Sherryl Woods - Seaview Inn

“She’s just going to fade away, die of a broken heart all alone, if you ask me,” Rachel Morrison had said when she’d called.

Hannah hadn’t missed the critical note in Rachel’s voice, the unmistakable hint that Hannah had been irresponsible to run off right after her mother’s burial and leave her grandmother to cope with her grief and Seaview Inn all on her own.

Though her family knew what she was struggling with, Hannah had been unwilling to share her own cancer crisis with any of these well-meaning neighbors. She’d been unable to defend her actions in any way that might have satisfied them. How could she possibly tell them that seeing her mom’s quick decline and painful death while in the middle of her own treatment had left her terrified? She hadn’t been able to get away from Seaview and the memories of her mother’s final days fast enough. She believed that a positive attitude was an essential ingredient for surviving cancer, but it was almost impossible to maintain that attitude in the face of her mother’s death from a recurrence that had come less than two years after she’d first been diagnosed.

So, instead of explaining, Hannah had succumbed to guilt and dutifully taken the remaining two weeks of leave she’d accumulated during years of ignoring vacation time and socking away sick days to come here. That two weeks was all that was left after the time taken for her mastectomy and then the chemo, which had knocked her for a loop despite her stubborn determination to pretend she was just fine. Her boss had grudgingly agreed to let her off, but he’d made it plain he wasn’t one bit happy about the timing.

In less than twenty-four hours, she’d flown back to Florida, rented a car, driven for an hour, and then taken a ferry out to Seaview Key, a tiny island community of less than a thousand full-time residents just off Florida’s west coast. Once there, she’d had to deal with traffic jams caused by winter tourists. All of which, given her current frame of mind, was trying, to say the least.

Worse, she had exactly fourteen days to convince her grandmother to sell the inn—which was also the family’s longtime home—and move into a retirement community where she’d be well cared for. Since Grandma Jenny’s parents had opened Seaview Inn when the island had been little more than a fishing village reached by boat, Hannah had a hunch her work was cut out for her. Her grandmother sometimes exhibited a tenacious streak of sentimentality that overrode common sense.

“I know it’s only four o’clock, but we’ll eat supper now,” Grandma Jenny declared. “I missed lunch and I’m hungry. You can unpack your things later.” She glanced at the suitcase Hannah had left at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the family’s private quarters on the left and to the sprawling wing of guest rooms on the right. “Didn’t bring much, did you? You having the rest of your things sent?”

Hannah stared at her blankly. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re moving home, of course.” Jenny’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I’ve told everyone in town who’s been asking that we’d have the inn up and running again in another week or two, a month at the outside. While your mother was sick, we let a few things slide, but with the two of us working that should give us enough time to get things shipshape, don’t you think so? There’s still a couple of good months of the winter season left, and we’ll draw some folks from the mainland in April and May. Of course, a lot of our regulars had to make other arrangements, but they’ll be back with us next year, I’m sure.”

There were so many things wrong with her grandmother’s assumptions, Hannah couldn’t decide where to start. It didn’t matter, anyway, because Grandma Jenny hadn’t waited for a reply. She was already heading toward the kitchen at a clip that belied the reported evidence of her declining health. In fact, Hannah very much suspected that Grandma Jenny would outlive her and do it with gusto.

* * *

All during their early supper of broiled snapper and fresh tomatoes and strawberries from the local farmer’s market, Grandma Jenny continued to bombard Hannah with her plans for reopening Seaview Inn as quickly as possible. She was as alert and strong-willed as ever.

“You can put that PR experience of yours to good use,” she told Hannah. “Get some ads running up north. A lot of our regulars in Ohio and Michigan who come later in the season need to know our doors are open again. Maybe you can even do something on the Internet. I hear that’s the best place to advertise these days. Or we can send postcards. I have the addresses for most of the customers who’ve stayed here in the past few years. Had ’em back to the beginning, but I figure those people are mostly dead and gone. What do you think?”

Hannah put down her fork and tried to find the right words to tell her grandmother that instead of spending time and money on advertising, they needed to be thinking about finding a good real estate agent. Then it occurred to her that a little renovating would give the place the kind of curb appeal needed to result in a quicker sale. Maybe she didn’t have to discuss selling it just yet. She could wage that battle another day, when she wasn’t quite so exhausted.

“I’ll think about it,” she said at last. “First thing tomorrow, you and I can take a look and see what needs to be done, okay?”

“Why wait?” Gran said, bouncing up, her eyes spar-kling with enthusiasm. “Daylight might be scarce at the end of January, but we’ve got an hour or so till the sun goes down. We can check out the exterior first. I’ve been thinking a new coat of paint should be the first order of business, something bright and cheerful, maybe a nice turquoise with white trim.”

Hannah winced, envisioning a garish result that would rob the inn of whatever tiny scrap of class it had.

“Well, come on,” her grandmother called back. “Daylight’s wasting.”

With a sigh, Hannah followed her outside.

Over the years, the inn had grown from the original sprawling, two-story beach house that had been built in the thirties as a private home. Because of its size and her great-grandparents’ enthusiasm for meeting people, they’d opened their spare rooms to paying guests. That first experimental season had been so successful, they’d officially named it Seaview Inn and expanded over the next few years, adding one section in the early forties, another in the fifties, operating much like the bed-and-breakfasts that had come along later.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much attention to architectural detail in the additions. Wings jutted out haphazardly, one on each side, angled so that the guest rooms on the right and the big formal dining room on the left, with its soaring windows and hodgepodge collection of antique tables and chairs, and the second-floor family quarters all had a view of the beach across the road. To Hannah’s disapproving eye, it looked like a cross between a halfway decent home and a seedy motel. It would take more than a coat of paint, no matter the color, to fix it.

Her favorite part was the porch, which stretched across the front of the original house with a row of white rockers and a collection of antique wicker chairs with fading flowered cushions. In past years there had been hanging baskets of flowers, but this year neither her mother nor grandmother had had the time or energy to spare on such things.

As a child, Hannah had had tea parties with all her dolls on the porch. Sometimes her mom and her grandmother had joined her. Those afternoons had been the best. Later, as a teenager, the porch had been a place for sharing dreams and plans with her friends over sodas and snacks. Eventually her first kiss had been in the shadows on the porch.