Suddenly, there was a noise at the front door of the Lodge, one that Celia soon realized was Ivy, calling her name.Celia sped for her sister and ripped open the door.“Are you all right?”she asked, her adrenaline pulsating.
“Wren’s taken a turn for the worse,” Ivy gasped.
Within five minutes, they were on the road to the hospital.It was twenty minutes away, which felt like a lifetime, especially with Wren in the back seat, her head lolling on Sophie’s shoulder, her cheeks hollowed out, her eyes more dead than alive.Celia sat in the front seat of Ivy’s car, alternating between looking at the road and looking back at her littlest sister.Her mind frothed with memories of Wren as a toddler, little Wren, whom she’d had to carry throughout their mother’s funeral.Wren, who’d been so confused about their mother’s absence that she’d asked over and over again when she was coming back.
At the hospital, Wren was wheeled off to another room, leaving Celia, Ivy, and Sophie in the waiting room, jittery and unable to sit.It was August, which meant the waiting room was filled with mostly little kids who’d injured themselves during summertime activities: bike riding, skateboarding, and jumping around, trying to burn off their energy.Celia was envious of their childhoods, of their mothers, crying nervously beside them, eager to take away their pain.How often, when Sophie was a girl, had Celia ached for her own mother?How often had she wanted to call her and ask, “How do I do that, or what was that remedy you always used when we hurt ourselves?”Their mother had taken all her knowledge with her when she died.
Finally, Ivy urged them to sit.Sophie couldn’t manage it and eventually headed down the hallway to find a vending machine, leaving Celia and Ivy alone.Ivy’s face was drawn with worry.
“I don’t know how many times we asked her to go to the doctor,” Ivy breathed.“I don’t know how many times I stayed up all night, standing at her door, listening for her breathing.I’ve been so worried, Celia.It’s eating me alive.”
Celia squeezed her sister’s hand.“Juliet needs to be here,” she whispered.“Not having her here makes me feel like I’m missing something.”
“It makes me feel like I’m missing a lung,” Ivy said.
Celia knew what Ivy meant.“Maybe I’ve always felt that way,” she said quietly.“Ever since I left Bluebell Cove, I’ve felt like I’ve been limping around without a piece of myself.”
Ivy protested.“You’ve had a remarkable career.You have a wonderful daughter.You…”
“But it was never enough,” Celia said.“I knew what I was doing when I packed up and left that day.I knew that I was making a mistake.But Dad made me so angry, and I was so ashamed…” She thought about Hanson Smith, about the career she craved, and about the article that had nearly ruined the inn, or so her father had said.“I never understood why Dad hated me so much,” she said.“I felt like he hated me more than he hated the rest of you.And my hunch about it was that I knew more about Mom’s depression.I remembered it.And he didn’t like that I remembered it.”
Ivy was quiet for a long time, her fingers spread out across her thighs.A boy of about eight came into the waiting room, whimpering, holding his wrist.Celia’s heart went out to him.Despite her age of forty-two, she’d still never broken a bone, which felt insane.
“I need to show you something,” Ivy said gently.“But I don’t know what you’re going to say.”
Her brow furrowed.Celia turned to watch as Ivy pulled something from the bottom of her purse.It was an envelope, rather new.It was addressed to Celia.The handwriting belonged to their father.Celia would have recognized it anywhere.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give you this,” Ivy said, unable to look at her.
“I don’t understand,” Celia whispered.
“He wrote it a few weeks before he died,” Ivy said.“I didn’t find it till he lost consciousness.To be honest, the letter made me so angry that I nearly lost my mind.You’d left so many years ago.When I first found the letter, I didn’t know that the reading of the will would bring us all together.Gosh, I was dreading that.I’m sure you saw it written all over my face.”
Celia remembered how sure she’d been at the time that Ivy hated her, that she’d always hated her.
Ivy went on.“When I saw you, I figured you’d leave Bluebell Cove as soon as you could.When you got that call at the hotel that night and took it on the balcony of Juliet’s room?I thought you were making plans to go.But to my surprise, you were the one who stayed.I didn’t think it would last.But day after day, you worked in the inn.You cleaned, scrubbed, organized, and painted.You were the one who came up with the eco-lodge idea, which I think is incredible.It’s inspiring.It’s so much more than our father ever would have come up with.And it’s bringing about a brand-new era of the inn.”
Celia had never heard Ivy talk like this—with such sincerity and such heart.Tears filled her eyes.
“Go on,” Ivy urged.“Open it.Read what he wanted to tell you.Please.”
Celia squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the letter to her chest.So many decades after he’d last seen her, so many decades after his angry words had chased her out the door, their father had reached out to her.Their father wanted to make amends.
But Celia couldn’t bring herself to read the letter in the waiting room.Instead, she left the hospital and walked across the parking lot, where she sat on a bench and watched a soft breeze flutter the lush green leaves overhead.Maine’s wildlife often felt like a symphony.Every piece of it played its part perfectly.How had she been gone for so long?How had she let her rift with Maine grow so staggeringly large?
Slowly, she removed her father’s letter from the envelope, took in his spiky, masculine handwriting (so different from her mother’s!), and read:
Celia,
I’m writing this letter to you on what feels like the eve of my death.Like most people, I suppose, throughout my life, I was never so certain that I would ever die.I was not so keen on the idea.But now that I am old and tired and very forgetful, now that my body has given up on me in many ways, I’m coming to terms with the idea that I won’t be here forever.This acceptance forces me to come to terms with what I know to be an imperfect life.
I wasn’t at the hospital when you were born, which is something I’ve always regretted.My father was still alive at the time, and he wanted me to attend a tourism conference in Bangor, so I went, despite your mother asking me to stay.This was something that I often did back then.I resisted what your mother wanted because I was so sure that I knew what was best.As a result of this, I missed out on what was probably the most magical thing: my first child’s birth.
It probably doesn’t come as a shock to you that I wasn’t always the best husband.You were always keen on reminding me of that when you were a teenager: that your mother was unhappy, that I didn’t create a wonderful life for her.This is true.I’ve always been plagued with a sorrow that can manifest as rage, from time to time.I’ve never understood myself well.In my sixties, long after you left, I went to a therapist for a little while, and she helped me look at my patterns and see myself from above.I told her it was too late, that I’d already lost three out of four of my daughters, and that the third one isn’t exactly my biggest fan.But she told me it wasn’t for my daughters.It was for me.She was right.I’m more at peace now than I ever have been.
When your mother got sick, really sick, the kind of sick that you can’t come back from, I wasn’t paying attention.I had the inn; I had five mouths to feed; I had stress.More than that, I knew that your mother had been having an affair behind my back, off and on, for years.I had no doubt that my daughters were my daughters, but I had my doubts about how much your mother actually loved and wanted to be with me.I admit that I put my guard up after that.I told myself that I needed to protect myself, just as your mother was.I also told myself that her illness was all in her head.She’d always been depressed.I figured this was a part of that.
When she got the diagnosis—organ failure as a result of anorexia—I was shocked.So was she.We sat together on the back porch, watching our daughters play on the lawn, and talked about what was about to happen.She apologized to me for not being able to live well.I refused to accept her apology.I was so angry!I felt that she’d done this to herself.But I understand now, after years of therapy, that she didn’t do that to herself.Her body and her mind fought her at every turn.
