“Yes, she’s right here,” Daniel said, and then he put the phone on speaker.
“Evening, Emily,” Jamie’s voice carried across the porch. “Sorry to call so late, but I figured you’d want to know. We reviewed your bid this afternoon,” Jamie continued. “The council voted unanimously. You’re serious about preservation. About community access. About keeping the structure intact. That matters a lot to Sunset Harbor.”
Emily realized she wasn’t breathing.
“Your bid for the lighthouse has been accepted.”
Emily’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Wait,” Daniel said, almost sounding dazed. “You mean—”
“I mean,” Jamie cut in gently, “it’s yours. Provided we sign the papers and finalize everything legal for the ownership transfer, of course. If you can come down to the municipal office tomorrow morning, we’ll get the particulars squared away.”
Tomorrow.
“We’ll be there,” she managed, her voice shaky. “First thing.”
“Good,” Jamie said. “Congratulations, Emily. Daniel. I think you’re exactly what that place needs.”
The line clicked off. For a moment, neither Emily or Daniel moved. Then Daniel turned to her slowly, as if afraid the truth might vanish if he spoke too fast. “Did that just happen?”
“I think so.”
Daniel pulled Emily into him, one arm around her shoulders, the other around her waist. The swing jerked wildly as they collided, chains squealing overhead.
“We bought a lighthouse,”he said into her hair, joyous, sounding half astonished.
“We bought a lighthouse,”she echoed.
In New York, she had always chased the idea that something better might be around the corner.
Here, on this porch, with this man and their sleeping girls and their messy, imperfect, beautiful family inside, Emily realized they weren’t waiting for better to find them.
They were building it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
But first thing the next morning wasn’t when the papers got signed.
Come with me to the doc?Roy’s text had been waiting in Emily’s messages when she woke up—blessedly with her alarm, not before it.
What time?she’d typed, thinking she should check her work schedule and when they were due to sign for the lighthouse. But before she had sent it, she backed the text out and wrote,Yes. Just let me know where to be and when.
Whenwas only an hour and a half after Emily and Daniel got Chantelle ready for her zoo day with Bailey, and handed a slightly fussy Charlotte off to Amy for babysitting.Wherewas an office downtown Sunset Harbor, where the ceiling tiles were exactly the kind Emily remembered from Dr. Liberman’s office: off-white, pocked, slightly sagging. The three of them sat in a horseshoe of vinyl seats in the consultation room—Roy at the center, Emily and Patricia flanking, as if they could buffer him against whatever the appointment would yield.
There were results ready fromtestsdone two weeks before Roy’s fainting spell, and that was all he would say.
Emily couldn’t keep her eyes off her father’s hands. They rested in his lap, fingers interlaced, still broad and blunt-knuckled but too thin now, a scattering of age spots across the backs. The nails were trimmed with military precision, though the cuticles told the truth: he’d been nervous, picking at them. His face was the only part that betrayed nothing. He stared at the door of the consult room as if he could will the doctor through it. Get all this over with.
Patricia checked her phone for the third time in as many minutes. The gesture was all performance—she wasn’t reallyreading anything, answering anything, just toggling the lock screen, glancing at the time, then setting it face down on the side table. She crossed and uncrossed her legs so often that the hem of her pants began to creep up her calf, revealing the indentation of support hose. The tension was visible in every muscle.
The door rattled and the three of them straightened, almost comically synchronized.
The doctor entered, crisp in green scrubs, dark hair pulled into a tight knot. She was young for an oncologist, Emily thought, or maybe that was just the effect of seeing her beside Roy, who had aged ten years in the last two. The doctor’s name badge read “A. Halloran, MD.” She smiled politely, slid onto the little wheeled stool, and propped the clipboard on her knee. There was no trace of warmth in her expression—pure professional, but not cold. Emily wondered if that was her personality, or a sign.
“Mr. Mitchell,” she said, and then nodded at the others, “and family.”
Roy managed a smirk. “All present and accounted for.”
