What if it was a living will?
Oof. Gia grimaced. She did not want to find that on her own. Then again, how could she ignore the letter? There was something in here Grammy wanted her to know.
Her hand trembled. The urge to bury her head in the sand was so strong she could taste it. She couldn’t help feeling something irrevocable was about to happen.
Memories spiraled through her head in a string of snapshots. She saw Grammy at the back door, waving them in from the beach on a bright summer day. Her long hair braided and curled on the top of her hair in a bun, wearing a painting smock over her housedress and stocky Doc Marten boots. Sunscreen in her hand. Warning them of sunburns. Darynda standing behind her with a tray of lemonade and iced glasses, a bribe to coax them off the sand.
There was the time Grammy and Darynda took them hiking in the nearby nature preserve. Grammy passing the binoculars over, so they could watch the birds flying in. Blindsided by the spotting of a rare whooping crane. The joyous dance they did, the five of them, arms locked to each other’s shoulders, feet kicking sand in a jig.
Movie night in Moonglow Park, lawn chairs placed side by side for Grammy and Darynda, a quilt spread out for the girls. Giggling and sighing over Fifty First Dates and dreaming of when they’d get to fall in love.
There was a glorious innocence in those days in the way they thought the future was bright and attainable, so sure of themselves and possibilities. Family, they’d believed, could save you from anything.
“Pyewacket,” Gia whispered to the Siamese. “What are we going to do without her?”
The cat, who’d finished her meal, let out a soft meow.
“Got it. Be brave. Just do what needs doing.” She tore open the letter and read it, the words pummeling her hard. Hot tears slipped down her face at the sacred mission her beloved grandmother tasked her with. Pyewacket curled into her lap and she scratched the Siamese behind the ears, taking comfort in the cat’s small, warm body.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no. This is impossible. Grammy must have been out of her mind when she wrote this. It’s got to be the brain tumor. She’s not thinking straight. I can’t get those two to stay in the same room together, much less finish that cursed quilt.”
Pyewacket dug her claws into Gia’s bare thigh and kneaded.
“Ouch. Hey there, missy, that hurts.” She deposited the cat on the porch and dusted her palms.
The Siamese tossed her haughty head and stalked off.
Breathing so fast she was almost hyperventilating, Gia closed her eyes and leaned her back against the porch rail in the same way she’d done as a child, imagining herself growing smaller and smaller until she was the size of a mouse and no one could see her. She could slip between the floorboards, munching on crumbs the B&B guests dropped when they breakfasted on the veranda, and live there happily forever.
Nah, if she were a mouse, Pyewacket would catch and kill her. The cutthroat Siamese hated mice.
The spring ocean breeze chilled her skin. Without opening her eyes, she wrapped her arms more tightly around her chest and told herself to stay small and out of the way. Don’t be a bother to anyone. If she stayed quiet, then everything would be okay. Grammy would come out of surgery with flying colors. She’d have radiation or chemo or whatever she needed to do, and she’d kick cancer’s ass. She’d get well and sort out her sisters and Gia wouldn’t have to do any of the heavy lifting.
Gia would move into the inn and take care of her. Gia’s roommate, who was also her part-time employee, wouldn’t like it, but some things couldn’t be helped.
She’d juice vegetables for Grammy and they’d go for long walks on the beach and in the evenings, they would sit on the porch swing, quilting and watching the sunset. Grammy would heal and grow robust and live to see Gia get married and have kids of her own, offering her sage child-rearing advice. She’d die quietly in her sleep at a hundred and one. Everything would work out.
It had to.
“Hey, stranger.” A jovial male voice broke through her trance.
Gia’s eyes flew open to see Grammy’s next-door neighbor, Mike Straus, standing on the stone wall separating his property from the Moonglow Inn. In the 1920s, the well-to-do Chapman family had built the Craftsman-style bungalow as caretaker quarters for their grand Victorian manor, but during World War II, the family downsized, sectioning off half an acre of beachfront property and selling the bungalow along with it.
Mike’s family had owned the bungalow long before Gia and her sisters came to live in Moonglow Cove. After his parents retired and moved to Arizona for his father’s health, Mike bought the place from them.
Mike was seven years older than Gia, and at thirty was a year older than Madison. He was a master carpenter who built magnificent handcrafted furniture. He’d made the inn’s four sturdy white rocking chairs, and the two Adirondack chairs, along with the three-person porch swing. Mike was also the one who’d gotten Gia into kiteflying and he’d been the first one to encourage her to follow her heart and do what she loved for a living, even as others pooh-poohed her interest.
They kept up with each other on social media. However, she hadn’t seen him in months. Although Gia came home to visit Grammy every week, since the first of the year, Mike had been out of the country with Habitat for Humanity’s Disaster Response program, helping to rebuild houses on a hurricane-devastated Caribbean island.
He was a square-jawed man with ocean-blue eyes and molasses-dark hair that swirled at the crown with an intractable cowlick. His tanned skin contrasted with the rolled-up sleeves of his crisp white shirt, and his heartfelt smile stunned bright in the morning sun.
She caught her breath for a beat, surprised by the quick kick of sexual attraction. What was wrong with her? This was Mike. She’d known him for as long as she could remember. Why was she suddenly seeing him in a different light?
“You’re back from the Caribbean,” she murmured, flabbergasted by the quickening of her pulse.
“Just this minute got home.” He suppressed a yawn, then held his arms wide. “Get over here, Short Stack, and give me a hug or I’m gonna pout.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. I can’t stand pouting.”
“I know. That’s why I threatened it. You haven’t changed. Same little peacemaker.” He wriggled his fingers. “Now, bring it in.”
She tucked the envelope in the pocket of her purple cover-up and launched herself into his embrace.
Mike wrapped her in a bear hug and swung her around in a circle as if they were still kids. She felt giddy and girlish and warm all over.
He put her down, stepped back, and shook his head. Beamed at her with his big old Texas-sized grin. “How have you been?”
“Great. Well . . . except for . . .” She waved a hand, tears pushing against the back of her eyes again at the thought of Grammy. “You?”
“Except for what?” He frowned in concern. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” Aww damn, here came the waterworks again.
“What’s wrong?” His hand went to her forearm, comforting and solid. “What’s happened?”
Dabbing at her eyes, she told him about Grammy.
He shoved his hair back with a palm. “Damn, Gia, that sucks hard. I’m so sorry. If there is anything I can do, anything at all, you say the word.”