“Me, too. I’d come over after but I only slept a couple of hours before I went in last night and . . .”
“And you’re exhausted. And you need to be home for your daughters.”
“Just for now. Until I’m sure . . .”
She shushed him with another kiss. One way or another, they would find a way to work on their relationship. Or they would not. Perhaps the six weeks of separation that her book tour would impose might turn out to be a test. Because Annie knew her dad had been right that, for better or worse, all things really did change with time.
Chapter 7
By the time John left for Stop & Shop to buy food that Abigail had requested (“She’s a vegan now and only eats plant stuff,” he’d said), and then to go home and get ready to go back to work, Lottie called to say Annie could use the fire station’s meeting room—as long as she didn’t mention it to anyone. Lottie’s husband, Joe, would be there that afternoon if Annie wanted to check it out.
Grabbing her laptop, phone, and purse from the cottage, Annie decided she might as well go and test the Wi-Fi connection. Being able to search for things—including proper spellings—had become an important time-saver as it meant she could write a draft that was close to a final version. With everything else she had to do, there would be little time to “lollygag.” She loved that old-fashioned word; she’d often used it to round up her third-graders and get them indoors after recess because it made them laugh. Annie missed teaching sometimes, missed being a pseudo-parent for six or more hours a day. Pseudo, not like John, who was a real dad twenty-four seven. But Annie knew that he was trying. She also knew he would put forth his best effort to be a good husband, too. One day. Soon.
Before heading out, she dashed into the Inn to see when the sisters from Indiana would be arriving, and to ask if Francine needed help revamping her room for Simon’s assistant.
Francine was upstairs, putting a downy white comforter on the twin bed Bella used in their special room. In order to make it toddler-safe, Earl and Kevin had moved the frame and headboard into the storage room and set the box spring and mattress on the floor. Francine had dressed it with bedding that was identical to what she had on her bed—and Bella loved it. But now, with the frame and headboard in place, and Bella’s toys and dolls evacuated to the storage closet, it looked like a room for grown-ups.
Annie set down her things and helped make the bed. “Did you put the frame and headboard back together by yourself?”
Francine laughed. “Men are like cops. There’s never one around when you really need one.”
“I won’t tell John you said that. But you could have called me.”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into a martyr. Lucy helped. We also made more muffins and put them in the freezer in case of emergency.” Francine looked happy, almost radiant; Annie sensed that, these days, life was agreeing with her.
“Where’s Lucy now?”
“She rode her bike to Earl and Claire’s.”
“Ah, yes,” Annie replied. “Like many of us, she’s in need of some major distraction.”
“Loo–see,” Bella mimicked from her seat on a tiny stool at her very own table (Earl’s wood crafting again) that would soon go into the closet, too. She was drawing colorful lines and squiggles on pieces of cardboard that looked as if they’d come from cartons of supplies sent to the Inn. Clever and conscientious, Francine recycled the shipping material after Bella had repurposed it for artwork.
“Fow-ers,” Bella said next and held out her masterpiece for Annie to admire.
“Very pretty!” Annie exclaimed. “They look like the flowers at Gramma Claire’s.”
Bella’s large dark eyes—that mirrored Francine’s—widened as she studied the picture. Then she started to draw something purple.
“I think Bella and I should go to Jonas’s tonight,” Francine said. “Now that the room’s clean for Simon’s assistant, I’d rather not mess it up again.”
“Good thinking. I’ll be here in case anyone needs anything. We could risk leaving the Inn alone for one night, but with the sisters arriving . . .”
“But,” Francine interrupted, “the sisters have landed, and they might need help with who knows what. And Ms. Mullen’s only been here a couple of days so . . .” Her words trailed off as she smoothed the comforter, plumped powder blue and lavender pillows, and then, lowering her voice, said, “Which reminds me, there’s something odd about her.”
“Mary Beth?” Annie said. “Her first name is Mary Beth.”
“Yeah, well, she makes me nervous, so I don’t care about being on a first-name basis. I really think that something strange is going on with her.”
“What do you mean? She acts fine to me.”
“When I was cleaning her room this morning, I came across a bunch of library books.”
“So?”
“They were about turtles. The leatherbacks. The kind she said she’s researching.”
“People use library books for research. What’s odd about that?”
