Page 80 of Summer on Lilac Island

“James is walking up the driveway,” Eloise said later that week, looking out the front window at Thistle Dew. There were no

longer curtains to peer through. Eloise now kept them gathered to the side, letting the sunlight trickle in as it pleased.

“He’s with someone.”

“That’ll be James’s dad.” Georgiana hopped down the steps from the loft, dressed in faded Levi’s and an oversized sweater.

Eloise lit a pumpkin candle.

She’d started to loosen up about the no-candles rule. She no longer fretted so much that Georgiana would forget to blow them

out and burn the house down. And Eloise did love the scent of autumn.

She was so glad to still be on Mackinac.

It had been hard to tell in the moment if it was intuition or fear that had kept her from going with Clyde, but now she felt

confident it was the former. Not just because of having a grandchild on the way, though that was certainly something. She

also felt it in her nervous system.

Intuition is the answer that comes when you slow down your breath. Fear is the answer that comes when you speed it up.

Eloise had written these words in an old, blank journal she’d found on her bedroom bookshelf. The idea of writing a book was

growing on her, especially with the girls so excited about it. Rebecca had started organizing weekly family calls to create

an outline. They were currently in the “pre-draft ideation phase,” as she called it.

They would see where it went, but Eloise had a good feeling. A good intuition .

She and Clyde had agreed to monthly emails. She had just received her first one but was waiting until tonight to read it.

A bedtime story of sorts.

“His dad’s name is Brian,” Georgiana elaborated now as she raised her eyebrows at Eloise’s candle. “James got him an apartment

on Main Street for the next couple months. They’re trying to do that whole father-son bonding thing. Things got rough when

James’s mom died.”

Eloise hoped Gus might be figuring out that whole “father-daughter thing.” Georgiana had started using a calendar, and Eloise

had seen a yellow heart drawn around 4pm call with Dad . Eloise was wary Gus would let them down again. He did seem to be trying, though whether he could sustain it remained to

be seen. For now, the girls seemed cautiously optimistic, and Eloise would take their lead.

“And that’s all very nice, but I didn’t cook enough chili for extra guests,” Eloise said to Georgiana now.

Having James around had started to feel like such a regular occurrence that Eloise now put him in the friends and family category,

no longer bringing out the nicest place settings for him. It was rarefied air. None of Georgiana’s past boyfriends had made

this cut.

“I’ll cook up some more veggies and pasta,” Georgiana offered. “We’ll make it work.”

There was something a little too generous about the way she said it. Eloise’s alarm bells chimed.

Thinking back, Eloise recalled some passing comments Georgiana had made about James’s dad—that he was a widow, involved in

his church, and loved his morning walks. Little things like that.

Eloise sized up her daughter. “Georgiana,” she warned. “Don’t tell me this is a setup.”

“Of course not.” Georgiana averted her eyes. “I just want you to meet my boyfriend’s family. Is that a crime around here?”

“No, but you have that twinkle, like you’re up to something.”

“I’m just caught up in the glow of my feelings. Go ahead and rub it in.”

“Rub what in?”

Gigi fiddled with the Petoskey stone necklace Eloise had crafted for her as a congratulations for launching her campaign.

“How you just may have found me the love of my life.”

Eloise felt it, the flush of accomplishment, the relief that Georgiana hadn’t ended up with a yoga instructor in Australia

after all. There were times it had felt like a very close call.

“I thought I was the great love of your life,” Eloise teased.

“Well, obviously,” Georgiana said, and she hardly even sounded sarcastic. “But I mean romantically speaking.”

“What can I say? Sometimes mothers really do know best.”

“Sometimes,” Georgiana conceded. “And other times daughters do. I might’ve struck out with Clyde, but I’m not giving up yet.

And just as a forewarning,” she went on, before opening the door, “there’s a nonzero chance that James’s dad might think it’s a double date.”

Eloise felt her breath catch like bicycle chains changing gears. “And where might he have gotten that idea?”

“Not sure.” Georgiana shrugged innocently. “Definitely not the conversation I had with him yesterday when I told him all about

you and that he’d be the luckiest man on the planet to have a chance with you.”

Eloise tried to scrounge up some anger. She couldn’t, though exasperation stuck. “I thought we’d decided to stay out of each

other’s love lives.”

“Had we?” Georgiana said, feigning forgetfulness. “Just promise you and Brian won’t tie the knot before James and I do. Otherwise

I’d be dating my stepbrother, and that isn’t really a news story I want to bring to the island.”

The landline rang. It would be Deirdre, reporting on James’s father and his backstory.

Or Alice with an update on her latest outing with Mr. Townsend.

Eloise would catch up with them later. She ignored the phone and stood in front of the fireplace mantel, now free of all photos of Gus, except the one of the four of them that she’d moved out from her bedroom.

In the mirror hanging over the mantel, she pinched her cheeks for color and reapplied lip balm. She didn’t feel so plain anymore.

Clyde had seen something radiant in her and reflected it back. Maybe that was the purpose of her relationship with him—of

every relationship, really. To help your partner see themselves a bit more clearly, a bit more beautifully, so that even when

you weren’t there anymore, the other person still felt the affirmations, held them as truth.

“Ready?” Georgiana asked.

Eloise’s heart gave a jolt. The kind of thing she thought she’d lost when she’d given up Gus and then Clyde. But it was still

here, still beating despite its beatings. She could do this. They could do this. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

With Eloise standing just behind her, Georgiana opened the front door and welcomed James and his (very handsome) father into

their home.

“Brian,” Georgiana said, lips curling like a devil, like an angel, like a daughter. “I’d like you to meet my mother.”