“I’m so sorry, Kaylee. You must miss your mother so much.”
“Unbearably,” she said. “We were so close. I’m an only child. We were best friends. Her friends were my friends and my friends were also her friends. She read every book I wrote before I even sent it to an editor. I’m lost without her. I knew I would be for a while, but sometimes I feel like I’m getting worse, not better.”
“Do you have to finish that book? I mean, do you have other options?”
“I could give the advance back. I’m just not ready to give up yet. My storytelling always swept me away. Saved me. Till now.”
“Well, it’s not surprising. You suffered an enormous loss. But I think you were smart to come here. A change like this can be good. You know what I learned about grief? It’s always there and it’s always at the center of your life and then one day you realize with some surprise that you had a fairly good day and you wonder if grief left. Or if it got smaller. It didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s the same size. Your mother will always be that important. But your world will get a little bigger. And when your world gets bigger it feels like your grief gets smaller. You took a very brave step in coming here—the change alone will make your world a little bigger.”
“I will always miss my mom,” Kaylee said, and the damn tears gathered in her eyes.
“Of course you will,” Mel said. “But your world will inevitably expand. Jack said he fed you dinner. How would you like a cup of tea? With honey?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Let’s go inside and make it together. There’s a small refrigerator and microwave in the guesthouse. We can poke around in the kitchen for a few things you can take with you for the night.”
Kaylee followed Mel. “As a matter of fact, I brought a cooler and picnic basket with some groceries. I knew that once I got to the Templetons’ house, the nearest grocery store would be at least a town away and it might be a day or two before I could shop.”
“That was smart. There’s a small store in town but you’re probably going to have to drive to Clear River or even to Fortuna to stock up. Sit down while I put on the water and make our tea.”
Kaylee looked around the spacious kitchen adjacent to the great room and dining room. “Your home is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Jack and some of his friends built it. Then his sister and her husband built the house next door. Brie is an attorney with an office in her home and she loves to hike. If you decide to hang around a while, she can give you some great tips on hiking trails. Sometimes a little bit of nature is just the thing. The views are spectacular.”
“I’ll probably go back to the LA area, since the house isn’t going to be available.”
“LA? I went to school in LA and worked there for a long time.”
“What kind of work?” Kaylee asked.
Mel put the tea in the pot to steep, bringing it to the table. “I’m a nurse practitioner and midwife. I work with Dr. Michaels in town, right across from Jack’s. Here’s an idea. Jack knows everyone. That’s kind of a by-product of having the only watering hole in town. Why don’t you ask him to make a couple of phone calls and check with a Realtor or two, see if there are any vacation properties for rent around here. Maybe you won’t have to hurry back to LA.”
“I don’t want to impose...”
“He wouldn’t mind,” Mel said. “I’m sorry you can’t just use the casita for the whole time you want to be here, but Jack’s got family coming the end of next week. Besides, that little guesthouse wouldn’t do. You need a real house with a real kitchen.”
“And a porch,” Kaylee said.
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask. I’ll call him right now. What are some of the specific things you want?”
“A cozy place. A view would be nice, like the Templetons have from their front porch. The weather is going to cool off; a fireplace would be good. I don’t think I could be happy in some fishing cabin buried in the woods. Do you know the Templetons’ house?”
“I’ve met Bonnie and Gerald and a couple of their sons, but I’ve never been to their house.”
“It’s bigger than I need—four bedrooms. But it has a nice living room and kitchen and a porch in front and back. And their view isn’t as great as yours, but you can see down the hill and the mountains to the east and west. I remember shiny hardwood floors, old quilts and wood paneling. It’s not fancy but it’s homey. Comfy. As I remember it, it feels like it kind of hugs you.”
“Wonderful description. You should be a writer.” Then Mel grinned and said, “Stand by.” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “When I first got here about ten years ago, we had no cell service anywhere. I used to carry a pager—that’s how antiquated this place was. The internet was dial-up. Jack,” she said into the phone, “Kaylee is here, we’re having a cup of tea and got to talking.” Then she repeated everything Kaylee had said about a rental. She said she’d see him in a while and signed off. “See. He’s happy to make a couple of calls on your behalf. Let me get your number. I’ll put it in my phone. And I’ll give you mine and Jack’s.”
