Page 51 of The Sandy Page Bookshop

Leah

Girls need their fathers,” her mother had told her.

It was said near the end, when her health was failing and their days together were growing shorter.

Leah knew she meant it as comfort, that her father would look after her.

Their family had always been close; ironically, it was after her mother passed away when distance crept in between them.

As if, somehow, her absence left a crack too jagged to be closed, as if she’d been the ribbon that tied them all together.

Leah had read plenty of books on loss. She knew how the distance found them: it was her grief, it was her father’s guilt for surviving, and for later remarrying.

It was a lot of things. Though they gathered for holidays and talked occasionally, for the most part Leah tried not to need her father.

That night, however, after Greg showed up, Leah needed grounding.

Greg’s surprise visit had rattled her more than she’d thought possible.

When she first looked up and saw him standing in her shop she was livid.

How dare he just show up like that? Later, seated across the table from him at the grill she’d realized she actually wanted to hear him out.

As much as she’d moved on that summer, their ending had been abrupt and there was still need for closure.

She’d listened to Greg, head spinning as she did.

She’d agreed to consider his proposal, despite all her misgivings.

One thing about Greg was that his timing was impeccable.

He’d managed to catch her in a moment of uncertainty, even if he didn’t realize it.

Her life in Chatham, which she’d just started to settle into, was suddenly feeling unsettled again.

And there was Greg, right on time. When he kissed her like that in front of the bookstore it was the final blow.

“What are you doing?” she’d cried, reeling back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I still love you.”

A disconcerting surge of old feelings rushed her: the familiar press of his lips, the comforting scent of his aftershave.

Even the handsome face that looked back at her, his gaze ripe with hope.

The memories hit Leah hard on the sidewalk, as did the possibility that she could have all of this back. If she wanted it.

It was a scene ripped straight from the page of a romance novel, no different than one of the titles sitting on the front table inside her shop, mere steps away: old lovers standing beneath a streetlamp.

Leah holding her ground in front of her new shop, symbolic of her solo start.

And Greg, climbing out of pages past and inserting himself smack-dab into her latest chapter.

Two characters at the intersection of past and present; and yet instead of feeling like serendipity, it felt like a car crash.

Now Greg was staying at Chatham Bars Inn, awaiting her decision. Luke was still heavy on her mind. And Leah found herself suddenly needing her father. It was just as her mother had said.

“What a nice surprise,” her dad said, when he answered her call. “I’ve been following the shop online, on the Facebook.”

His comment chipped at any distance between them and made her laugh. “You’re on Facebook, Dad?”

“I am now. It’s the only way I can keep up with you. How is business?”

“Busy.”

“Good. And you?”

“Also busy. But I’m hanging in there.”

There was a pause on the other end. “You sound a little down, honey. Is everything alright?” She did not want to unload all her troubles on her father.

“It’s been a long week. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Well, that’s an awfully nice thing for a father to hear.” She could tell he was smiling. “How about I do the talking for once?”

He told her about his garden and about a nest of robin eggs he’d discovered over the front door, things that were beautiful to imagine and easy on the ears.

His voice was soft and gentle, like him, and the lilt of it took her back to childhood when her life felt soft and gentle, too.

After they chatted awhile, there was one last thing he wanted to tell her.

“You know, honey, I don’t say it enough perhaps, but I am very proud of you. Of both you and your brother.” Even on the other end of the phone, she could hear the catch in his voice.

“I know you are, Dad.”

“There are no guarantees in life,” he went on. “We know that better than most, don’t we?”

“We do,” she said sadly.

“But that never stopped you. Since you were a little girl, you always went after what you wanted. Whatever is bothering you, follow that gut of yours. I have no doubt you’ll be alright.”

It was the sharpest connection she’d felt with her father in longer than she could recall, and she wished suddenly she’d done this more often. It was not hard to pick up the phone. She would try to do that more. “Thanks, Dad,” she managed. “That’s an awfully nice thing for a daughter to hear.”

When she hung up, Leah grabbed her purse and keys. It was time for a conversation of another kind.

Greg met her in front of the Chatham Bars Inn, as she’d requested. Leah had chosen two Adirondack chairs, off to the side and with a view of the fishing boats coming in to the pier.

The moment Greg sat down, she could tell he knew. Still, he was brave enough to ask for himself. “So did you have a chance to think about what I said?”

“I did.” She turned to face him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see a future for us, Greg. Not anymore.”

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “At least you were quick about it,” he said glumly.

“I wasn’t quick,” she told him. “I already knew.” She reached across the space between the two chairs and took his hand. “I’ve changed, after everything that happened. I like being back here, and I like where my life is going.”

“It’s only been a few months, Leah. Where is your life going?”

She shrugged, turning her gaze back to the water. “I don’t know. But I can’t wait to find out.”

When she left the hotel, Leah went straight home to her couch. Telling Greg was one thing, but the reverberations that followed were another. “I know we broke things off months ago, but today feels so final,” she said, sinking onto the cushion next to Brad.

He wrapped an arm around her. “But it’s what you want, right?”

“It is. I just feel so… alone.”

“You’re not alone. You’re stuck with me.” Brad, still nursing his own hurts from his grandmother, looked to be staying with her until he went back to Boston. Which was too soon, as far as Leah was concerned.

“Summer is ending. You’ll be leaving soon, too,” she said.

And then she started to cry. In large hiccupping cries, she gave in.

It wasn’t about Greg, or Brad leaving, or even the uncertainty of the bookshop’s future when tourist season came to a close.

