May
Was coming back here a mistake?
The salty sea breeze tousled Lisa Miller’s long blonde hair as she strolled around the exterior of the weather-beaten Sandy Shores Inn. The once vibrant, sky-blue paint of the bed-and-breakfast had dulled over seasons of sun and storms, and a loose shutter clapped against the siding whenever a gust of wind rolled off the ocean. Lisa shielded her eyes from the bright afternoon light reflecting off the calm waters as the briny aroma of low tide filled her nostrils.
She scanned each corner, making mental notes of the necessary repairs, her fingertips grazing a cracked window frame, feeling the splinters dig into her fingers. A bittersweet smile played on her lips as memories of her childhood in Hadley Cove flooded her mind—stringing shells into wind chimes, chasing fireflies along the shoreline, and stargazing around beach bonfires under the clear Georgia night sky.
Stepping inside, worn floorboards groaned as she moved from room to room. Most of the place, though still functional, was aged with water stains rippling across the ceiling, floral wallpaper peeling at the edges, and the faint musty smell of the salt and damp rising from threadbare moldy carpet. She swallowed hard, calculating mounting losses from the rooms she could no longer rent out. This place had seen better days.
Lisa hesitated, hand pausing on the tarnished brass doorknob, before she exhaled and pushed the door open to her mom’s room.
The sachet-sweet scent of dried lavender and wisps of old books greeted her as she entered. It had been untouched for nearly a month... since the day of her mom’s fatal aneurysm, leaving Lisa with an inn that was more a burden than a gift. She closed her eyes and breathed in the memories, savoring the faint presence of the woman who meant everything to her.
Her eyes traced over the antique furnishings—the floral-carved oak headboard worn smooth, the filigree of the vanity with water marks marring its surface, and a frayed Persian rug. She caressed bits of her mom’s life until at last she pushed aside the yellowed, lace curtain, which revealed below an unsteady shelf.
Her attention shifted to a pile of toppled paperbacks, and she tucked her hair behind one ear, then bent down and picked up a tattered copy of The Song of Achilles. As she opened it to one of the dog-eared pages, her eyes drifted to a line her mom had highlighted.
And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
Pausing, Lisa absorbed the weight of those words. After a moment of contemplation, she gently closed the book and set it down before making her way to the open closet door.
Wedged behind some shoeboxes, she uncovered her dad’s old camera. As she grasped the casing, she could almost catch a whiff of the Cherry Cavendish tobacco he would puff while he showed her how to frame the perfect seaside shot.
“The magic is in how you look at the world. Every picture tells a story, Lisey...” his gruff voice rumbled through her memory as she recalled peering through the viewfinder while snuggled into the bristles of his beard. Her mom would lounge nearby on a striped beach blanket, smiling at her two favorite photographers bent on capturing the windswept dunes.
A tear slid down her heated cheek as she turned the camera over slowly in her hands, wishing it had captured more than photos of the past.
“Mom, how am I gonna do this?” Lisa’s wavering voice faded into the brisk patter of paws and jingle of a collar as Daisy bounded in with a wagging tail and playful bark. The chocolate lab’s eyes sparkled as she dropped a tennis ball at Lisa’s feet, looking up expectantly.
Lisa managed a small smile. “Alright, Daisy.” She stooped down to pick up the slobbery ball. “Just one throw, okay?”
She placed the camera on the desk, and then tossed the ball down the hallway.
Watching Daisy dart after it, ears flopping wildly, Lisa envied how the dog found joy in the simplest of things. Despite her own troubles, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of comfort wash over her at the sight. Daisy had been her mom’s rescue dog, and now she was Lisa’s. In a way, they both were trying to figure out their new lives without the woman they loved.
When Daisy returned, panting, with the ball in her mouth, Lisa gave her a good scratch behind the ears. “We’re gonna get through this together, girl.”
With Daisy following at her heels, Lisa made her way to the small office at the back of the inn. She paused at the door, steeling herself before walking inside and closing it behind her, Daisy in tow.
The room, illuminated only by the buttery glow of a small banker’s lamp, displayed piles of paperwork strewn across the oak desk like fallen leaves. Lisa sat down and began sorting through the crinkled documents. Daisy settled by her feet, content to be at her side.
As Lisa examined the amount due on an invoice, her brows knitted together. She fished for another paper from the cluttered piles—and another, breath quickening as she rifled through them until they blurred. Numbers and overdue stamps melded into a wet watercolor of past due payments, years of unpaid invoices and deferred maintenance, loans stacked on top of loans.
A choked gasp caught in her chest as she unearthed a note from her mom, dated just a week before her passing. The bank had given her until the end of the year to pay off the $150,000 debt—December 31st to be exact—or they would foreclose.
Lisa’s fingers trembled, and the pages rustled freely from her grasp, floating to the floor in exchange for an icy shiver that ran up her spine.
It was worse than she had imagined. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she closed her eyes, shutting out the rest of the world.
