Page 6 of Remain (one-of-a-kind)

In the kitchen, she stirred sugar into her cup of tea, absently watching a pair of cardinals perched on a branch of the old elm tree she used to climb when she was a girl.

It looked like a beautiful day, but oddly, the idea of venturing outdoors felt daunting.

She generally loved being outside. Just the other day, she’d ridden her bike into town, and the breeze in her face and the familiar swish of her ponytail beneath her helmet had relaxed her in a way she hadn’t felt in ages.

Even the out-of-towners arriving early for the town’s music festival hadn’t bothered her, though many of them drove as if sharing the road with a cyclist was merely optional.

She’d spotted dueling musicians playing on opposite street corners near the park, no doubt hoping to be discovered by powerful music executives.

Sadly, talent scouts didn’t bother visiting their little festival, but the performers and the crowds added a little spice to their ordinarily sleepy town.

After taking a sip of her tea, she drew a long breath, hoping to clear her head of the dark thoughts that had haunted her all these long months.

Her grandma believed the old superstition that bad things come in threes, but she’d decided that her grandma was wrong.

Instead, hers came in fours or sevens or even twelves.

Then again, she supposed it all depended on how far she went back in time and which of the bads were big enough to count, but the fact remained that she’d cried more tears in the last three years than in the first twenty-seven years of her life combined.

She’d sobbed at her grandma’s funeral and for weeks afterward, of course, then fretted incessantly during the pandemic lockdown when tourism evaporated and Heatherington’s businesses, including hers, went into free fall.

Lately, in meetings with her attorney she’d sometimes become so angry she hadn’t been able to sleep at night.

Moving back home and falling out with her once-closest friends prompted even more tears, all of it making her question whether she’d irritated God somehow.

Oh, she knew it wasn’t God’s fault. Not all of it, anyway.

No, most of her problems were of her own making.

She was, she decided, a poor judge of people, the only consolation being that her mistakes hadn’t yet broken her.

But she was weary, and recently she’d taken to surfing Airbnb listings in Rome and Paris and Barcelona, picturing herself wandering open-air food markets and learning how to make artisanal olive oil.

She knew it was a fantasy, but she longed to live a carefree existence—preferably in one of the exotic capitals she’d always dreamed of—at least for a little while.

Why shouldn’t she have a little Eat, Pray, Love?

Grandma Joyce would have snorted in disgust at the idea of running away, observing that only a fool would believe life was supposed to be easy or fun.

She was a hard, practical woman, who’d lost both her husband and her only daughter before deciding to start a business while single-handedly raising her young granddaughter.

She never once seemed to dwell on what could have been.

Instead, when confronted with adversity, she’d straightened her shoulders and hitched up her canvas trousers before getting back to work, confident that she could handle whatever happened next.

Grandma Joyce wouldn’t have been out of place in the pioneer days or even as one of the original Massachusetts Bay colonists.

Tough enough to endure a lifetime of harsh New England winters, she referred to March and April as mud season, planted and maintained her own garden, and up until she was in her sixties, occasionally smoked a fragrant tobacco pipe.

That she ended up running a hospitality business seemed as unlikely as her developing the ability to fly, but Grandma Joyce was a woman of contradictions.

She hunted and fished but had been known to tear up at the sight of a cat or dog that had been struck by a car.

She spoke in short, clipped sentences and favored salty aphorisms but sang in the church choir with a clear, sweet soprano that belied her weathered face.

She often walked to town wearing rubber boots and an old flannel jacket but had taken her granddaughter to Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Boston to buy a dress for her senior prom.

The old woman had few close friends, but she was unshakably loyal and discreet with the ones she had, never betraying a secret.

Everyone figured she was stubborn enough to reach the age of a hundred, but she had died three years earlier, leaving a hole that would never be completely filled.

· · ·

Depositing the tea bag in the garbage, she pictured the townspeople reveling in another exquisite spring day.

When she’d last biked through the square, she’d seen Steve and Kenny, the twins who worked as mechanics at their dad’s shop, throwing a football while the Dobson toddlers’ mom pushed them on the swings.

