I look over at Sonny, who has angled himself into a shaft of light. When he sees me staring at him, he thumps his tail on the wet ground and belly crawls toward me, rolling over on his back. His world, too, is divided in half, filled with both light and darkness. Sonny thumps his tail even harder as I stop to scratch his stomach.

He only chooses to see the light, I think, in spite of everything that’s happened to him.

I take a seat on my pad, and Sonny puts his head on my lap. For a moment, I stop moving.

I have been awake since 4:30, and yet I feel abuzz with energy. Although my first full day as an innkeeper was trying, to say the least, I woke this morning with a sense of purpose. I woke with a sense of “light.”

I zip up my jacket, blow on my hands and stare at my little garden, also awash in light. The ferns on my burgeoning asparagus—which, unfortunately, I cannot pick the first year they’re planted—look in the light like spiderwebs floating in the sky. The dew on the grass sparkles, and a misty fog is rising from the forest floor.

I return my attention to the rhubarb I’m picking, moving Sonny off my lap and then moving onto my knees on the cushioned pad. Sonny paws at the damp earth like he’s assisting my efforts. I cannot take a full harvest of rhubarb my first season, so I cut only three large, firm stems, enough for my rhubarb sour cream coffee cake.

Like last night, I can hear my father talking to me in the quiet of the morning, like he used to do when we’d rise early and work in his veggie garden.

Remember, you can only harvest rhubarb in months without an r, he would tell me. May, June, July and August.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say to myself, before turning to Sonny. “Ready?”

He jumps up excitedly and runs in a circle on the patio. I open the door, and he sprints inside. I get him his breakfast and then start on the guests’.

I look at the kitchen clock: 6:30 a.m. Lots more to do, I think. Better pick up the pace.

I start the coffee and fill the big urn in the dining room. On my last trip, I run my hands over The Summer Cottage Inn mugs that I designed, taking and filling one for myself. I shut the door to the kitchen, knowing there will likely be a few early risers who, like me, will want coffee ASAP.