Read Chapter 18: The Departure

The morning light through the kitchen windows was the color of weak tea, pale and thin, and the snow had finally stopped. Maren stood at the counter with a mug of coffee warming her palms, watching Lily move through the inn's front hall with the jerky, impatient energy of a bird testing its cage.

Lily had her backpack slung over one shoulder and her phone clutched in the other hand. She'd been texting for the last twenty minutes, thumb flying across the screen with a determination that made Maren's stomach tighten.

"I have to go," Lily announced, appearing in the kitchen doorway. Her cheeks were flushed, her jaw set in a way that reminded Maren painfully of Julian. "The plows have cleared the main road. I checked."

Julian looked up from the letter he'd been pretending to read at the table. Maren watched the muscles in his neck cord as he set the paper down slowly.

"It's still blowing out there. The forecast said another band—"

"I checked the forecast too, Dad." Lily's voice cracked on the word, as if it cost her something to use it. "The road is open. Marcus is coming to get me."

Maren saw the way Julian's hand tightened on the arm of his chair. "Marcus is driving up in this?"

"He has a truck. He's already on his way."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Julian pushed himself to his feet, and even in his worn sweater and with his hair sticking up at odd angles, he managed to fill the room with his presence. "Your mother doesn't even know you're here. We haven't talked about what happens when you—"

"Nothing is going to happen." Lily's voice pitched higher. "I'm going back to school. That's all. I told Mom I was at school. I'll be at school. Everything goes back to the way it was."

"The way it was." Julian repeated the words like they tasted bitter. "Lily, you came all the way here. You showed up in a blizzard. You can't just—"

"I can." She took a step back toward the door. "I should have known this was a mistake. You've never been there for me when it mattered, so why would you start now?"

The words landed like a slap. Maren watched Julian's face go pale, his mouth opening and closing before any sound came out.

"Lily, that's not fair." Maren set her mug down, stepping between them without quite meaning to. "Your father has been trying—"

"Don't." Lily's eyes were bright with tears she was clearly fighting. "You don't know what it's like. You don't know anything about our family."

Maren felt the sting of it, but she kept her voice even. "You're right. I don't. But I know what it looks like when someone is running away from something they're afraid to face. And I know that running doesn't make it disappear."

For a moment, something flickered in Lily's expression. A crack in the armor. Then her phone buzzed in her hand and she glanced at it, and the moment passed.

"He's here." She hoisted her backpack higher. "I'm going."

Julian moved toward her, and Maren put a hand on his arm without thinking. He stopped, looking down at her fingers on his sleeve with something like confusion.

"Let her go," Maren said quietly.

"She's my daughter. I can't just—"

"You can." Maren held his gaze. "And you should. Right now, she needs to feel like she's in control. If you try to stop her, she'll only pull away harder. Trust me."

She thought of the restaurant, of the night everything fell apart, of her own desperate need to flee before anyone could tell her to stay. She knew that feeling better than she wanted to.

Julian's jaw worked. He looked at Lily, then back at Maren, then at the snow-covered windows. His shoulders sagged slightly.

"Fine." His voice was rough. "But I'm walking you out."

Lily hesitated, clearly expecting a fight. Finally, she nodded once and turned toward the door.

Maren watched them go, Julian following his daughter out onto the porch. Through the window, she saw a dark truck idling at the end of the driveway, exhaust curling into the cold air. A figure waited in the driver's seat, too far away to make out features.

Julian said something to Lily, and she shook her head. He reached for her arm, and for a moment Maren thought he was going to pull her back. But Lily did something that surprised her—she leaned in and gave Julian a quick, awkward hug, her arms barely wrapping around his waist before she pulled away and jogged toward the waiting truck.

The door opened, and she climbed in. The truck's headlights swept across the driveway as it turned around and disappeared down the road.

Julian stood on the porch for a long moment, hands in his pockets, watching until the tracks were the only evidence anyone had ever been there. When he finally came back inside, his face was carefully blank.

"She gave me her number," he said, holding up his phone. "Said she'd text when she got back to campus. That's something, right?"

Maren nodded. "That's a lot."

He managed a thin smile, then headed for the stairs, saying something about needing to check on the pipes in the attic. Maren watched him go, her heart aching for the man who was clearly trying so hard and getting so little back.

She started clearing the coffee cups from the table when her fingers brushed against something folded. A piece of paper, tri-folded and tucked beneath the sugar bowl. She hadn't seen it there before.

She picked it up and unfolded it. The handwriting was loopy, rushed, written with a pen that had pressed hard enough to leave grooves in the paper.

*Ask him about the debt.*

Maren read it three times. The words didn't change. Her pulse quickened.

She thought of Lily in the doorway, telling Julian she had to go. She thought of the phone call she'd overheard, Lily's voice sharp with accusation about money Julian owed. She thought about how careful Julian had been with her finances at the inn, how he'd insisted on paying more than the going rate for his room.

The kitchen was suddenly cold.

Maren folded the note along its creases and slid it into her pocket. She could hear Julian moving around upstairs, the creak of floorboards above her head.

She had questions. So many questions. But she wasn't sure she was ready for the answers.

Outside, the sky was still the color of old bone, and the wind was picking up again, whistling through the eaves. The storm wasn't done with them yet. And neither, apparently, were the secrets Julian carried with him.

Maren picked up her coffee cup and found it cold in her hands. She poured it down the sink and watched the dark liquid spiral toward the drain, wondering what else was going to surface before this storm finally broke.