It wasn’t exactly a clean room, but it would keep the majority of contaminants out.
I hung my lab coat up on the hook by the side, door and left the building. The warmth of the sun hit me at the same time as the breeze. The mixture of the cold and warm on my skin brought me back to the real world, drawing my mind from the cells that had lingered on the slide under the microscope to Mandy and Leena’s garden full of color. The leaves were changing, the green fading away as fall moved into New England.
I hurried up the back steps and into the kitchen where the oven timer was also going off. The sweet smell of cinnamon and cardamom filled the house like it did almost every morning. The formula for cinnamaldehyde scrolled through my vision. I was confident that using it in my antimicrobial formula was going to be the key to success.
I grabbed a potholder and pulled the apple cakes from the depths before turning to the second oven and pulling out the quiches. I replaced them with the trays of bacon and hash brown patties I’d made the night before so that I could just reheat them this morning.
If I’d had any doubts that staying in New London had been the right decision, it had evaporated when, a few days into my stay, Mandy and Leena had gotten a panicked call from Eli down in Texas. The doctors had placed Ava on bed rest because the baby was trying to come way too early, and it had been obvious that Mandy and Leena wanted to be there to help.
“Go! Between Tami, Saul, and I, we can handle the B&B,” I’d told them.
Tami and Saul Little were semi-retired friends of Mandy and Leena’s. They helped in the mornings at the B&B with cleaning, maintenance, and food prep, which left them free to pick up their grandchildren from school in the afternoons. The Littles also helped whenever Mandy and Leena needed the random overnight assistance, but they couldn’t stay on-site for the six weeks or so Mandy and Leena might be in Texas.
When Mandy had hesitated, I’d pushed.
“I’ll feel better knowing I’m earning my keep in some way.” Because, in typical Mandy and Leena fashion, they hadn’t allowed me to pay a cent toward anything. “It isn’t like you’re asking me to manage the entire business. You can do a lot of it from Texas. I’ll just be your hands and feet on the ground here until you can get back.”
The second call from Eli, saying the doctors had decided to keep Ava in the hospital instead of sending her home, had sent them scrambling for their suitcases. That had been three days ago. Ava and the baby were safe and healthy so far, but I could hear in Mandy’s and Leena’s voices how happy they were to be there.
As for me… I felt lighter than I had in months.
A door upstairs slammed, and I couldn’t help jumping at it, hoping it hadn’t woken any of the other guests. We only had three couples at the moment, but as we slid further into September and closer to October, the reservations were growing. Eventually, we’d max out all six guest suites as New England’s world-renowned autumn foliage beckoned to people.
I was just measuring out the coffee grounds for the percolator when Silas sauntered into the room. Even at seven in the morning, and with no plans to speak of, he wore gray dress pants pressed to perfection and a light blue button-up.
“You’re going to wake up the guests,” I said.
He leaned in the archway, watching me with a frown, hands buried in his pockets. I moved on to cutting and plating the cakes and quiches before starting to assemble the breakfast buffet.
“You seem happy,” he said, and the undertone was sad and painful.
“I am,” I told him. “But I’m truly sorry that my being happy here is hurting you.”
The guilt was eating at me, and the longer he stayed, the more it added to the sorrow I felt at ending our friendship in some antagonistic standoff. I wasn’t sure what was keeping him from leaving.
“Violet, your potential…it’s like…like finding an exoplanet in the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s rare and beautiful, and I’m afraid you’re wasting it on face creams and apple cake.”
I tried to stay calm, but I was getting damn tired of the same conversation every day. He’d made it perfectly clear that he felt my “make-shift lab” wasn’t worth giving up Stanford and my future for every time I’d added a new piece of equipment to it.
“Silas, I want everything for you that you want. Your Ph.D. Your life working for your parents or some other medical device company. Your high-tech gizmo that will change healthcare forever. But for me…I need to create the formulas dancing in my head. I need to make a difference in another way, and I don’t need a Ph.D. to make it happen.”
“Cancer isn’t going away just because you create an antimicrobial, Violet,” he said with disdain.
I tried to remember that he was hurt and upset as I responded. “Maybe not. But I bet people will feel a whole lot better, and they won’t wake up twenty years from now and realize the talc they’ve been using caused their mesothelioma.”
“I get you’re upset the nanoparticle committee turned you down. I get that your father just died. I even get you wanting to stay to help Mandy and Leena. But staying much longer…it’s just insanity.”
“You know how I feel about that word,” I told him, my heart hardening ever so slightly.
The first time I’d told a teacher I saw math and science formulas in my head, she’d pulled Jersey aside after school and suggested she take me to a counselor. I was ninety percent sure it was why Jersey had chosen to get a psychology degree. It was her way of protecting me yet again. Lord knew it wasn’t her passion, like making characters from nothing on a page was. Thank goodness Truck had come along and convinced her to follow her heart.
Silas sighed. “I know you hate it, but I’m also coming up empty with an alternative word at the moment. Even if you say I’m not your boyfriend anymore, I’m still your friend, and this choice…it feels rash. A knee-jerk reaction. You need to really think it through.”
He came closer, pulling my hands from the food.
“I’ve stayed because I thought I could make you see reason. I stayed because I love you,” he said, and his voice choked, and I went from mad to sad all over again.
“Si…I honestly believe you think that. But I also believe that once you find the person you’re really supposed to be with, you’ll be glad I ended it.”
He was shaking his head, but I believed it deep in my soul.
The stairs creaked, the guests making their way down.
“I’m sorry, Si,” I told him again.
He turned away. “I’m going out for a little while.”
I hated myself for being relieved that he was walking away.
When he’d shown up the day of Dad’s funeral, he’d thought he was going to stay with me, in my room, but I’d disappointed him yet again by showing him into his own suite. Since then, he’d tried a few times to take my hand, to kiss me, to show affection, and every time, I reminded him we’d broken up. That we wanted separate things.
As Silas left, a man and a woman came into the kitchen. They were an older couple, but they were holding hands, looking at each other as if they were teenagers with their first crush and not seniors with gray hair and wrinkles. They were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary and were so in love it reminded me of Jersey and Truck. Like they couldn’t be without each other for even a few moments without feeling the loss.