Auntie Zee leaned against the counter and gazed out the window, beyond the sunbathing Steve. Calisa didn’t know if she was seeing the mountains or seeing memories. “This place used to be wonderful.”
“It can be again,” Calisa said.
“Its time has passed. You’ll learn as you get older thatendings are inevitable. I have simply been slow to let go, which is my fault.”
“You can’t let go!” Jack yelped.
“If you let go,” Calisa said, “what will happen to the B&B? To your guests?” She thought of Melidor outside, happy amid the forest and the flowers, safe from the pressures of her family. “To you? To Jack?” She thought but didn’t say:To Jack’s father?
Auntie Zee sighed. “The guests will return home, and the B&B will close.” She shuffled to a cabinet and took out a mug that was painted with blackberry bushes.
“Thisismy home,” Jack said.
“People need this place,” Calisa insisted.
“They’ll find another.”
“There’s no place like this,” Jack said. “Not for me. And not for the guests either. It’s special, and if you just let it close—”
“I don’twantit to close,” Auntie Zee snapped, “but I can’t take care of it the way I used to.” She lifted her hand and studied the wrinkles. She closed her fingers into a clawlike fist, and her knuckles looked like pearls through her thin skin. “I don’t have the energy or the strength.”
“That’s why I’m here—” Calisa began.
“For a summer,” she interrupted Calisa. And to Jack, “And you, for how much longer? You’re going to move on, and that’s as it should be. You’ve your own life to live, and you’ve been stuck here long enough, waiting on someone who can’t return.”
Jack looked as if he’d been punched in the gut.
How could she say that? Calisa imagined how she’d feel ifone of her moms had been gone without word, without hope, for three years. “Auntie Zee…”
“Don’t get old, kids.” She poured water into her mug and added a tea bag. “Alternative is worse, they say, but still.” She shuffled toward the door to the garden. “I’ll try to keep the inn open for the rest of the season, if I can, but don’t get any grandiose ideas. Just keep these guests happy, and then it will end on a good note. That’s all I want at this point. One good note.”
Calisa tried again. “Auntie Zee, you can’t—”
“I’ll make another supply run this afternoon so you can keep baking your cakes,” Auntie Zee said. “But don’t think grander than cakes.” After sipping her tea, she stepped outside. “I’ll be back by dinnertime.”
The door swung shut behind her.
Jack slumped against the counter. “She’s given up. Dad…” His voice cracked, and he pressed his lips together hard.
Calisa didn’t know what to say. He was right—it did sound like Auntie Zee had given up, both on his father and on the inn, despite all the progress they’d made in such a short time. She sagged onto a stool.
What’s the point of fixing up the bed-and-breakfast if Auntie Zee has already decided to close it?No, she couldn’t think like that. “She could be having an off day.”
“She doesn’t think he’s coming back,” Jack said. He had picked up a slice of bread and was squeezing it in his hands. “If she did, she’d never let this place close down. He—I don’t…” His voice rose with each sentence.
Crossing to him, Calisa took the slice of bread out of his hands and then put her arms around him. She held him, not saying anything, trying to think of what to say that would help.
Jack breathed into her hair, a shuddering breath, and then she felt him begin to relax minutely. She felt the warmth of his chest pressed against her. Ethan would have never let her comfort him like this—he would’ve never let her see any kind of vulnerability—but Jack didn’t hide how much he cared and how deeply he felt. She thought that made him a stronger person. She tried not to notice how nice he smelled, how solid and strong and gentle his arms were. “Just because she’s giving up,” Calisa said, “doesn’t mean you need to. The inn isn’t closed yet. The portals are still open. He could come home.”
“It’s been too long,” Jack said. “If he was going to make it—”
She pulled back but didn’t let go—just far enough so she could look into his eyes and so he could see hers. Their faces were only a few inches apart. His eyes were fixed on her. “You don’t know that,” Calisa said. She put as much conviction into her voice and eyes as she could. “He could walk into this inn tomorrow. You don’t know.”
He looked lost, and it made her want to hold him tighter. “Isn’t that Auntie Zee’s point? I don’t know if he’ll ever come back. What if I’m holding on too long?”
Maybe he was. Maybe his dad wasn’t going to return. Maybe his dadcouldn’t. It could be that something terrible had happened to him, out there in another realm. Or there were noother open portals in whatever place he was. By now, his dad could have resigned himself to a new life, to never returning. Like Auntie Zee, he could have given up.
Or maybe he hadn’t.
