Forever and For Always

by Sophie Love

  “That’s not what I said,” Jayne began to protest.

  “But it’s what you meant,” Emily bit back.

  Jayne stood there, floundering. Finally she said, “I’m going to head to bed. Don’t worry about breakfast. I’ll leave early.”

  She climbed up the stairs and Emily watched, her stomach feeling hollow, as she disappeared.

  Daniel came up behind her and touched her shoulder lightly. Emily held onto the hand he’d placed there, needing it to ground her now more than ever.

  “You okay?” he said gently in her ear.

  She shook her head, still staring ahead at the staircase. “Not really,” she murmured back.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he added, as soft as ever, like the voice of reason calming the thunderstorm of thoughts and emotions running through her mind.

  “Will it?” she whispered, so quiet as to be inaudible.

  More than anything, Emily wanted to believe Daniel, but this time felt worse. She could feel it in her bones, that feeling like everything was ending, like it was all crashing on top of her. She’d poured everything she had into the B&B and she couldn’t even make her oldest friend stay longer than one evening. With a heavy heart, Emily realized that she was on the brink of failure, that the dream she thought had come true was turning into a nightmare.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  Emily was sitting in the kitchen with Mogsy and Rain when she heard the doorbell ring. The dogs’ ears pricked up and Emily leaped to attention. Since her sign had been removed, she hadn’t had a single customer. People didn’t seem to trust a B&B without a sign and she could fully understand why. Her house looked just like every other house on the street. She wouldn’t trust it either.

  This was the first time anyone had rung her doorbell since the sign had been removed. She ran with excitement to the door and opened it. Two young men in nice crisp white shirts were standing on her doorstep. They grinned up at her.

  “Hi,” Emily said. “Are you looking for a room?”

  The boys’ pearly white grins grew larger. “Actually,” one said in a Canadian accent, “we’re here to talk to you about faith.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. She noticed then the pamphlets in their hands. “I, um, well, I’m quite content with my … current belief system.” She wanted to be polite but was utterly disappointed that the two boys weren’t here for a room. She wanted them to leave as soon as possible. “I mean, I’m not looking to… switch to a different … higher being. Is that okay?”

  The boys looked confused. They exchanged a glance. “May we leave some pamphlets?”

  “Sure,” Emily said. She took the illustrated, colorful slips of paper from their hands.

  “May we come back again to talk to you another day?” the second boy added.

  “Um… no.” Emily didn’t mean to be so abrupt, but she couldn’t have people soliciting all the time, it would disrupt the business. “Sorry.”

  Even as she shut the door on the boys, their smiles didn’t fade.

  She felt bad about shutting them out and went upstairs to where Daniel was putting the finishing touches on the newest renovated room. It was looking great. If only she could get some guests to fill the place with.

  “Who was at the door?” Daniel asked as he plumped the pillows.

  “It was a religious call,” Emily said glumly, wedging her shoulder against the door frame.

  “Oh,” Daniel said. “I thought it might be the photographer.”

  “He’s coming tomorrow,” Emily replied.

  The B&B now had three high-end bedrooms and seven mid-range ones. Cynthia explained that each needed a photo for the website and a description of what it offered. Emily had been reticent about getting a website designed and paying for a photographer to take professional photographs when there was no money coming in, but she reminded herself that she had to put the effort in now if she wanted to be rewarded in the long run. Still, the Fourth of July was getting ever closer and there was no sign of the guests she’d need to fill the house and keep her business afloat.

  “I guess we need to make a start on the other rooms now that these are done,” Emily said.

  “Third floor?” Daniel asked.

  “Third floor,” Emily said, nodding decisively.

  She’d spent next to no time up on the third floor of the house. No one had, not even when her family had vacationed here. Emily had been avoiding it because she knew she would find it in the same state the house had been in when she first got here; decaying, cobwebbed, and crowded with memories.

  “Want me to help?” Daniel asked.

  “Of course,” Emily said. Daniel’s help was invaluable to her. She wasn’t sure if she’d have even gotten this far if it weren’t for him and his continued optimism, not to mention his ability to get her back up every time she fell. “Except I think there’s going to be a lot of sorting to do. Through family stuff, you know?”

  Daniel nodded. The process of decluttering the ground floor had been lengthy, made more so by Emily suddenly discovering a photograph or document, or an old family heirloom. That such treasures would be on the third floor was doubted by neither of them.

  Daniel gave Emily a long, lingering kiss. “I’ll see you tonight?” he asked.

  “You bet,” Emily replied.

  The one good thing about having no guests was that Daniel and Emily had been able to vacation in each of the rooms for themselves. Somehow, amidst all the work, they’d managed to find the time for date nights and lazy mornings in bed. And in spite of Emily’s dwindling bank balance, of the increasing feeling that time in the B&B was running out, their relationship seemed to be growing stronger every day.

  Daniel left and Emily headed up to the third floor to begin the painstaking task of sorting the antiques from the mere dust gatherers, the sentimental from the hoarded.

