Cottage by the Creek

by Elizabeth Bromke

  “I like that.” It was Mercy who spoke, surprising them all.

  Slowly, Amelia nodded, a smile pricking her lips. “Right, yes. It’ll be nice. Clara baked cookies, and Kate set out a bunch of snacks on the table. We’ve got iced tea and some apple cider, and if you need to get up at any point, please do. Quietly, of course. But I was assigned to be the leader, and that’s my angle.”

  Brian held his hand up like a child in class. “A history lesson, Amelia? Are you qualified to give us a history lesson?” His joke broke the surface tension, and a few giggles fell after it.

  Amelia smiled. “Not when it comes to real history, no. But when it comes to my family’s history of craziness, no one is better qualified.”

  Again, laughter came and shot ripples through the circle. Adults eased back in their seats. The girls flicked glances nervously at each other, then looked eagerly at Amelia.

  After her miniature introduction, a few reached for cookies, and Matt went to grab a drink. Kate and Clara relaxed next to Amelia, who stretched her mouth in preparation for the mini lecture she had to begin.

  And then, once everyone had re-settled in, she started.

  “This story begins with another drama, one that didn’t end as well as this most recent affair.” She lifted one eyebrow.

  Megan oohed from the sofa, winking at Amelia.

  “Once upon a time, there was a woman named Nora Hannigan,” Amelia continued, her attention flitting from Vivi to Sarah to Mercy, and then to Clara, who didn’t know everything she was about to reveal. “Nora was born into a hardworking local family who just so happened to have waterfront property on Lake Huron. This was no stroke of luck, mind you. Nora’s ancestors weren’t powerful, but they were unrelenting, you see. Way back then, when Birch Harbor was nothing more than a settlement camp along the banks of the lake, a set of families wheeled in and decided it would make for a great home. The Banks. The Van Holts. The Actons. And the Hannigans. After a long, drawn-out fight for the only buildable land on the water, three families came out ahead. The Van Holts, the Actons, and the Hannigans. The Banks, after some sort of brawl and then a near-drowning, were pushed out to the little landmass we now call Heirloom Island.”

  Vivi yawned across the living room, and Amelia shuffled ahead in the story, always good at reading audiences.

  “Many years later, young Nora was born, and her warm and loving parents raised her up to be a good girl. But you see, in the Hannigan family, being a good girl meant giving everything you had to the family. Blind loyalty and hours of work. Her parents enlisted Nora and her siblings to help fix up the house there on the harbor, as everyone knows. Nora herself even buttoned up new drywall and hauled in shiny modern porcelain toilets.”

  Sarah made a face.

  “That’s right, before your grandma was the glitzy glam woman you knew, she was just a girl trying to help her family.” Amelia winked at Sarah. “But then, when Nora was in high school, things changed. Nora rebelled.”

  At this transition, Vivi sat up straighter. Amelia watched Mercy frown. Sarah squirmed.

  Clara’s face turned white as a sheet.

  But it had to be said. The whole thing. They had to get out from under the secret once and for all.

  Chapter 31—Sarah

  Sarah knew exactly where Aunt Amelia was taking the story, and she didn’t like it. Besides, Vivi already knew the truth about Kate and Clara. Would Amelia go that far? And if she did, how would Vivi react to being confronted with what she’d already learned accidentally?

  Aunt Amelia went on, “Nora met a weekender when she was young. Too young. He fell in love with her, I suppose, and that one-sided affection turned into something much more.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Mercy wince. Even Sarah knew the girl was a little too young to be wholly comfortable with the concept of pregnancy. Or too old, as the case may be. The matter of a pregnant woman split across age groups, in Sarah’s observations. Young girls were thrilled over the idea of a big-bellied mama. Young women were wary of it. But the tweeners—girls of Mercy and Vivi’s age—shuddered at the thought. To a freshman in high school, a pregnancy meant… well…

  “What happened?” It was Vivi who asked, and Sarah noticed just how rapt she was. Taken, it seemed, with Aunt Amelia and the story. This surprised Sarah, who had only seen in Vivi someone with limited attention span for others and unending focus on herself.

