AS USUAL FOR a Mannion family dinner, the long wooden table was laden with enough food for an army battalion. Over her mother’s famous fried chicken, potato and pasta salads, along with dressed tossed greens from the garden, mac and cheese, grill-roasted corn on the cob and obligatory deviled eggs from Caroline Harper’s Southern family recipe, Brianna was filled in on all the local gossip about who’d married whom, who’d had babies, who’d broken up, who’d started businesses and who’d closed them.
Her uncle Mike had shown up, thankfully without Seth’s mother, which could have made the evening a bit strange.
Now, at a break in the conversation, Brianna took a sip of wine for liquid courage and prepared to break the news. Which, she hoped, since it meant she’d be returning home, surely everyone would take positively, so there wasn’t any reason to be so nervous. Maybe because once she shared her plans out loud with everyone, she’d definitely crossed that burning bridge from her old life to new. “I have news.”
“You’ve come back to marry that Harper boy,” her grandfather Harper guessed.
“Jerome!” Harriet snapped at her husband.
“Dad!” her mother said at the same time.
Her father merely exchanged a look with Quinn and shrugged.
“No,” Brianna said. “That never crossed my mind. Why would you think that?”
“Maybe because it was as plain as the nose on your face that you had a thing for him ever since you were knee high to a toadstool.”
“You’ll have to forgive your grandfather,” her grandmother told her. “The filter between his head and his mouth isn’t all it should be these days.”
“I’m fine,” he shot back. “I just believe in speaking my mind.”
When the others exchanged looks, Brianna sensed something was going on. Something they were keeping from her. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.
“It’s nothing that serious,” Sarah said, not sounding convinced herself.
“Which is what I keep telling you all,” her grandfather said, folding his arms across his broad chest. He’d spiffed up for her welcome-home dinner in his dress overalls, she noticed. They were the original dark denim, showing little wear and sharp creases. “It was just a glitch,” he said. “Everyone made a big fuss about it. Even had me flown to Harborview in Seattle.”
“You were in the hospital? And no one thought to tell me?”
“It wasn’t any big deal,” he insisted as the others exchanged looks. “I didn’t want to worry everyone. Hell, Quinn’s the only one of you kids who knew, only because he was living here at the time.”
Brianna shot her brother a look even sharper than that her grandmother had speared her grandfather with.
“Hey.” He lifted his hands. “Gramps swore me to secrecy.”
“It wasn’t a little glitch,” Brianna’s grandmother said firmly. “It was a stroke.”
“A stroke?” Her own head felt on the verge of exploding.
“A TIA,” her mother broke in. “Transient ischemic attack.”
“Transient being the key word,” her grandfather pointed out. “As in temporary.”
“I know about TIAs,” Brianna said. “A guest once had one during dinner at the hotel in Hawaii. I also know that it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a TIA or a major stroke because the symptoms are the same.”
She’d personally driven the man’s sixtysomething wife to Honolulu’s Queen’s Medical Center and stayed with her for hours. She’d learned that night that TIAs were often labeled “ministrokes” because although they didn’t leave permanent damage, “warning stroke” was more appropriate given that they could indicate the likelihood of a coming major stroke. Which had her worried about her grandfather, but she knew not to push. Not now, during her homecoming dinner.
“The point I was trying to make, before everyone got on my case about a stupid little head thing, which may or may not have even been a TIA, since I’m not forgetful enough to know that those don’t show lasting damage and I sure as heck don’t remember having one—”
“Which proves our point,” Brianna’s mother pointed out.
“Getting back to what I was saying,” the older man forged on, “I wouldn’t mind another Harper joining this family.”
“It’s not that way, Gramps. Seth is only an old friend.”
“You say that now,” he allowed, gentling his tone, “but you’re a pretty girl, Bri. And smart as a whip. A boy would be a blame fool not to snatch you up. Especially one who’s been moping around as down in the dumps as a rooster in an empty chicken coop.”
“Great simile, Gramps,” Quinn murmured.
