“Can you, please?” she repeated.
Holly had gotten to him these last few weeks. She’d slipped back into his thoughts and into his heart, a constant pull, like the tide between their houses. “I can,” he said. Then he cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. He kissed her the way he had the first time on this very beach, a slow uncertain kiss that barely brushed her lips, and then more deeply, a sweet sad promise passing between them as he did.
“But I won’t say goodbye to that summer girl,” Ben told her.
Then he kissed her cheek and turned for the stairs. With each step he climbed away from her, he got closer to the inn that had brought her home and would keep her here, just as it would in his memories.
Holly
When she thinks back to the library’s grand opening night, she smiles to herself. The library and the night had exceeded her wildest hopes.
Linus was right—mostly women showed up. There were a handful of husbands and a couple of male neighbors and several of Linus’s friends. But mostly there were women. Book-loving, outgoing, curious, interesting women who filled the library with their warmth and their wit and their love for it.
And the library—the library was luminous, and it wasn’t the glow of the lanterns strung across the vaulted ceiling or the antique candelabras they’d polished or the remains of a sultry pink sunset that lingered long, like a party guest. The glow was from the people there: the pastel dresses and trilling voices and sparkling cocktails. The lovely reading by author Lindsay Roberts, and the bright splash of book covers as they were picked up and passed and handed to friends who exclaimed over this thriller or that romance or the fantasy sequel that no one had been able to get their hands on until tonight! There were hushed moments asHolly welcomed everyone and shared her vision for the library’s future, of readings and book clubs, of knitting nights and thriller fests, of serene writing retreats and literary salons where authors came to work. There were rowdy moments, too, when old friends reunited and new friends shared an anecdote, or Linus made a lurid joke in the small speech he begged Holly to let him make, after hers, which she’d worried about and for good reason, but then he went and made her cry with a toast to her literary vision. And stubbornness. “You will never meet a more stubborn woman!” he declared, and everybody clapped for dogged females.
At the end of the party, a young woman came up to introduce herself. She was rather pretty and a little shy, and she seemed to be alone. “My name is Amy,” she said, extending her hand.
Holly had to think a moment, but as she looked into her eyes she knew. “Ezra’s daughter!”
She followed Amy’s gaze to the doorway, where Ezra hovered. He wore a suit. The only guest on a hot summer night in a formal suit; and how handsome he looked!
“I’ve heard a lot about you this summer,” Holly told her. “Your dad must be so happy you were able to make it home after all.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning to,” Amy admitted. “I came because I was so worried.”
“Worried?”
“He called the other day not sounding at all like himself. So I flew out to check on him.”
“Oh gosh.” Holly wondered if it had to do with her, with Francine’s outrage and his hasty departure. “Your father has become a good friend to us here. I want you to have my number if you’re ever worried again. I’m happy to look in on him.”
Amy smiled gratefully. “That’s very generous. He speaks of you all here like you’re family.”
Holly looked to where Ezra stood in the doorway again. “I guess we do have a strange little family here, you could say. May I show you what he’s been up to?”
Through the crowd, through the chatter and the banter and the clinking of glasses and books being passed, Holly led Amy to her father. “Ezra,” she said, pecking his cheek. “May I share the mural with your daughter?”
Ezra lifted his big shoulders, embarrassed, but followed them out. Holly led the way. With the remains of the sunset casting its rose glow through the bay window, the goldfinch glittered on the wall.
“Oh, Dad.” Amy pressed her finger to it and turned to her father. “This is what you’ve been busy with?”
Holly left them with the bird. There were gifts that evening she had never expected, and this one was still being unwrapped.
The last gift was the duo coming through the lobby, just as she left the parlor. Her mother, arm in arm with Francine. “Mom?”
Claire let go of Francine and opened her arms to Holly.
“What are you doing here?” Holly asked, stepping into them. Her mother smelled like rosewater and Ivory soap, scents of her childhood home, and she hugged her tight.
“What I should have done sooner.” She let go of Holly. “Look at this place,” she said turning around. “It’s more beautiful than I imagined.”
“Wait until you see the library, both of you.” But first, Holly needed Francine. “Ezra came back,” she said, nodding toward the parlor.
Her grandmother’s expression lit with understanding. “Ah.” She turned to Claire. “Why don’t you girls go ahead, and I’ll meet you in there. There’s someone I need to introduce myself to first. And amends I need to make.”
At the end of that night, Holly had fallen into bed, her heart full and limbs aching. All the people she loved most had been there. And those who could not, she’d felt. All except for one. Before she went to sleep, she performed the old ritual. A habit she wasn’t yet ready to break.
Just before sleep, she reached for the bedside table lamp and turned her light out. Then on and off once more. This time no one answered from across the bay. The windows of Ben’s house remained dark. But that was okay. And she was going to be okay, too.
