It was actually a little embarrassing how easy it was, and it made her wonder how long she’d been holding on to that fear so needlessly.
Part of it had been the pandemic—she knew that. She’d taken the restrictions seriously—too seriously, the argument could be made.
Healing comes when it comes.
That little nugget of wisdom had been etched on a wine glass.
“Thank you, Chief. That will be great. I’d be happy to have all of you back.”
“Please. Helen. I’ve known you since high school. Call me Shawn.”
Fire Chief Shawn Holliwell had been a senior when she was a freshman. And while he wasn’t the youngest fire chief the area had ever seen, he was still pretty young. “When I call you Shawn I remember that time you and Cameron climbed up onto the roof of the high school—”
“All right, okay,” Shawn said. “We don’t need to go that far down memory lane.”
Shawn and Cameron had had to be rescued by firefighters, and Shawn always credited that night as having sparked his interest in being one.
“Well, it’s something the guys look forward to, and I think we do some good,” Shawn said.
She laughed. “Last year the fire department raised five thousand dollars, Chief. So, I’d say, yes. You do some good.”
“I’ll give the boys the same speech, and we’ll put the sign-up sheet in the kitchen. I’ll have a list of what the boys are donating to you by the end of the month.”
“And we’ll start advertising. Thank you, Shawn. And just remind them—”
“I know. I know. Wholesome. Billy really didn’t mean anything by the offer of tire rotation. He honestly just meant tire rotation.”
She laughed. “I know, Shawn. It’s all right.”
“Billy was the first one to volunteer again this year,” he said, and Helen closed her eyes. “He really enjoys helping you out.”
“Chief,” she sighed. This again. The whole world had been on a campaign to get her to go out with Billy since the last picnic.
“Ah, we’re back to Chief again. I’ve gone too far. Ignore me, Helen. He’s just a nice guy who’d love to take you for a drink.”
“And if I was interested in going out for a drink, he’d be a lovely guy to do it with. But I’m not interested in that. With anyone.”
“Noted. And I’ll get the info to you as soon as I’ve got it.”
They hung up and Helen got out of her car. The front door opened and Dani lifted her arm in a wave.
“Hurry up, the show is about to start,” she shouted.
And it was all so normal. So beautifully normal. It was nothing to cry about. But still she blinked away the tears that were part happy and part pride and all embarrassing.
Another Week Later
One of the joys of living on the property of the Athens Organics farm and in the slightly suffocating bosom of her family and extended family and extended, extended family, was that there were endless babysitters. Her younger brothers and sisters, her aunts, Alice and Delia. Her uncles, Max and Gabe. There were so many willing babysitters and so many things to do that between Haven House, the farm and the Riverview Inn, Bea could be found covered in flour baking in the kitchen with Alice, or handing all the wrong tools to Max as he fixed things in the cabins, or examining the first tender green buds of strawberries in the fields.
It was, without a doubt, an absolute blessing.
The other side of living in the bosom of her family was that everyone had an opinion all the time and there was no getting away from it.
“I’m telling you,” Alice was telling Daphne as they sat in the huge kitchen of the inn. “It’s not as bad as you think.” Alice was making a sauce, Helen was peeling potatoes for the night’s gnocchi, and Daphne was having a glass of wine and scrolling through a dating site.
“I don’t care,” Helen said, pointing the peeler at her mother. “I don’t care. And if you keep going on like this, you can peel your own damn potatoes.”
“This guy looks nice.” Daphne tilted the phone toward Helen, who ignored it.
“Let me see,” Alice said. Her dark hair had an amazing silver streak through it. She called it her superhero streak. Helen, who wasn’t yet thirty, hoped she grew old with the grace of these women around her. Though perhaps without all the know-it-all nosiness. She vowed then and there to just let Bea live her life when it was all said and done. And to never, ever look at dating websites on her behalf.
“Yeah. Hot,” Alice said. “And he lives in Catskill.”
Graceful and stubborn.
“Stop. I’m begging you.”
“Fine,” Daphne said and put down her phone. “We’ll stop.”
Helen pushed the peeled potatoes over to her mom to cut and put in the salted, boiling water on the stove.