of drawers that had been stained and burned, but Nan had reluctantly agreed to paint it and it is now a muted and pretty antique white.
There is a red room, a white room and a patriotic room—the stars and stripes of the flag echoed in both the bedspreads and a flag that Sarah found, framed, at a tag sale. But the biggest changes are in the rest of the house.
White canvas slipcovers have been thrown over the sofas and armchairs in the living room, blue and white pillows piled on top, giving the room a freshness and a lightness it hasn’t seen in years.
The coffee rings on the tables, the burn marks, have been covered with stacks of books. Beautiful vases Sarah has found are filled with fresh flowers. All the fusty, dusty rugs have been replaced with simple seagrass rugs, cut and bound from offcuts going cheap at a carpet store on the Cape that was going out of business.
The dining table has been sanded down, stained and waxed, and Max re-grouted the subway tile in the kitchen, so all is gleaming and white.
“It will be a bed and breakfast,” Nan announces as she pulls the mask off her face, switching the electric sander off just as she finishes the last corner of the kitchen table.
“Don’t you have to talk to Planning and Zoning about that?” Sarah looks up from where she is sealing the counters, worried.
“Probably, but I won’t. It won’t be official, but how could I possibly have people living in the bedrooms and not give them breakfast at least? I won’t advertise as such, and I know we’ve put coffee machines in each of their bedrooms, but, my dear, I’d feel guilty if I didn’t feed them. And just imagine what fun it will be, all my tenants sitting around the kitchen table. It will be like old times.”
“I don’t know that everyone will necessarily want breakfast,” Sarah says. “You may not even want them sitting around the table. You may not like them.”
“Ha! True!” barks Nan with a grin. “But I’m usually pretty good at sizing people up and I won’t let anyone in that I don’t like.”
“But if we advertise online, you won’t be able to meet them. You’ll just have to take them in good faith.”
“I can tell on the phone,” Nan says. “Did I ever tell you about George?”
“George?” Sarah shakes her head.
Nan sighs and sits down, lighting up a cigarette with a dreamy smile. “George was the first man I fell in love with after Everett died.”
“He was? How come you never mentioned him!” Sarah sits down opposite, wishing she still smoked.
“Sometimes I think it’s easier not to think about the what if’s,” Nan says sadly. “What if I had agreed to move to London with him, leave Windermere? What if I had known he would meet someone else a few months later and marry her?” She sighs.
“But I met him on the phone,” she continues. “He was an old school friend of Everett’s, from Middlesex, and he phoned to pay his respects when he was summering on the island one year. Well, I knew from the minute he said hello that I would fall in love with this man, and do you know, he came up to the house for a drink that night, and I did! I swear, I took one look and fell head over heels in love.”
“And?”
Nan smiles at the memory. “And we spent a blissful summer together. I was in such a fog after Everett died, and didn’t think I would ever find anyone, wasn’t looking to find anyone, and then lovely George came into my life, and even though it wasn’t forever, it made me see that I could be happy again, that Everett’s death wasn’t the end of the world by any stretch. Although by that time I was still struggling to get out of the mess Everett left me in.”
“I don’t understand.” Sarah shakes her head. “If you were happy together why didn’t it last?”
“George was my bridge from grief to living again. I think I knew that it was this perfect bubble that wouldn’t continue, and then he got a job in London. Goodness, it sounded so glamorous, but Michael was so little and I didn’t want to uproot him or disrupt his life any further, and we promised we’d stay in touch.” Nan stubs out her cigarette before continuing.
“I did think he’d come back for me, though,” she says wistfully. “And