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“All right.”
She watched him go before she set Daisy back on the floor, and then started tidying up, more out of habit than anything else. Her mind felt as if it were buzzing and yet strangely empty at the same time. She rinsed the teacups in the sink, thinking how optimistic she’d felt just a few short hours ago, when she’d brought the tea tray into the sitting room, and the rather sniffy Susannah Ellington had started to seem impressed! Already it felt like it had happened to someone else, in a different lifetime.
For Matthew and his family to move all the way back to New York… well, she’d still have Sarah here, Gwen reminded herself, and what with her troubles with Nathan, it might be that her daughter needed her support more than ever now. And if the inn closed, well, she’d been thinking of retirement anyway, and life was full of endings as well as beginnings—one ending led to another beginning, after all, or so she could try to tell herself.
But, right now, even as Ellie tidied up and Matthew worked on the garden, as they all made plans to make the inn a success, it might, Gwen acknowledged, all be for nothing. No wonder Ellie had looked so stressed!
Her phone pinged with a text and Gwen picked it up, her heart skipping a beat as she saw it was from John.
Izzy in labour!! Can’t believe I’m going to be a grandad. Might be busy for the next few days but hope to see you soon x
The “x”, Gwen couldn’t help but note, was a new addition to their admittedly infrequent text messages. Did it mean anything? It seemed comically absurd to be wondering such things at almost seventy years of age.
Before she could overthink it, she typed a text back.
Amazing news! Being a grandparent is wonderful. Keep me posted x
She let out a shaky breath as she put her phone back on the counter. She didn’t know if their little exchange was at all significant or not, but it had felt so, at least in the moment.
Standing at the sink, Gwen glanced out the window at the back garden; the apple trees looked scraggly now, their branches bare, the brown leaves swept into deep drifts beneath. Only a few weeks ago, they’d been full of color, and the windfall apples beneath had still been good to gather—now the ones she hadn’t managed to collect were nothing but a mulchy pulp. Life moved on, Gwen knew, and sometimes very quickly.
The question was, how was it going to move on—not just for Ellie and Matthew, but for Sarah and Nathan? And, she thought with a funny little lurch of her heart, for her and John?
CHAPTER13
ELLIE
TWO WEEKS LATER
Ellie clicked refresh on the internet browser with the sort of grim determination that felt pathological.
No new messages.
Well, could she really be surprised? She’d hit refresh less than a minute before, and in any case, the spread in the Sunday supplement wasn’t out until this weekend; she really was putting all her eggs in one potentially dubious basket.
A sigh escaped her as she pushed back from the desk in the little office off the kitchen—really more of a broom cupboard—that was the inn’s operating HQ. Outside, the trees were now devoid of leaves, thanks to a ferocious, wintry wind that had been blowing the last few days, and the world looked bare and brown underneath an iron-gray sky. The riotous and colorful beauty of fall had faded into winter, reminding Ellie that Christmas was just six weeks away. She’d seen Christmas decorations in Abergavenny already, the streetlamps festooned with lights, and a massive Christmas tree set to be put up in the square.
Ellie had been working hard the last ten days, since Susannah Ellington had come to interview them, dropping off brochures everywhere she could think of, posting on social media relentlessly, planning more Christmas activities and decorations—although for whom, she really wasn’t sure. They still didn’t have a single booking for their Christmas week—a fact that in mid-November was immensely dispiriting.
Maybe this just wasn’t meant to be.
She knew it was Matthew’s voice echoing inside her head. They hadn’t talked much more about the bombshell he’d dropped on her nearly two weeks ago now—a job in New York! Movingagain? Ellie had barely known how to feel about any of it, except hurt and a little angry that he hadn’t thought to tell her before then.
“You really didn’t think this was something to mention to me?” she’d asked that evening, when they’d finally had a chance to discuss what he’d hinted at during half-term. They’d been standing on either side of the bed in what amounted to a face-off, keeping their voices low in case the children overheard. It was at times like this Ellie wished they had a proper house, rather than a couple of rooms in her mother-in-law’s attic.
“I wasn’t trying to be secretive,” Matthew had replied in an irritatingly reasonable voice. “I just didn’t want to cause anxiety or put pressure on you, when you’ve been working so hard to get this Christmas idea going.”
“And yet that’sexactlywhat you’ve done,” Ellie had returned, unable to keep an edge of bitterness from sharpening her voice. “Matthew.New York?” She’d shaken her head, overcome with emotion.
“It would be close to your parents,” he’d reminded her, his tone turning coaxing. “They’re only half an hour outside the city.”
At that thought, a sudden, bittersweet pang of longing and nostalgia had assailed Ellie, taking her by surprise. To be close to her parents again, closer even than they had been before. They could stop by after school, or on weekends… She’d missed seeing them, since moving to Wales, and they weren’t getting any younger. She loved the possibility of being able to see them more, and yet…
Move, all the way across the ocean? Leave everything they’d worked for here—not just with the inn, but friends and family, as well? And start over somewhere new, since they wouldn’t be moving back to Connecticut, where they’d lived before coming to Wales. It felt like far too much to process.
“Do you really want to do this?” she’d asked, slumping onto the bed. “Start over,again? And with the kids, too? New schools, new friends…” How would any of their four take to that? She really hadn’t known.
“I’m not sure,” Matthew had admitted, sitting next to her on the bed. “I’m not gunning for it, if that’s what you mean. Yes, the job is exciting, and I miss that kind of work more than I expected to. Working on the inn has been fun, and to be honest, I think I needed the break from the pressure—as well as the disappointment. You know how my redundancy hit me pretty hard.” He’d grimaced, and Ellie had reached for his hand.