Why had her mom allowed things to get this bad without asking for help?
Daisy pressed her warm body against Lisa’s leg, a whine rising, seeming to understand the emotions coursing through her.
However deep her disappointment with her mom for leaving her like this, the anger flickered out quickly and sadness flooded in to replace it. She sat with eyes closed for a moment and settled in the emotion, breathing in the scent of paper and memories. A few minutes passed, when the distant puttering of a boat’s engine filled the room as she opened her eyes.
Lisa blinked back tears, her gaze landing on a photo tucked into the corner of the desk, the image taking her back to that carefree summer day—two women with windblown hair on the beach, arms wrapped around each other, walking down memory lane.
She imagined her mom’s green eyes and the whimsical undertone in her voice. “Lisey, remember the summer you opened that ‘seaside spa’ in the toolshed?”
“Oh, man, I forgot about that. I was what, nine?” Lisa had said.
“I think so. Those handmade flyers were adorable.”
“And poor old Ada Harrison stumbled out of there one morning covered head-to-toe in one of your ‘rejuvenating skin scrubs.’”
“I can’t believe she let me try it on her.”
Her mom had chuckled and linked her arm with Lisa’s. “Me either. But she’s always loved you. Thank goodness the seaweed, grape jelly, and sand wasn’t too hard to wash off.”
A comfortable silence settled as Lisa pictured her mom grinning and nodding along. They had been so close once, before her dad’s passing and before the struggles of maintaining the inn alone had slowly drained the joy from her mom’s spirit.
Five years gone. And now, so was her mom.
After her dad’s death, her mom had retreated into herself. Lisa knew, even then, that her dad’s absence had left an emptiness in her mom that no amount of therapy could fix.
Despite her own grief, while holding a full-time job, Lisa had taken over the bills, scheduled repairs, and helped with some of the daily cleaning tasks.
A year later, Lisa had passed the responsibilities back to her mom, thinking she was mentally in a good place. However, now she wondered if she should’ve kept a closer eye. She pictured the aging inn kneeling into decline alongside its caretaker.
A soft kiss from Daisy on her hand pulled Lisa back to the present, and she gave the dog a frown.
What’s done is done.
Now, at forty-two, she’d have to learn to begin again.
Her doubts gnawed at her like the termites in the old wooden beams that supported the once vibrant inn.
Bracing herself to the daunting task, she looked around the room, envisioning it in its former glory.
She had to find a way to pay off the $150,000 debt.
Lisa sighed and leaned back in her chair as her mind conjured images of the months ahead: sleepless nights spent trying to balance the books, days filled with endless repairs and maintenance, and the constant weight of debt threatening to drown her.
“Am I really up for this?” she asked, looking down at Daisy.
Maybe I should just sell the place, pay off the debts, and move on.
Her heart ached as she looked around the room. It was far from perfect, but this inn had been in her family for generations—it had been a beloved home and livelihood for her mom and grandparents before her. She couldn’t let it go under now.
Daisy nestled her head in Lisa’s lap, big brown eyes gazing up. Leaning in, Lisa gently traced circular motions on the crown of Daisy’s head with her fingers.
“It’s up to me now, girl,” Lisa said. “I have to try, even if I fail. For Mom, Dad—for us.”
She had her work cut out for her, but she would give it everything she had. Her mom’s memory, her family legacy—it was all on the line. And, in her heart, she knew she wasn’t ready to let go. It was all she had left of them both. It held her childhood, her heart. It would be worth the battle to keep it.
Picking up the stack of bills once more, Lisa sorted through them methodically. The first step was untangling this financial mess. She made three neat stacks—bank loans in the first, credit card statements in the middle, and maintenance and repair invoices on the far side. Within each row, she ordered the bills from highest total amount overdue to lowest.
The bank loan row was an imposing sight—the home equity line of credit opened for renovations dwarfed the other statements with its exorbitant balance and flashing “FINAL NOTICE” stamps.
The credit card row wasn’t much better, a redundant trail of maxed limits and compounding interest charges. Even the modest row of repair bills like the replacing salt-damaged windows and the new water heater installation felt overwhelming in light of the other debts. Those simple maintenance invoices now carried “COLLECTION PROCEEDINGS INITIATED” stamps.
A knot formed in Lisa’s throat as she stared down the stacks. Almost every single bill was emblazoned with different variations of past due notices and veiled collections threats.
How in the world was she going to raise $150,000? And by the end of the year?
Lisa steadied herself, pushing down the rising panic as she looked at the stack of bank loan statements. “Alright, one invoice at a time.”
She had some difficult phone calls to make.
A soft, warm breeze drifted through the open window, tousling her long blonde hair. The aroma of sea oats mingled with subtle notes of potpourri, steering her musings toward the vast ocean just beyond the inn’s doorstep—a reminder of her small place in this grand world.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Lisa paused, turning her attention to the office door.
“Lisa? You in there?”
Her breath caught at the sound of that voice.
Could it really be...
