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Grant Griffin hadn’t yet found the strength to leave Bar Harbor. It was now the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and he’d sequestered himself to his little life at the untitled hotel downtown, adding on an extra night each morning to a very surprised receptionist, not Tyler, who said several times, “Are you sure you don’t want to book a week straight? It’s cheaper that way.” But Grant Griffin felt as though he now lived on a planet without gravity, rhyme, or reason. How could he possibly know if he wanted to stay another night more until the sun rose again? Casey planned to leave him. All bets of time and space were off.
Tuesday morning, after he’d booked an additional night, he stepped out into the crisp Bar Harbor air and glanced down the road at his vehicle. On the front dash, there sat a large and crisp yellow slip sticking out of its envelope. His heart sank into his stomach. He rushed forward to find that, yep, he’d parked at the very edge of a no-parking zone— and the city official had written him a particularly heinous ticket. He cursed himself inwardly and then glanced down the road to find that the very official who’d probably given him this ticket remained on the road. In fact, she remained poised over another vehicle about fifty feet away, scribing yet another of her beautiful notes.
“Hey!” Grant rushed toward the older woman frantically with his yellow envelope lifted in the air.
She glanced toward him and gave him the most rueful look he’d ever received, even after twenty-four years of occasional arguments with the likes of Casey Harvey, the sassiest of them all. He stumbled forward, losing steam, and then happened to smack his foot against a patch of glassy ice. His foot flung forward as the rest of him fell back, and in a moment, his butt smashed against the hard sidewalk. A passer-by made an “Ooph” sound and winced as she marched past.
The meter lady took three steps toward him and curved her chin down to peer her cat-like eyes directly into his soul.
“Are you all right?” she finally asked, although there wasn’t much in the way of pity in her words.
Grant was fine, just surprised and embarrassed. He flattened his hand across the sidewalk and pushed himself up. Once standing, he rubbed his hand across the bottom of his jeans in an attempt to get any ground stain off. He was a grown man with grown-up problems, yet this woman made him feel just about ten years old.
“I’m barely in the no-parking zone,” he tried to reason with her.
The woman clucked her tongue. “Do you know how many times I hear that a day from tourists?”
“Oh, I’m not a tourist. Not really.” Then what the heck was he?
“Well, you’re not from around here. I know everyone around here,” the woman told him.
Grant yearned to roll his eyes. He had traveled all over the world, met all sorts of people, yet there was something generally presumptuous about people from small towns. They were the ultimate know-it-alls.
“My wife just moved here,” Grant returned suddenly, surprising himself. This was no longer about the parking ticket. This was about something bigger than that— about being known for his connection to Mount Desert Island. His wife was Casey Harvey, for goodness sake. And he loved her.
The woman arched an eyebrow then.
“You probably know her. She’s Adam Keating’s eldest daughter,” Grant said.
“Well. I suppose I’ve met her a few times by now, sure.” The woman’s tone shifted, growing warmer. “And you know my favorite thing about Casey so far?”
“What’s that?” Grant could have told her one million of his favorite things about Casey Harvey. He could have written sonnets about it.
“She’s always parking in the appropriate parking zones,” the woman told him pointedly before she turned around and sauntered back toward the vehicle she’d been on the verge of ticketing. Once there, she placed the windshield wiper over the brand-new yellow envelope with finality and force.
The woman was determined at her job, that was for sure. Grant had to give her that at least, despite the heaviness of the ticket in his hand.
Grant returned to his hotel room to field a work video call, which required very little input from him, thank goodness. Frequently, as his boss rattled on about sales and what-not, Grant’s eyes scanned the glow of the single pane window, which offered a postcard-perfect view of a downtown that exuded Christmas cheer.
“Griffin? You hear me?” His boss blared out through time and space to dig into Grant’s depressed psyche.
“Loud and clear, Mr. Martin,” Grant affirmed.
“We’ve got a number of sales to close out before the New Year, and dammit, I think we’ve got them in the bag with you as the face of the company,” Mr. Martin continued. “I’m proud of all the hard work you’ve put in. You’ve put our little business on the map.”
