I didn’t mean for the words to come out, but they do.

Mildred’s eyes widen, and she stares at me.

“Your room,” I say, the hidden meaning in my proclamation giving me the strength to move forward. “This way.”

“Oh,” Mildred says. “Yes.”

THIRTY-SIX

I click my cell, and its light illuminates the front porch.

Nine thirteen p.m.

I grit my teeth so hard I can actually hear them grind. I force myself to stop, worrying I might crack one and spend my first weekend as an innkeeper looking like an extra from Deliverance.

It is pitch-black, and I am rocking on the glider—Sonny’s head in my lap—waiting for my final guests to arrive. Other innkeepers had warned me about the dreaded “late arrivals”—those who showed up hours after check-in—but I didn’t anticipate it happening day one.

Right now, I think, remembering the words of Mrs. Dawkins, one of Evan’s teachers who became a good friend, my classroom is 90-10.

She used to say that every year 90 percent of the children’s parents in her classroom—like their kids—were incredible people. But 10 percent were a nightmare, and—in the beginning—she ended up focusing nearly all of her energy and attention on the smallest, most negative percentage.

“I learned I was shortchanging the ones who needed me most,” she said.

I think of my first guests—an adorable couple named the Donovans and a sweet woman named Bev and her husband—who have been so kind and gracious.

Don’t shortchange them, Adie Lou, I tell myself. Don’t let the marvelous Mark and Mildred and these latecomers take away from the others’—and your—experience.

All of the inn’s guests have gone to dinner, and the cottage, for a blessed moment, is silent. Cozy Cottage is at rest.

The snow flurries have ended, and the skies have cleared, making it abnormally cold, even for May in Michigan. But the stars are spectacularly bright, and I lift my head and search the night skies.

Spring up and fall down, I can hear my father say. The Big Dipper shines high in the sky on spring evenings but close to the horizon on autumn evenings.

When it was warm, my dad would let me sleep on the front porch in a sleeping bag, the waves lulling me into a deep slumber. When he’d tuck me in, he’d lie down beside me, and we’d search the skies, my dad pointing out the planets and the stars, naming each one.

I nervously click my phone again. There’s an app for stargazing now. Just hold it up to the sky and—Bingo!—it tells you.

As I wait, I study the stars and then the cottage, thinking of my dad.

Where does the wonder go as you age, I muse. Did I trade in the magic of this place for selfish reasons?