Celia furrowed her brow and nodded.Her eyes filled with images of her mother, racing down the stands to meet her, her curly hair wild and untamed, her anger like a rocket during arguments with her father.Celia’s freewheeling, loving, gorgeous mother.How was it possible that she was a topic here, at the Smith family Christmas party?
Mrs.Smith cut her eyes over to Hanson and said evenly, “Hanson, I think it’s time for your guest to leave.”
A hush fell over the table.Celia felt herself immediately being a piece of a greater puzzle, something she didn’t understand.She looked at Hanson, hoping for support from her boyfriend, the guy who’d invited her to this lion’s den.But Hanson got up and tilted his head toward the doorway.She could do nothing but follow him, her arms and legs shaking so violently that she thought she might fall.
Once in the foyer, the maid met her with her coat, hat, gloves, and scarf.Hanson looked at her for less than a second, bowed his head, then turned back to join his family.Celia was abandoned, shoved out into the cold outside of the old Victorian house, and sent to walk back to her family’s home alone.It wasn’t till she was safe beneath the sheets of her bed, mere feet away from Ivy and her book and her quiet, that Celia began to cry.
ChapterFourteen
Present Day
It was no great mystery to Celia what her daughter was up to in her room down the hall.After yet another long day of working, cleaning, and preparing the inn for its opening in just a few months, Sophie had showered, made herself a few slices of toast with cheese, and disappeared without a word of explanation.Through her bedroom door, Celia could hear the clack of Sophie’s fingers on her laptop and the soft sighs that meant she was thinking hard, forcing her way through mental brick walls, and carving from what she’d learned about Bluebell Cove and Hanson Smith and marine biology a relevant and exciting journalistic achievement.Celia ached with a funny brand of jealousy.In her life, it had usually been Celia to drive straight into a piece like that.It was Sophie’s turn.
Celia was too frightened of Sophie to ask her the questions that burned on her tongue.Had she talked to Landon?Had she found her angle for the article?What did Bethany say about the work she’d done so far?Did she need help?Did she know about Celia’s history with Hanson Smith?
But more than anything, Celia counted her blessings that Sophie hadn’t packed up and left Maine for good after accusing her mother of everything she had at the soup place.
I am not the journalist I used to be,Celia imagined saying.I’m not the woman I used to be.I don’t know who I am.It was incredible that she could lose her identity at forty-two.Wasn’t it meant to be ingrained?
Visualizing conversations between Celia and Sophie left Celia wondering what her own relationship with her mother might have been like, if they’d been allowed to know each other, if Margaret hadn’t died so young.It left her wondering why she’d waited so long to read her mother’s journals.It was true that they were portals into the woman’s soul.
Reeling with fear and anger and loss, Celia returned to her room, bent before the locked box she kept under the bed, and retrieved her mother’s journals.Hands shaking, she picked a random one from the stack and opened it to read:Margaret Harper, 1991.It was two years before her mother’s death and not long before Wren’s birth.Celia had been nearly eight and old enough to remember her at times spirited, at times dark and slow-moving mother.Often, she’d thought there were two versions of Margaret.She’d never known which would appear.This had made her think of fairy tales and cursed forests.It had made her pray for a fairy godmother to come and deliver her mother from sorrow.Sometimes the happy version of Margaret hadn’t returned to the family for months at a time.
January 13, 1991
Sometimes I feel cursed with this feeling that my daughters are leaving me.It’s a strange thing.I always wake up at three o’clock or so in the morning, terribly pregnant, heavier than I’ve ever been, and I wander the halls of the house, looking for Juliet, for Ivy, for Celia.I start crying because I can’t find them.I’m always so sure that they’ve decided I’m not good enough for them.That they’ve realized how poisonous their mother really is.Sometimes, James finds me in the hallway, reeling, at a loss.His frustration is apparent.But usually, he helps me up and guides me to Celia and Ivy’s bedroom, where they’re always fast asleep.And then he shows me baby Juliet, who always seems awake, staring up at me from her crib.She never cries, which is disconcerting.
Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t meant to be a mother.Maybe that’s why I’m clinging to my girls so desperately.
January 14, 1991
James has suggested that I write in my journal too frequently.He thinks that looking at my problems too head-on will make them bigger.He thinks it’s a form of self-obsession.We got into a terrible argument about it, one that made Ivy cry.I found Celia upstairs with her arms around Ivy, trying to console her.But the minute Ivy saw me, she tore out of Celia’s embrace and came to me.Sometimes I have the feeling that because I’m not always so present, not always so capable of being a perfect mother (whatever that is), Ivy and Celia compete for my love when it’s available to them.I think of all the famous, competitive siblings from history and realize that their mothers just wanted them to love each other.
I wonder why I decided it was a good idea to bring another baby into this world, and then remember it was a mistake.It was nothing I planned.
Please, God.Please, help me be the mother these girls need.
Celia stopped reading because there were tears on her cheeks and filling her eyes, so much so that it made it difficult to see the words before her.Her mother’s gorgeous handwriting nearly broke her heart.She remembered her father and mother’s volatile fights, how the house had shaken with their anger.She recalled thinking that her mother was too delicate for him, too fine for the world.She remembered disliking him before her mother’s death and full-on hating him after it.
She turned the page and kept reading about her parents’ arguments, about Margaret’s fears, about how Margaret wasn’t sure if her love for James was ever enough.
February 1, 1991
When I first met James, I was a teenager without any understanding of the world.James was handsome, charming, and fun-loving.He played football.He had a convertible and confidence in the world.That was all the currency he needed to win me over.We used to go for long drives down the coast.We used to go skinny-dipping and watch for whales.He told me about his parents’ inn and how romantic it sounded to him to continue the tradition, to raise his own children to keep the inn alive, to give back to Bluebell Cove everything he could.I still remember our first kiss.We were in the water, and waves were crashing into us.I closed my eyes and felt as though I could see us from far above: two little creatures next to staggering cliffs, holding each other for dear life.
It wasn’t till after Celia was born that I realized what his vision for his life really was.His father died that summer, and it was up to him to run the inn, joke with tourists and laugh, and maintain a perfect facade at all times.It was up to me to take care of our baby.But at that time, babies were a mystery to me.Celia, though adorable and perfect, couldn’t talk to me.She couldn’t console me because she needed everything from me, as babies always do.I found myself breaking apart with loneliness.I lay in bed next to my husband night after night, gazing at him in the dark, and feeling like he was becoming more and more of a stranger.When I told him that I loved him, he grunted and said, “You need sleep, Margaret.You’re going to make yourself sick.”
This is how the man I married spoke to me during the months after our first baby’s birth!And I still had another baby with him!And another!And now, another’s coming!
All girls!I’ve brought girls into this maniacal and entirely masculine world!What is wrong with me?
All day and all night, I think about leaving him.
I’m making plans to leave him.
It isn’t the first time.
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