Celia couldn’t read another word, not that night.With a shaking hand, she closed her mother’s journal, slotted it back in the box, and lay in bed, clutching her comforter to her neck.Her mind flashed with images of Margaret, red-faced and angry, writing these terrifying truths.She imagined her mother making her daughters’ meals, realizing she didn’t really like her husband.She hated herself, hated her situation.She wanted to leave him.He didn’t seem to love her.Her depression was like a cloud over them both.
Sleep didn’t find Celia that night.Bleary-eyed, she entered the kitchen at seven in the morning to find Sophie similarly exhausted, stretching her arms over her head.Celia recognized that Sophie hadn’t slept, that she’d given all her energy to her article.They sat at the kitchen table, nibbling toast and reading the newspaper on their phones.Celia ached to tell Sophie about what she’d learned in the journals.Instead, she made her voice very small when she asked, “Did you talk to the marine biologist?”
Sophie’s eyes fell.She sipped her coffee.“I did.”
Celia’s heart lurched.
“He was a font of knowledge, honestly,” Sophie said.“An enormous help for the article.But…”
Celia inhaled.Outside, summer settled into the lush green trees and fluttered its light across the waters.“But what?”Celia asked.
“He didn’t have to say it,” Sophie said, “but I could tell he was in love with you.”
Celia’s eyes smarted with tears.It felt remarkable that they hadn’t yet said Landon’s name, that they both knew who they were talking about without adding specifics.
“It was a long time ago,” Celia said.“We were best friends.”
“It sounds like it was so much more than that,” Sophie said delicately.
“Everything is more than it ever seems to be,” Celia said, crossing her arms over her chest and staring into her black coffee.She imagined her mother, so many years ago, doing the same, and was suddenly overcome with a desire to show Ivy the journals, to bring someone else into this world.“I don’t think we should work at the inn today,” she said.
Sophie tilted her head in surprise.“Are you sure?I mean, I know you want to open up as soon as you can.”
“There’s no use rushing it,” Celia said.
“But you wanted to wash your hands of the place.”Sophie squinted at Celia, as though she couldn’t make sense of who she was.“You wanted to sell it as soon as you could.”
“I’m sure we still want that,” Celia said, although there was a thrashing in her chest that made her unsure.“I have to talk to your Aunt Ivy about some family things.I have to clear the air.”She realized it had gone on too long, that she’d spent weeks in Bluebell Cove avoiding her younger sister, waiting to hand off the reins of the Bluebell Cove Inn to whichever sister decided to take over next.
Celia got ready to go, slipping her mother’s 1991 journal into her backpack and zipping it up tight.Sophie returned to her computer, to the article that had taken over her mind, and shut the door behind her.When Celia left the rental house, she stopped short at a sign hanging from a telephone pole directly in front of the porch that read: The Most Iconic Luxury Hotel Bluebell Has Ever Seen!Reserve Your First Night at Smith’s Cliffside Resort Today!
Included in the advertisement were illustrations of what the hotel would look like a little less than a year from now, when it was projected to open.Armed with a previous anger, she shot up to the telephone pole and tore the ad down.
Celia found Ivy in a place she’d never been before, but the first place she knew to look: Ivy’s flower shop.From halfway down the block, she could already smell the verdant flowers, the blossoming buds, the nutritional soil.She remembered long ago, when their mother had shown them how to plant seeds in the garden outside their house.She remembered pressing her own hand into the soil and watering it with that ancient, rusty watering can that had belonged to her father’s grandmother.“Patience and rain, girls,” their mother had said.“That’s all we need for our flowers to grow.”
When she opened the door, a bell jangled overhead, and Ivy called from the back.“I’ll be right with you!”Ivy’s voice was kind and sweet and nothing like the way she normally spoke to Celia.Celia remained in the front room, inhaling the sweet flowers, eyeing the thick green leaves, marveling at the oasis her sister had created.Ivy had always been a better caregiver than Celia, and it seemed that that caregiving translated well to a flower shop.
When Ivy stepped out to greet her, her smile fell immediately.In her arms, she carried a massive cactus that looked much too heavy for her slender arms.“Did something happen at the inn?”Ivy asked flatly, as though the only reason Celia would come find her would have to do with the inn and their monetary pursuits.
Celia grimaced.“Do you have time to talk?”
Ivy gestured vaguely through the lush ecosystem around them.“I have a thousand things to do today.”
“I think you’ll want to hear about this,” Celia said.
Ivy’s eyes flickered.She set down the cactus and shrugged.“Okay?”
Celia removed the journal and set it on the counter between them.Ivy’s eyes widened, as though Celia had set a bomb between them.
“I’ve been reading Mom’s journal entries,” she explained.“And I can’t help but feel that there was a whole lot more to Mom and to Mom and Dad’s marriage than we ever knew.”
Ivy scoffed.“Of course, there was.We were kids when Mom died.There’s so much we couldn’t understand.And it wasn’t like Dad was ever going to open up.”
Celia felt smacked and lowered her gaze.Her mind reeled.“He never opened up to you?”she asked.“Not once?In all the years you lived together?”
Ivy reached for a rag and swept soil from the countertop, as though she wanted to pretend to be too busy to listen and dismiss Celia immediately.“Celia, listen.I know the will has thrown us off.We’re sort of forced into this dynamic where we have to work together to reopen the inn, and it is what it is, but I want you to know that I have no interest in rebuilding a relationship with you.I’m sorry, but it’s true.”Ivy’s words sped up, as though she were chasing her own thoughts down the drain.“I went through a really dark time during your senior year.It was like you had no interest in the family anymore.You left me to pick up the pieces.And then all at once, you packed up your backpack and left.You didn’t even go to your high school graduation!You didn’t even say goodbye!I mean, do you know how many hearts you broke?”Ivy’s eyes glinted with tears.
Celia’s mouth went dry with alarm.She told herself to hunker down, to take whatever it was Ivy needed to say, because maybe she owed it to her sister to listen.
