he can look at the roof now if you want.Also someone's pulling up with NY plates.
Kate's blood chilled. New York plates. Dani wasn’t supposed to be here until next week.
She looked at her tip-ups, the flags standing sentinel over their holes, then at the horizon where dark clouds formed.
Looks like a storm’s coming, probably tonight.
She quickly pulled her lines, dumped the bait, and loaded her gear. The truck started on the second try, heater blasting cold air that would take five minutes to warm.
The drive back to town took fifteen minutes, winding through the bare trees and past summer houses buttoned up tight for winter. Whaler’s Landing sat on a rise above the harbor, three stories of weathered shingles that needed painting. The inn had been beautiful once; Kate had seen thephotos from the fifties and early sixties, when wealthy families from Philadelphia and New York booked rooms a year in advance. Now she was lucky to fill half her twelve rooms in peak season.
Two vehicles sat in the curved drive. Ben Calloway's truck, a newish Silverado withCalloway Construction—Restoration Specialistson the door, and Dani’s Subaru Outback.
Kate parked and sat for a moment, watching. Through the side window, she could see Ben on an extension ladder propped against the north wall, one hand writing while the other held on to the gutter. But her attention was on the Subaru.
Dani climbed out of the driver's seat, and Kate's breath caught. Two years since she'd seen her sister, and the transformation was startling. The Dani she knew wore thrift store finds and borrowed clothes, her red hair usually pulled back in a messy bun, her face bare of makeup.
This Dani looked like she'd stepped out of a Manhattan boutique. Designer jeans that fit perfectly. Leather boots that probably cost more than Kate made in a month. Her hair had been professionally styled, subtle lowlights mixing with her natural red, falling in waves that looked effortless but weren't. She moved differently too, confident, assured, like someone who'd figured out her place in the world.
Dani pulled a Louis Vuitton suitcase from the trunk, the kind with wheels that were meant for airport terminals, not Maine driveways. She struggled with it on the gravel, the wheels catching on every stone, and in that moment Kate saw a flash of the old Dani, the one who never quite thought things through.
Kate got out of her truck, still in her ice fishing gear, Pop's old parka, thermal pants, boots caked with fish scales and ice.
“You said next week,” Kate said.
Dani looked up, and for a moment, her composed mask slipped. Underneath was the same Dani: uncertain, defensive, trying too hard.
“I lied,” Dani said.
They stood there, sisters separated by ten feet of driveway and two years of distance, while March wind cut between them, carrying the salt smell of the harbor and the faint promise of snow.
CHAPTER 2
“You could help,” Dani said, still wrestling with the suitcase.
Kate didn't move from the porch. “You managed to pack it.”
“Seriously? This is how we're doing this?” Dani abandoned the suitcase in the middle of the driveway and climbed the porch steps. Up close, Kate could see the subtle changes more clearly, professional eyebrows, expensive skincare, a thin gold necklace that looked real. Even her perfume was different, something subtle and expensive instead of the body spray she used to drown herself in.
“Pop's in the sunroom,” Kate said. “He's having a good day.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he'll know who you are. Probably.”
Dani's face shifted, something like fear flickering across it. “Katie…”
“Just don't upset him.”
Kate led the way inside, through the lobby that needed new carpeting, past the desk where bills had been sorted into piles of urgent and more urgent. The inn felt shabbier with Dani here, like seeing it through a stranger's eyes. The wallpaper in thehallway peeled at the corners. The radiator clanged and hissed. Even the smell, old wood, coffee, that particular mustiness of coastal houses, seemed pronounced. They continued through the house, making their way past the kitchen to a small sunroom only family shared.
Their father was still in his chair, the plate of orange peels pushed aside. Sunlight caught the silver in his hair, making him look older than his fifty-eight years. He looked up when they entered, and his face transformed.
