“So?”
“Asked if you were an early riser. If you liked blueberry pancakes. If that chipped mug was yours specifically.” Dani set down her spoon with a deliberate click. “He's trying to learn you, Katie. And you're making it as hard as possible.”
Through the window, Kate could see Ben and James talking. Ben was demonstrating something with a hammer, hismovements patient and precise. James was nodding eagerly, trying to copy the motion. They looked comfortable together, easy, like Ben fit into their family puzzle without forcing any pieces.
Dani laughed, but it wasn't cruel. “Katie, you're like the inn in winter. All the warmth is inside, but you board up the windows so no one can see in.”
Before Kate could respond, they heard Pop's voice from upstairs. “Elizabeth? Where's Elizabeth?”
Both sisters moved at once, but Dani put a hand on Kate's arm. “Amy's got him. That's what she's here for.”
“But…”
“Let her do her job. Like you need to let Tom help with permits. Let James help with the website. Let Ben…” she paused meaningfully, “… let Ben be whatever he's trying to be.”
Kate pulled away. “You don't understand.”
“Then explain it.”
But how could she explain that every offer of help felt like an admission of failure? That Ben sitting in Pop's chair felt like a future she couldn't imagine? That her brothers' sudden presence felt like invasion and comfort simultaneously?
“I need to check on Pop,” she said instead.
“Katie,” Dani said, reaching for her sister.
But Kate was already heading up the stairs, toward Pop's voice, toward a problem she knew how to handle. Behind her, she heard Dani sigh, heard the kitchen settle back into morning quiet, heard the steady rhythm of hammering from the roof where Ben worked, fixing things that could be fixed, unlike everything else that was broken in their lives.
Later, as she watched Ben drive away through the rain-blurred window, his taillights disappearing into the gray morning, a sadness she couldn’t explain, enveloped her.
Inside, the inn felt too warm, too close. Her siblings had gathered in the sunroom, a tableau of concern and frustration. Pop dozed in his chair, his face finally peaceful in sleep, the morning's agitation erased by exhaustion or medication or both. Amy sat nearby, her knitting needles clicking in a rhythm that seemed to count off the seconds of their failing life.
The rain continued throughout the afternoon, turning the world outside into an impressionist painting, all blurred edges and uncertain boundaries. Kate stood at the window, watching it erase the clear lines of the harbor, the distinction between sea and sky, the certainty of solid ground.
Her phone sat heavy in her pocket, Ben's text about her mother's chairs unanswered. Those chairs he'd saved without being asked, restored without expecting thanks, would soon return to the inn transformed but essentially themselves. She wondered if people could manage the same trick, change but remain the same, become new but stay true to who they are.
Pop stirred in his sleep, murmuring Elizabeth's name. Amy's needles never paused their clicking. Her siblings' voices rose and fell in conversation she wasn't part of. And Kate stood at the window, caught between the warm, too-full inn and the cold, rain-soaked world, belonging fully to neither.
CHAPTER 13
The storm that Ben had predicted arrived in full force by evening, turning the inn into an island surrounded by horizontal rain and howling wind. Kate stood in the kitchen at two in the morning, unable to sleep, watching the trees bend nearly double in the parking lot lights.
The power had flickered twice already, and she'd gotten up to check the generator, to make sure the sump pump was working, to do all the things she'd always done during storms.
Except now there were other people here to worry about it. Tom had already checked the generator. James had backup battery systems for the Wi-Fi. Dani had even thought to fill bathtubs with water in case they lost pressure. Kate wasn't needed for any of it.
Thunder cracked directly overhead, and she heard footsteps on the stairs. Pop appeared in the doorway, fully dressed despite the hour, looking confused.
“Storm's bad,” he said, his voice uncertain. “Need to check the boats.”
“You don't have a boat anymore, Pop.”
He looked at her with such incomprehension that her heart broke a little. In his mind, he was probably forty years younger,still lobstering, still needing to protect his livelihood from the weather.
“My boat,” he insisted. “Down at the harbor. The Sarah Elizabeth.”
Kate's throat tightened. The Sarah Elizabeth, named for her mother, had been sold fifteen years ago to pay for medical bills. But in Pop's storm-addled mind, time had folded back on itself.
“Tom already checked it,” she lied gently. “Everything's secure.”