  The rooms at the top of the house must have originally been designed for staff. They were the perfect size for turning into the quaint, cozy, cheaper bedrooms that Cynthia demanded the B&B must have. Barry was due to come later in the week to start work on the piping systems for the en suite bathrooms, so it was essential that she got the rooms organized and cleared before then.

  The first room Emily looked in was empty, except for a desk at the window and a chair. The shutters were broken, the wallpaper peeling, and an entire colony of spiders had made it their home. She shivered and shut the door again. The next room was in a similar state of abandonment. It had nothing within it expect for a ripped leather armchair facing the window with a footstool in front and a coffee table beside. She could imagine someone coming up here to read the paper. The yellow stain on the ceiling above the chair informed her that the newspaper reader had also clearly been a smoker.

  In the third room, Emily discovered a box of her father’s papers. Her father, she was realizing the more she explored the house, was an incredibly disorganized man. He seemed to have kept every scrap of paper, every letter, every document, and put it away somewhere in the house. And worse, the things that were actually valuable or precious in some way were locked within drawers. It had become a regular occurrence for Emily to attempt to open a drawer only to find it locked, to then discover that none of the numerous keys on the keychain she’d found in the safe in his study fit the lock. There was probably another safe somewhere, Emily thought, with another keychain, with a hundred more keys that opened nothing.

  As she sifted through the box of decades-old bank statements, Emily thought about how she’d failed to pick up on this behavior of her father’s. When he’d been around she hadn’t noticed him being secretive. But the more she explored the house and sifted through his numerous belongings, the picture of the man that built up in her mind was someone who kept hold of everything. Though he’d sounded lucid in the note she found from him all those months ago, she wondered whether her father had had difficulties with his mental health, and that perhaps that was why he’d disappeared. She had found a
prescription for antidepressants amongst his things, after all.

  Emily shook the thoughts from her mind. It made her uncomfortable to think of her dad in this way, as though she were somehow dishonoring his memory. And anyway, thinking such things achieved nothing. There was no way of knowing what was going through his mind without the man himself here to explain. Ruminating on it would get her nowhere.

  Emily put the box of old bank statements in the pile of items to be thrown away and then went to the fourth room.

  This room contained more of her father’s boxes. Some were neatly labeled—Roy’s Books; Board Games; Newspapers 1997-1998—but others were just piled with random items. One box was filled with an assortment of items, from a bike chain to clothespins, to an ornamental candlestick and a bundle of computer cables. But then Emily saw something amongst the piles of junk that sparked her curiosity.

  There were no lights in this room, but despite that, she noticed something across the room that was familiar to her. She stood now and walked over, craning her head to the side to see more clearly. As she drew up toward it she realized she was right; she was looking at another painting of the lighthouse.

  She reached forward and picked up the framed painting, grunting from the effort, then rested it against the wall, the right way up, so she could get a better look. In this painting, the artist had painted it from the other side of the island, so that Sunset Harbor could be seen in the distance—a sliver of lights and rooftops. She went back over to where she’d found the painting and looked through each of the frames. Then, right at the back, she found another. The same lighthouse, only this one was painted at night, with the only source of light being the lighthouse itself.

  Emily wondered who had had such affection for the little island that they had painted it in so many different incarnations. The signature looked like R. Wetherby. Or was it A. Westerly? She couldn’t tell.

  She put the two pictures with the other items she was keeping, the whole while wondering why her father had bought so many of those paintings. Was this more evidence of a disturbed mind, or was it just part of his hoarding behavior—why have one painting when you could have six? Or could it be something else? The artist must have been local. Perhaps it was a friend? Perhaps a lover?

  Just then, Emily heard the doorbell ring downstairs. She checked her watch, surprised by how much time had passed. She was supposed to have made dinner!

  She ran down the two flights of stairs and flung the door open to Daniel.

  “Hi!” She beamed at him, kissing his cheek. “I have a confession to make.”

  He held up two bags of takeout. “You got so absorbed in sorting out the third floor you lost track of time?” he asked, laughing.

  “You know me so well.”

  Emily stood back and let him inside. Daniel was still wearing his motorcycle leathers from having ridden to the next town over to collect their food, and he took them off as Emily dished out the dinner. Then they took their plates through to the living room and sat at the oval table beside the window.

  “Do you know anyone called R. Wetherby?” Emily asked as she used her chopsticks to scoop noodles into her bowl. “Or A. Westerly?”

  “Never heard of them,” Daniel replied. “Should I have?”

  Emily shrugged. “No. It’s just that I’ve found more paintings of the lighthouse. I figured the artist must be local to have gone back and painted the same thing so many times. I thought you might know them, if they were local.”

  “No, sorry,” Daniel said, frowning. “If anyone would know it would be Rico.”

  “That’s true,” Emily said. “I’ll ask him next time I see him. Although I hope that’s not for a long time, to be honest with you. I think I’ve given that man quite enough of my money.”

  Daniel laughed. “So how is it looking up there?”

  “At the moment I’ve cleared all but three of the rooms completely. One room is stuff to sell. One is stuff to store. And one has all the antique decorations that we bought.”

