Chapter One
It was hours before the grand opening party of the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, a September morning that brought churning purple and gray clouds to the ragged coastline of Maine. Rain spat and sparkled across the warm-tipped leaves in the red cedars that lined the cliffside. Beneath the trees, nestled in a thick knitted sweater, Ivy Harper sat at the edge of the porch overlooking Bluebell Cove, a mug of coffee wrapped in her hands, and her ears perked as she listened to her daughter Lily chatting with her sister Celia in the kitchen of the eco-lodge. Although today was supposed to be one of bliss, of excitement, of fresh perspectives and second chances, jealousy throbbed in her heart of hearts and threatened to consume her.
At something her Aunt Celia said, Lily cackled louder than Ivy had heard her daughter laugh in the years since she’d become a teenager. In fact, Ivy couldn’t recall ever laughing with her daughter like that. Heck, she could hardly remember laughing like that with anyone—not with old friends, hardly ever with Daniel, and certainly never with her sisters Celia, Juliet, or Wren.
She wondered what she’d missed out on. She wondered if she’d ever allow herself to laugh like that or if she was even capable.
Ivy remembered how their father, James, had always called her “my quiet one, my serious girl.” She set down her coffee, put her face in her hands, and felt her shoulders quake. She hadn’t set out to be “the serious one.” She hadn’t thought being the one stuck behind in Bluebell to take care of things would make her so lackluster in her father’s eyes.
Always for their father, Ivy’s sisters Celia, Juliet, and Wren were the exciting ones, the ones who’d embarked on greater adventures and grand stories. Ivy had always been down the hallway or locked away in the kitchen or in the office, tending to bills and making phone calls.
When their father got sick, Ivy was at his bedside, day in and day out. Didn’t that count for something?
Ivy usually wasn’t one to feel sorry for herself. But sometimes, when life felt as though it was moving too frantically, when she felt she’d lost all control, when she felt as though too many years of her life had gone by without purpose, Ivy was lost to her emotions.
Again, her daughter, Lily, laughed outright at something her Aunt Celia said. Ivy was half aware of their topics now and vaguely certain that they circled Lily’s college plans, or lack thereof. “I want to help out around here,” Lily told her Aunt Celia. “I mean, there’s so much going on now that Grandpa’s gone and the eco-lodge is reopening and everything.”
Good, Ivy thought. Lily had inherited Ivy’s understanding that she was needed at home, that home and the people within it mattered, that they mattered far more than any incoherent “dreams” she might have. Lily could laugh and laugh at whatever her Aunt Celia said and did, but at least Lily had inherited Ivy’s heart.
“Ivy?” a voice rang out from the far end of the lush lawn.
Ivy pulled her hands back to her thighs and watched as her youngest sister, Wren, walked softly and jaggedly across the grass. After her recent diagnosis of Graves’ disease and her newly prescribed medication, Wren had gained maybe a little bit of weight around her midsection, and her cheeks weren’t quite as hollow as they’d been when she’d first returned to Bluebell, sick out of her mind. Gosh, she’d been sick. It had taken the doctors ages to figure out what was wrong.
But something about Wren still reminded Ivy of the little bird that had crashed into the window of her flower shop last spring and died on the concrete. Something about her was broken. Something that urged Ivy to fix her although she didn’t know how.
“Are you all right?” Wren asked Ivy, fear and curiosity marring her face. Ivy rarely let anyone see her the way Wren just had and regretted it immediately.
“Oh yes, honey.” Ivy fixed her voice into something just south of cheerful. “I’m just a bit stressed about the big party, you know. There’s so much to be done.”
Wren continued to look at Ivy curiously. “I thought Celia said everything was finished?”
“Yes, but the guests,” Ivy sputtered vaguely. “I’m worried they won’t understand what we’re trying to do here. I worry that the eco-lodge angle will, you know, falter?”
Ivy couldn’t believe what she was saying. Wren didn’t seem to understand either. But she sat down beside Ivy and cupped her knees with her little, bony hands. “Did Celia tell you her news?”
Ivy flared her nostrils and considered lying about this as well. The last thing she wanted was to feel out of the loop about her sisters and the eco-lodge. But she didn’t want to feel out of her depths, either. So she finally said, “I haven’t spoken to Celia yet. Not this morning.”
Wren blushed. “I’m sure she won’t mind me saying so. I guess Landon and Celia finally kissed last night. At the Cove. I’ve never seen her so smitten.”
Ivy’s heart thudded with another round of jealousy, which felt like a curse that would never let up. “Landon and Celia have been circling one another for decades,” she said, trying on a smile. “They were always going to end up together.”
Wren tilted her head, her eyes on the cedar tree leaves as they flickered with rain. “I think people who were meant to be together don’t get together all the time. Life gets in the way. It’s sort of a miracle that anyone falls in love at all. Don’t you think?”
Ivy was speechless. She sipped her coffee and tried not to think of her husband, of all she’d thought was “meant to be.”
Wren seemed to understand that she was treading through territory that touched Ivy’s heart. She swept her fingers through her hair and added, “It’s just nice to know that second chances are possible, I guess. I mean, I know I’m still young, sort of. But even I feel like my heart’s been through the wringer a time or two.”
Ivy felt her eyes flicker. Of the four of them, Wren was the most adventurous sister, the one whose whereabouts had been more or less unknown to Ivy and the others for the better part of twenty years. Now that Wren was thirty-four and sick, she was forced to slow down, to turn inward, and to heal—all within the watchful gazes of her older sisters. Ivy guessed this wasn’t a comfortable feeling for a woman who’d known only how to leave and leave and leave.
“Do you want to settle down with someone one day?” Ivy asked. “Do you want to have children?”
Wren was quiet for a moment, her eyes stirring with the sunlight that cut through the thrashing autumnal clouds. Ivy felt as though she’d pushed her sister too far, as though a question about pregnancy when Wren was still so ill was tactless.
But before Ivy could apologize or change the subject herself, the door opened onto the back porch and brought out Celia, Lily, and their other sister, Juliet, all with mugs of coffee and bright shades of lipstick and adorable outfits that illustrated them as businesswomen on the cusp of a brand-new undertaking. Ivy was still in a pair of sweatpants.
“Good morning, girls!” Celia said. “You have to come see this.”
Ivy turned to catch Wren’s eye. But Wren was already standing on her wobbly legs and heading inside after her sisters and niece, leaving Ivy behind. Ivy caught the door right before it slammed shut for good and shuffled down the hall to the dining room, where one of their carpenters, a man named Elliot Rhodes, was finishing the last of the gorgeous breakfast nooks. Each of the little breakfast enclaves was made of glowing mahogany and featured large bay windows overlooking Bluebell Cove beyond. Elliot was covered in sawdust and flicks of stain and paint, and he was wearing a pair of Levi’s jeans and a white T-shirt that made him look like Bruce Springsteen as a younger man.
