Chapter One: The SnowDrop Inn
Lydia
The Snowdrop Inn smelled like old wood and new hope. Which was not a scent candle anyone sold, but if it were, Jane would buy it in bulk and insist it was seasonal.
I stood in the hallway upstairs with a clipboard I was not fully qualified to be holding and watched my family move around me like an enthusiastic dance troupe that refused to rehearse. Dad passed by with a ladder balanced on one shoulder. My sisters Kitty and Meri argued about paint swatches that all looked white to me but apparently contained entire emotional landscapes if you stared long enough. My other sisters Lucy and Kitty were somewhere around, doing other tasks. There was a sound like scraping metal, followed by a short, collective pause, and then the work resumed as if nothing alarming had happened.
This was how the Bennets did things. With noise, optimism and a mutual agreement not to panic unless something actually collapsed.
The Snowdrop Inn had been abandoned for years before we bought it. Long enough that people in town had started referring to it in the past tense, like it was a fond memory instead of a building with a roof that leaked and a boiler that coughed like it had opinions. When my parents first brought us to see it, the windows were filmed with grime and the front door stuck halfway open, as if the building itself was undecided about whether it wanted company.
I remembered standing in this same hall then, the floorboards warped under my boots, trying to imagine something other than dust and neglect. My mother had closed her eyes and described Christmas wreaths on the banisters. My father had started listing repairs out loud, as if naming them made them manageable. Jane had wandered into the kitchen and declared it workable, which in Jane language meant she could make it beautiful.
When my parents announced we were buying it, there had been silence, followed by cautious encouragement, followed by a lot of people asking if we were sure. The town had been kind about it in a surprisedway. They gave cautious encouragement in the way people are when they expect things to go wrong. The Snowdrop Inn had been empty for so long that it had become a warning. A reminder of what happened when dreams ran ahead of budgets.
Mom and Dad had been sure of the purchase anyway. Or at least determined. Which in our family counted for the same thing.
Now, weeks later, the inn was starting to look like a place people might actually stay. There were lights on in rooms that hadn’t had electricity in years. There were rugs laid down to hide scuffed floors that would eventually be refinished when money and time allowed. There were boxes stacked neatly along the walls, labeled in my mother’s careful handwriting.
Somewhere nearby, cinnamon buns were cooling, which meant Jane was trying to bribe morale back into existence. The smell curled through the hall and wrapped around me, warm and familiar.
I loved it. I loved the mess and the effort and the shared exhaustion that came with working toward something bigger than ourselves. I loved that we were all here, sleeves rolled up,learning as we went instead of scattering back to our separate lives.
I also wanted to prove that I belonged in the middle of it, not hovering at the edges waiting to be assigned something simple.
“Lydia, can you hand me the tape measure?” my father called from the doorway.
I passed it over and stepped back as my mother came through with a stack of folded linens that still smelled like the store. New linens were an emotional experience, apparently. She pressed one to her cheek as she walked by, eyes closing briefly.
“Do you think guests notice thread count?” she asked no one in particular.
“They notice if there is no hot water,” Jane said as she came up the staircase. “Ask me how I know.”
I smiled to myself and leaned against the banister, flipping my clipboard to a blank page. I had made myself a list that morning. It was ambitious. It involved words like coordinate and finalize and confirm. I had underlined several of them for emphasis, as if the pen strokes alone could make them true.
Coming back home after college had been stranger than I expected. Everyone had welcomed me warmly, but they still remembered me as I was when I left. That version of me had been enthusiastic, talkative, occasionally impulsive, and not always inclined to read the fine print. I hadgrown since then. I had interned in an office where no one explained things twice. I had paid rent and utilities and learned what happened when you forgot either one.
None of that erased my reputation as the youngest child.
“Did anyone see the email from the town council?” I asked, lifting my voice over the general din.
Jane grabbed a tray that had been left in front of a bedroom door by a guest from last night’s room service. As she camecloser I could see flour smudged on her cheek.. “The one about the Christmas parade?”
“Yes,” I said, too quickly. “That one.”
She grinned. “It’s next Saturday. They are encouraging local businesses to participate. I think it will be fun to go.”
Encouraging was a generous word. The flyer had used phrases like wonderful opportunity and community visibility, which were the kind of phrases that made my pulse pick up speed. The parade was a Maple Ridge institution. Families lined the sidewalks with thermoses and folding chairs. Kids argued over who would catch the most candy. People remembered floats for years, especially the ones that went wrong.
“We should do a float,” I said.
There was a brief pause in the work being done. Not a dramatic one. Just a small, collective inhale that I felt more than heard.
“A float,” my mother repeated, carefully, still holding the sheets.
“Yes. For the inn. It would be perfect. We are reopening and could use the publicity. It is festive and lots of people go to the Christmas parade. Plus people love floats,” I pointed out.
“It’s a week away. That’s a tight timeline,” my father said mildly, still focused on the stair railing.