  Aunt Amelia clasped her hands in her lap. “Our mother, Nora, got pregnant when she was just your age.”

  Sarah watched as Vivi’s eyes grew even wider with interest. She looked over at Mercy, who also sat in semi-shock.

  “Nora’s parents wouldn’t let her keep the baby.”

  “Where is the baby now?” Mercy asked, her voice all but shaking.

  Aunt Amelia’s response was flat and cool, and Sarah felt more at ease with the whole thing. Perhaps she had an advantage, having heard the story first from her parents.

  “She lives in Indiana. We don’t know her, but she gave me the lighthouse. She’s a good person.”

  “Who’s the dad?” Vivi asked, predictably.

  “Not Grandpa Wendell, you see. Liesel—that was the baby’s name—mistakenly thought Wendell was the dad. That’s how she came to own the lighthouse. But she was wrong.”

  Sarah chimed in, excitement filling her words. “The dad was the old high school principal.” She liked being in the loop. It set her above. And to her, the scandal with Grandma Nora felt several degrees removed. Irrelevant, even. She could be excited about it. It didn’t change the world for her. Not like it changed the world for her mother and aunts.

  “Who is the old high school principal?” Mercy asked. “Does he still live in town?” The conversation was becoming theirs now. Matt had gone to the kitchen to get another drink. Sarah’s dad went back there, too. Suddenly, the so-called intervention was breaking up, and it started to feel like story time. All they were missing was a crackling campfire and gooey s’mores. Sarah’s stomach grumbled.

  “You probably don’t know him,” Aunt Amelia replied. “His name is Gene Carmichael, and he didn’t leave Nora alone for a long time.”

  “I’ve had that happen,” Vivi interjected.

  Sarah scoffed. “You’ve had a stalker?”

  The other girl shrugged. “Maybe you’ll have one, too, one day.”

  Rolling her eyes, Sarah wondered if she would ever come to like Vivi. If Vivi would ever apologize. If there would ever be room for both of them at the high school. Or even in Birch Harbor.

  “You see,” Aunt Amelia went on. “He became her shadow. But after the adoption, Nora did find her true love. Our dad. Wendell.”

  “But he left, right? That’s what my dad told me.” Vivi argued. “How could he be her true love?”

  Aunt Amelia shook her head. “We don’t know what happened to him. All we know is that he’s gone, Vivi. Not that he left. It’s more complicated than that. When a parent leaves his or her children, it’s not an easy choice. And that’s assuming the parent chooses to leave at all.” Amelia paused and narrowed her stare on Vivi. “I bet you can understand that, right?” She cocked her head, and Sarah immediately recognized the body language.

  This was her aunt playing mean girl back at Vivi. Not overtly. Not in a way that made Aunt Amelia cruel or awful. But just enough that maybe… just maybe… Vivi would get the hint. Maybe this would go better than Sarah had imagined it could. She stifled a grin and stole another look at Vivi.

  Shrinking back, Vivi frowned and crossed her arms, but she didn’t answer.

  Which meant that she absolutely did understand what Aunt Amelia was saying. She did understand that she wasn’t alone in her own history of personal scandals and problematic parents.

  Could Vivi be more than her past, too? Was there more to her than a rumor-starting brat who all but wrecked Sarah’s life?

  Sarah still wasn’t sure. But now, as she listened to what her aunt was trying to say, Sarah didn’t quite
feel angry at Vivi anymore. She felt angry about what happened. But Sarah still had both parents—together. She almost didn’t, however. So, instead of anger, sadness colored her opinion of the poor, beautiful island girl who sat gripping the overstuffed arms of Grandma Nora’s chair.

  “Do you know, Vivi, that our dad went missing during a time in our life that was very complicated?”

  Sarah’s gaze flew to Clara, who clutched Aunt Kate’s hand on the piano bench and whose eyes were turning watery.

  When Sarah looked back across the room, she realized that all the men were gone. Jake, Matt, Michael, and her dad. They’d disappeared. Not like Grandpa Acton, but they were gone.

