Page 85 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
But I also wanted to be smart, and careful. What I’d come to see while sitting at my mother’s grave was brand new, and I understood that that fragile new tendril could not sustain on its own. My ‘casting off’ of my mother’s demons was at that moment mostly symbolic. I still had work to do. On myself, on the Sea-Mist, on this new life.
So I cupped my hands over his cheeks and smiled, but I shook my head. “I want that, too, but not yet.” When his expression shook a little, I hurried on, “I am all in with you, Roman. But I need to do some work on myself before we take that step. I’m going to find a therapist and hopefully turn off the doomsday machine in my head. And I don’t want to feel completely dependent on you, so I want to make sure the Sea-Mist is going to turn a profit—or if it won’t work, I’ll need to sell it. When I know that I can stand on my own, when I have that kind of faith in myself, I want you to ask me again. Can you wait until then?”
He stared at me without answering long enough that I began to worry that I’d ruined it already. But then he smiled. “I canwait forever, querida. If that’s what you need, I will wait, and I will do whatever I can to help you reach your goals. But I have a counteroffer.”
I couldn’t hold back a smirk. “A counter? We’re negotiating? Okay, let’s hear it.”
“Say yes. You say you want what I want, so let’s make that promise to each other. But it will be only a promise until you’re ready to make it a vow.” He bent down and brushed his lips over mine, feather-light. “Say yes, querida,” he whispered. “Say yes.”
ONE YEAR LATER
Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.
~N.K. Jemisin,The Fifth Season
EPILOGUE: A Story to Tell
“Imean. What else could I say to that but yes?”
Emma Charters, a feature reporter for theSan Francisco Chronicle, smiles as she jots some notes on her pad. She’s using actual paper and pen, which surprised me when she pulled it out. I’d expected a Gen Z-er like her to be using all the latest tech. Well, she’s also been recording the interview on her phone, so I guess that’s techy.
“So ...”—she waves a hand around—“obviously you met those goals, and we’re here today. Did you encounter any snags from that point?”
“Well, sure. I rebuilt a whole business. It cost more than we thought, took longer than we thought, and when we took down Cottage 12 we found the edge of a sinkhole forming, so we had to figure that out before it took down a couple more cottages. Getting this place back in shape was nearly a year of constant work and a lot of money. But overall, snags were only snags. Things slowed down a few times, but they never stopped moving forward.”
I stand and walk to the window, looking out at the place we’re talking about. Einstein, the Golden Retriever puppy Roman and I gave Wyatt for his sixteenth birthday, is bounding through the seating and decorations, and I send out a mom-vibe for my son to corral his dog before the whole place goes to ruin all over again.
Emma’s visit began with a tour of the Sea-Mist Cottage Inn, which will have its grand re-opening celebration in one week. Serafina Zhao, our new resident manager, handled the tour; Wyatt, Roman, and I had other things to do this morning. But Serafina saw that Emma got the full look—a peek into all elevencottages, the main cabin, and the surrounding areas with guest access.
It's eleven cottages, not twelve, because Cottage 12 would have cost too much to rebuild. So now there’s a lovely gazebo on that spot, designed and built by Finn Nyberg, who’s become a pretty great friend. He’s still an asocial grump, but once you get past his glowering growl, he is a truly quality human being.
When Roman proposed and I accepted, I’d told him that I wanted to wait to be married until, among other things, either the Sea-Mist was running and profitable or I knew it wouldn’t be and sold it. Either way, I wanted the loan he’d cosigned for me paid off.
I’m the one who couldn’t wait that long. I want to be his wife. I want Wyatt, who’s already calling him Dad, to be his stepson in truth. And once I saw what the Sea-Mist would be when it was finished—-what it now is—I knew it would be profitable. This place is going to work.
But I’m not going to run it. It started on that day at the cemetery, but the idea really fleshed out in therapy: my reasons for wanting to inhabit the Sea-Mist, to take it over entirely, were all about my mother. I’d wanted to replace her, to erase her. Well, the flood did a great job of erasing her (Manfred was charged for that and is going to trial eventually, but for now he’s out on bail), but I no longer need to replace her. I no longer live my life in defiance of her or the demons she left behind. I live my life for me and in concert with the people I love and who love me.
Instead, I’ve hired an excellent manager with great qualifications and real experience, and together we hired an excellent staff. They will run it more smoothly than I could have.
I am going to teach English at Bendixen High School. I start in two weeks, and I think I’m giddier about that than I am about the Sea-Mist or anything else in my life besides what’s going to happen today.
I can hear Emma behind me, scratching away on her notepad. I feel like I’ve been talking to her forever—and, as I fell into my story and began to relive it, I’ve probably told her too much. But this past year has been so full, so busy, somomentous, and it all feels crucial to explain how we got to this point, and why a reporter would think anybody would care about my story. The only reason I can imagine strangers caring about this is not the Sea-Mist Cottage Inn but the journey I took to get it, and me, where we are today.
Emma Charters,Chronicletravel and lifestyle reporter, seems to agree. She certainly never stopped my rambling—in fact, she gave me a push every time I started to slow down. Jeez, I hope I haven’t told her anything I shouldn’t have.
Nope. Not going to entertain that thought, today of all days. I no longer do doomsday scenarios. There is nothing bad about where I am now.
I am extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished. The property is beautiful, with no sign of the ruin it was at the end of last summer. The Sea-Mist is no longer a cheap hole-in-the-wall to stop at for a night of a road trip or a place to drop your bags while you spend your days hiking the woods or surfing the Pacific. Guests who want that are welcome, but now the Sea-Mist is ... not a resort, exactly, but a place one might enjoy for itself. A destination.
The Bigfoot Country kitsch is gone; now the cottages and main cabin all have a sort of ‘elegant bohemian’ aesthetic. Not too quirky, but a nice balance of modern comforts and artsy touches like stained glass accents, hand-died fabrics, folk art décor, and such.
We also spent some time and money on the three ‘passive’ hiking trails in our part of the forest—trails that had been formed organically, by people simply starting their hike there. Now the paths are a bit wider, and leveler, and there are markersat the trailheads and along the way. All outdoor areas have been spruced up and relandscaped, with new touches like more comfortable seating around the fire pit, and a games area, for volleyball, bocce, and cornhole. And, of course, our new gazebo, which is large enough to host events like small concerts or large parties or ... say ... a wedding.
“Did you start therapy?” Emma asks from her seat behind me.
I turn to give her a look. “That’s a pretty personal question, even for this interview.”
She does not apologize. That’s where I decide to draw a boundary. I have no intention of sharing my mental-health journey with the world. Maybe it would help someone reading this story, but ... I don’t know.