“It’s the truth,” Jerome Harper said. “I realize it’s got to be hard, losing his wife, especially the way he did, but life moves on. I sure as hell missed my Bonnie when I lost her.” The story of the tree limb falling on the house where he’d lived as a young man with his new bride was archived in the museum as one of the tragedies of a historic massive winter storm that had swept in from the Pacific, picking up power and ice as it roared over the Olympics.
“But if I’d let myself turn hermit like Seth Harper has, I never would’ve met your grandmother, who gave me a wonderful daughter, your mother, who in turn gave us you. When you get to be my age—” he said, using his accumulated years to bolster his argument, despite having always been more likely to dismiss them, “—you can look back and see that life’s a chain, with every event and every person just another link.” He winked at her. “And you, my beautiful, bright granddaughter, are one of the golden ones.”
She smiled despite her continued concern, not to mention her discomfort with the renewed topic of any relationship with Seth Harper other than her contractor, and hopefully still friend.
“Now that you’re back home again, maybe you and that boy are meant to be each other’s next links.”
Her mother suddenly stood up. “Who’d like pie? I picked the rhubarb fresh this morning.”
Everyone at the table immediately agreed. “Can I help?” Brianna asked, looking for a means of escape.
“Thank you, darling, but I’ve got everything under control. This is your night, after all. John, why don’t you clear?” The warning look Sarah shot her father before leaving the room slid off him like water off the back of a trumpeter swan. “And you, Dad. Please behave yourself.”
“I remember when I was the one telling that girl what to do,” Jerome harrumphed. “The pecking order gets all mixed around when you get old. I’m not real fond of that.”
“Being old’s better than the alternative,” Brianna’s grandmother reminded him.
“Got a point there, honeybun.” Proving that his short-term memory hadn’t been affected, he returned to the topic. “So, you think you and Harper might be forever-after links?”
“I’m not planning to be anyone’s link right now,” Brianna said mildly.
“Life happens when you’re making plans,” he said, causing her to wonder if this man’s genes were where her brother’s debating skills might have come from. He’d always been up for an argument, but this was one of the few very times when Brianna had found herself in the crosshairs. “Just ask your mom and dad.”
According to family lore, her mother’s parents had done everything to keep them apart. But in the end, love had won out.
“I came back home with plans I hope you’ll all be excited about.”
Over the pie, which was the perfect blend of tart and sweet with a golden, flaky crust, Brianna told everyone what she’d told her brother upstairs.
“That’s great,” her uncle Mike said. “If you need some art for the walls, say some scenery, and maybe some industry fishing, lumbering, like in the foyer mural, I’d be happy to pitch in.”
“I’d want to pay.” Thinking of what his work commanded, inside Brianna went pale, but her concierge calm-during-all-storms smile stayed put.
“In the first place, you couldn’t afford me,” he said on a laugh, echoing her thoughts. “In the second place, you’re family. And it’ll be cool to have my work hanging in a historical house we all grew up breaking into.”
She laughed. “And here I thought we were the first kids to do that.”
He winked. “Who did you think broke the windows in the first place?”
“Truly, that would be wonderful,” she said, imagining his paintings hanging on the walls. They’d be perfect. “Of course I’ll have your gallery business cards to hand out.” Another idea occurred to her. “Would you maybe, just possibly, consider doing a monthly wine/painting class during the summer months? I could add it to the events calendar.”
“I don’t have to think about it. I’ve considered the idea before but haven’t gotten around to doing anything about it. Sounds like fun, and anything that brings people into the gallery goes right back into the hands of local artists, which supports the town. Win-win.”
“Thank you.” Brianna felt the sheen burning in her eyes and wondered how she could have stayed away so long. She was so fortunate to have been born into such a supportive, loving family. Which had her thinking of Seth and his father’s always difficult relationship and hoping that she wasn’t going to make it worse.
While they all seemed enthusiastic, with even Quinn seeming to have gotten on board, she thought she viewed seeds of worry in her mother’s hazel eyes.
* * *
AS THE MEN worked in the kitchen, Brianna sat with her mother and grandmother on the front porch, watching the stars wink in a midnight blue sky.
“I’d forgotten how many stars there are,” she said, as one went streaking across the sky over the snowcapped mountains that gleamed in the slanting silver light of the moon.
