Chapter 38
Lucy
Present Day
“You’re going to have to talk to him, Lucy. You can’t keep avoiding him,” Ellie tells me a week later while we hang the storm shutters on the front of the inn.
After Fisher got the story from Ellie that day, he ran into the inn and found me curled up in the fetal position on the bed, crying so hard I could barely breathe.
“You know she’s lying, Lucy. Please, God, tell me you know she’s lying. I swear to you, NOTHING happened between us. Baby, please, you have to believe me. I don’t know why she’s doing this.”
I didn’t say a word to him. I couldn’t. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and tell him that yes, I knew it was all a lie and that I loved him and of course I believed him, but I just couldn’t do it. Melanie made me feel like a fool and ugly and worthless and it hurt so deep down in my soul that I couldn’t make the pain go away. Nothing Fisher said could make it go away, either, and he finally listened to me when the only words I could get out through my sobs were the ones telling him to go and that I needed time.
He’s called every day since then and stopped by multiple times, and while I haven’t refused to see him, I haven’t spoken to him, either. I’ve allowed him to do all the talking, listening silently while he begged, pleaded, and apologized. He swore over and over that nothing happened between him and Melanie, but I just can’t get her words out of my head. She talked about his anger and his rage and him fucking her against the wall and it was too much. It was too much like what Fisher and I shared and I don’t know how to get past that. I don’t know how to see past those words and find the truth. I don’t want to be one of those foolish women who automatically believe their man when he says he didn’t cheat, especially when there’s so much evidence to the contrary. I’m not stupid and I refuse to let anyone make me feel that way. It’s bad enough I don’t feel like I’m woman enough or good enough for Fisher, I don’t need to feel like I’m not smart enough, as well.
I was finally forced to talk to him last night when he came storming into the inn, pissed off and more than ready to fight. He’d found out about my phone call with Stanford and he was definitely not happy.
“How in the hell could you keep something like that from me?”
“I wasn’t keeping it from you, I was waiting to see if it panned out before I said anything.”
“Jesus, you’ve been ignoring me for a week for something I didn’t even do when the entire time you’ve been going behind my back with your ex-boyfriend!”
“I wasn’t going behind your back with anyone! I was doing what I needed to do to make sure I didn’t lose the inn. This has NOTHING to do with you!”
“It has EVERYTHING to do with me! I was your fucking HUSBAND and you wouldn’t let me help you with the inn, but you’re going to let THAT schmuck bail you out?”
“That’s exactly why I WOULD let him bail me out, because he isn’t my husband and it’s not something he feels like he HAS to do.”
“I don’t HAVE to do it either, I fucking WANT to. I love this place just as much as you do. Dammit, why can’t you just let me take care of you for once? What’s mine is yours, don’t you see that? I love you and I WANT to do this for you!”
We went round and round for over an hour, neither one of us willing to give in. When he tried bringing up the Melanie situation again as a way to steer the argument away from the inn, I finally stormed out of the living room and locked myself in my room.
“Am I bad person for not believing him when he tells me he didn’t sleep with her?” I ask Ellie softly as I step down from the ladder and stand next to her. “I feel like the worst person in the world. He was going through so much when all of that happened and he’s done so much to get better and be a better person and I can’t let go of this hurt. I can’t let go of this one little thing.”
Ellie wraps her arm around me and I rest my head on her shoulder.
“It wasn’t a little thing, though, it was a big thing. Even if he didn’t fuck her—which, I’m telling you right now and I’ve told you a hundred times before, HE DIDN’T—it was still a big thing. It broke your trust in him and when you break a woman’s trust, it’s hard to get it back,” Ellie tells me. “You aren’t a bad person, Lucy, you’re a woman with a big heart. You loved him more than anything else in the world and he pushed you away no matter how hard you tried to keep him close. I think it’s time for you to decide if you can let all of that go and let him heal your heart once and for all, or if you’re going to let it stay broken.”
I lift my head off of her shoulder and run my palms up and down my face. I feel like shit and I know I look like shit. I’ve cried myself to sleep every night that Fisher hasn’t been here with me. I want to believe him; I don’t want to let Melanie have the last word and get the satisfaction of knowing that she tore us apart, but I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been with one man my entire life and it’s something beautiful to me. Even though Fisher was far from a virgin when we first slept together, I’ve always been confident that he was faithful to me. In the back of my mind, I’ve always had those little worries and doubts that every woman has from time to time that maybe he’d find someone better, someone prettier, but I never let them take over and he always made me feel like I was the only one he would ever want. A few choice words from Melanie and all of that is shot to shit.
I put away the ladder and leave the rest of the storm shutters for another day while Ellie heads over to Bobby’s house and I go inside to do a little work on the website, switching out the summer rates for the winter rates. As soon as I sit down at the computer, I hear the front door open and see an older couple walk inside with a few suitcases.
It’s not unusual for us to get guests once the season is over. Some people don’t like the crowds and prefer to be on the island when it’s quiet and peaceful, but I checked the schedule this morning and we don’t have any new guests coming until next week.
I get up from the computer and move around the desk to greet them.
“Hi, my name’s Lucy, welcome to Butler House,” I tell them with a smile, holding my hand out for each of them.
“Thank you,” the woman tells me. “This place is absolutely beautiful. I’m so sorry, but we don’t have a reservation. Will that be a problem?”
We only have one other couple staying here at the moment and they are checking out tomorrow.
“It’s definitely not a problem,” I tell them as I gesture towards the front desk and head back around it, pulling up the registration page on my computer. “How long will you be staying?”
They share a look before the man rests his elbows on top of the desk and smiles at me. “This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment vacation. Is there any way we can pay for a week and then play it by ear after that?”
I nod, typing that information into the computer. “That’s no problem at all. Each of our rooms has a different lighthouse theme and a view of the ocean. We serve breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and even though it’s off-season, all of the businesses in town will be keeping their summer hours for a few more weeks.”
I hand them a brochure with a list of all the attractions on Main Street as well as the ferry schedule to and from the island.
“You probably saw the horrible red shutters we’ve started putting up on the front of the inn, sorry about that eyesore,” I tell them with a smile. “We’re getting into hurricane season, so we like to get a head start on making sure everything is ready, just in case.”
“I saw on the news there were a few tropical storms brewing in the Gulf. Do you guys get many hurricanes here?” the man asks as I print out his registration information and slide it across the desk with a pen for him to fill out.
“We actually haven’t had an official one blow through here for about twenty-one years. Mostly we just get a few bad storms,” I explain.
I can barely remember the hurricane that hit the island when I was nine years old. I was here visiting my grandparents that summer and all I remember was racing around, helping them put up the storm shutters and hiding out in the library with a bunch of candles lit all over the place after we lost electricity. I was too young to remember much else, but from what I’ve heard from people in town since then, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and the island didn’t get too much damage, thank God.
The gentleman finishes filling out the paperwork and hands it back to me. I grab one of the room keys and slide it over to them. Unlike large hotel chains, Butler House uses old-fashioned skeleton keys for each of the rooms. Attached to each key with a ribbon is a small card welcoming the guest to the inn along with the name of the room they’re staying in.
“You’ll be staying in the Cape Hatteras room,” I tell them. “If you go through these doors you’ll see a central staircase. It’s right at the top, the fifth door down. If you’d like to leave your suitcases here, I’ll have them brought up in just a few minutes.”
I look down at their form and quickly memorize their names.
“I hope you enjoy your stay at Butler House, Mr. and Mrs. Michelson,” I tell them with a smile.
Mr. Michelson returns it and nods at me, wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Please, call us Seth and Mary Beth.”