Sea Glass Inn (7 page)

Regret. She hated the word. It implied poor choices, no second chances, sadness. In some ways, she regretted not leaving her marriage sooner. Starting over when Danny was a child, when she was younger. When she might have had the chance to build a new family like Richard had done.

But as she sat in the stands—an island of turmoil and second-guessing amidst the cheering fans—she rejected each of the negative implications of her regret one by one. She hadn’t made poor choices.

She had considered what was best for Danny at every crossroads in her adult life. Yes, she might have missed her second chance at romance and true love, but she had a new opportunity, a new life waiting for her in Cannon Beach. And of course she had moments of sadness and loneliness and doubt when she was alone in her decrepit inn, but she also had pride and accomplishment and the happiness that came with freedom. She’d reveled in the first tastes of those emotions, and they’d whetted her appetite for more.

No, Mel didn’t want to return to her old life. Not a chance. But she envied the ease with which Lesley had taken her place. Mel’s own transition hadn’t been simple. She had been thrust into her new life with all the pain and agony she remembered from childbirth. But she was surviving. Growing stronger. Mel filed out of the stands with the rest of the crowd and went in search of Danny. Circumstances had changed, but now she’d be able to be a role model for the kind of life she wanted him to have from the start, one of honesty and hard work and self-determination.

She found Danny on the sidelines, surrounded by his friends, and she waved with what she hoped was a casual smile when he looked up and noticed her. She had communicated with him every day since she’d left, either by phone or e-mail, but seeing him in person overwhelmed her. As a teenager, he was so easily embarrassed by any show of parental affection, so she was determined to keep her cool.

But Danny detached himself from the crowd of players and pushed his way through the stream of spectators, grabbing her in a big hug as soon as he was close.

“I missed you,” she whispered as she gave him a squeeze before they stepped apart.

“Me, too, Mom,” he said, not looking directly at her as he leaned against the bleachers, his helmet tucked under an arm.

“Great game,” she said, changing to a less personal subject.

She was surprised to see her own emotions echoed on Danny’s face.

She brushed her hand over her eyes. Just a few tears, but she didn’t mind. She’d earned them. “Over a hundred yards rushing was pretty impressive.”

“Thanks,” he said. He shrugged and gave the shy grin he usually wore when his accomplishments were the topic of conversation.

“Their team sucks, but the stats still look good on my record. Are you ready to go to dinner? I’m starving.”

Mel laughed as he ran off to get his gym bag. At least some things never changed. The normalcy of picking up her son after his game, taking him to dinner, just being his mother seemed magnified somehow, turned into something precious because it was the one constant in her sea of change. The one truth that had always been with her, that she would fight to protect.

“How’s the old house?” Danny asked when he returned and they started walking toward the parking lot. Mel had texted him with regular updates and—responding to his enthusiastic answers and excited to get him involved in the project—had started asking his opinion about color swatches and wood stains. He had sent back encouragement, endless questions, and suggestions for paint colors.

Mel was grateful for the technology because she felt closer to him than she had when they’d lived in the same house.

She had been a stranger there, and he had been a typical teenager, in his room wearing headphones, at practice or school, off with his friends. They had long since given up on family meals, and Mel had strict rules against texting at the table, but since she’d moved they had fallen into the habit of having dinner together over the phone. Mel would describe her day of renovations, and Danny actually talked about school, his friends, his goals. Somehow communicating through those shorthand messages opened up a new relationship for them. Indirect and brief, but real. Mel knew more about what was going on in Danny’s life and in his mind than she had when he’d been sitting in the next room.

“Coming along,” Mel said, dredging up the most enthusiastic response she could find. “I finished laying the laminate flooring in the bedrooms yesterday.”

“You did that by yourself?” Danny asked, sounding surprised.

Mel nodded. She was surprised, too, but she had successfully completed the intimidating project with only minor setbacks, thanks to three trips to visit Walter. And thanks to the personal motto, inspired by two very costly mistakes, “Measure ten times, cut once.”