“You don’t see anything like this in the city, that’s for sure,” Sarah agreed. “I missed it when I was away at college.”
“I thought I wanted bright lights,” Brianna murmured, as much to herself as to her mother. “That’s why I left.”
“Is it?”
Her mother’s quiet question surprised her. Since changing her mind her final year of college, she’d probably bored everyone past tears with her talk of bright lights and big cities. How could her mother not remember that?
“Of course. Why did you think I left?”
“I doubt there’s ever just one reason any of us do anything. In your case, I think it was to explore new territory, to test yourself to see if you were up to the challenges without the support of your family and friends.” Her mother took a sip of her wine. “Small towns can be wonderfully safe places to grow up, but there comes a time when most of us need to test ourselves. Or, as your grandfather would say, test our mettle.”
“That’s it, exactly,” Brianna said. And now that she’d proven herself, to herself, she was ready for the next chapter in her life.
“And you’ve succeeded, spectacularly.” Sarah ran a tender hand over the top of Brianna’s head. “But I also always thought another reason you took off to parts unknown had something to do with Seth and Zoe.”
“What?”
“You changed your life plans shortly after their engagement.”
“I guess.” She thought back to the timeline. “But it wasn’t because of that. It was simply triggered by what I’d learned in school opening up my mind.”
“Which is what college is supposed to do. But did you ever consider that you didn’t want to have to see them together every time you came home? To have to stand by, watching them build the life you’d once dreamed of?”
“I was a young girl when I had those dreams.”
“As was I when I fell in love with your father.”
“But he refused to let your relationship get serious for years. Because of the Mannion/Harper feud.”
“People like to tell the story that way,” her grandmother, who’d been quietly rocking, seeming to only half listen, jumped in. “But I wouldn’t call it a feud. At least not in our branch of the family. Though I will admit that Jerome and I weren’t real happy about our girl falling in love with your father.”
“Because you worried he’d keep me here,” Sarah said. “I’m not sure either of you ever understood what a big responsibility it was being the first Harper to go to college.” She looked down into her wine, as if it were a window into the past. “The family had so much invested in my succeeding.”
“We did and we didn’t,” Harriet said. “You did more than your part, mostly paying your own way and getting all those scholarships and work study at that fancy school back east and even on to Oxford, but your father and I wanted you to do better than we had. Which is what all parents want for their children.”
“Your great-great-grandfather was a fisherman who risked his life much of the year in the Bering Sea.” Her mother picked up the story Brianna knew by heart. “A sea that took his life and left his wife, Ida, a widow with a six-month-old boy his father had never seen, along with a toddler daughter and four-year-old son.”
Ida Harper had lost her daughter at age eight to the Spanish flu, and the older son would be killed in the Japanese bombing of Alaska’s Dutch Harbor. The youngest, Jacob, Brianna’s great-grandfather, who’d also taken to the sea, had passed away in his sleep at the ripe old age of one hundred three.
But Jacob’s son, Jerome, with constant pressure from his parents, had raised the family’s lot a notch by owning not just one, but a fleet of three wooden fishing boats. While life had gotten considerably better for that branch of the Harpers, both Brianna’s grandfather and grandmother had still wanted more for their only child.
Brianna had heard the story how, having lost three children to miscarriages, and another to stillbirth, Sarah had been Harriet and Jerome’s “miracle daughter.” Thus the expectations to succeed that Brianna suspected her mother had carried on her shoulders most of her life.
Which might be why she’d never pressured any of her own children.
“Your grandfather didn’t have anything against your father, personally,” Harriet stressed. “I didn’t have any problem with him being a Mannion, either. Which, like I said, is an overexaggerated disagreement that didn’t start because of that vote on the town’s name, like most people think, but like most foolishness concerning men, over a woman.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I was always told,” Sarah said. “That Nathaniel Harper and Gabriel Mannion were both courting the same woman, Edna Mae Kline. Who chose the Mannion boy. And while I can attest to the fact that some of the Harpers have long memories, your grandparents believed that I was like you turned out to be, destined to live in big cities, doing important things.”
