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Morning light streamed in through the enormous bay windows of the Keating Inn foyer. Casey swiped the dust cloth across the front counter, over the computer screen, and then, over the same spot again as her eyes glazed with the warmth of the December sun. It had been approximately fourteen hours since Rachel Marris had dropped the divorce papers at the front desk of Grant’s hotel, and since that moment, Casey hadn’t slept a wink. It was going to be over soon. As soon as Grant signed the papers, she would be free.
Nicole burst into the Keating Inn seconds later, dressed in her running gear and a pair of bright white tennis shoes. Her ponytail bobbed around behind her playfully. Only her face told a stoic tale.
“I just ran past the hotel,” she said. “I asked the receptionist about him. She said he checked out late last night and took a taxi somewhere. His car’s still out front, already peppered with two parking tickets. I’m not sure where he would have gone without his car? It’s really strange.”
Casey furrowed her brow. This really was weird. The real question here, though, was whether or not it was entirely her problem. As his soon-to-be ex-wife, she reckoned not.
“Don’t you think that’s strange?” Nicole rolled up the sleeves of her thick runner’s coat and spread her legs out wide upon the thick foyer rug.
“Sure. I don’t know.” Casey was unable to meet Nicole’s eyes. “I’m just glad he’s finally hearing me. But it’s funny, isn’t it? Men only begin to take notice when you cut them out.”
Nicole leaned forward so that the tips of her fingers ruffled against the tips of her toes. Casey’s heart hammered in her chest, threatening to alert her true feelings to Nicole.
“You’re much stronger than me,” Nicole said to the floor. “I would be in a heap.”
Casey excused herself to the back office, where she flattened her palms across Uncle Joe’s old desk and inhaled as much oxygen into her lungs as she could. Her phone buzzed distractedly, and she yanked it out of her pocket fearfully. It wasn’t him.
“Melody. Hi, honey.” When she’d seen her daughter’s name across the screen, she’d dialed the number on instinct. Melody was her lifeline.
“Hi! Did you see my message? The deal went through! I’m going to go to New York City in a few days and meet her. You must have seen that movie she did last year with Brad Pitt?”
Melody’s voice zipped up and down, akin to a songbird’s. Casey found herself taking up the necessary dialogue, words like, “That is fantastic, honey,” and, “I always knew you would be great one day.” However, after a strange, cavernous gap in the conversation, Melody seemed to get the hint.
“Mom. What’s up with you? You sound like you’re practically asleep or something.”
Casey’s throat tightened. Rachel Marris had recently suggested that one of the first ways of “handling the truth of divorce” was laying the cards out for the children. As Casey and Melody had always been relatively close, Casey had assumed finding the words to describe the horrible aching of her heart would be easier with her rather than with Donnie. She now recognized the immensity of that mistake.
“Mom? You’re freaking me out.”
Casey’s tongue traced a line along the back of her teeth. “Your father and I have had some problems lately, honey. After some very deep consideration, we’ve decided to divorce.”
The detail that she’d served him divorce papers at his hotel could be left out.
“What?” Melody’s voice became a whimper. “You’re... you’re divorcing?”
Casey was reminded of a much younger Melody, who’d fallen from her four-wheel bicycle and slashed a long red scratch up her leg. The blood had oozed out and streaked down her little white tennis shoe. Melody had screamed, “Why!” like a Broadway star at the height of her middle-show sorrow. Casey and Grant had privately made fun of it for years, screaming, “Why!” at one another from every corner of the house. Melody had never caught on that she’d been the inspiration.
Casey tipped her weight onto Uncle Joe’s desk. “These things happen, honey,” she tried to tell her.
“They don’t happen to you and Dad,” Melody retorted.
“Honey... You’re twenty-four years old. I thought you’d be a little more reasonable. This was a very hard decision to make, not something we took lightly. It’s difficult for all of...”
How could Casey describe the idea that you could feel so, so close to a human while feeling as though you no longer knew them at all?
“I’m coming to Bar Harbor,” Melody spouted then.
“What? Mel, no. You have work to do.”
“Not for a few days. I’m packing my bag right now. I’ll be there in three hours.”
