Page 10 of Hush (The Seaside Saga #25)

TURNS OUT, CELIA’S CONFESSION WASN’T about Shane Bradford.

When Elsa arrives home with a take-out pizza later that afternoon, she’s still thinking about Heather. And her visit to Stony Point. And how it all fell apart. Before going inside to whip together a salad, Elsa sets the pizza on her front porch.

She does something else, too. She sits herself right on the stoop.

Faux red sunflowers zigzag down the cornstalks tied to the porch posts.

The afternoon is quiet. Birdsong comes from a nearby tree.

The distant sound of waves splashing on the beach reaches her.

And Elsa just breathes some of that autumn salt air.

This air feels different from summertime salt air.

Autumn air is sharper. It’s not as soft.

Not as misty. Breathing the autumn salt air is like getting a shot of adrenaline.

It makes you want to get up and move. Walk. Bustle .

So Elsa does.

She reaches for a silver pail near the porch swing, walks down the steps to the front lawn and keeps going—pail in hand. When she stops, it’s at her inn -spiration walkway.

“Ah, it’s been a while,” she whispers. Behind her, clusters of now-golden ornamental grasses line the walkway.

The arching blades of grass are topped with feathery seed heads shimmering in the sea breeze.

There are hydrangea bushes, too. They bow low, their branches heavy with faded lavender blossoms. Elsa sees the end of summer in the landscape. It’s a bittersweet feeling.

Which is precisely what she felt listening to Celia’s story of her mother traveling here and departing after only leaving behind a letter.

Bittersweet. Because there’s some wonder to that story—wonder at what moved Heather to fly all those long miles.

To be near her daughter in some way. But there’s a sad finality to it, too.

How could Heather have made that trek and not open some part of herself to innocent Celia?

Only a letter made it to Celia’s hands—hands which couldn’t open the envelope.

What was penned inside it?

That’s an answer they’ll never have. Heather’s words went up in smoke.

The whole mother-daughter relationship did, it seems.

Which, beneath the late-afternoon sunlight, brings Elsa to her chalk pail.

It’s all there—Elsa feels it.

Sadness with the fits and starts of Celia and Heather’s story.

Hopes—then dashed hopes.

Acceptance, finally .

And all this comes out in Elsa’s inn -spiration message. Still in her black jogger pants, olive mockneck top and rolled bandana holding back her hair, she crouches down. Those ornamental grasses whisper beside her. It’s just Elsa and the sea air and her thoughts.

This message? This one’s purely for Celia. She’ll see it when she comes by for dinner soon.

So, after grabbing a piece of blue chalk from her pail, Elsa bends over the walkway. Her arm sweeps in loops and curves. Carefully, she chalks an Italian phrase she’s often whispered to herself, prayed to the Lord above, tossed around in talks with the gang.

Andrà tutto bene.

She adds a few decorative scrolls, here. There.

Then she straightens to look at the chalked words. “Andrà tutto bene,” Elsa murmurs. “Everything will be all right.”

***

Shane packs away the tools at the worktable on the bluff. He winds up cords, puts larger tools in boxes, dusts off smaller hand tools. All of them get neatly stacked in a wheelbarrow to transport back to Jason’s shed.

Before wheeling over the gear, though, he wipes down the worktable. Uses a rag to brush the dust and wood particles off it. Closes the vinyl construction umbrella, too.

And all of it’s for the last time.

The only thing left is to rake up the lawn around the work area.

The grass there got matted down; sawdust and pieces of wood debris litter it.

So he picks up a bamboo rake and gives the lawn a solid working-over.

His arms tug the rake this way, that. The grass is refreshed and lifted; a pile of wood scraps and stair detritus is stuffed into a garbage bag.

But before hauling everything back across the yard to the Barlow house, Shane wants to sneak in one more thing. So he grabs his cell phone, sits on the stone bench on the bluff and makes a call.

“Hey, baby,” he quietly says when Celia answers. “You good to talk?”

“I am. Elsa left a while ago. We had a busy day babyproofing the cottage.”

“Really?”

“I know,” Celia’s voice comes to him. “I can’t believe Aria will be getting into all sorts of things in no time. Oh, and there was a little sad part, too.”

“Sad? Like what?” As he asks, Shane sees Long Island Sound beyond the bluff. Late-afternoon sunlight gets the vast blue water sparkling.

“Taking down the crib mobile. It has such pretty silver and gold stars on it—just like the stars over the sea. Elsa gave it to me right after Aria was born.”

“But she’s still just a baby.”

“Yep. And experts say when a baby is about five or six months old, their mobile should come down. Because that’s when a baby can start sitting and reaching up to it. So I had my first sad milestone, saying goodbye to that mobile Aria loves.”

“I hear you. And… speaking of milestones, I reached one, too. ”

“You did?”

“I’m at the stairs. All cleanup is complete and the project’s a wrap.”

“That’s amazing, Shane. It must look incredible there.”

“It really does.” He glances back over his shoulder to the yard. “I’m just waiting for Barlow to show up. So I only have a minute and wondered if I could see you tonight. Any chance that can happen?”

“Of course there’s a chance!”

Shane laughs. “Easy as that?” he asks. He turns sideways on the bench, too, and draws up a knee.

“Aren’t you going to the recital?”

“What? You mean Cliff’s? I thought that was next week.”

“Um… no. It’s tonight! At the community center.”

“Shit. I really thought that was next Wednesday—when I’d be out on the lobster boat.”

“Well,” Celia says, her voice dropping, “I guess it’s your lucky night, sailor.”

“Ha! Not really, though. We’ll have to pretend like we barely know each other.” Shane turns at a noise behind him. “Hey, listen. Barlow’s here.”

“Okay, you better go,” Celia softly says. “See you tonight, stranger.”