Perhaps six months ago, Grant might have taken this nugget of a compliment and celebrated. Now, however, he felt it like a stone in his belly. He waited for the end of the meeting before he smacked his laptop closed, donned his winter coat and thick winter hat, and then walked out back onto the sidewalk. It was four in the afternoon and it was already headed straight toward darkness, which was normal for a late November. It was sinister to count the hours of darkness you lived through as a Maine resident. It made the summer months all the more precious.
Grant’s feet traced him back toward the Keating Property, where he stood to gaze up at that glorious white mansion on the hill overlooking Frenchman Bay. According to what he’d been able to discover online, this property had been the last dilapidated portion of Adam Keating’s estate after his second wife, Melanie, had cleaned him out and left both him and her toddler behind. After Adam Keating’s death, Joseph Keating had propelled the Keating Inn and Acadia Eatery to relative prominence, that is until Nicole Harvey had tucked the property under her wing and shot it straight to the sky.
Since Nicole, Casey, and Heather’s take-over, the Keating Inn and Acadia Eatery had been featured in a number of hospitality magazines, including Maine Monthly. Nicole was touted as the “chef to look out for on the east coast,” while Casey and Heather were described as intricate parts of an ever-churning machine. In one interview, Heather called the Keating Inn a “beautiful setting for many of my future books,” while Casey said it was a “perfect hideaway from real life.”
Was the real-life she referred to the one she’d shared with Grant?
Grant forced himself up the porch steps and entered the gorgeous, old-world foyer of the colonial mansion, with its winding staircase, its deep mahogany walls, and it’s beautiful hanging tapestry and antique paintings. It now seemed ridiculous that Casey and her sisters demonized this quaint place after all those decades— a place that their father had labeled for them in his will. It was like something out of an old illustration book, something you thanked your lucky stars you’d walked into.
Just as he’d prayed for, Casey stood on the opposite side of the front desk with a phone pressed against her ear and her long locks flowing lusciously down her shoulders and back. At this moment, she hadn’t yet noticed him, which allowed Grant to take in the full breadth of her beauty, which had only deepened over time, as her face had lost its girlishness and become stoic, majestic, like queens in old paintings he’d witnessed when he’d gone to Europe for school as a teenager. She often said that she didn’t have the beauty of her younger sister, Heather and that this had been commented upon throughout their high school years. Grant had never understood this sentiment. To him, Casey was the pinnacle.
Her dark eyes erupted through his reverie as they met his. Slowly, she removed the receiver from her ear and placed it delicately in the cradle. They stood off like this, like characters in a cowboy movie, as the rest of the hotel’s life whirred around them. Two staff members walked between them, carrying an enormous Christmas tree and squabbling over who had the greater weight. A young woman stood at the top of a large ladder. She dusted the ceiling fan, which had assuredly hardly been in operation over the previous four months, at least, especially as they’d had a particularly chilly summer. All the while, Grant remained captivated by his beautiful wife.
To break the strange air between them, Heather burst out from the back office and cried, “Casey! You have to read this email.” She stopped short, followed Casey’s gaze, and gaped at Grant. He felt like a sideshow at a carnival.
“Hi, Heather,” Grant said as he lifted a hand. He hadn’t seen her in quite some time, maybe since early summer. Back then, she’d been a shadow of her former self. Casey had worried she would eventually have to drive her to a psychiatric clinic, as Heather resisted assistance from both Nicole and Casey at every turn.
Now, despite her current shock at his arrival, she looked vibrant, nourished. Perhaps Casey was right. The Harvey Sisters belonged in Bar Harbor.
“Hi Grant,” Heather breathed.
Casey whipped around the counter, wearing a ridiculous smile, one that she’d seemingly created for show at the Keating Inn. Hospitality wasn’t exactly something Casey Harvey was made for. Grant had seen enough outbursts to know that well.
“What are you doing here?” Casey asked through a grit-teeth smile. She gripped his upper bicep and attempted to guide him toward the front door.
