After she died, raising four daughters seemed like the most daunting task.I never could have done it without you.Never.I knew you picked up the slack, that you made dinner, worked at the inn, read them stories, and made sure they did their homework.But you’d been doing that for a really long time at that point.And I let you.I let you.
I regret how terribly I let it all go.
I regret how few times I ever told you I love you, and that I was sorry.
I am now a very old man with not much time left.I will ask Ivy to deliver this letter to you, and I pray that she does, despite her anger toward you.Know that I have spent my life reading your articles and keeping up with your career, a career that boggles my mind in its earnestness.You have done remarkable work, my lovely daughter.I hate that I ever stood in your way.
Love, Your Dad
PS My only hope in death is that you and your sisters come together in friendship and love once more.I pray that my will acts as the perfect manipulation—my final act of manipulation.I pray that you find your way to the truth.
ChapterNineteen
Wren’s doctors took nearly a week of testing to deliver a diagnosis.During that time, Celia felt torn between worlds.Most mornings, she was with Sophie, Ivy, Tyler, and Lily, tending to the inn and preparing it for its grand opening as an eco-lodge.One afternoon or another, she finished all edits for the article, then found herself brimming with ideas for ten or so other articles, all of which she pitched to Bethany.She joked, “I’m happy you’re the editor this time.It was too stressful for me.”She also spent more than her fair share at the hospital, holding Wren’s hand, and demanding that more tests be done, demanding answers.Celia slept fitfully and often woke up panicked, wondering about Wren.Praying for her.Twice, she and Ivy stayed the night at the hospital, grateful for the night nurses who told them they didn’t mind.
The diagnosis, in the end, was Graves’ disease.The name filled Celia’s mind with dread.The doctor explained that it was a horrific disorder that involved the immune system attacking the thyroid, one that resulted in weight loss, a rapid heartbeat, sensitivity, and, sometimes, if it wasn’t managed correctly, loss of life.Celia and Ivy watched as Wren’s face transformed, expressing shock, disbelief, and resolution.“It’s better to have a diagnosis,” she said, her voice trembling.“But I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
Ivy and Celia sat on either side of her bed and held their little sister’s hand.“We’re going to be there every step of the way,” Ivy told her, love and fear beaming from her eyes.
“This is the first step,” Celia said.“Now that you know what it is, you can get better.You can travel again.You can go out there and continue your big, beautiful life.”
Wren looked terribly meek beneath the bedsheets, her hands shaking in theirs.Her eyes were bulging slightly, which they learned was another sign of Graves’.Celia cursed herself for not having known.It had felt like this when she’d been a child, trying to raise her younger sisters.She’d cursed herself when she’d let something slip through her fingers.She’d cursed herself when a homework assignment had been forgotten or a permission slip hadn’t been signed.Now, although Wren had fought them tooth and nail to go to the hospital in the first place, Celia couldn’t help but feel she should have known that Wren was sick all the way back in May, when she’d collapsed at the inn.
The doctor outlined their strategy for the weeks and months ahead with hormonal treatments, antithyroid drugs, and beta blockers.It was a lot to take in.Celia wrote notes on her phone, hoping to keep tabs on Wren’s progress.
“We’ll start as early as today,” the doctor explained.“But it’s important to understand that none of these treatments can cure the disease itself.You will live with this the rest of your life.It’s all about managing it.”
“I want to be there for the opening of the eco-lodge,” Wren whispered when the doctor left the room to tend to other patients.“I don’t want to miss it.”
“You won’t have to,” Celia assured her.
Since Celia had read the letter from their father, she’d felt a lightness as she’d moved through the world, a sensational belief that everything was going to be all right.It had to be.All her life, she’d assumed her father was a monster, that he didn’t have his daughters’ interests at heart.But through his letter, she’d learned that he was just as lost as everyone else.He’d looked at his daughters and been unable to show them the love in his heart.She didn’t want to live with the regret he’d carried with him forever.She wanted to forgive him.She wanted to be the sort of person who could move on.
But she and Ivy had agreed that they wouldn’t share the letter with Wren until she was strong enough to come back to Bluebell Cove.Celia believed that they could hold out till the night of the inn’s reopening—after the party they were planning, maybe, down on the beach, listening to the sea roll over the sands.
That evening, as Wren’s eyelids drooped and visiting hours closed for the day, Celia and Ivy drove back to Bluebell Cove to find Sophie, Lily, and Tyler on the front porch of the inn, chatting and laughing, a newspaper spread out in front of them.Celia’s chest seized with panic.Since she’d spent the entire day at the hospital, facing Wren’s next steps, she’d forgotten that the article about the Smith Company was being published today.For the first time in hours, she checked her phone, half expecting death threats.Half expecting Hanson or Hanson’s father to threaten to take her and her family down.But there was nothing except a message from Landon.
LANDON: This is the best article I’ve ever read.I’m so glad to have been a part of it.I’m so glad that you and Sophie could right these long-held wrongs.<3.
The heart in the message felt particularly telling.Sophie pressed her phone to her chest and closed her eyes.
“Come on!”Ivy squeezed her shoulder.Her eyes were alight, expectant.“I want to get my hands on the article!You should read it aloud for all of us!You and Sophie are stars!”
* * *
Things exploded after that.Newspapers across New England called Sophie and Celia for comments on their article, which they described as one of the biggest takedowns of an American elite family ever.On television, newscasters cited it, showing photographs and videos of Hanson Smith and Gavin Smith, and even the Smiths in the generations that had come before, talking about bribes and fraud and all the horrific ways they’d controlled Bluebell Cove and its surrounding areas over the years.They spoke about the new luxury resort as though it were a cancer spreading across Maine’s rugged landscape.
The language had been taken from Sophie and Celia’s article, almost precisely.Celia beamed with pride, remembering that Sophie had been the one who wanted to push the article into the ether.She was the one who’d reminded Celia how important it was to believe.
Over the days that followed, many newscasters tried and failed to get one of the Smith men on the air to speak on their numerous sins.The sentiment was that the Smiths were “too frightened to come forward,” at least among residents of Bluebell Cove.But it seemed likely that the Smith lawyers were telling all the Smiths to keep a low profile, to lock their doors and not see anyone for now.It wasn’t like their wealth would dry up in an instant.They needed to regroup, to plan their next steps.They couldn’t lose their money.They wouldn’t.
Bethany called to say that the newspapers’ lawyers—including their father’s lawyer, Randall Hopkins—were working overtime.“We published a bomb, so to speak,” she said, a smile in her voice.“But you should read some of the letters we’ve received from our readers.People are overjoyed that the Smith family has been taken to task.It’s been something of an open secret over the years.They’re tired of being terrorized.They’re tired of feeling like the Smith family can do whatever they want.”Bethany laughed.“I can’t believe it took Celia Harper coming back to Bluebell Cove for this to be resolved.Finally!We’re doing something!”
Celia smiled over at her daughter, who was listening to Bethany on speaker.“It was all Sophie,” she said.
“Don’t discredit yourself, Celia,” Bethany said.“You were always an inspiration.Thanks for bringing that inspiration back home.”
Celia’s mind flashed with a thousand memories of Washington, DC, of a hope she’d carried in her heart from Bluebell Cove all the way to the country’s capital.She thought of her first paid articles, the arduous tasks she’d had to get through to make a few bucks, the dangerous people she’d interviewed, and the articles she’d published that had soon been forgotten.She was a speck in the memory of Washington, DC, but she was no speck here.
