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Sarah insisted on driving to the grocery store. Melissa sat in the passenger seat, flicking through the radio stations, as Charlie watched the trees from the back. It was rare that he was a passenger in his own car, and he enjoyed it.
At the grocery store, Sarah was authoritative, ordering Melissa and Charlie to put duck, eggs, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and various ingredients for sauces in the cart. She added three bottles of dark red wine, a Malbec and two Primitivos, then winked and said, “I don’t know if I want to leave that farmhouse ever again!” Charlie had a strange fantasy of living half-time in the farmhouse and half-time in Greenwich Village, allowing themselves the best of both worlds. Now that his career had taken off to the stratosphere, there wasn’t a lot they couldn’t afford.
And maybe Melissa would stay out east if they had the farmhouse. Maybe she would fall in love with the woods and the big, open sky.
When they left the grocery store, it was already dark. Charlie insisted on driving. Sarah called him a control freak as she slipped the keys into his hand and winked. Melissa scrambled into the backseat and buckled her seatbelt. The drive back to the farmhouse was only fifteen minutes. Sarah spoke about the first steps of her cooking routine, asking Charlie and Melissa if they were ready to play their parts.
“You know me, Mom,” Melissa joked. “I can’t even make canned soup.”
“And it’s time to change that,” Sarah insisted. “You’re going to graduate in six months! Oh, Charlie. We’ve failed her as parents. She should know how to feed herself.”
Charlie laughed. He whizzed them through dark forest roads, his lights flashing through the trees. Overhead, a full moon guided them, thick and yellow. Charlie felt completely at peace, his hands slipping along the steering wheel, his foot against the gas. He was imagining the night ahead of them— the conversations they would have over dinner, the movies they would watch. He imagined making love to Sarah that night, reminding her of the tremendous depths of his heart. He’d never loved anyone like her; he never would.
That’s when it happened.
From the woods, three deer burst out in front of him. One of them was frightened by the oncoming lights and stalled, and Charlie slammed on his brakes. It was too late. Two of the deer smashed into his front window, and the car careened off the road and flipped. Charlie experienced the crashing sounds and the adrenaline of the car going through the air as though it were all a part of a game, as though he would be able to pause the accident and go back to “start” to do it again. His wife and daughter’s screams joined the shattering glass. And then, there was only darkness. They were upside down at the edge of the road, far away from anything they knew or understood. Charlie was only semi-conscious; he couldn’t make sense of anything. The rules of this new world had nothing to do with his previous one. And he knew he would never have love again.
ChapterFourteen
Present Day
Charlotte couldn’t describe herself as a business-minded woman. Rather, she’d committed herself to the arts at a young age (and to love, of course, which hadn’t worked out), and she’d barely scraped together a living on her books— which wasn’t exactly proof of business know-how. But throughout the days after she, Van, and Louise had cleaned up the inn, Charlotte got to thinking. Charlie had seen something here; he’d seen dollar signs. Perhaps Charlotte could draw that cashflow out herself without the meddling of a greedy Manhattan developer. Maybe all wasn’t lost.
With the help of Google and a few library books, Charlotte set to work on making a business plan. As Van slept in her bedroom, she took her shifts with Ethan, jotting notes to herself and staying up later than she should have. “Burning the candle at both ends,” Louise suggested when she came over in the morning to see Ethan. “Don’t tire yourself out too much.”
But Charlotte felt renewed with purpose. When she had a sufficient strategy set up for the next five years, she decided to approach Grandpa Hank to ask for his go-ahead. The inn was his, after all. And she expected him to be all in.
Grandpa Hank put on his glasses and read her business proposal quietly, his brow furrowed. Throughout, Charlotte sat across from him at the kitchen table, held her breath, and clasped her hands. She hoped her grandfather felt her tremendous love for the old place. She hoped he understood this was an act of honor.
When Grandpa Hank raised his eyes to look at her, they echoed his fatigue. “Thank you for this, Charlotte,” he began quietly.
Charlotte’s heart thumped. “I really think, if I apply for a grant from the state, we can get this place up and running by next Christmas,” she scrambled to say. “I don’t know if you read the part about New Jersey’s commitment to historic properties. It behooves them to ensure places like the Cherry Inn stay active.”
Charlotte was impressed with herself. She wasn’t sure she’d ever said the word “behooves” before.
Her grandfather’s eyes reflected his emotion. He removed his glasses and spoke gently, staring at the table between them. “Ten years ago, after we stopped taking guests, I probably would have jumped at a business proposal like this. I was heartbroken about giving this place up. And I suppose that’s why I’ve continued to cling to it over the years, living in the apartment attached to it like some kind of ghost.”
Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned this conversation.
“It was your grandmother’s dream to open this place,” Grandpa Hank went on. “But your grandmother has been gone a long time. And I don’t think she’d want to leave us with all this stress.”
Charlotte blinked back tears. She racked her brain for something to say, anything to convince him. But Grandpa Hank suddenly looked very old and tired. He stood from the kitchen and rapped his knuckles on her business proposal, which she now felt resembled a children’s project.
“I’m going to take a nap,” he said. “I sleep almost as much as the little one these days.”
In Van’s bedroom, Ethan wailed with hunger. From the kitchen, Charlotte listened to Van’s soft murmurings as she nursed him. Charlotte stood, shivering with sorrow, slotted her arms through her coat, and stepped through the drafty inn to get to Main Street. When she hit the sidewalk, she stormed toward the diner, urged on by a power she didn’t understand. She was on the brink of tears, but she didn’t want to give in to them.
Louise was in her diner outfit, helping a customer pay his bill. One of the twenty-somethings she’d hired whipped through tables, carrying platters of food. It wasn’t as busy as it had been lately, a lull between lunch and dinner, and Charlotte collapsed in a booth and placed her chin on her fist. Louise appeared with a cup of coffee and a piece of rhubarb crumble. Her eyes weren’t as hard as they’d been when Charlotte had first come to White Plains.
“I showed him the business proposal,” Charlotte said.
“I guess it didn’t go well?”
Charlotte sipped her coffee. “I’m trying to think of other ways to convince him.”
“You think you and I are stubborn? Wait till you see how stubborn your grandfather can get,” Louise said.
“It’s genetic,” Charlotte said with a wry laugh.
