Landon couldn’t believe that she’d lived this entire life directly beside his, parallel to their everyday best-friendship.But he knew how secretive teenagers could be.
“He invited me to a Christmas dinner at his parents’ place,” Celia said.“It was the strangest night of my life.His mother found out who I was, or who my parents were, and asked me to leave.I couldn’t figure it out.Hanson never spoke to me again after that.I was completely brokenhearted.I think that was the beginning of the end for my time in Bluebell, for my connections to people here.And I couldn’t tell anyone what I was up to, because I didn’t want to admit that I’d been dumped so harshly.”She wet her lips.“But this afternoon with Ivy and Wren, I went through more of my mother’s journals.We read them together.And we discovered something that shed light on that Christmas dinner.It’s all starting to make sense now.”
“What happened?”Landon whispered.
Celia removed an old and worn journal from her purse and opened it to a bookmarked page.“Read this,” she said, handing it over.
February 22, 1991
It isn’t that I think this new baby is his baby.The timeline doesn’t add up.It doesn’t make sense.But late at night, I dream that I’m safe in his bed.I dream that he’s coming to pick me up and sweep me away from all this, away from James, away from the inn.Sometimes I want to hate him because he couldn’t do what he needed to do, which is leave his wife and join me and love me well.I know his reputation comes above all else.I know that there’s more money in that family than I can fully fathom, and that the money goes back generation after generation, long before the Bluebell Cove Inn (my prison).But the love I felt for Gavin Smith was more love than I’ve ever known for another person—at least that’s how I feel about it now.And it is my lot in life to understand that that amount of love isn’t enough for Gavin.It isn’t enough for us to choose happiness.
Landon nearly let the little journal fall from his hands and onto the rock.He gaped at Margaret Harper’s gorgeous handwriting, unable to fully grasp what this meant.
“My mother loved Hanson’s father, Gavin Smith.”Celia took the journal back.“Hanson’s mother must have found out.That’s why I got kicked out of Christmas dinner.That’s why everything fell apart for me.But this was one of the reasons my mother was so miserable.I’m sure of it.”She kicked the rock beneath them.“She didn’t feel the love she needed from my father, and she fell in love with someone else.”
Landon was quiet for a long time.These were the complications of living in a small town, he knew.Nobody’s business was ever really private.Every affair, every misguided love, and every pain was eventually made public.Their stories made up the foundation of Bluebell Cove.
“My son’s dating his daughter,” Landon said, surprising himself.“I hate that my son’s involved with a wealthy girl like that.”
Celia touched Landon’s shoulder gently.“Maybe they’re different from our generation,” she suggested.“I mean, look at Sophie.She has more optimism than I’ve ever had in my little finger.”
“That isn’t true,” Landon said, looking her dead in the eye.“We were both about as optimistic as they come.Perhaps we lost it.Maybe our kids have to teach us how to get it back.”
Celia’s eyes glinted.For a long while, they gazed at one another, finding in each other’s faces the teenagers they’d once been, finding the love and hope and freedom they’d once carted around without question.
ChapterSixteen
Winter and Spring 2001
It was the first time Celia’s heart had ever been broken, at least in a romantic sense.At seventeen, she was old enough to know that it was a big deal to have your heart broken.That it was a canon event.This was something she would look back at as an adult sort of fondly, achingly.She’d tell her children something like, “This is what I learned from my first heartbreak.These were the songs I played on my boombox.”She wanted to make something of it.
So after it was clear that she and Hanson were over, that he had no plans to speak to her again, she allowed herself a single week of “a pity party” like women in romantic comedies.She ate ice cream and faked an illness to stay home from school.She wept into her pillow, wrote poetry, and promised herself she would never love anyone again.She knew that Ivy had caught wind of something going on; you couldn’t live across the room from someone and not see that their heart was breaking.But Celia wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened between her and Hanson, nor how embarrassing that night at the Smith house had been.It had changed her life.