Unfortunately for Casey, Grant had never lost that strength he’d brewed up during long hours on the ranches of Montana. He held strong as a wall.
“I need to talk to you,” Grant told her firmly.
“I thought you got the gist,” Casey returned, still with that stupid fake grin. “I thought you left Bar Harbor days ago. And don’t you have some business meeting or another to run off to? This is the longest you’ve stayed anywhere in months.”
She was right; this was the longest he’d stayed anywhere. He was surprised at how much he appreciated the thickening roots beneath him.
“I can’t just leave until we resolve this,” Grant told her firmly.
“What is there to resolve? We’ve grown apart. It happens all the time. What’s the statistic these days? Fifty percent? You’d have to be stupid to marry with those odds,” Casey returned flippantly.
At the desk, Heather, who was an out-and-out romantic, winced.
“Come on, Casey. We have something special,” Grant muttered.
Back in the Acadia Eatery, the two staff members with the Christmas tree attempted to prop it against the tallest wall, but as they swung it up, it immediately fell back to the ground with a wild crash. Several already-set dining room tables fell to the ground, shattering wine glasses in all directions. Several tourists in the hotel foyer shrieked as Heather shot back, grabbing a broom as she went.
“I’ve never seen Heather move that fast,” Grant commented as Casey placed her hands on her cheeks in shock.
“I have to go,” Casey blared. But before she did, she turned and gave Grant another of her horrific and terrifying gazes. “But I don’t want to see you here again. This is my space, my family’s space.”
Grant opened his lips in preparation to tell her that he was her family, too. But before he could, she continued.
“Maybe it’s best that I spell this out for you completely.” Casey’s nose twitched as she continued down this seemingly never-ending train of thought. “It’s over. And if you have any respect for yourself and for what we had together, you’ll take what I say as reality and leave.”
Grant felt as though Casey had lifted one of the shards of a shattered wine glass and ripped it through his heart. He stepped back as the shock of the moment rippled between them.
“You should go,” she said as he nodded back toward the dilapidated Christmas tree. He then forced himself around and hustled back into the sharp chill of the afternoon. Something in his pocket fluttered out, caught by the wind, and he hurried to catch it, only to discover that it was his parking ticket. Fantastic.
It had been quite a day.
Grant found himself back at the hotel bar, which now featured two other hotel guests, thank goodness. It took some of the pressure off of him and his rather reckless, lonely drinking. He didn’t like feeling the penetrating eyes of the bartender.
“Hi Frank,” he said to the bartender as he sat down.
“Another whiskey for you, Mr. Griffin?”
“Let’s do a beer for now,” Grant told him. Beer was something like dinner, wasn’t it? He hadn’t bothered with lunch, either.
“I keep thinking that I won’t see you around here again,” Frank continued. “The receptionist says that you only ever book for one night.”
Grant could envision the staff members of the hotel hanging around, gossiping about “that strange man who won’t leave.” Probably it wouldn’t be long now before everyone pinned him as Casey’s rogue soon-to-be-ex-husband.
In fact, the look of curiosity mixed with pity that emanated from the bartender’s eyes forced Grant back out onto the street after his first beer. It was a purple-skied dusk, and Frenchman Bay frothed gently beneath the first dots of stars. Over the previous few years, Grant had grown accustomed to sleeping in bed alone at night, but there was something about the frigid cold of Maine nights that made it far more difficult. He supposed this was especially related to the fact that Casey was just down the road and she wanted nothing to do with him.
When Casey had been five months pregnant with Melody, Grant and Casey purchased a large beautiful four-bedroom home in Portland with the aim to raise their family there. At the time, Grant had told Max that it mattered very little to him that Casey put up most of the funds for the house. Sharp pain in the base of his stomach had suggested a different kind of feeling— not one of jealousy, per se, but one of regret that he hadn’t been allowed, yet, to reach whatever destiny his talents would have allowed. He wasn’t delusional enough to think he could have “made it” as some kind of raucous cowboy. But he was good with his hands and good with people. Perhaps that could have counted for something.