It was that Leah had been going so hard for so long, and yet there was no sign of any of it getting any easier.

Brad held on as she cried, and didn’t even make a peep when she wiped her nose on the sleeve of his linen shirt.

“All I have is a shop,” she said, sniffling. “A stupid little shop full of books and trinkets and strange if wonderful people.”

“Can I tell you something?” Brad asked.

“It better not be that I owe you a new shirt. I can barely make payroll.”

Brad shook his head. “That stupid little shop is a pretty big deal, Leah.”

“It’s been so much work.”

“Yes, and think about what’s come out of that.”

“Blood, sweat, and tears?”

He shook his head. “It’s a place where people come to gather. To escape, to learn. It’s where I met Ethan. And when my vovó kicked me out, it’s where I had a safe place to land.”

“I know.” She wiped her nose. “It’s how I reconnected with Luke, too.”

“See? Fixing up that old house spun some magic.”

“Well, Luke gets credit for the fixing part. He’s been a good friend.”

“Leah, I think he’s more than that.”

She made a face.

“When he brought you home the other night, I saw the way he carried you upstairs and tucked you in,” Brad told her. “It wasn’t like a friend.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he did it with care. He adjusted your covers just so, smoothed your hair on the pillow. It was actually very sweet.”

Other than being helped inside, Leah had little recollection of that part of the night. What she did recall was feeling safe. Now she knew why. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“Well, you do now. And you can thank your stupid little shop for that, too.”

She blew her nose and smiled. “It’s not that stupid.”

“No, it’s not. Even all the strange people who come in with tomatoes and dogs and their sticky kids. It’s its own little community. People aren’t going to let that go, now that they’re part of it.”

“Thank you,” she said. It was the nicest thing Brad had ever said.

“You’re welcome. Now, can we at least order food while we wallow? I’m starving.”

As they sat on the couch, a box of Kleenex between them and Chinese food on the way, Leah thought about what Brad said.

She thought about the captain’s daughters who opened the inn, who Brad swore still traipsed up and down the upstairs halls.

She imagined the general store, and all the people who found what they needed in there to take care of their families.

And of the gallery, that hosted artists and brought art to the village.

The house had had a life long before she’d even envisioned her bookshop; Leah was just another part of its history.

When she finally climbed the stairs to her room that night, she slept soundly for the first time all week.

The next morning, Leah drove out to Oyster Pond.

She couldn’t stop thinking back to what Brad said, about how Luke carried her up to bed and tucked her in.

About all the things he’d done for her that summer.

An envelope with a payment inside it sat on the passenger seat beside her; but it wasn’t the reason she was driving over there.

To her dismay, Luke’s truck was not in the driveway.

Still, she parked and walked around to the boathouse, hoping.

At the very least, she could leave the check there.

But when she rounded the corner of the house, the workshop was closed up, the windows dark and the yard quiet. She must have missed him.

The Oyster Pond River glistened in the morning light. Luke’s red kayak lay on its side along the bank. There was such beauty here in the wildness of the salt marsh, the shorebirds calling, and the river streaking out to Nantucket Sound. It was hard to believe one person could own all of this.

She was walking around the side of the house, when a truck pulled into the driveway. Only it wasn’t Luke’s. A young man parked and got out. “May I help you?” he asked when he saw her.

“I’m a friend of Luke’s,” she said, holding up the envelope. “Just dropping something off for him.”

“You may want to hang on to it until he comes back.”

“Comes back?” Leah asked.

The guy nodded. “He just left for a week.” He lowered the tailgate of his truck and pulled a table saw out. “I’m helping to finish up a job for him, since he had to leave in such a hurry.”

“A hurry?” This gave her pause. “Do you know where he went?”

“The Vineyard.”

Leah swallowed hard. When he was working on her café, he’d mentioned that Holly wanted to go to the Vineyard. Leah hadn’t liked the sound of it even then.

She shoved the envelope in her back pocket. She was too late.

“If it’s really important, you may still be able to catch him,” the guy added.

“He hasn’t left yet?”

“Not sure, but he mentioned stopping at the marina to grab his fishing gear.”

“Which one?”

“The Landing.”

“Thanks!” Leah hopped in her car and reversed quickly out of the driveway. The marina was just around the corner. Leah drove as fast as she dared through the rabbit warren of streets. A school bus pulled in front of her at the last intersection and stopped.

Leah waited, heart pounding. She was so close.

In front of her the bus flipped open its stop sign.

It took forever for two small kids to get off, dressed in swimsuits, wet towels dragging behind them.

They were sea camp kids, like she and her brother had been years ago.

It made Leah think of James, living in Duxbury with his family.

Of her father, down in New Jersey. Of Luke who’d stayed, and herself, who’d come back.

As the bus lights blinked before her, Leah thought about what she was doing.

As her father said, there were no guarantees in life.

There was no guarantee Luke was still at the marina.

Even if he were, Holly was sure to be with him.

He was leaving for the Vineyard, after all.

It’s what Holly had wanted. If that was the case, hadn’t Luke already made his choice?

Leah thought back to the phone call with her father. How he said she always went after what she wanted. Is that what she was doing?

Finally the school bus closed its stop sign and the blinking lights went off.

It turned off at the next street. The road ahead was clear.

The marina was just half a mile up, on the left.

Leah proceeded, trusting her gut. When she got to the turnoff for the marina, she kept going straight.

Tears in her eyes, she kept going all the way back to the shop.