Annette’s lips quirked into a small smile before flattening again into a serious line. “Everything. Because the Sweet Stays Inn is bequeathed to Lilly—unless you complete your Sweet Somedays.”
This had to be a fever dream—or a nightmare, Sylvie thought as her head swam.
A loud ringing sound pierced her ears, growing louder the longer she sat there, trying to make sense of what her mom was telling her. The list she had originally started in high school, only to add to it following her divorce. Her mother’s will. The inn going to her niece. No, that couldn’t be right.
“Lilly? She’s never been interested in this place! And she’s seventeen!” Sylvie exclaimed.
Her mother nodded. “You and Fiona will be co-caretakers until she comes of age.”
Sylvie suddenly got up from her chair and turned around, resting her hands on the dresser that faced the window overlooking the shaded garden. This was insane. There was no way her mother could possibly do this.
“Fiona? Seriously?” she exclaimed, unable to face her mother. “The woman despises me!”
“She does not despise you,” Annette said quietly. “You two have just never seen eye to eye, and after the accident—”
“She was the only one allowed to grieve Brett. No one else’s pain was enough for her,” Sylvie snapped.
Her mom was silent, but she could tell the look she was getting without even turning around. How could her mother do this? Half of her was furious and panicked about the fate of the inn—there was no way she could ever finish that list. If she remembered even half the things on it, there were more than a few that would be completely impossible. The other part of her desperately tried to make sense of what her mom was saying.
She was dying.
And she wasn’t even going to try to fight it.
She couldn’t even bring herself to tell her daughter she was sick again.
At this point, who took care of the inn was neither here nor there. All she could focus on was the fact that her mother would no longer be here to help. Sylvie would be alone. All alone. No father. No brother. And now, no mother, either. The thought hurt so badly that she felt like her heart had literally stopped beating.
“Why, Mom?” she asked finally, her voice small.
“Because she’s the logical choice to be the caretaker. She’s Lilly’s mother, after all.”
Sylvie held up her hand, squeezing her eyes closed as if she didn’t want to ask at all. “No, Mom, I mean, why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve done more to help you. I could’ve driven you to your doctors’ appointments, not—oh, geez,” she said, pausing as she thought back over the past few months. “Not left you here on your own while I went gallivanting with Juliette in Charleston over that long weekend!”
Her mind suddenly flooded with all the times she had left her mom alone in the inn during the quiet season. Every timeAnnette went to bed early or slept in, every headache she had—Sylvie had missed every sign.
“Sweetheart, the point of all this is for you to live your life to the fullest, not to weigh you down or make you responsible for me. You’ve always taken on so much responsibility here. I was never going to let myself be a burden to you.”
She opened her mouth to disagree, but a glint of silver caught her eye.
Protruding from the opening of a tissue box was the metallic corner of a pill packet. After glancing at her mom, who quickly looked away, Sylvie picked up the box of tissues and withdrew the empty pill card.
Pain medication. Strong pain medication.
Underneath the empty card were at least a dozen more—some of the same painkiller, along with others she didn’t recognize. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up from the packet in her hand and over at her mom, who was looking back at her with tears in her own eyes.
“Don’t worry; I’ve been managing it with a doctor,” Annette said shakily. “I wanted to be as lucid as possible, but some days the pain was…a lot. And it’s been a lot more recently. Until today.”
“Until today?” Sylvie repeated. “You feel better today?”
“Yes.”
She was confused. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
Rubbing her face with both hands, Annette sighed. “You’d think so. They told me this might happen—the girls in the terminal support group. Maybe one day you wake up feeling a bit better…but uneasy. Sometimes that’s a sign that…well, your body knows something is off and you—”
“Mom, don’t—”
Annette raised a trembling hand and met her worried gaze. Sylvie’s breath caught in her throat as her mom spoke meaningfully.