“Well, we were wrong about that,” Harriet allowed. “What you’re doing here, in your hometown, is just as important as heading up some English department in a big Ivy League university.”
Sarah smiled. “Thank you, Mother. I like to think so.”
“Do you know the most important thing I did last week?” Brianna asked. Then answered her own rhetorical question. “Arranged, and attended, a mid-six-figure high-society wedding.”
“Well, although I don’t understand when or why weddings became such major productions, I suppose it was important to the bride,” Harriet said.
“It was hard to tell since she wasn’t talking. Being a dog. Though she did take a nip at the groom when he tried to mount the bridesmaid.”
Her mother, who’d just taken a sip from her glass, spit out wine. It wasn’t easy to rattle Sarah Mannion. Brianna felt a spark of pride that she’d come up with a first for her. “Well.” She bit her lip, obviously trying to keep from laughing.
“It’s okay. You can laugh,” Brianna said. “It was a circus. Or a zoo. But my point is that I was merely catering to rich people who didn’t have anything better to do than throw their money around to prove their importance.”
“I’m sure some of them must have supported charities and done good things with their money,” her mother said diplomatically.
“There was a family, the Johnsons, outside of Port Angeles, we bought our pork from when growing up,” Harriet volunteered. “When I was just a girl, about ten, maybe eleven, they had themselves a big barn dance to celebrate breeding their prize hog with a blue-ribbon sow they’d had trucked in all the way from Iowa. Guess your dog wedding party doesn’t sound all that different. The ham dinner they served all the guests ended up worthy of that shindig.”
This was why she’d come home. Not the scenery, which was famous, nor the quaint, familiar town, nor the local history. But to be with her family, most of all these two women who could always look on the bright side and find good in anyone. Even, probably, Doctor Dick.
She leaned over and kissed first her grandmother’s cheek, then her mother’s. “I love you both.”
“And I love you,” her grandmother said.
Warmth flooding from Sarah’s hazel eyes went straight into Brianna’s heart. “I love you, too, darling. I know it’s old-fashioned, especially coming from someone who’s taught feminist literature and believed every word, but a part of me hopes that you’ll settle in back here, be loved by a wonderful man and give me grandchildren to spoil.”
“You never spoiled any of us.” But, oh, how her mother had loved each and every one of them, encouraging her four sons and daughter to seek their own destinies.
“It’s different with grandchildren,” Harriet said with the authority of age. “Dinah Foster—you remember her, she owns Dinah’s Diner—once told me that the reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.”
Brianna laughed. And felt a tug she hadn’t felt since Zoe had emailed her from Afghanistan, telling her all about her plans to start making babies with Seth as soon as she got home. She hadn’t given all that much thought to children. In her profession—former profession, she corrected herself—it hadn’t seemed practical. Plus, there was always the pesky little detail of needing a guy to make a baby and again, with her long hours and changing cities every few years, anytime a casual relationship looked as if it might turn serious, she’d break it off. Better to end early than face a divorce down the road.
“Sorry, Mom, but you’re going to have to talk to one of your sons. Because I’m going to be too busy getting Herons Landing B and B going to take time out to even date. Let alone procreate.”
“I’m not going to push. But—” she held up a hand to forestall any objection “—if you still have feelings for Seth, if I were you, I wouldn’t wait too long to act on them.”
“Seriously? My mother wants me to jump the widower of my best friend?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. But your grandfather did have a point. It was obvious to everyone except probably Seth and Zoe, who only had eyes for each other, that you had a crush on Seth.”
“Like I said, I was a girl.” Yet, as her mother had pointed out, she had decided against returning to Shelter Bay about the time Zoe and Seth had gotten engaged. Could she have been avoiding watching the two people she loved most, outside her family, build their perfect picket fence, two-point-five children, married life together? “But Seth and I are just friends.”
“Your father and I are proof that friends to lovers to life mates can be a real thing,” her mother reminded her. “Just saying.”
Then, having said her piece, Sarah switched gears. “Now, tell me all about your plans for the B and B. I do hope you’ll let me help.”
Grateful for the change in subject, Brianna polished off her wine. “Believe me, I’m counting on it.”