Casey grumbled inwardly as Nicole entered the office, bringing with her the faintest scent of sweat from her run. Casey yearned to protest again if only to keep herself in the cocoon of her decision a little longer. But Melody said she had to go so she could focus on the task at hand. Casey could practically see her flinging her face creams, razors, and specialty hair products into her little toiletries bag.
“Who was that?” Nicole asked as she sucked down water from her water bottle.
“Melody. I finally told her about the divorce.”
“Ooph. How did that go?”
“Not well,” Casey grumbled.
Nicole nodded firmly. Casey didn’t have to remind Nicole that Nicole’s divorce had sent a crater through her relationships with her daughter and son, which she’d only recently mended. Abby especially had blamed her for the divorce and stuck by her father’s side until his inevitable abandonment after he’d begun to build a brand-new family.
“She’s a smart girl. She must have seen how little the two of you spent together over the past few years,” Nicole pointed out.
“Of course, but she’s also our daughter. She saw what she wanted to see.”
“That’s always the story, isn’t it?”
“She’ll be here in a few hours, presumably to talk me out of it,” Casey continued. “I can’t wait to see what she comes up with.”
Nicole’s eyes widened. “She’s quite persuasive. Remember when she sold candy bars in high school to raise money for the marching band?”
“Every single Portland resident gained weight that autumn,” Casey confirmed with a funny smirk. “Candy bar wrappers replaced leaves on the ground.”
Nicole laughed appreciatively. “I’m off to the house to take a shower and change before lunch. You okay at the front desk until Abby gets here?”
“Sure thing.” Casey wanted to articulate just how little she knew what to do with herself in any context, including within her bedroom alone. At least at the front desk of the Keating Inn, she had to deal with other people’s problems— lost room keys and dirty towels, rather than the creeping suspicion that she’d just destroyed her entire family.
Melody appeared at the top step of the Keating Inn and Acadia Eatery at two o’clock in the afternoon. She wore Gucci sunglasses and thick winter boots that traced all the way past her knees and a gorgeous bright red coat, one that contrasted the blisteringly white snow beautifully. She might have been a feature in a fashion magazine. Casey had never had such singular style.
But behind the sunglasses, Melody’s face was hard as stone. Clearly, she’d spent the previous few hours stewing in fears and resentment. Abby greeted her warmly from the front desk, only for Melody to give her a curt nod in return.
Casey stepped out from behind the front desk to face her daughter. She felt like a gladiator entering the coliseum, gearing for battle.
Melody flapped a handout. “I don’t want to talk about this here,” she stated immediately.
Casey nodded. She brought her coat around her shoulders and beckoned for Melody to follow. Once outside, their boots crunched softly through the snow as they headed back to where Casey’s car had been parked. The sunlight was impenetrable and unforgiving, and even a single glance at the snow left you blind for seconds at a time.
Casey pressed the UNLOCK button on her key fob and slid into the driver’s side. Melody dropped down and buckled her seatbelt. For a long moment, even as they pulled back down the driveway, Casey had no idea where to take the two of them. It was something like fate that led them to a wine bar along the water, the one that often showed sports like ice skating and horseback riding and curling on the big television screens. This, in Casey’s opinion, was a welcome relief from the big three: basketball, baseball, and football.
Melody sat across from Casey at the table and scanned the wine list. From Casey’s numerous travels earlier in her career, Casey probably knew just as much about wine as Melody now did, perhaps even more. Still, she knew it was important to Melody to feel as though she knew more than her mother, what with her newly-found cosmopolitan life.
“I suggest we try this 2001 Cote de Rhone,” Melody said breezily. “If you don’t mind sharing a bottle.”
“Not in the slightest,” Casey told her.
Melody ordered the bottle along with two glasses of water. When the server returned, he uncorked the bottle and poured Melody just a hint of wine to taste. Melody approved it with a little noise in the back of her throat. Casey could have laughed aloud. She felt as though she watched a different version of herself from twenty years before, at the pinnacle of her architectural career and unconvinced she would have anything but luck her whole life long.
“So.” Melody clacked her nails over the table. “Will you please try to tell me as much as you can? You at least owe an explanation.”
Casey stiffened. She then sipped her glass of wine, coating her tongue with the delightful depth of the wine’s flavor.