  “That sounds very organized,” Daniel said.

  Just then, Emily’s attention was distracted by a bright, flashing light from outside the window. At the same time, the dogs began yapping angrily.

  “Did you see that?” Emily asked Daniel, leaping out of her seat and peering out at the black sky.

  A moment later came the rumble of thunder.

  “Summer storm,” Daniel said. “My favorite. Why don’t we sit on the porch and watch it?”

  “What a romantic idea.” Emily smiled.

  They went outside, Mogsy and Rain following closely on their heels for comfort and settled at the porch table to finish of their meal. Every time the thunder rumbled, Mogsy would howl.

  “You’re not a wolf,” Emily told her.

  Rain was even more pathetic. He clambered up into Emily’s lap and sat there shivering.

  “You were born in a storm like this,” she told the tiny puppy tenderly. “You were rescued by this beautiful damsel and a strong, brave man.”

  Daniel pretended to flex his arm muscles. Emily laughed.

  Another bolt of lightning cracked against the sky and the rain started to fall more heavily. Rain the dog trembled even more.

  “We should take these two inside,” Emily said. “One of the rooms upstairs has a great view of the ocean. We could watch the storm from there.”

  They settled the dogs in their basket in the utility room, then went up to the third floor. Emily led Daniel into the room with the stained ceiling, the leather armchair, and the footstool. Daniel sat in the chair and pulled Emily into his lap. Together, they looked out the large, rain-splattered window as forks of lightning exploded across the sky.

  “Makes me wish I still took photographs,” Daniel said.

  “Maybe you should,” Emily replied.

  “Nah. That’s in the past,” he said. “I don’t think I even own a proper camera anymore. And anyway, I have more important things to think about now.” He kissed her softly.

  Another bright flash of lightning exploded over the sea. The rain that lashed the window pane became fiercer still.

  “It’s really coming down,” Emily said, sitting up, suddenly worried. “You don’t think this is going to turn into a storm like the one that tore down the outbuilding, do you?”

  Daniel kissed her nose. “I’m pretty sure someone in town would have told me if there was a storm coming. You know what they’re like.”

  Emily settled down again, resting against his chest. But she couldn’t settle. She sat up again and turned to face Daniel with a worried expression.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked, straining to hear over the rain.

  “It’s probably just the dogs scratching at the door,” Daniel said.

  “No, it’s too steady, too rhythmical,” Emily replied. She listened intently, trying to hear if she could catch the faint, rhythmic sound again. “It sounds like dripping.”

  She moved out of Daniel’s arms and stood, then went out into the long, dark corridor. The noise became louder the second she left the room. It was coming from down the hall.

  Daniel followed Emily as she paced through the gloom toward the noise. As she went, the noise became clearer until it was distinguishable.

  “SHIT!” Emily cried as she threw open the door of the room in which she’d stored countless antiques. Water was cascading down the wall from the corner of the ceiling. “There’s a leak!”

  Daniel and Emily leapt to attention, rushing inside and moving items out of the room. Everything they touched was soaking. Emily tried not too think about how badly damaged everything was, but she knew in her bones that most of it was completely ruined. All that money. Wasted. And worse, there was a leak in the roof. She wouldn’t be able to take a single booking if the house wasn’t watertight.

  Once everything was out of the room, Daniel wasted no time in getting into the attic to patch the leak. While he was up there, Emily went and checked the room directly beneath the one with th
e leak. There was now a horrible yellowish-brown stain in the ceiling and streaming down the corner of the new wallpaper. Emily felt her tears begin to well.

  Daniel found her in the second-floor room, one of the high-end ones that she’d poured a lot of money into.

  “I’ve patched it temporarily,” he said as he entered. “So it will hold for the night. That will give you enough time to get a roofer out.”

  But his voice was smaller, quieter, as he became aware of Emily’s devastation.

  The storm had ruined their romantic evening, along with Emily’s hopes for the future.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning was the type of beautiful morning that always came after a storm. It was so serene it was as though the chaos and destruction of the night before had never happened. In fact, the only evidence that the storm had happened at all was the fifty-dollar-an-hour roofer up the ladder inspecting the damage it had caused.

  “It’s gonna be five thousand dollars for the patch job,” the man said once he’d climbed back down to solid ground. “But that’s not gonna hold long because the beams beneath are weak and some of them are rotten. So I recommend you get the whole roof replaced.”

  “Oh God,” Emily muttered. “And how much will that be?”

  “Fifty thousand for the entire roof. But then you’ll have a thirty-year guarantee.”

  “A thirty-year guarantee,” Emily muttered to herself. “Thank goodness for that.” To the salesman she added, “Is there anything I can do? Any deal you could give me?”

  He twisted his lips. “Well, you can always source the materials yourself, then just pay for the labor. It’s the slate tiles that would be the biggest expense, you see. It’s not easy to get those things. Then, of course, you could use a different type of material but then it wouldn’t be in keeping with the style of the property.”