“Dani? Little Dani Banani?”
“Hi, Daddy.” Dani's voice caught. She crossed to him quickly, kneeling beside his chair to hug him. “I missed you.”
“You got tall,” Pop said, which made no sense. Dani had been the same height since high school. But he stroked her hair, smiling, and Kate saw Dani's shoulders start to shake.
“I'm home now,” Dani whispered.
“Good. That's good. Katie takes care of everything, but she gets tired. Don't you, Katie-girl?”
“I'm fine, Pop.”
“She's always fine,” Pop told Dani, as if they were conspiring. “Your mother was the same way. Fine, fine, fine, until she wasn't.”
Dani pulled back to look at him. “You feeling okay, Daddy?”
“Better now. Both my girls are here.” He touched Dani's face. “You look like her. Elizabeth. Same eyes.”
Kate turned away, busying herself with Pop's lunch tray. She'd heard it her whole life, Dani looked like their mother, Kate looked like Pop's side. Sturdy. Practical. Built for Maine winters, Pop used to say, like it was a compliment.
“Marcy’s making perch,” Kate said. “Charlie caught them this morning.”
“Charlie Brennan's a good man,” Pop said. “Taught you girls to fish. Remember, Dani? You caught that big bass?”
Dani hadn't caught anything. She'd complained about the cold, the smell, the waiting. It had been Kate who caught the bass, but she didn't correct him.
Kate placed the perch in the sink and then turned to look at her sister.
“Is that contractor still here?” Kate asked Dani. “I saw his truck.”
“How would I know? I just got here.” Dani stood, smoothing her expensive jeans. “Though there was a guy on a ladder when I pulled up. Youngish. Kind of cute.”
“He's here about the roof.”
“What's wrong with the roof?”
Kate looked at her sister. “Everything. Same as the rest of this place.”
“The inn's beautiful,” Dani said, but her voice was uncertain. She was seeing it now, the water stains on the ceiling, the warped floorboards, the way everything listed slightly to the left.
“Miss Kate?” Rosa, the housekeeper, appeared in the doorway. “That contractor wants to know if you can look at something. He's in the attic.”
“I'll be back,” Kate told Pop.
“I'll stay with him,” Dani said, settling into the chair beside their father. The expensive clothes looked wrong in the faded sunroom, like a magazine photo cut and pasted into the wrong scene.
Kate headed upstairs, taking the narrow back stairs to avoid any guests. She could hear Ben moving around in the attic before she even pulled down the access ladder.
“Thanks for coming up,” he called when she emerged into the dusty space. “I wanted to show you this before I headed out to the hardware store.”
He was crouched beside the junction where the roof lines met, shining a flashlight at the beams. “See this? The waterdamage is all confined to this section. The rest of your roof structure is solid.”
“That's good news, right?”
“Very good.” He stood, and she noticed wood shavings in his dark hair. “I can fix this section without touching the rest. It'll save you thousands.”
“How many thousands are we still talking about?”
“Let me run the numbers. But definitely less than I originally thought.” He moved toward another section, then stopped. “Your sister?”
