Ahalf hour before their meeting, Celia called Juliet to ask if she wanted a ride to the lawyer’s office, but Juliet didn’t answer.Instead, she texted that she planned to walk.Celia checked and saw that, in such a small town, the walk from her hotel to Randall Hopkins’s office was twelve minutes.Knowing that an afternoon in May in a town like Bluebell Cove could drop degrees fast, she bundled up and stepped into the orange late afternoon, then gradually removed her scarf, hat, and gloves as she walked.En route, she passed a thousand memories at the ice cream shop, the grocery store, and the preschool where, once upon a time, she’d picked up both little Wren and Juliet.By the time she reached Randall Hopkins’s place, her heart had shattered a thousand times over.
She entered the office to find she was the last one there, a rarity for the eldest sister.Sitting before Randall’s desk were all three of them—Ivy, Juliet, and Wren—their legs crossed, their faces expectant.It was hard to tell if they’d said hello to one another.It felt almost like a waiting room for a doctor’s office—a collection of strangers who just so happened to have an appointment on the same day.Celia’s heartbeat quickened.
“Hi,” she said, searching first Juliet’s, then Wren’s, then Ivy’s faces.
“Hi.”Ivy stood awkwardly and gave Celia a very stiff hug.Wren did the same.Juliet, having already shared the requisite hug with Celia earlier, waved from her chair.
“We drove from the airport together,” Juliet explained to the others.
Before Wren or Ivy could ask additional questions, Randall Hopkins, the sixty-something lawyer who handled their father’s estate, came through a side door and sat at the desk in front of them.“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, placing his fleshy hands on the desk.“I am terribly sorry for your loss.James was an incredible man and a longtime friend.I know he loved you all and thought of you till the very end.”
Celia, Ivy, Juliet, and Wren didn’t say a thing.Celia felt her throat close up.She found herself wondering what secrets her father had shared with Randall, what pieces of their family history he carried—things about the four of them, about their mother, about moments and mistakes Celia never wanted exposed to the public eye.“As I said over the phone,” Randall said, “it’s stipulated in the will that the four of you get back together to hear said will read aloud.Hence, this meeting.Hence, this return to Bluebell.Welcome back home.”Randall reached for the stack of papers to his left and adjusted his glasses.“From the estate of James Harper,” he began, poring over legal jargon that Celia recognized from her years of working as a journalist and reading contracts and wills and other legal documents.She let her mind fade out for a moment before, in a commanding voice, he said, “I, James Harper, hereby grant my daughters Celia, Ivy, Juliet, and Wren the entirety of my very limited fortune plus the ownership of the Bluebell Cove Inn.”
From where Celia sat, she saw her sisters’ shoulders relax with relief.Why had she assumed that their father had wronged them somehow, and he’d decided that what was his shouldn’t belong to them?
We’ll sell the inn and get out of here, she thought.
But then the lawyer continued.“Should my daughters decide together that they wish to sell the Bluebell Cove Inn for a profit, I hereby declare that such sale may only go forward if they own and operate said inn for a period of one year.After that, they are free to sell the inn and move on with their lives, together or apart.”
Randall finished and set the stack of papers aside.Celia’s thoughts whirred.
“I’m sorry,” Juliet interrupted the silence, “you said we have to run the inn for a year?”
“Yes.One year of owning and operating the inn, and that’s after it’s been repaired enough to reopen to guests,” Randall repeated.“The Bluebell Cove Inn has been in the Harper family for generations.I think your father worried you’d drop it immediately.”
“We want to drop it immediately,” Juliet said, glancing over at Celia, searching for her cooperation.For the first time, Celia recognized fear in her sister’s face.“Most of us have lives elsewhere, far away from Bluebell Cove.We can’t just live and work at the Bluebell Cove Inn.We can’t just come back.”
“The four of you don’t have to be there all at once,” Randall explained.“You could, for example, trade off who’s there, who’s running the operations, who’s overseeing the repairs.”His eyes bounced from Celia to Ivy to Wren to Juliet, as though counting out the months of the year.
“You keep mentioning repairs.How bad is it?”Juliet demanded.
“You’ll see for yourself that the Bluebell Cove Inn needs several refurbishments,” Randall said breezily, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.He didn’t want to get into specifics.It was infuriating.
“Ivy already lives here.”Wren shrugged, eager to get back on the road herself.“I mean, it makes sense that she handles it, doesn’t it?”
“I have a life, too,” Ivy grumbled.“I haven’t set foot in the inn in years.”
“Come on, Ivy.Be rational,” Juliet urged.
“Me?Rational?I was the only one who stuck around to care for Dad,” Ivy shot back.“I was the one who noticed he was sick in the first place.”
No one knew what to say to that.Shame enveloped them.Celia’s mouth was dry.She wished she’d brought her water bottle.As the seconds of silence ticked past, she felt visions of the Bluebell Cove Inn fluttering past her mind’s eye.The antique furnishings.The piano by the window.The tree branches extending across the lush green lawn.Guests from all corners of the earth, coming and going, bringing stories that seemed fantastical and glorious.But they came to Bluebell Cove, they came to our inn, because it was a hideaway, a secret, a beautiful space to heal and laugh and eat and be warm.
It felt strange that her father had let it fall into disrepair.That didn’t sound like her domineering, intelligent, terrifying father—the type of man who’d always kept everything in order.
When none of the sisters said anything else, Randall glanced at the clock.It was nearly five, the end of his workday.His thoughts were probably already on his post-work meal and the television show he planned to watch.“I imagine the four of you have a lot to talk about,” he said.
“If we don’t work at the inn?If we decide to sell it immediately?”Celia asked, her first words since Randall had read the will.“What then?”
“The inn will be sold, and the funds will be donated where your father already stipulated in the will,” Randall said.
“And where is that?”Juliet furrowed her brow.He hadn’t read that part of the will, it seemed, which begged the question: what else was he leaving out?
“University of Maine athletics,” Randall said.
The Harper sisters were stunned into silence.University of Maine athletics rang through the air.Celia knew that her father had spent a semester at the University of Maine before sustaining a baseball injury, dropping out, and taking over at the Bluebell Cove Inn.It felt like a slap in the face that his money would go to the athletic program instead of to his daughters.Celia slid her tongue over her top teeth and considered her bank account, a vacuous and dusty thing that seemed to diminish as the months went on and fewer and fewer of her articles were picked up.It was a difficult time for journalism.She realized that since she’d received the call from Randall Hopkins, she’d been counting on that money to make a down payment on a smaller and more comfortable DC-based home, a place where her daughter could stay when she came home from college, a place where Celia could begin the next phase of her life.She hadn’t lived in a proper home since she’d divorced her husband.
She felt ashamed that she was relying on that money to such a degree.
