For one thing, she was the first in our family to get unexpectedly pregnant far too young. Specifically in her first year in college at Wellesley, which was impressive given it was an all-women’s school. Alas, Dad wasn’t a virgin birth. His very real father was a guy by the name of Lester Colon who was a business student at Babson College. He’d almost married Grandma Jo but she went into labor early on the day they had planned to drive over to the justice of the peace, and after Dad arrived, the idea of marrying was forgotten. Which made it much easier when Lester left for Cleveland six months later and never returned. Grandma Jo liked to say she was glad she’d never bothered to give Dad the last name Colon. Dad was pretty pleased about that, too. Skip Brown was enough of a hurdle.

All this meant that despite the fact she had a sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Grandma Jo was only fifty-three and blessed with the kind of skin that repelled all but the most insistent wrinkles. Like the one between her eyebrows.

Which was on display the moment she walked through the front doors with Arthur’s aunt Esha and spotted Dr. Raymond perched on the sofa.

“Shit,” she said under her breath.

For a fraction of a second I could tell she was calculating whether it was possible to pivot and go right back out the doors, unseen. But that fraction of a second was all Dr. Raymond needed.

He sprang to his feet, his face beaming with excitement and shiny with too much skin oil.

“Hiya, Jo!”

In an instant my grandmother affected a smile so perfectly affable she could have run for office. Operating a business in a small town required the same amount of political acuity.

“Dean, how lovely to see you.”

I moved the peppermint candy around the inside of my mouth and watched.

He went in for a hug but Grandma Jo intercepted him with a firm yet cordial one-handed upper-shoulder squeeze while simultaneously turning them both to face Aunt Esha in a move so smooth it could’ve been ballet.

“Dean, I’d like to introduce you to one of the inn’s newest guests, Ms. Esha Chakrabarti, a barrister from London who has arrived here by way of Connecticut with her nephew for the holidays. Esha, this is Dean Raymond, our town’s finest dentist.”

Only dentist, I corrected in my head.

“Hiya!” He even waved.

Aunt Esha smiled vaguely and nodded once in Dr. Raymond’s direction.