Celia wondered if Sophie was already beginning to regret coming to Maine.All day, she cleaned out attics, swept up dirty basements, and listened to her mother talk to construction crews.She hadn’t yet met a single one of the aunts she was so curious about.Celia had kept the window to her past slammed shut.
“I don’t get it, Mom,” Sophie had said before she went to her room tonight.“I don’t get why you haven’t read Grandma’s journals yet.I mean, she died when you were how old?”
Celia had been stunned into silence.
It was true that her mother had passed away when Celia was ten years old, thirty-two years ago, long before she’d become the frightened, failed journalist she currently was.Celia still remembered her mother’s final days: the drawn curtains, the shadows in the inn, her little sisters, crying for their mother, the crack in their father’s voice.
“It’s hard to explain,” Celia had said.
Sophie had given her a typical young-person response.“You need to go to therapy, Mom.Seriously.”Sophie had never spoken to her like that.
It had felt like a smack.
It had also felt painfully correct.Celia thought of her own father, who’d been faced with Celia’s brilliance and understanding of the world.He’d answered that understanding with rage and tried to box her in.Ultimately, she’d run away from him and never seen him again.
Her heart ached to think that Sophie might do the same to her.
Now, Celia crept to the kitchen of the rental house, poured herself a glass of wine, and returned to her bedroom to—for the first time—crack open the first of her mother’s journals.
All she had to do was readMargaret Harper, 1985,andIt isn’t that love was ever something I fully understood…before she slammed the journal shut.Dust filled the air.
I can’t do this, she thought, pounding her chest with her fist.
What she remembered of her mother was difficult to explain.She remembered her perfume, something between lilac and lavender and rose; she remembered her singing voice and the seventies’ folk songs she’d most liked to sing; she remembered how bright and shining she’d seemed behind the front desk of the Bluebell Cove Inn.But there had also been dips in her moods.There had been sorrowful afternoons when their mother refused to leave the house or tend to the inn.There had been mornings when Wren would cry and cry in her bassinet, only for Celia to rush to tend to her.She’d been so little, like a wrinkled potato.
Celia now wondered if her mother had been suffering from postpartum depression.But it felt as though those dark periods had been apparent long before Wren and even before Juliet, if Celia’s memory served her.
What could a cruel man like James Harper do with a depressed wife and four daughters?What could he do but close up his heart and become the villain of the house?
She finished her glass of wine and watched the early June wind toss the tree limbs outside, then reached for her phone and found a missed call from Wren.This surprised her.Without thinking, she called Wren back.She answered, her voice frail.
“Hi.”
Celia sat bolt upright in bed.She wondered if somehow, Wren had sensed that Celia had their mother’s journals.“How are you?”she asked.“Where are you?”
“I’m back in Paris,” Wren said.“It’s morning here.I’m surprised you’re still awake.”
Something was strange about Wren’s voice, something that made Celia think she was sick or crying or weak.
Celia wondered if she should tell Wren about the journals.But something told her that news of the journals would bring more harm than good.“Are you all right, Wren?”
Wren cleared her throat.“I’m okay.I’m fine.”She paused.“Going back to Bluebell Cove was crazy for me.I haven’t been fully present in Europe since.”
“You know you’re welcome here,” Celia said.“We don’t have to stick to our plan of trading off.We could work together.There’s still so much to be done.”
Wren was quiet.Celia could hear a French ambulance screaming through the morning.
“Are you feeling all right?”Celia asked, her throat tight.
“Oh, I’m fine.Just jet-lagged a little,” Wren said.
It didn’t make sense that Wren was still jet-lagged.Hadn’t she been back in Europe for ages?Celia chewed her lower lip.“Have you talked to Ivy or Juliet?”
“Juliet’s back in the city,” she said.“Ivy’s busy with the flower shop.”
I’m the only one available,Celia thought,because my life is worth nothing.
“Come back, Wren,” Celia pleaded.
