Free Seven Tears into the Sea by Terri Farley Page B

sanding the widow’s walk, I’d noticed the Korean students paying it one last visit before they loaded their gear to go.
    â€œGuests often wander the paths,” Nana said, “and they want to know what they’re looking at. I’ve always meant to type up some interpretive signs—a short history and romance of the seaside garden, if you will. Still, I’ve never gotten around to it. So when your mother told me yours was the hand that calligraphed her holiday cards this year, I began thinking you were the one for the job.”
    Nana opened the notebook to give me a glimpse of faded lined paper that was written on in what appeared to be Nana’s handwriting. There was also a brand newpack of cards made of really nice paper, like wedding invitations, only they looked sort of like they had a frame, with a place to write inside.
    â€œThis is the kind of job I could really get into,” I told her. I’d totally shaken off that dreamy feeling. I couldn’t believe I was getting excited about gardening, but the plants had great names. Saltspray rose, white swan, bridesmaid daisies. “Did you draw these, Nana?”
    Sketched in pink, green, and apricot pastels, they’d smeared from being slammed in the notebook. Nana dismissed them with a wave of her hand.
    â€œThey’re nothing. The notes are what matter. No rush about it,” Nana said. “Just start with the ones that are in bloom now or will be by the time you leave. I’ve marked every one with a date.”
    Nana flipped the notebook closed and presented it to me like a gift.
    Behind us a gust of wind sighed through the house, lifting curtains, bringing the smell of fog that was hanging off the coast, waiting for nightfall.
    Nana started to turn, then didn’t, as if she wanted to forget the sight of me standing on the other side of the guard fence. If she wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was I, but I knew I was to blame for her worried expression.
    She was trying to treat me like an adult, and I was blowing it.
    â€œI should walk back to the cottage and get started on this,” I said.
    â€œGwendolyn Anne, you’ll do no such thing,” Nana said. I realized we were standing next to the ornate coat tree near the front door, and Nana was draping her shoulders with a crocheted shawl. “I’m famished, and you look absolutely lovely in that little dress. There’s a little farmers’ market in town on Thursday nights. I’m going to treat us both to some street food and show you off.”
    Fear came raging back like the wave that had knocked me off my feet that night years ago. Echoes of old gossip screeched in my memory. In Siena Bay there’d be people who remembered.
    â€œNana, I really don’t feel like it.” I tried to look pitiful and overworked.
    â€œRubbish,” Nana said. She tossed me a square of silver-and-black silk, another shawl, I guessed. I caught it. “Bring that, and we won’t even have to stop at the cottage.”
    She hustled me to the door, hands fluttering as if she were shooing gulls away from a picnic lunch.
    I opened the front door and stopped before crossing the threshold. Nana’s car had been moved around to the front of the Inn. It was a block-long white Cadillac.
    â€œTotally foolish in terms of gas consumption,” Nana said, fondly. “But it’s a classic, a relic of my midlife crisis, and I plan to be buried in it.”
    â€œNana,” I yelped. I didn’t know which outrage to address first: her midlife crisis or her funeral plans, so I did neither. “Can you even drive with that cast?” I asked as she took a brass ring of keys from a hook by the door.
    â€œNo,” she said. “But you can.” Then she tossed the keys at me and said, “Catch!”

CHAPTER FIVE

    â€œI think I can walk to the curb from here,” Nana joked. She opened her car door and peered down. I was