Across the room, the blinds on the far window were still drawn. But the light in the room had changed. While they had been sitting there, the gray afternoon cloud outside must havebroken, because all at once a shaft of sunlight found the narrow gaps in the old blinds, spreading bright gold bars, falling across the desk, across the corkboard of children's drawings, and across the two of them sitting on the floor.
The room, sealed and shadowed for fifty-two years, suddenly filled with light.
"Michael," Linda whispered.
"I see it," Michael said.
Neither of them moved. The sunlight lay warm across Linda's hands, and her father's faded cards, and the cold ghost of pain, anger, grief, and despair faded from the room, allowing them to breathe freely again.
"I think we needed to do this," Linda said. “It was time to set the ghost of grief that haunted this room free.”
They rose together and walked to the two large windows that swept from one wall to the other, meeting in the middle, and lifted the blinds; the room was flooded with more sunshine. They stood at the window, brother and sister, lost in their own thoughts, looking out at the bright bay. For the first time since she had arrived in Sweet Blossom Bay, with all its trouble and worry and the long, hard road still ahead, Linda felt relief; she felt lighter, and was awash with the warmth of a deep knowing that everything was going to be alright and turn out exactly as it should.
MAGGIE
Maggie sat at the wide drafting table in the back office of her boutique, a soft pencil in her hand, and lost herself in the gentle curve of a neckline.
It was the only thing all morning that had managed to push Michael Heart out of her head.
The sketch in front of her was for a wedding gown, and not an ordinary one. The client was a young actress whose name Maggie was contractually forbidden from saying aloud to anyone, including her own assistants, and the gown had to be perfect. Off the shoulder. A bodice of hand-beaded lace that would take one of Maggie's sewists three weeks alone. A skirt that fell like water. Maggie had been refining the same six inches of neckline for half an hour, and she was nearly there.
Her boutique had built its name on gowns like this. But Maggie's Bridal and Couture had never been only about wedding dresses, whatever the sign out front suggested. She designed elegant everyday wear for the women of Sweet Blossom Bay and the wealthier set who summered along the coast. She did special-occasion pieces, gala gowns, mother-of-the-bride dresses thatmade women cry in the fitting mirror. And she did custom work, one of a kind, for clients who wanted something no one else on earth would ever wear. It was the custom work she loved most. It was the custom work that had made her boutique the quiet jewel it was.
Maggie softened the line of the shoulder with the side of her pencil and finally sat back, satisfied.
"There," Maggie murmured to the empty office. "That's the one."
A burst of raised voices reached her from the front of the store.
Maggie's pencil stilled.
She heard one of her assistants, Brianna, saying something in the bright, firm tone she used for difficult customers. Then another voice cut over the top of it, sweet and high and unmistakable, and Maggie felt her stomach drop straight through the floor.
She glanced at the small monitor mounted on the office wall, the one that fed from the camera over the front counter.
Vanessa, her soon-to-be ex-husband's girlfriend. She glanced at the envelope on her desk. Or, informal fiancée. She shuddered as she thought of the wedding invitation to their end-of-year wedding. As if she’d go to that.
Of course it was Vanessa.
Maggie closed her eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath. She did not need this today. She did not need this any day, but she especially did not need it today, with Michael's breakfast still warm in her memory and her heart in the state it was in.
She made herself move. She covered the actress's gown sketch with a clean sheet of tissue, slid it and her sketchbook into the wall safe behind the cabinet, and turned the dial until it locked with a soft click. Whatever Vanessa wanted, she was not getting within ten feet of that design.
Maggie smoothed her blouse, lifted her chin, and walked out to the front of her boutique with a calm, pleasant smile fixed firmly in place.
"Vanessa," Maggie greeted her. "What brings you here today?"
Vanessa turned from the counter, where she’d been leaning much too close to poor Brianna, and lit up with a smile that did not come within a mile of her eyes when she saw Maggie.
"Maggie," Vanessa cooed. "Finally. I was beginning to think your shop assistants were going to keep me standing here all day."
"Brianna, thank you," Maggie said, with a small nod that sent her grateful assistant retreating toward the stockroom. "I'll take care of Vanessa myself."
"I should hope so," Vanessa said. "We're practically family, after all."
Maggie kept her smile exactly where it was.
"What can I do for you?" Maggie asked.
