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On a morning when she wasn’t needed at the diner, a rarity in Louise Summers’ life, Louise ambled up the back entrance of the apartment, wiped her boots on the welcome mat, and drew Van into a hug. Charlotte was in the La-Z-Boy, rocking Ethan, who had just eaten and fallen back to sleep.
“Shoot. I missed him again, didn’t I?” Louise sighed with adoration and cupped her hands together. “Look at how sweet he is! Van, you created a perfect baby.”
Van laughed. “Can I get you a cup of coffee, Grandma?”
Louise agreed and sat on the island in the kitchen, her eyes still on Ethan. Charlotte felt a great amount of power in taking care of her grandson. He needed her so completely. He was helpless.
“So, Grandma,” Van said as she placed a mug of coffee on the counter. “Mom and I were thinking we’d get started on the inn today.”
Louise cocked her eyebrow. “Get started? What do you mean?”
Charlotte smiled. Her heart fluttered with nerves. “We’re going to clean it out. See how bad the damage is.”
“Maybe it just needs a bit of dusting,” Van suggested.
“I sincerely doubt that.” Louise sipped her coffee.
“We want to do it,” Charlotte assured her. “No matter what we decide to do with it, it needs some TLC.”
“If you want to waste your time, be my guest,” Louise said.
Although she gave excuse after excuse and complained for nearly a full ten minutes, Louise eventually agreed to help out with the inn’s initial clean-up. “But only so I can hold Ethan next time he wakes up,” she insisted as she retrieved the vacuum from the hall closet.
“You can even feed him next,” Van assured her.
Charlotte, Van, and Louise set to work on the main floor of the inn. They relieved the furniture of its white sheets, vacuumed corners, and cleaned windows until they glinted. It seemed there was probably a mice problem, to which Van suggested they buy no-kill traps. “No kill?” Louise asked, as though she’d never heard of anything so ridiculous in her life. “I can’t bear to kill them, Grandma,” Van told her. “Those are my terms, and I’m sticking to them.” They mopped the hardwood, made lists of supplies they needed to buy, and dusted the cubby holes, where they found the old iron keys, still waiting for new guests.
“When was the last time Grandpa had any guests?” Charlotte asked.
“Ten years?” Louise suggested. “Something like that.”
Charlotte knew her mother was just pretending not to know. Louise had a record of everything in that head of hers and could have probably told her the exact date and time the final guest checked out. It was part of the reason she struggled so much with forgiveness.
After nearly three hours of cleaning, Ethan wailed, and Van and Louise hurried to tend to him. “I have a bottle ready for him, Grandma,” Van said.
Louise’s eyes glinted with excitement. Charlotte understood that after so many years, she was needed in this very acute, biological way. There was nothing like feeding a baby.
Together, Louise and Van re-entered the apartment, leaving Charlotte in the creaking shadows of the inn. She finished mopping the dining room, feeling slick with sweat yet still chilly due to the drafts of the old place. They needed a roaring fire in the fireplace, like old times. They needed a Christmas tree.
But after just three hours of work, the downstairs was beginning to look okay. Clean, anyway. Modest. No, it wasn’t state-of-the-art luxury like in Charlie’s designs. And it probably wasn’t good enough to advertise for new guests. But Charlotte could sit on the floor of the living room in front of the fireplace, close her eyes, and almost imagine she was eight years old and that her grandfather was preparing to tell her and her cousins his Christmas story again. Almost.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Charlotte’s eyes popped open, and she found herself in the year 2023— not 1983.
But who was at the door?
Charlotte hurried toward the foyer, inspecting the now-dusted front desk with pride. This was her family’s greatest joy and a final link to her Grandma Dee. It was time they treated it with respect.
To Charlotte’s surprise, on the other side of the door was Charlie Bryant. He wore a thick pea coat, and his black and gray hair was ruffled into curls from the sharp winter wind. From the look of his red face, he’d walked through the woods between the cabin and downtown again.
Charlotte had a wild urge to throw the door back into his face.
“Afternoon,” Charlie said. His smile stopped Charlotte in her tracks. She’d forgotten how handsome he was.
“Hello?” Charlotte glowered at him. Probably, she looked just as cruel as her mother.
“I wanted to come by and apologize,” Charlie said.
Charlotte stiffened. She hadn’t imagined a city-guy like Charlie to be so kind and free-wheeling with his apologies. What was the catch?
