Page 25 of No Room in the Inn

It’s a long time to be in Woodfield.

I finally lift my head and look around. No one but Granny ever came to this floor, although I guess Nixon lived up here too for the last year. But no guests were ever housed up here. It was Granny’s private space. She’s got a little sitting room up here and a kitchenette—all handy things to have if stairs are difficult, like they would have been after she broke her hip and leg.

It still smells like her up here, too, something I should have expected but didn’t. When I stand and move down the hall toward her room, it’s a little kick in the gut to see the way her life was interrupted. There’s a half-read book on the nightstand; a shirt she was probably mending is draped over the sewing machine in the corner. I just look around for a second, not bothering to swallow the lump in my throat.

“It’s weird, isn’t it? How all of her stuff is here, but she’s…not?”

I jump probably a mile into the air at the sound of Nixon’s sad voice behind me. “Make some noise,” I say, my heart skittering. I put my hand over my chest, trying to calm it. I don’t look at Nixon, though. I keep my eyes on the room in front of me, because they’re filled with tears.

“Are you sure you want to sleep in here?” he says gently, and once again I hear the serious side of him rather than the obnoxious, cheeky side.

I take a deep breath, or at least I try. Sadness and tears are resting on my chest like Myrtle after a bath, making it hard to breathe. I wipe my cheeks surreptitiously, and I probably manage that okay, but I can’t hide the pitiful little cry that slips out.

A hand rests on my back, gentle but firm. “Come on,” Nixon says, reaching past me and grabbing the doorknob, closing the door to Granny’s room and leaving me facing the familiar light wood. How many times did I knock on her bedroom door as a kid?

The less mature part of me has half a mind to fight Nixon as he guides me down the hall to the other room on this floor, but I don’t have the energy. Or the desire, really. It’s only when I’ve stepped into the other bedroom that I realize Nixon has carried my bags down the hall. He now sets them on the carpet by the bed. Then he straightens up and looks at me. I’m surprised to see that there’s no pity on his face; just a gentle sort of sympathy and kindness.

He’s annoying, this Santa, but I can tell that he’s a good man.

I break our eye contact, because his kindness plus my current emotional state will definitely equal more tears, and I don’t want that. So I look the room over instead. A familiar old quilt is on the bed, and the walls hold all the same pictures that were there when I grew up. I wander absently to the photo of Myrtle that Granny hung when I was younger and used to have sleepovers here. She knew I missed my cat when I wasn’t at home.

And it’s there, standing in front of that picture of Myrtle, that it hits me. It hits me with all the force of a speeding train.

Granny is dead. She’s gone. She’s really, truly gone. And I never told her how much she meant to me.

A sudden and terrible sadness rips through me, and before I know what’s happening, great, wracking sobs are being pulled from my chest against my will. Their extraction is painful, but I can’t seem to stop; it’s as though something has broken inside of me and everything is flooding out. Every memory of Granny, every kind thing she’s ever done for me, every tiny way she made me feel loved. They’re all surfacing in my mind and pummeling me in my heart.

I’m vaguely aware of a heavy sigh, of a pair of arms pulling me into a reluctant embrace, and for a second I stiffen. But there’s no place for hesitance in my heartbreak, no place for pride; I bury my head in Nixon’s chest, stranger though he is, and his arms tighten more firmly around me. As I cry I become aware of the words he’s speaking, his voice low and gentle.

“It’s okay,” he says. “You’ll be okay. It will pass.” He’s quiet for a second, though his hands don’t cease rubbing my back, stroking my hair. “She knew you loved her,” he murmurs. “She always knew.”

I don’t know how he understood the cause of my pain, but I don’t dwell on it. This complete stranger understanding me isn’t something I can think about right now. So I just let it go and cry.

Chapter 13

Nixon

It’s hard to be angry at someone when they’re pressed up against you, sobbing their eyes out. Which is inconvenient, because I’d prefer to maintain my image of her as selfish and unfeeling.

But that doesn’t seem to be part of the plan. With every sob she lets go of, she becomes more and more human to me. She smells vaguely of cherries, both sweet and tart, and her hair is soft as I stroke it. She seems small and fragile in my arms, and I shove away the primal instinct I have to protect her.

She wants to sell the inn,I remind myself.She left Granny.

But a tiny, unwelcome voice pipes up in the back of my mind that I might be judging the situation too quickly. I push that away too, with only partial success.

I don’t know how long we stand there like that, her crying, me holding her, but it goes on for quite some time. Long enough that I can feel the dampness of my shirt.

“She’s gone,” Willow manages to get out eventually. Her sobs are subsiding into more silent-tear territory, it seems, and her voice is muffled when she speaks into my shirt.

“She is,” I say, my voice gruff. I think quickly, trying to figure out what to say—something that will ease her into the understanding that Granny is gone. Something that will help her make peace with it.

“Tell me about her.” The words spring unbidden to my lips, but they feel right. I hesitate, then rest my chin on the top of Willow’s head before going on. “What was she like growing up?”

There’s a second of silence followed by a little sniffle. “Probably the same as she was when you knew her,” Willow says, and I’m pleased to hear a little smile in her voice. “She was the quintessential grandmother,” she says. “Not just to me, either. To everyone.”

I smile, because it’s true. “She made me call her Granny,” I say. “I started off calling her Gladys, but she wouldn’t let me.”

“I hate it when people call her Gladys,” Willow admits. “It just doesn’t fit her.” She takes a deep, steadying breath, and we’re quiet for a second.

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