Doc Harbison and Clayton Jones were sitting across from each other at a small table, playing chess; they’d played for years, though when the weather was cold, their games took place inside Doc’s antique store, usually by the window, so any passersby could watch if they were interested.

Near the edge of the park, she’d caught sight of Ethel Lampier holding court in her lawn chair; beside her Ellen Jameson was whispering something, no doubt about her husband, Tommy, whom everyone knew was sleeping with Marge, the teller at the New England Credit Union.

Elmore Barden had stopped sweeping the sidewalk in front of his coin shop to wave at her, and in front of her restaurant, Dianne Mills was scrawling the daily specials onto a chalkboard.

The specials were strictly for tourists; as all the locals knew, Dianne concocted them from items in the refrigerator that were about to expire.

That was the blessing and the curse of being a lifelong resident of Heatherington, she thought.

She knew almost everyone in town, and those she didn’t know personally, she knew about.

There was predictability and comfort in knowing her neighbors, but in a town this small, it also was impossible for people to leave the past fully behind.

Once, when she was a teenager, she’d TP’d Mrs. Torkelson’s house with some friends.

Mrs. Torkelson was notorious for handing out Bible pamphlets instead of candy on Halloween, and a little toilet paper in her elm tree was a small price to pay in most kids’ reckoning.

Unfortunately, they’d been spotted by a nosy neighbor, who informed Grandma Joyce before she had even made it back home.

Grandma hauled her straight back to Mrs. Torkelson’s house, and in addition to apologizing, she’d been forced to clean everything up.

In a larger town, a childhood prank would have been long since forgotten, but even now, when she was checking out at the drugstore, someone she knew would sometimes jokingly ask whether she was gathering supplies for her next victim.

Okay, maybe she’d had something of a reputation as a wild child—she’d caused her grandma some sleepless nights for sure—but she hadn’t been a bad kid.

It was just that like every child who ever existed, she’d been bored every now and then, because let’s face it: there really wasn’t a whole lot for teenagers to do in Heatherington.

Frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot more to do now that she was an adult, the Mask and Music Festival excepted.

It was yet another reason to take the plunge and move away for good, if, of course, she could summon the courage.

She’d made a grocery list for that last trip to town but hadn’t needed it.

Only when she was expecting a guest who was vegan or lactose intolerant or allergic to certain foods did the list vary.

For the most part, breakfast meant eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, fruit, bread, and Danish.

For the last two items, she preferred to visit the Rolling Scones, which she had patronized for years because Eileen was a wizard when it came to baking.

During the summers Eileen would prop the door open, and tourists, led by their noses, would inevitably find their way to the counter.

After that, she’d swung by Let’s Meat, owned by Sal Ferrenzi, whose great-great-grandparents, he claimed, were the first Italians to make Heatherington their home. She’d picked up the bacon and sausage he’d set aside for her, put them in her bicycle basket, and was soon on her way.

Ordinarily, she would have taken a few minutes to stop by her other business downtown—but that hadn’t been the day for it.

Even the thought of doing so had darkened her mood, so she’d pedaled past without a second glance, heading for the farmers market.

There, she’d purchased eggs from Ralph Montrose, who owned a small farm near Provincetown, and picked up some juicy-looking berries from Lucille Kowalski, who didn’t actually grow any of it but sourced her produce from the same high-end suppliers used by Whole Foods.

She’d set out for Kevin Tiernan’s stall, with the intention of stocking up on his delicious clover honey, but it was not to be.

Instead, as she’d pushed her bike through the throngs of shoppers, she’d caught sight of Dax, his wife, Tessa, trailing behind him.

She could remember ducking over her handlebars, praying neither saw her.

Dax was someone on her growing list of people to avoid, so she’d decided to forgo the honey.

Instead, she’d squeezed between two poultry booths and escaped into the next aisle.

She’d told herself that she wouldn’t look back, and for a while, she hadn’t.

But just as she reached the street, she’d peeked over her shoulder and saw Tessa scowling at her with her hands on her hips.

Shaking off the memory, she looked down at her mug and noted that her tea had gone cold. Dumping it in the sink, she washed the cup and set it in the dish rack to dry. Surveying the kitchen with a critical eye, she began a mental to-do list.

After all, guests would be arriving soon.