“Your father and I have decided to take separate roads,” Casey told her simply. “I want to focus on life here in Bar Harbor. I want to build a new Keating House next to the old one. I need a project, something to dig my fingers into and besides, you must have noticed how happy I’ve been here with my sisters and also how absent your father has been.”
Melody seemed unconvinced. “I guess you seem a little bit happier than you were in Portland.”
“I haven’t been happy since my career ended abruptly,” Casey told her, surprising herself with her honesty. “It was my passion. It was my life. Yes, I loved being a wife and a mother, but it wasn’t what I always dreamed of, unlike others. Architecture always came first. And then one day, it slipped through my fingers.”
Casey had never told Melody the real reason she’d quit the firm: that she’d followed her hot-headed temper directly out of the building and never looked back. This wasn’t something she was proud of.
“But why is it now, either Dad or career? Why can’t you have both?” Melody asked as her voice cracked for the first time.
Casey sniffed. How could she possibly explain to her daughter that she was borderline-convinced that Grant had lied to her for so many years? How could she tell her that Rachel Marris had suggested that he had hidden bank accounts and potentially another family somewhere? How could she describe the density of her broken heart?
“I have a very good lawyer,” Casey said instead. “She’s helping me through the intricacies of it all.”
“And Dad? Does Dad have a lawyer?” Melody bristled. “I should have called him. Gosh, it looks like I’m taking sides now.”
“You’re just drinking a glass of wine with your mother. This isn’t a war,” Casey countered.
They fell silent. Melody took a longer sip of her wine and placed her elbows on the table like a teenager. Casey’s instinct was to tell her to take them off, but she resisted.
“I just can’t imagine you and Dad not being in love anymore,” Melody breathed.
Casey’s heart jumped into her throat. “I’ll always love your father, in a way. But sometimes, I don’t think love is enough. As terrible and as sad as that sounds.”
Melody blew the air out of her lips. Casey recognized that this probably wasn’t good fodder for her personal hopes that Melody would find a husband and raise a family of her own sometime in the future. That was another day’s problem.
They got through their first glass of wine before Melody glanced up at the large-screen television in the corner. Melody’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. She smacked her glass of wine back on the table as she gasped.
“Mom! Look!”
Casey yanked around to follow her daughter’s gaze to the television. To the left of the screen, there was a very familiar face.
Quintin Griffin peered back at them. It was an older and less-healthy and sadder-looking version than the one who’d hand-selected Casey all those years ago to design his mansion and ranch, but it was Quintin Griffin, nonetheless.
Besides his face were the words: Rancher Quintin Griffin Attempts Suicide.
Casey leaped up to the bartender at the wrap-around bar. “Can you turn on the volume?” she blared as if her life depended on it.
The bartender did as he was asked. In a moment, Casey and Melody hugged the counter and leaned toward the television as the announcer described the events of the previous fourteen hours.
“Late last night at his Montana ranch, once-millionaire Quintin Griffin was found incapacitated after an attempt of suicide. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was stabilized. As those in the horse racing and ranching communities know, Quintin Griffin was once a prominent and successful rancher and horse-racer, one who gambled and partied with the likes of other high-rollers and celebrities. Several years ago, his eldest daughter, Frankie, died in a freak horseback riding accident, which might have contributed to exacerbating Griffin’s already-horrific gambling and alcohol addictions. It’s been said that since then, Griffin has lost his enormous wealth.”
Melody placed her hand over her mouth as a sob welled through her. The bartender glanced at them with confusion as the news station turned to commercials.
It suddenly clicked why Grant had had to leave Bar Harbor in such a rush.
He’d learned of his brother in Montana.
Hurriedly, Melody grabbed her phone and tried to call her father, while Casey stood with bated breath alongside her. Casey remembered all the months previously when she’d dialed Grant’s number with lackluster hope. All she’d wanted was to hear his voice.
Now, Grant answered Melody on the second ring. Casey couldn’t make out anything but the sound of his voice.
“Dad? I just heard about Uncle Quintin.” Melody’s voice broke with fear. “You’re in Montana, right?” There was a pause as Grant filled her in on more details. “Okay. Okay. You know what? I’m coming there. I’ll be on the next flight. I’ll text you more details when I know. And Dad? I love you.”