However, the minute Grant held Melody in his arms, his simmering desire to be anything but a wonderful dad faded. He poured himself into that dynamic: offering tips to other mothers at the playground and priding himself on his ability to change a diaper in no time flat.
Once, his brother, Quintin, had come to Maine to meet his children. With Casey’s hectic schedule, they hadn’t yet had time to travel out to Montana, which had bruised Grant’s heart. He’d wanted his children to have the best of both worlds— the rocky coastline and frothing seas of Maine and the great, wide-open skies of Montana. At least initially, he’d been grateful that Quintin had made the trek, as back then, he’d still been a very successful rancher with a grueling schedule of his own. Excitement to see his brother had faded quickly, however.
“What do you think your son will think of you if you don’t make something of yourself?” Quintin had asked as he’d puffed a cigar on Grant’s back porch.
The comment had needled him, although he’d initially brushed it off.
“Casey’s a rock star,” he’d told him. “It’s not like I can just tell her to stay home when she has such a creative ability.”
After all, Quintin had been the one to bring Casey to her level of architectural stardom. Shouldn’t he have understood? Or was it just more important to him to belittle his little brother than to offer any excitement toward Casey’s career?
Grant found himself along the edge of the docks, which were lined with dark green moss and creaked against the volatility of the incoming waves. He gripped one of the wooden poles and shuddered as an immense feeling of loss took hold of him. He was now forty-seven years old, and he had the career he’d always dreamed about. It was only now that he realized just how empty that was.
His phone buzzed with a call from the devil himself.
Grant answered it on the third ring.
“Grant? You there?” Quintin slurred his words together horribly. He sounded so far away. Grant could half-envision him outside of that dank saloon on the edge of the Montana town where they had grown up.
“I’m here,” Grant answered begrudgingly.
There was silence for a moment, followed by a strange crash. Quintin coughed wildly, an indication that he’d recently smoked one of his disgusting cigars, leftovers from his long-ago days of wealth.
“How are you doing, Grant? Where are you at these days?”
Grant wanted to tell Quintin that they’d spoken as recently as the week before, but decided to hold it in. “I’m over in Maine, actually.”
“Brr. You couldn’t pay me enough to be there right now. Guessing you’re frozen stiff.”
Grant wanted to urge his brother to get to the point. These conversations always went the same direction, anyway.
“I hate to ask this of you, Grant. And you know I’ll get it back to you. You know I will.”
Grant’s nostrils flared as anger welled up in his stomach. “How much do you need this time?”
Quintin coughed again. “You know I hate to ask.”
Grant wanted to blare that there was a lot of proof that Quintin didn’t hate asking for money. After all, he’d done it with moderate consistency the previous few years. With another rush of madness, Grant whipped around and said, “Dammit. I’ll give you whatever you need, but this is the last time. And then, it’s over. Do you hear me? It’s really over.”
Quintin fell into another flurry of coughs on the other end of the line. Grant’s heart drummed wildly in his chest. At that moment, a gasp erupted behind him, and he turned to find none other than Luke, the guy from the bar, holding hands with Heather Harvey. It seemed they’d thought a little stroll near the docks was perfect for this time of night, too.
Heather’s face was stricken with horror. Grant played out the last words he’d said— “It’s over. Do you hear me? It’s really over,” and reasoned that probably, she’d gotten the wrong idea. His jaw dropped open as the two assessed one another. He quickly ended the call and dealt with the new problem at hand.
“Heather. It’s not what you think...”
But Heather quickly walked back up the boardwalk as the snow fluttered around them. Luke’s eyes widened as he followed after her. As she staggered back, Heather finally managed to find her words.
“You know what, Grant. I was on your side,” she whispered. “I never imagined in a million years you could hurt Casey like that.” She then turned around and hustled up the boardwalk, with Luke hot on her heels.
Grant remained as the snow flurried around him, a staggeringly lonely cowboy in the midst of the coldest winter on earth. He yearned for home, for his wife— yet knew it no longer existed. His home had been in Casey’s arms.