“Cool,” Danny said. “Wish I could have helped. What’ll we be doing when I come see you next weekend?”

“I’m planning to paint downstairs this week, so there’ll be plenty more flooring to keep us busy over the weekend,” Mel said, keeping her voice casual. She saw the pride in Danny’s eyes. Usually, he spent most of his free time off with friends or playing sports, and she couldn’t remember the last time he had voluntarily offered to spend time with her. She had expected him to either bring a friend when he came to visit or hang out at the Cannon Beach rec center with the local teens. The thought of working side by side with her son made the massive job of renovating the inn suddenly seem a little less like labor and more like fun.

“Great, just show me what to do and I’ll help all I can,” Danny said, surprising Mel first by his eagerness and then by giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I will.” Mel opened her trunk so Danny could toss his bag in. She sent a silent thank you to the old house, to her aching back and knees, to her mountain of debt. Whether or not she managed to turn the inn into a thriving business, she had succeeded in something even more important. She had moved to the ocean to build a home and a new life for herself and her son. The thought of sharing the process with him gave her a sense of optimism she hadn’t felt since she had forced a reluctant Pam to paint for her. She had spent her life acquiescing to everyone else’s choices and needs. Now she was finally making her own path and discovering other people were willing to join her. For a brief moment she didn’t feel so alone.

“Golden Moon for dinner?” she asked as they climbed in the salt-stained Honda. “There isn’t a single good Chinese restaurant in Cannon Beach.”

❖

Mel finally pulled into her driveway and grabbed her overnight bag off the backseat. She ran to the front door and slammed herself inside with a sigh of relief. Her shoulders ached from the effort of driving through the storm on poorly lit roads, and her heart ached after saying good-bye to Danny again. She had felt certain about her decisions while talking to Danny, confident as she explained her work on the house. But driving through the dark night and returning to the dark house made her question this move yet again. Was it worth all the effort for this lonely life?

Mel dropped her bag in the foyer, a habit she was going to need to break before guests arrived. She moved through the house, reacquainting herself with rooms that were slowly growing familiar and flipping on every switch so she could at least fill the inn with light. A snack might help, so she went into the kitchen to microwave whatever happened to be in the freezer but stopped when she saw the light blinking on her answering machine. She pressed the button, and Pam’s voice filled the room, dispelling the shadows better than the lights had done. She was calling about the painting, nothing more personal, but the growing sadness Mel had been feeling since leaving Salem tonight was eased by the sound of a friend’s voice—her only real connection to her new town. And a new painting. Another splash of color to help chase away the dinginess of the old house.

She should have been disappointed because the call wasn’t from a potential guest, someone to help chase away some of Mel’s debt, a check to deposit rather than one to write for the painting. But Mel needed the contact, the friendship—no matter how casual—more than she needed the money.

She was listening to the message for a second time, focused more on the husky timbre of Pam’s voice than on her words, when the power went out. Mel gave a squeak of surprise as Pam’s voice cut off and the inn was plunged into darkness and silence. Silence, except for the wind gusting against the windows, the scrape of tree branches against the side of the house, and a flapping sound overhead that must be coming from a loose shingle.

At least she hoped it was a loose shingle. Her masochistic mind started replaying every horror movie she had ever seen as she went in search of a flashlight. Deranged dolls with chain saws and bloody ax murderers might be dancing around on her roof. She had been in the house alone all week, but never without the weak glow of the streetlights and the lamp or two she always left on in case she needed to get up during the night. Now the utter, isolating blackness made her feel cut off from even the glimmer of connection she had felt while listening to Pam’s message. She focused on practical matters.

Of course she should have anticipated rough coastal weather. Pam had even warned her about an approaching storm. She should have flashlights in every room, candles, matches, extra blankets. Her list of supplies to help her weather the next storm grew, but even the promise that she would be more prepared for emergencies in the future couldn’t save her from two bruised shins and a string of swear words.

