“I don’t have many needs and I don’t worry much about the ferry schedule,” Grandma Jenny replied tartly. “I have it committed to memory. Besides, now that I don’t drive much, it’s been months since I’ve needed it at all. Anytime I need anything from the mainland, I can find someone to fetch it for me. I’m not like you. I don’t need to be on the go all the time. I’m happy right where I am.” She gave Hannah a hard look. “Intend to stay there, too, so don’t go getting any ideas.”
Hannah dropped the subject for now. She’d check online to locate the best facilities in the area and call for brochures. Maybe on their next trip to the mainland, she could persuade her grandmother to at least look at a couple of them.
“Any idea where you’d like to go for lunch?” she asked, changing the topic to something neutral. “I think we should eat first, then run all the errands.”
“I like that cafeteria well enough.”
Hannah bit back a groan. The last time she’d tried a slice of pie there, the whipped cream on top had the texture of plastic foam. “I suppose you’re going to want the liver and onions,” she teased, resigned to choking down a tasteless meal.
“Of course. I learned a long time ago that I’d be wasting my time fixing that for you. You’d gag every time I set it on the table.”
“Which ought to tell you something,” Hannah said. “But if that’s what you want, that’s where we’ll go.”
Her grandmother gave her a knowing look. “Don’t think buttering me up is going to work, young lady. You can agree to everything I suggest from now till Christmas and I still won’t look at one of those retirement places.”
“Whatever,” Hannah said, then had to bite back a smile the instant the word was out of her mouth. She’d sounded exactly like Kelsey at her most annoying. Apparently the universe was intent on reducing her to a petulant child again, too.
* * *
“What did Gran have you doing today?” Kelsey asked her that evening.
“Picking out paint and looking at fabric for the cushions on the porch,” Hannah told her. “We managed to get the paint at the first place we looked, but we had to go to four different fabric stores before we found anything that satisfied her. I looked at so many flowered prints, I came home dizzy.”
“Have you told her yet that you’re not staying?”
“I have,” she said. “That hasn’t stopped her from trying to change my mind. Now, tell me about you. Were you able to get a reservation?”
“My flight’s tomorrow,” Kelsey confirmed, then gave her the details.
“And your return flight?” Hannah asked.
Kelsey hesitated. “I just bought a one-way ticket in case I decide not to come back right away.”
“Kelsey!”
“It’s no big deal, Mom. I can always book the return flight as soon as I get there. Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide that you and Grandma Jenny can use an extra pair of hands.”
Hannah saw no point in arguing. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, then. Have a safe flight, sweetie.”
“I will. Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is it hard being there, you know, without your mom?”
Hannah wasn’t sure how to answer. If she stopped for a second and let herself think, she’d say it was incredibly difficult, which was one reason she’d let her grandmother persuade her to do all these renovations. It left little time for thinking, especially about her mother’s losing battle with cancer. And she had yet to walk into the suite of rooms that had been her mom’s. She’d spent too many hours in there right before she died.
“I don’t think I’ve let myself focus on that at all,” she admitted.
“How can you not think about it?” Kelsey asked. “She was so much a part of Seaview Inn. You must see her everywhere you look, like those old sand pails she collected. They looked like rusty junk to me, but she’d get all misty-eyed when she told me about how they reminded her of when she was a girl.”
Hannah choked back an unexpected sob. She could recall her mother’s excitement every time she came across one of the tin litho sand pails with their colorful images in one of the antique shops she haunted. Her eyes would light up as if she’d just recaptured a hundred old memories, all good ones. Hannah had deliberately avoided looking at the shelves that held the prized collection. Only now did she see how much of the past two days she’d spent in denial.
“She loved them, all right,” she said, when she could speak again.
“Oh, Mom, are you crying? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“I think I’ve just been pretending since I got here that everything was normal, that she was just away on a trip or something. I haven’t wanted to deal with the reality that she’s gone forever.”
“Maybe having me there will be a good thing, then, huh?” Kelsey said. “I can distract you.”
“Given the reason you’re coming, I’d say that’s a sure thing,” Hannah said wryly. “See you tomorrow afternoon.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said slowly, and disconnected, only to have the phone immediately ring again. She was tempted not to answer it, but given the work crisis she’d missed yesterday, she didn’t want to risk another lecture from Dave about her inopportune absence. Glancing at the caller ID, though, she saw that it wasn’t Dave at all, but Sue Nelson, who’d been her best friend since Hannah had arrived in New York nearly twenty years ago.
“I want to know why I had to find out from your secretary that you’ve skipped town again,” Sue demanded when Hannah answered.
“Sorry. The trip came together pretty suddenly.”
“Jane said your grandmother was having a hard time coping without your mom. Is that why you went?”
“Pretty much. I’m hoping to convince her to sell the inn and move to a retirement community.”
Sue chuckled. She’d met Grandma Jenny and could imagine her reaction. “And how’s that going?” she asked.
Hannah laughed with her. “About like you’d expect. I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth before she was warning me off in no uncertain terms.”
“Then why aren’t you heading home? I’d think being there right now would be really hard. Besides, don’t you have a three-month cancer screening coming up?”
“I postponed it.”
“Hannah!” Sue protested. “You can’t do things like that. This is too important.”
“Don’t overreact. I only postponed it a couple of weeks. I’ll go in the day after I get back to New York.”
“Can I get that in writing? I know you’re dreading it.”
“Well, of course, I’m dreading it, but I’m not stupid. I know I can’t put it off indefinitely.”
“What’s the new date?”
“Why? Do you think I’m lying?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you, but that’s not why I’m asking. I want to put it on my calendar, so I can go with you. I told you when you first got diagnosed that you’re not going through any of this alone.”
Hannah’s eyes stung for the second time that night. “You’ve been wonderful and I will never be able to thank you enough,” she said. “But