  Now, it was just the women left to sort things out.

  Maybe this was the Hannigan way.

  Chapter 32—Clara

  Vivi nodded in response to Amelia’s question, and Clara frowned.

  She couldn’t hold back. “What do you mean you know? What do you know, Vivi?”

  All eyes turned on the white-blonde child, who pressed her mouth into a thin line and furrowed her brow. After a moment, she dropped her chin to her chest. “I know Clara is my half-sister. I overheard Kate talking about it after the Fireflies thing.”

  It was a whisper. A murmur. Barely audible. But it confirmed exactly what Clara had begun to fear.

  She wanted to claw Matt Fiorillo back here to answer for all this. It was his problem as much as it was hers or Kate’s. And Vivi was his daughter. He should be the one to spearhead the conversation.

  But Kate stole Clara’s thoughts. “This is my fault,” she declared, her voice breaking.

  Amelia shifted in the rocking chair, and its creaking broke the tension somewhat. “What is your fault, Kate?”

  “I told Matt to keep it a secret. I just… I didn’t know how Vivi would take it. I didn’t know when the time would be right. I didn’t want it to… to ruin things.”

  “Will it, Vivi?” Amelia directed the question across the room. Clara studied the girl carefully. After so many years of teaching, she thought she could read teenage girls well. Lately, though, she wasn’t too certain.

  Vivi lifted her chin, and all the vim and vigor and edge about her seemed to rise up and provide her with the gumption she needed to answer such a question as that.

  And for a fourteen-year-old who had effectively lost her own mom and grappled with fitting in—despite her beauty and her popularity and her intelligence—she had something else deep inside.

  “Maybe,” Vivi squeaked, her voice trembling and her eyes wet, “it will fix things.”

  Clara broke into tears but managed a smile toward Vivi, who was also crying now and—impressively—accepting a hug from Sarah. Sweet Sarah who was brooding and independent and the product of good and loving parents. Her compassion and maturity shone, and Clara realized that the truth wasn’t something to fear at all.

  The truth, in fact, was something Clara needed.

  The truth was that even with the love and support of her three older sisters, Clara was going it alone. Siblingless. And technically motherless.

  Maybe she and Vivi had more in common than they even knew. Maybe, instead of being alone in their pain, they could manage it together. With Matt—who returned to the circle, tearful and short of breath as he tugged his daughter into a hug. And then, when Clara stood from her piano bench—the bench she shared with the only mother she had left—Matt crossed to her. And hugged his other daughter, too.

  Chapter 33—Kate

  Amelia had dropped the ball.

  She claimed to be more improvisational than organized, which was largely true, but Kate should have stepped in right after the intervention—after everyone kissed and made up, and things were looking good again.

  Amelia had done nothing in the way of making arrangements for a grand opening, Kate quickly learned. And with Megan too focused on her own event, there had been two choices: cancel the grand opening or do as originally planned and merge it with Love at the Lake.

  Kate discovered all this when Megan came to her with a big, fat problem: very few clients or guests had RSVP’d for the matchmaking event.

  The only logical thing was to do what the Hannigan women did best: make it a family affair.

  So Love at the Lake would move forward just as Fireflies in the Field had. All hands on deck.

  In the meantime, other parts of the Hannigans’ lives were settling in.

  The girls were preparing for Homecoming, which worked out well enough. Their return to school was largely uneventful, overshadowed by the next big scandal at Birch Harbor High: a group of senior boys broke into the marina overnight and took a speed boat out for a joyride, making waves with the community and with the administration.

  Clara was relieved to be free of the spotlight, as was Jake. She revealed to her sisters that they had decided to make their third date for the weekend of Megan’s event. This worked out in everyone’s favor, because they could set the tone for a date night vibe but also come back into the fold as a couple, free from the events of the preceding weeks and on the brink of setting sail into the sunset together. Hopefully.