She pawed through four still-unpacked boxes before she found the flashlight, and she followed its weak beam back into the storm and to the detached garage. She managed to make her way through the clutter and over to the generator with only one undignified shriek as she walked through a cobweb. She played the light over the dusty machine, searching for some indication of how it worked, and found a small power switch. She flicked it to the on position and stepped back, giving in to the fantasy that the generator would magically rumble to life and light up the house, even though she figured the heavy cords draped over it needed to be attached to something. She didn’t relish the idea of fumbling in the dark with electrical circuits, so she struggled against the wind and back into the house.

Helpless again. And unprepared to look after herself, let alone an inn full of guests. Her frustration at least helped distract her from the odd noises coming from every corner of the inn. Okay, somewhat.

She was drenched after the brief step outside, but a hot shower was as elusive as light. She changed into dry clothes and crawled under several blankets, moving
learn how to operate generator
to the top of her mental to-do list.

❖

Pam startled awake when the electricity went out, and she sat up in her bed in the A-frame’s loft. Piper’s small snores were reassuring in the dark, and she settled back again and listened to the wind whistling between the closely spaced beach houses. Only a moment later a loud cracking sound made her sit up again. Piper woke with a snort at what sounded like one of the neighbor’s pine trees slamming into Pam’s house. She grabbed a powerful flashlight from her bedside table and trotted down the circular staircase.

“Damn,” she muttered as she shone her light on the branches that had ripped through a section of her roof. Rain dripped onto her living-room floor, splashing onto broken glass from the south-facing window, and the wind slashed loudly through the hole. It would be small consolation to say
I told you so
to her neighbors when she called to tell them about the damage. She had mentioned the unhealthy tree several times, suggesting they take care of it before leaving to winter in Arizona. Their homeowner’s insurance would cover the cost of repairs, but Pam knew the process would be long and slow.

She thought she might be able to pull the pine off her house, but it was actually providing some shelter for her floor. So, instead, she climbed on a chair and struggled against the wind to tuck one of her canvas drop cloths between the branches and the jagged edges of her roof. Another cloth covered the broken glass, so Piper wouldn’t accidentally cut her paws on it. Then she pulled stacks of soggy books from the broken bookshelf and laid them out on the linoleum floor in the laundry room. There wasn’t much more she could do in the darkness. She briefly considered trying to find a hotel for the rest of the night, but she hated the thought of leaving her broken house. After one last resigned look with the flashlight, Pam climbed the stairs again and changed into a dry T-shirt. In a rare moment of weakness, Piper left her cushion and huddled on the bed. Pam burrowed under the covers with her dog curled in a tight ball at her side and finally fell into a fitful sleep to the sound of flapping canvas.

Pam answered the door with her cell phone held to her ear and the tinny sound of Muzak grating on her already frayed nerves. Mel. Great. She had almost forgotten the message she had left on Mel’s machine the night before, giving her address and an invitation for Mel to come by anytime to pick up her painting. Naturally she had come at the worst possible time, as if to remind Pam why she rarely let anyone know where she lived.

“I’m on hold with a contractor,” she explained as she waved Mel inside. “A tree fell…Yes, I need to speak with someone about repairing my roof.”

Pam gave a detailed description of the damage to her house for the fourth time that morning. The first storm of the season always seemed to bring a rash of downed trees as the weak and dying ones, unnoticed over the summer, succumbed to the winds and rain-soaked ground. The earliest estimate she had so far was two weeks away, and she was torn between toughing it out in her dripping house and cramming an air mattress in her tiny office at the gallery.

“Careful, there might still be glass on the floor,” she called to Mel before returning to her conversation with the contractor. Mel nodded and stopped a few feet away from the standing water on the floor while she inspected the tarp-covered hole. Pam, with the help of a neighbor and his chain saw, had gotten the pine off her house early that morning only to find the damage was more extensive than she had thought. If she could have covered the hole with plywood, the house would have been habitable, but the tree had managed to fall on a corner and take out large sections of two walls and the roof.