“Who says the biologist is a guy?”Sophie asked, crossing her arms.
Celia swallowed.“Honey, you know, maybe it’s a good idea to take the summer off from writing?I have so much to take care of with the inn, especially if we want to open sooner rather than later.I’m so grateful for your help.As you can see, nobody else has joined us.Your aunts, my sisters?They don’t care.”
Sophie’s nostrils flared.“This isn’t going to get in the way of cleaning up the inn.This is more about my career, and doing something good with my life, something that matters.”
“The inn matters,” Celia said.
“Then why didn’t you bring me to Bluebell Cove for all these years?”Sophie demanded.“Why did I grow up all alone in Washington, DC?”
Celia sputtered with disbelief.“You weren’t alone.We were together.We’ve always been together.”
“But you weren’t being honest with me,” Sophie said.“You never told me why we didn’t come here.You never told me what Grandpa did to make you so mad.You never told me about any of your friends, or how beautiful it is here, or what your sisters are like.You barely talk about my dad, and that’s something I’ve asked you about, over and over again.”
Celia felt it like a stab in her gut.Sophie’s father, her husband, the man she’d taken a risk on—she hated thinking about him.It was a risk that had broken her heart.
“When did you get so frightened, Mom?”Sophie asked, standing from her chair.
Celia clutched her spoon so hard that pain ballooned through her palm.“Honey,” she said, trying to keep her voice low.“Honey, if you’ve gone through what I’ve gone through; if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t pursue any of this.”
Sophie blinked at her.“Any of what?”
Celia pushed herself to say it.“This career?It’s a brick wall.It’s learning, over and over again, that people are terrible, and there’s no hope for our world.I’ve written hundreds of articles about awful people and how they’re destroying forests, rivers, oceans, and prairies.I’ve written about seventy-seven different extinct species.My heart has broken a thousand times over.And you know what?I would keep writing if there were any money in it.But more than half of the articles I’ve pitched to my editor over the past five years have been rejected.I research, look for insider information, hunt for clues, and still, my editor says, ‘this isn’t sellable’ or ‘nobody cares about this.’It’s disheartening.It’s the reason we can’t move to a better apartment or buy a house.It’s the reason I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to retire.And that’s why we have to be here, working at the Bluebell Cove Inn, praying for the inheritance that’s owed us.It’s our saving grace.”
Sophie stayed standing, her face pale.She looked like she didn’t know if she wanted to believe Celia or not.
“Think about how you want your life to go,” Celia whispered.“Maybe it isn’t too late for you to find something else to do, some better way to live.”
Sophie’s eyes echoed her disappointment.Without saying a thing, she turned on her heel and left the restaurant, leaving Celia to stare into her soup alone.
ChapterTwelve
It took Mallory nearly a week to recover from her stomach flu.During that time, Landon worked sparingly and spent a lot of time on the sofa by her side, watching Mallory’s favorite films and trying and failing not to research Hanson Smith’s brand-new luxury resort.The thought of it made his blood boil.
He needed to focus on his family.
He needed to get Celia Harper out of his head.
The day Mallory felt ready to go back to school again, Landon spent the morning after the kids left deep-cleaning the kitchen and living room, and deep-cleaning himself.The shower got mind-splittingly hot and then crashed into a horrible chill that sent him shivering into his clothes.He imagined Hanson Smith never had a shower like that.Landon was sure that all his appliances were perfect and that he had never felt discomfort in his life.
For several hours at the lab that morning, he fell into the luxuries of not thinking about himself, analyzing water samples he’d taken from Bluebell Cove and speculating with his colleagues about whether or not they’d still have a job after the Hanson Smith development affected the ocean life nearest them.Most of them assumed they’d need to find work elsewhere.
“My kids are going to hate this,” his colleague Diane groaned.“We just moved here last year.We moved here for this job!”
“My family’s been in Bluebell Cove going back four generations,” Landon said grimly.“I don’t know what I’m going to tell them.”
“Kids are resilient,” Hannah, another colleague, said.
“But they remember everything later on,” Landon said, thinking of Celia, who kept her memories close to the chest and allowed them to affect every decision in her life.
But it was during lunch that Landon’s colleague Mark mentioned he’d received an email from a journalist who wanted to cover Hanson Smith’s new resort and its ramifications for the ocean, the forest, and the surrounding beaches.Landon gaped at him, wondering if Celia had had a change of heart.
“Who was it?”he asked Mark, squeezing his fists.“The journalist, I mean.”
“A woman named Sophie,” Mark said, double-checking his email.“Sophie Harper.I looked her up.Apparently, she’s a student out in East Oregon, who’s here for the summer.Interning or something at the paper.”
“You said Harper?”Landon was on his feet, his lunch forgotten.
“She wants to meet with a marine biologist,” Mark explained.“You know, I wondered if you’d want to be the one to talk to her about all this.You can be eloquent when you want to be.”He took a moment to chuckle, trying to bring Landon in on the joke.Landon couldn’t laugh back.He went on.“And you mentioned you worked for the newspaper, didn’t you?”
