“Holly?” he called. “You there?”
“Ben!” Holly raced headlong into the water to meet him, welcoming the bracing cold and spray of salt. Up to her waist she waded, the bow of the boat edging closer. Just as he’d done a hundred times before, Ben stood and tossed the rope to her. It landed with a splash nearby and she grabbed it. Wrapping the rope around her hand she pulled with all her might, tugging it in, drawing Ben closer.
When the boat drew up alongside her, Ben hopped down and into the water beside her. He grabbed her shoulders with both arms.
“What are you doing?” she cried, already laughing.
“I’m back.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, Holls. I’m really back this time. To stay.”
Shivering, the taste of salt already on her lips, Holly couldn’t believe the words.
Face to face they stood in the water, the spray of stars overhead as wide as the bay and the inlet and Nantucket Sound beyond. Two small people, made smaller by the swell of sea and sky around them.
Holly’s teeth chattered. She wanted to kiss him. But she needed to know. “What changed your mind?”
Ben took her in his arms, pulling her tight. “Us.”
Friendsgiving
If anyone had asked Holly after she graduated with her MBA what running an inn entailed, she would’ve talked about business. She would have focused on gross operating profits and occupancy rates. The most personal she might have gotten was front and back of house, or amenities. What Holly did not know then was how deeply personal running a small New England inn would be. It was not about check-in and checkout, though they mattered. It was not about inclusions or dining options or luxury add-ons, though they enhanced the experience. From the beginning to the end, an inn, like a home, was about the people.
There had been no small amount of debate about Thanksgiving. It was a holiday many seemed to leave home and travel for these days, which Francine found sad but Linus reminded them could be lucrative. “Think about it,” he said. “Fine dining by the shore, where the only decision a guest needs to make is which dessert they want with their coastal turkey.”
Greta scowled. “There is no such thing as coastal turkey.”
“Imagine the invitation:pumpkins and gourds and some kind of wacky Swedish stuffing to help launch the holiday spirit.”
“Someone is about to get launched,” Greta said.
Linus was right, but after that first summer Holly was tired. They all were. Business had burned through Labor Day and the guests had kept coming, right into September and October.
“Thanksgiving is a time for gathering and gratitude,” Francine reminded them. “Let’s give ourselves that.”
When Holly sent out the invitations, and every person RSVP’d yes, she realized they did not have a table big enough. “Shall we combine tables in Harvest?” Greta asked. “It’s certainly big enough.” But Holly had another idea.
As she set the table in the library, Holly counted the places. The chairs were mismatched, a hodgepodge from the dining room and the parlor and the lobby. As it was, they’d had to move the green velvet couches and connect four tables together, running them between the bookcases and right up to the picture window. Holly dressed their makeshift table with cranberry tablecloths and burnt-orange napkins, a burlap runner with corn husks and sunflowers from the garden, and hurricane lanterns with real beeswax candles. The room smelled like cinnamon from some savory Swedish bread Greta had been fussing over all morning that had wafted across the lobby and down the hall and into the library like a phantom guest. “Maybe it’s Mrs. Spicer,” Linus joked. No one laughed.
The menu that night was traditional. Roasted turkey and stuffing, real cranberry chutney from one of the local bogs, sweet potatoes and turnips from Oliver, and gravy—two bubbling pots of gravy from Greta’s grandmother’s recipe. When theinvitations went out Holly had asked guests to bring only one thing, besides themselves: a word to describe the Cranberry House. In each envelope she’d enclosed a rectangular pumpkin-colored card, with the inn’s sailing ship and cranberry logo across the top. How she hoped everyone remembered their cards.
With turkey roasting in the kitchen, and guests soon to arrive, Holly stole a quiet moment. Holding the skirt of her dress, she very carefully climbed the winding steps of the new staircase to the new landing they’d just installed. There, at the top, Holly lowered herself onto the carpeted floor of the loft and sank into the pillows. When she put her palm to the glass it was cold, a reminder of the late November weather. She glanced down at the pumpkin-colored card folded in her hand, just like the ones she’d included in the invitations. And at the word she’d chosen:family.
Up here Holly could see all the way across Pleasant Bay, past the rooftop of Ben’s parents’ house and down the channel that led to Nantucket Sound. The bay was gray and quiet, its surface still like glass. Only a few boats remained moored. Tucked up and away against the tall window, Holly’s new landing felt cozy as a nest, just as it had when she was a child. Everything on the other side of the window was what had brought her back. The salt water, the summer friends, the feel of the sun-bleached sand against the soles of her bare feet, day after day. It was the very same salt air and sand and sea that brought Josiah Spicer and his family here to build clipper ships, and John Harwich to farm the cranberry bogs for two generations. It was the very stuff that drew her grandparents here to turn the historic house into an inn, and now lured guests, summer after summer. This was where Holly belonged, she thought as she looked out.
Downstairs, her own guests were just starting to arrive. Holly peeked over the railing. Below, Linus bustled in carrying vases of sunflowers, followed by Oliver with an armload of logs for the fire. Josephine and her husband arrived, with her three little ones. Holly watched as the kids darted about the table reaching for the sparkling lanterns and as Linus swatted them away. Soon Ezra joined them, dressed once again in a handsome suit, followed by his daughter, Amy, and her own young family. They’d flown in, as promised, for the holidays, and it took little convincing for Ezra to bring them today. Francine arrived in a long emerald skirt, with Bee in tow, in a matching ruby one. Paul came next, with a heavy tray of potatoes and vegetables. Seeing the first of the food, everyone gushed and rubbed their tummies and disappeared, returning moments later carrying more trays. Stuffing and sweet potatoes and green beans and brussels sprouts with bacon, and of course, cranberry scones. From her perch above Holly watched all of it. By then the fireplace had gone from flickering to roaring and Oliver covered it with the antique grate. Chairs scraped the floor as everyone claimed their seat, just as the last two guests filled the doorway. There stood Holly’s mother, on the arm of Ben.
Holly’s Ben. He glanced about the room and then up. He knew exactly where she’d be.
When he came to the base of the circular staircase, the one he’d surprised her with and installed himself, Holly waved.
“Will you be joining us?” he asked with a wink.
Just then, behind him, Greta made her entrance. Faces turned and the room fell silent as she sailed into the library bearing a big white platter holding an even bigger turkey. Everyone cheered and clapped. When Greta took a curtsy, the turkeylurched precariously to the side, but she righted the platter just in time. Everyone clapped again.
It was time to give thanks. Holly glanced out the picture window one last time. Pleasant Bay shimmered in the late fall light. But it was on this side of the glass where the view was best.
From the landing, Holly took it in, one last time. The faces around the table, the hands reaching across the bountiful expanse to grasp one another. The glasses clinking in good cheer, and the reverberation of laughter already emanating up to where she stood. Wash-ashores, all of them. Just like her.
“Get down here!” Linus called up.
Ben extended his hand.
As she descended the staircase Holly exhaled gratefully, and she felt the old house sigh around her. It was time to join her people.