  So, there they were—Kate, Amelia, Megan, and their menfolk—at the lighthouse, setting up for Love at the Lake. Amelia twittered about half-uselessly, caught up in rehearsing her opening spiel and checking frantically on their exhibits.

  Yes, Amelia and Michael did manage to pull that off—historical exhibits. Even though it was an outdoor event, with the nip in the air, they had decided to stick to the lighthouse itself, hanging photographs and balancing informative plaques in the generous space on the ground floor.

  Amelia planned to station herself at the door there and act as a docent. Michael promised he’d hang around the area to help with any questions. They would be sort of relegated to the lighthouse together, which was okay with Kate, who promised to act as something of a matriarch for the greater event—seeing to it that love-seeking guests would also visit the would-be museum. Even if it was less of a grand opening, Kate saw that Amelia had something there. And in the end, it worked out that she played off the heels of Megan’s event. They were better together, it turned out.

  Among the modest collection that Amelia and Michael had managed to curate were surprisingly good bits of history. Storied photographs depicting early settlers. Newspaper clippings and portraits. Some artifacts that Michael had uncovered from his mother’s collection, including a little wooden desk that could have come straight from a one-room schoolhouse. All charm and no mystery.

  Although, when it came to Wendell’s case, many unanswered questions persisted.

  Initially, Amelia was convinced that Judith Carmichael was the key to it all. Her enrollment at St. Mary’s alongside Nora seemed too coincidental. Too sinister.

  But Kate new better.

  Especially now that Judith had coined herself a “friend of the family,” as she had declared in a cryptic announcement at a recent town council meeting.

  It wasn’t a total lie. Judith had ended her visit to the Inn with a generous proposition. She had asked Kate that a small monument to the Banks family be erected on the beach behind the house—Judith’s life goal was to memorialize her family and their undocumented efforts in settling the area.

  However, during her visit to the Inn, Kate had detected an undercurrent. There was more there than just a trip down memory lane. Kate could feel it. She could feel it with the iciness. The cool conversation—hovering just above comfort level. She could feel it when Judith had started into her baloney about wanting to support local businesses. Of course, Kate threw that back in her face by reminding Judith of her condemnation of Megan’s business.

  That’s when Judith had launched into the bit about a family memorial and struggling with long-held bitterness and hard feelings and that she was trying to do right by the town and her own ancestors and that she hoped to hold all others accountable to a high standard, as well.

  Yada, yada.

  Naturally, Kate didn’t bu
y it. So, she balked about a Banks family tribute.

  And that’s when Judith made an offer: she’d help with Amelia’s museum. She had insider information on the history of the town and the Island. Artifacts of her own to contribute. She’d love to act as the unofficial—or official—Island expert for Birch Harbor Lighthouse and Museum. She’d open an account and help manage donations. She’d work hard for Amelia. Or rather, with Amelia. Judith’s words.

  When Kate offhandedly mentioned it to her sisters, Amelia didn’t hesitate to jump on the opportunity. After all, to Amelia, Judith was more than a kindly donor. She was suspect number one in the Case of the Missing Father.

  But Kate had made Amelia promise that, at least for this event, she’d keep quiet.

  And so there they were, Kate hovering about the buffet table and drink station. Megan had opted for a fall theme. Alongside the usual veggie trays and cheese and crackers, they offered spiced cider, hot cocoa, warm apple pie, and a s’mores station near the bonfire the men had raging at the lip of the lake.

  After organizing a rustic aluminum canister with roasting sticks, she checked in with the DJ and tested the heat lamps. Meanwhile, Amelia and Michael tended to the lighthouse, and Megan and Brian stood at the guest check-in, reviewing the list of attendees.

  Half of the list was comprised of contacts and relations, but that was just as well. Brian had made good progress on their app, Fireflies, and they expected to have some people show up just before the party started—or even during it. It depended on when app users logged in with their GPS. That was the idea of the app, after all. To pin yourself to a locale and see who in the area was also looking for love. On location or in their own backyard.

  It turned out, once the night was underway, quite a few people were. An hour into the night, the beach was packed. Strangers galore and some familiar faces, too.