When Liddy had first handed over the keys to Jessie, she’d secured them on a metal ring to which she’d added several little charms. An artist’s palette. A small green watering can. A kayak. An open book. Jim had teased that some night Jess was going to walk home after having a few drinks at Dusty’s and try to unlock the door with the kayak.
Liddy juggled the keys, tossing them up and catching them in her right hand as she followed the long, winding path to the carriage house’s side door. She turned on the outside light, fit the key into the lock, swung open the door, and stepped inside. The climb to the second floor was steep, and she was slightly winded by the time she reached the top. She hesitated before snapping on the switch for the overhead light in the kitchen.
Jessie’s favorite coffee mug—covered with quips from the old Seinfeld TV show—sat on the counter where she’d left it that last morning or the night before. A dish towel carelessly tossed onto the round butcher block table lay where it had landed. The bulletin board next to the door held reminders for a dentist appointment Jess would never keep and the receipt for some art supplies ordered from a shop in Boston. A photograph of Jessie and Pugsly, the dog they’d found running loose on the beach one morning without tags and for whom they’d been unable to find owners. Eight-year-old Jess had been convinced the dog had been sent to her by her recently departed grandmother, and nothing anyone could say had convinced her otherwise. So, of course, they’d kept the dog, who’d become Jess’s constant companion, and when Pugsly had died of old age twelve years later, they’d all mourned and buried her in the backyard. That fall Jessie and Liddy had planted a bed of peonies, their shared favorite flower, to mark the spot.
Liddy stepped tentatively into the open living area, where the scent of ashes still lingered in the fireplace and folded magazines rested atop a pile of four-year-old newspapers on the coffee table. Rings on the table’s wooden surface remained where cups or bottles had left their mark. The shades on the front windows were all the way up, and light from the full moon inched its way across the wood floor. The door to Jess’s studio was half-open, and Liddy hesitated before pushing it aside. She stood in the doorway, her heart beating loudly, before turning on the light.
The room was as she’d left it when she and Emma had gone through the canvases Jess had left leaning against every wall and every piece of furniture. As far as Liddy knew, her daughter had not attempted to sell one piece while she’d been living there. It had been left to Liddy to decide what to do with the work Jessie had painted over the course of the three years she’d lived in the carriage house.
“You did it, girl. Sold. Out. All five pieces we sent to the Toller Gallery. Sold,” Liddy announced to the silent room and took the check from her pocket and unfolded it. “See here? I hope you’re proud of yourself. I’m proud of you. And I’m grateful to you. Unless you find a way to tell me otherwise, this money is going into the bookshop, like money to order books from the publishers. I wasn’t even sure of how any of that worked, but I’m learning. I can’t thank you enough. I know you’re looking out for your mama, and I appreciate it.”
She walked around the room, from time to time stopping to study some of the paintings that had not been sent out the first time.
“Now the Toller wants more of your work. I hope you’re okay with that.” She added wistfully, “Your reputation is growing, sweetheart. I only wish to God you were here to enjoy it.” She paused. “I don’t know what you can see or hear where you are. Sometimes I feel so strongly you are right here, right in the room with me. Other times, I don’t feel you at all, and I don’t know where you are. Are there other places you need to go? I mean, I know I’ve asked this before, but I don’t understand whatever dimension you’re in or where, exactly, it is. I guess we’re not supposed to know that, right, while we’re living this earthly life? I just know sometimes it feels like you’re around, and I love those times. Sometimes I imagine your beautiful spirit is like Tinker Bell, only invisible, hovering around me and sharing my space.
“I’ve pretty much reconciled myself to never knowing why you had to leave us. Why you made that decision, why you kept to yourself whatever was hurting you so much. I would have moved heaven and earth to help you, to keep you here with us.” She stared at a smear of paint on the floor for a long time.
“Oh. I almost forgot. There’s something else I need to talk to you about. Those wonderful, fanciful, beautiful greeting cards you used to make. You know people still remember those? Emma and Maggie still have the ones you sent them, and Emma thinks Chris still has some of his somewhere. And Grace still has hers.”
She walked to the back wall, where the enormous window looked out into the night.
“Grace is back—I’m guessing you know that. She’s been helping me a lot with the shop. You probably know that, too.” Liddy smiled. “So here’s the thing about the cards you used to make. I’m thinking about having a few of those made into posters to hang in the shop. I’m pretty sure you’d approve. But Emma thinks I should go a little further and have the cards reproduced to sell. You know, like a whole line of greeting cards. Holiday cards and birthday cards. I like the idea. I like having more of you out into the world so your work can be admired by more people. I just don’t know how you’d feel. I mean, would you feel I was exploiting your memory by turning those beautiful bits of you into something commercial? Would you rather we keep those private? I don’t know. I need you to let me know, okay?”
With a glance at the closed door of Jessie’s bedroom—the one room in the apartment Liddy had not been able to enter since the morning Jim had found their daughter’s lifeless body on her bed, the note she’d written clutched in her hand—Liddy left the studio and walked straight back to the kitchen, turning off lights as she passed from one space into the next. “Love you, Jess. Always,” she said before she went down the steps. She locked the door behind her, then took the path back to her waiting house, sadness trailing behind her like a shadow.
Chapter Three
Moonlight flowed through Liddy’s bedroom window and cast angled shadows on the bed, where sleep had eluded her since she’d lain down three hours earlier. Finally, she got up, turned on the lamp next to the bed, and reached for the notebook and pen on the table. She’d long since learned not to trust to memory those brilliant ideas that came to her in the middle of the night. For more than an hour, a seemingly endless stream of things she needed to do in the shop had wound and rewound through her brain, and she knew she wasn’t going to sleep until she wrote them down.
Her to-do list spilled over onto the pad as she scribbled on a clean page. There was so much to do before opening day, and since she was determined to have her grand opening on the Tuesday after Labor Day—the traditional move-in day for the students at Alden Academy as well as the first day of school for the locals—she had a lot to accomplish in a very short period of time. It was important for her to attract the attention of all those wealthy parents who dropped their kids at their dorms before they headed back to the highway. She knew exactly what she had to do to call attention to her shop when the families stayed for lunch at Mimi’s or the Harbor House, or stopped for coffee at Ground Me. And, of course, there were the local parents who would want a little me time after having deposited their kids at school on opening day. She needed to bring them in as well. After all, while the out-of-towners might be her bonus customers, the residents of Wyndham Beach would be her bread and butter if she could attract their attention and assure them Wyndham Beach Reads was not the old Wyndham Beach bookstore. While she wouldn’t be selling textbooks, she had put in a request to both the local public and private schools’ English departments for a list of required reading, and she planned on setting up that big front window with current bestsellers.