She passed a charming little alley called Violet Way on the right and noticed that the old antiques shop down there seemed to have had a facelift and was fresh and sparkling—must be a new owner. Vivien smiled to herself, for she was now a business owner in the town. The excitement fluttering in her belly settled into a little queasiness.
I hope I can pull this off.
There is no hope, there is—
“Yeah, I know, I know,” she said, unsure whether it was her own thoughts or Liv who kept lecturing her in the voice of Yoda.
The winding two-lane road hugged the shoreline north, with a public beach, two small inns, a kayak, canoe, and bicycle livery on the left, and more small shops and a few private cottages on the right.
It was a little bit of a detour to go this route, but Vivien needed to take in all of Wicks Hollow, all of her town, her home, her memories on this important day—this commencement of the rest of her life.
Remember the time we had ice cream sitting on the pier and you had a double scoop of strawberry chunk and I had a double of chocolate and we tried to trade one scoop each?
Her eyes stung and her mouth twitched sadly as she remembered how hers and Liv’s ice cream scoops had all ended up in the lake with four decided plops, leaving them with empty cones.
“We can buy new ones,” Mom had said, her eyes bright and shining. “Now that the two of you are off and running! Just this once, though…we can’t have our little actresses getting chubby.”
“Now, Josey, let’s not put that sort of pressure on them,” said Gran, shaking her hat-bedecked head. The brim was so broad that it offered enough shade for both of the girls if they stood close to her, which they did whenever they could. “They’re only children.” She wrapped her arms around each of the twins and hugged them close. “Very talented, but children nonetheless.”
So the second time, Vivien and Olivia had each ordered one strawberry and one chocolate scoop each—and sprinkles—and they ate them on sugar cones while sitting on swings in the park across from the lake. They both had tummy aches after, but it had been worth it.
That was one of the two most vivid memories Vivien had of Wicks Hollow from when Liv was alive—likely because that had been a monumental day for the Savage twins. At age eight, Vivien Leigh and Olivia Dee Savage had just been cast as Oliver in a national touring revival of the musical. After playing smaller parts in Annie and The Sound of Music, it was their biggest, most demanding role yet, and Mom was over the moon.
Now, Vivien cruised along the lakeshore and thanked her grandmother for the millionth time for being such a stabilizing influence during those early years…and beyond. Gran had helped to balance the pell-mell, frenetic drive of the twins’ mother with reality, and that, Vivien knew, was surely the only reason she was still alive, relatively sane, and not an addict—except when it came to ordering carry-out.
I miss you, Gran.
Gran had died nearly a year ago, having been in an assisted living center just outside of Wicks Hollow for about seven years. Vivien had visited her as often as she could get away from New York, and called regularly when she couldn’t. Which was probably more than her mother had done. Not that she was judging—she truly wasn’t. Mom was actually doing pretty well right now.
Vivien could almost hear Liv: Don’t think about Mom right now…don’t ruin your homecoming.
“Our homecoming, Liv,” Vivien said. “We’re home.”
So Vivien put aside thoughts of their mother and continued driving just out of town on the north side, where the road curved away from the big lake. Her moonroof was open and the windows were down, and she could smell the distinct scent of lake from the breeze coming off the water as it mingled with the soft humidity of a Michigan summer.
Home.
If she kept going straight, she’d drive a couple more miles until she reached the southern tip of Wicks Lake—a long, narrow inland lake that attracted just as many summer visitors as the big lake.
Instead, she turned east onto Blueberry Road—barely two miles out of town—and that was when her heart really began to squeeze and her chest felt tight and anxious, and the butterflies went crazy in her stomach. Her palms slicked damp