Many times, she imagined what her mother might have said if she were still alive, how she would have helped Celia through this difficult time.Would she have bought the ice cream for Celia instead of Celia stealing it from the kitchen of the inn?Would she have told Celia the perfect antidote for heartache?
Late January, Celia was at a burger joint called Ralph’s with Landon, Bethany, and a few others from the high school paper, drinking milkshakes and talking about their upcoming edition.Together, they ran through the list of newspaper issues they’d put out, discussing which angles had worked best, their “white whale” ideas that they’d still love to put out there, and how much they wanted to make a difference in the world.
Eventually, the staff members turned their attention to Celia, asking her what the next issue would be about.But Celia was already on her feet, flicking through albums on the jukebox and spying out the window, where, through the dark, she could see Hanson and one of the Bluebell Cove High cheerleaders, making out beneath a starry sky.Her stomach felt like a crater.When she turned to look at her newspaper staff and dearest friends, she cleared her throat and said, “I think I have an idea for an issue.But I have to do some research first.”Landon locked eyes with her and said he would be happy to help, no matter what it was.
She thanked him.But she said it would remain a secret from everyone for now.She could tell that it hurt Landon’s ego.But it couldn’t be helped.
What Celia couldn’t get out of her mind was what Hanson had mentioned to her early on in their relationship—whatever his father was up to wasn’t exactly legal, it wasn’t exactly good for the town.She had a hunch that getting to the bottom of that would bring her the very best in journalism.It would reveal the evils lurking beneath Bluebell Cove.She imagined writing and releasing the article with her very last issue of the Bluebell Cove High School newspaper.Immediately afterward, she would pack her things, get on a bus, and flee.
She would be the talk of the town.More than that, she would have that article to show off at Georgetown.It would be a perfect jumping-off place, proof of how brave she was.Proof of how stellar her future career would be.
Over the next few weeks, Celia threw herself into learning as much as she could about Hanson Smith’s father’s company and everything he owned in the town of Bluebell Cove and its surrounding areas.She discovered that the Smith Company itself had been around since before Bluebell Cove Inn was built, that it had gotten its start during the years immediately after the whaling boom had collapsed.The town's economic fortunes had faltered.Hanson’s great-great-great-grandfather had seen an opportunity for monetary growth.He’d seen a town flailing, and he’d opened up a fishing company alongside an import/export business to allow the people of Bluebell to sell their fish elsewhere.For the first sixty or so years of the company’s existence, they grew and grew without pause.They seemed unstoppable.
But according to newspaper records, Celia learned that other companies tried to pop up alongside the Smith Company.They made the mistake of trying to compete.She read about the Harrison Group, the Gregor Company, the Import Exchange, and the Wethertons.Each company had tried to take a portion of what the Smith family had claimed for themselves.And each, within a few months, had been convicted of some form of fraud and forced to close.
Meanwhile, the Smith family had grown stronger and stronger.
It felt like a strange pattern—one that indicated a power within the Smith family, potentially linked to the Bluebell Cove government, or even the higher-ups who ran all of Maine.How deep did this go?Celia wondered, salivating at the thought.
She told herself that she wasn’t doing this to destroy Hanson’s family because of her own broken heart.But it felt like the cherry on top.
In mid-March, Celia got her big break in the case.
For most of that Saturday, Celia was needed at the Bluebell Cove Inn and couldn’t think of an excuse to get herself out of it.Ivy was working in the dining room, serving lunch to guests who’d come to a frigid Maine, hoping to bask in the last of the snow before it fully melted.This left Celia at the front desk, toiling, casting her father horrible looks when he strode past.He never looked at her, not once, as though he wanted her to think that she was invisible to him.It’s just like he treated Mom, Celia thought darkly, remembering how lonely her mother had seemed.The only escape she had was in death.But as soon as she thought it, she let out a strangled sob.I’m sorry, Mom, she thought, tipping her head back to look at the ceiling.