They chatted while they finished their tea, and then Mel walked with her to the guesthouse and opened the door for her. It was perfectly charming and certainly adequate but she wouldn’t choose something that small for a six-month stay. It was hardly more than a motel room and she wanted to spread out and work, if possible.
Kaylee went back to her car and moved it to the side of the guesthouse. She brought in her suitcases, cooler, picnic basket and a couple of boxes of stuff that she wouldn’t bother to unpack until she found something long-term, if that even happened. She had a special suitcase with some mementos of her mother, things she couldn’t bear to be away from for too long. She was fairly sure she’d be putting everything back in her car and heading south in the morning. She’d start making a list of people she could call who would put her up for a while, until she found something semipermanent. In fact, she could call Lucy and talk with her about finding a rental somewhere.
By the time she’d gotten into her pajamas, she’d begun to long for her mother’s house and, of course, her mother. They used to talk three times a day. Nothing in either of their lives passed without some mention, and major life crises or events could take hours to discuss and sort out. They were each other’s go-to counselor. Kaylee didn’t have anyone to fill that void.
She thought about what Mel had said to her before leaving her to settle in.
“It might be time to give yourself a pause. A break. You can’t rush healing. And healing is more important than anything else, including finishing a book.”
* * *
Early the next morning, Kaylee decided to take a walk. There was a small coffeepot in her casita. She brewed a cup and then stepped outside. There were a couple of chairs just outside her front door, so she sat in one. Everything was bright and clean, the air much clearer and sharper than at home. She saw Mel walk to the house next door with her children and within moments she was walking back home. She gave Kaylee a wave before disappearing into the house. A few minutes later she saw Jack’s truck driving down the road away from the house, both Jack and Mel inside.
So the day begins for the people of Virgin River, Kaylee thought. Jack was probably going to the bar, though it was quite early. She left her coffee on the ground by her chair and took a leisurely walk down the road, enjoying the sight of fog nestled in the valley as the chill ran up her back and arms.
I can do this, she thought. I can breathe in the cool morning air, wake up to the mountainous beauty, wave to the neighbors, and then I will get to work.
She showered, sat in the only chair in the room, feet propped up on the end of the bed, laptop balanced on her thighs, and she opened up the document. She had left off on page seventeen. She reread from page one as she had a billion times before and hadn’t even gotten to page seventeen when her mind began to wander. She thought of going to lunch with her mom and maybe a girlfriend or two, hers or her mom’s, it didn’t matter. She thought of shopping trips, always quick ones since neither of them liked to diddle over the racks. She thought about those nights neither had plans and they’d binge-watch some new series. And they often read the same book at the same time, cautiously discussing without spoilers until both had finished. Kaylee loved doing that.
There was a time a few years ago when Kaylee had to attend a conference cocktail party and had nothing to wear. She wanted to look good. Not only would other writers be there but also publishers, agents, editors and booksellers. Meredith had said, “You need just the right little black dress.” And Meredith needed one, too, for an entirely different event. They wore the same size but their age differences and therefore style preferences precluded sharing a dress. Off they went to one of the better stores in LA. Better meant middle range, because they were hardly Rodeo Drive shoppers, but this called for something more upscale than the mall. Neiman Marcus, they thought. Or Nordstrom.
They loaded the appropriate dresses on their arms, chose neighboring dressing rooms that opened into a large viewing area with several mirrors. Kaylee’s first choice hugged her butt like it was three sizes too small while Meredith’s emphasized her belly. The next two were almost the opposite—Kaylee suddenly had a belly and Meredith looked all hips and butt. The next one for Kaylee looked more suited for a ninety-year-old attending a wake while Meredith had one fit for a seventeen-year-old.
“You need Spanx,” Kaylee told Meredith. “I’ll have the saleslady get one.”
And it went downhill from there with them dying of laughter at the sight of Meredith trying to pull on the body shaper and then Kaylee trying to help her tug the girdle up. Neither got a dress that day but they did have wine with lunch, continued the laughter and vowed to try again in a week.