Prologue
On the day she turned sixteen—when she was still Lydia Hess, the Bryant still seven years into her future—Liddy thought she knew how it was all going to shake out. She and her two besties—Emma Harper and Maggie Lloyd—would finish college and return to their hometown, Wyndham Beach, on the lower coast of Massachusetts, to live their happy-ever-afters with the to-be-determined loves of their lives and raise their families. Maggie, of course, would marry Brett, her high school love, but wouldn’t move back home until his professional football career was over (no one in the entire states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island doubted Brett Crawford would be drafted by a pro team, but they all, naturally, prayed he’d go to the Patriots). The three of them—Liddy, Emma, and Maggie—would always be best friends, and their children would play (and be BFFs), too. They’d live out their best lives together, grow old together, and support each other in whatever life might throw their way.
At fifty-nine, Liddy was in turn amused and chagrined by her younger self’s naivete when she considered her bold predictions hadn’t even been half-right once it was all added up.
Liddy and Emma did return to Wyndham Beach after college graduation (University of Rhode Island and Smith, respectively), Liddy to marry Jim Bryant, son of the town’s most successful insurance agent, who had the policies for all the local properties, autos, and businesses locked up. Emma had married Harry Dean, who was older by thirteen years and the son of the president of the First National Bank of Wyndham Beach (and destined to follow in his grandfather’s and his father’s footsteps to the bank’s big corner office). Maggie had strayed most from the script, having (shock!) broken up with Brett after his second season with the Seattle Seahawks, and instead of coming home—where Liddy and Emma could have supported her through whatever heartbreak she must have been enduring, had she taken them into her confidence, which inexplicably she had not—Maggie had stunned everyone by up and moving to Philadelphia, where, two years later, she married Art Flynn, a Philly lawyer, and settled into a life that had been step one in totally blowing up Liddy’s life plan.
Maggie had lived happily on Philadelphia’s Main Line, raising her two daughters and teaching in the private school they attended. Grace, her older daughter, had gone to law school and joined her father’s firm, Flynn Law, after passing the bar. She married the man she’d thought was her one true love, but that hadn’t worked out so well. Natalie, the younger of Maggie’s daughters, taught English at a community college in a Philly suburb and was the single mother of four-year-old Daisy. Both Maggie’s girls had made some questionable decisions over the past few years—mostly where men were concerned—but then again, Liddy conceded, who hadn’t at some point in their life? Three years ago, Art died from a cancer diagnosed only months before his death, and Maggie’s seemingly happy life had come to a screeching halt.
Emma and Harry had one son—Christopher—who’d been a joy to Emma but a source of contention to Harry from the day the boy discovered music. Harry’s vision for their son’s future had had Chris following in his footsteps straight to Harvard and eventually to the office of the president of the bank, but once the boy learned to play the guitar, it was all over. Chris had set his sights on becoming a rock star, and that was exactly what he’d done, becoming the international voice and face of DEAN, the band that had its humble beginnings in the Wyndham Beach garages of their ever-changing teenage participants. Nine years ago, Harry had had a sudden heart attack and died without ever reconciling with his son. Since then, Chris and his wildly successful band—the final lineup having solidified in college—had traveled around the world several times, leaving little time for trips home to visit his lonely mother. So much for Em’s happy ending.
Liddy’s blueprint for her own future hadn’t quite held up, either. She and Jim had bought the house his great-grandfather had built in Wyndham Beach, and they’d planned on renovating it and filling it with children. After years where she’d suffered a series of miscarriages and a stillborn son, Liddy had become mother to a healthy baby girl, Jessica, who’d been the center of Liddy and Jim’s universe from the moment of her birth. Jessie had grown into a remarkable young woman, kind and beautiful and blessed with amazing artistic talents, and who, at twenty-nine, with no apparent warning, had taken her life. A year to the day later, Jim had asked for a divorce, and the collapse of Liddy’s world had been complete.
So much for happy-ever-after.
Chapter One
Every morning upon waking, Liddy’s first thought was of her daughter, and the choice she’d made to end her life without ever confiding in her mother the intent or the reason. Four years after the fact, Liddy was still searching for answers.
In the solitude of her quiet house, Liddy spoke aloud to Jessie several times over the course of each day. Sometimes it might be merely a quick, “Morning, sweetie.” Other days it might be a little more complex, as when Liddy wanted to buy the town’s only bookstore from its retiring owner. She’d gone over all the pros and cons with both her lawyer and her accountant, then later, at home, with Jess. In the end, remembering how her daughter had loved going to the shop and searching for the perfect book, Liddy had followed her heart and signed the papers, jumping in with both feet, taking possession of the building and the business. If nothing else, the prospect of turning the closed, run-down bookstore into a lively, thriving business had put a new bounce in Liddy’s step. The plan for the renovation—however intimidating it might be—had lent new purpose to her days.
As she walked toward the center of Wyndham Beach on a late August morning, the chorus of the last song she’d heard before she’d left the house still playing in her head (Sting’s “Fields of Gold”), Liddy mentally ran through the day’s agenda: remove all the books from their shelves and box them up, then move all the bookcases to the center of the shop so the walls could be painted. The floors needed refinishing, but she had no idea how that could be accomplished given the limitations of the shop itself. Where would everything go while the work was being done? She’d have help with the packing of the books and the painting, but still, the logistics of it all were daunting. There was much more on the overall to-do list, but if she thought about the work in its entirety, she’d exhaust herself. Probably pass out from the stress right there on Front Street. People coming into town to shop or mail letters or meet friends for breakfast would step over or walk around her prone body. She could hear them complaining about her lack of consideration: “Humph. You’d think Liddy’d at least have had the courtesy to pass out on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street instead of right in the damned middle of everything.”
Amused, Liddy smiled as she pushed open the door of Ground Me, the local coffee shop boasting the best brew in town, a claim not unfounded. Liddy waved to Brett Crawford, the chief of police and Maggie’s former and present love. He was deep in conversation with two members of the town council (what was that all about?) and his wave was uncharacteristically perfunctory.
“Good morning, Miss Lydia.” The young man behind the counter greeted her with a winsome smile. Blond surfer-boy hair flopped onto his forehead as he pushed up the sleeves of his light-blue button-down shirt, which, along with khaki shorts, made up the shop’s preppy uniform. “What will it be today? The usual, or shall we walk on the wild side?” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I could fix you a large dark roast latte with extra cream and sugar. Top it with whipped cream and a touch of caramel.” He waggled his eyebrows.