“The third floor renovations. Converting your mother's sewing room into part of a luxury suite.”
Kate's attention snapped back. “Absolutely not.”
“It's been empty for years,” Lillian pointed out.
“It's not empty. It's...” Kate paused. What was it? A shrine? A museum? A room full of fabric and patterns and the ghost of her mother's dreams? “It's not available for renovation, or for guests.”
“Sentiment doesn't pay bills,” Lillian said, her favorite refrain.
“Neither does erasing every trace of the people who made this place matter.”
The argument continued, but Kate's mind kept drifting to the evening ahead. What would she wear? The navy dress again? Something else? Did she even own anything else appropriate for a date?
Was it a date? Or just dinner between... what? Friends? Employer and contractor? Two people navigating the strange space between professional and personal?
“I need some air,” Kate announced abruptly.
Outside, the March air was sharp and clean. She could hear hammering, the rhythm steady and sure. The harbor stretched before her, calm today, boats bobbing gently at their moorings. The town woke up around them, normal people going about normal lives, not dealing with failing patriarchs and grandmother invasions and brothers with secrets.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Ben: “Your brother's actually not bad at this. Might steal him as an assistant.”
Despite everything, Kate smiled. Then another text: “Still looking forward to tonight. If you need to cancel with everything going on, I understand.”
She typed back quickly: “Not canceling. I need this.”
She deleted the last sentence, typed instead: “Still on for seven.”
His response was immediate: “Good.”
Just that. Good. Simple and uncomplicated, unlike everything else in her life.
Tom appeared beside her on the porch. “Ben seems like a solid guy.”
“He is.”
“You’re having dinner with him tonight.”
”What about it?”
“He shrugged, “Nothing, it’s just I’m worried about you.”
“I'm fine.”
“No, you're not. None of us are.” Tom leaned against the railing, looking older than his thirty-three years. “But maybe that's okay. Maybe it's okay to not be fine sometimes. What is it that they say? ‘This too shall pass.’”
Kate wanted to ask what had happened in Boston, what had driven him here with his phone turned off and his wedding ring missing. But she recognized the walls he'd built, the same ones she had. They were alike in that way, she and Tom, building fortresses of competence to hide their failures.
“Enjoy your dinner tonight,” he said finally. “You deserve something good.”
As he went back inside, Kate remained on the porch, watching Ben and her brother work together. In a few hours, she'd shower, find something to wear, pretend she knew how to be a person who went on dates. She'd sit across from Ben and try to be just Kate, not the responsible daughter or the struggling innkeeper or the sister holding everyone together.
The thought terrified her. But beneath the terror was something else, something she'd almost forgotten existed.
Hope.
The day stretched ahead, full of family drama and renovation discussions and Pop's confusion. But at the end of it waited dinner with Ben, a few hours of something normal, something that was just hers.
She held on to that thought like a lifeline as she went back inside to face the chaos of her suddenly expanded family, each of them running from something, each seeking shelter in the inn that might not be able to hold them all.
