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Back The Summer Cottage
Chapters (75)
  1. Cover
  2. Back Cover Text
  3. Praise
  4. Booklist
  5. About the Author
  6. Dedication
  7. Quote
  8. Prologue
  9. Part One
  10. ONE
  11. TWO
  12. THREE
  13. Part Two
  14. FOUR
  15. FIVE
  16. SIX
  17. Part Three
  18. SEVEN
  19. EIGHT
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. Part Four
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. THIRTEEN
  26. Part Five
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. FIFTEEN
  29. SIXTEEN
  30. SEVENTEEN
  31. Part Six
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. TWENTY-ONE
  36. Part Seven
  37. TWENTY-TWO
  38. TWENTY-THREE
  39. TWENTY-FOUR
  40. TWENTY-FIVE
  41. Part Eight
  42. TWENTY-SIX
  43. TWENTY-SEVEN
  44. TWENTY-EIGHT
  45. TWENTY-NINE
  46. Part Nine
  47. THIRTY
  48. THIRTY-ONE
  49. THIRTY-TWO
  50. THIRTY-THREE
  51. THIRTY-FOUR
  52. Part Ten
  53. THIRTY-FIVE
  54. THIRTY-SIX
  55. THIRTY-SEVEN
  56. THIRTY-EIGHT
  57. Part Eleven
  58. THIRTY-NINE
  59. FORTY
  60. FORTY-ONE
  61. Part Twelve
  62. FORTY-TWO
  63. FORTY-THREE
  64. FORTY-FOUR
  65. Part Thirteen
  66. FORTY-FIVE
  67. FORTY-SIX
  68. FORTY-SEVEN
  69. EPILOGUE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  71. AUTHOR NOTE
  72. Reader’s Guide
  73. Questions for Discussion
  74. The Heirloom Garden
  75. Abby

I find REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” on Pandora and play it on repeat—singing at the top of my lungs, the lyrics taking on new meaning between the snow and my new adventure—and I don’t realize I’ve made it to Saugatuck until I see the painter’s palette, the sign that has marked the entrance to town forever as a welcome beacon, lighting the sky, the name of the town and each paint color twinkling.

Saugatuck is renown as an artist lover’s haven—known as the Art Coast of Michigan—filled with galleries galore. I used to paint with my mom on the bluff overlooking the lake.

“Don’t paint what you see,” she used to tell me. “Paint what you feel.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do with my life now, Mom,” I say to the sign.

As I ease my SUV down the snow-covered lane leading to town, gallery storefronts light the way, giant oils, pastels and watercolors of summer in Saugatuck—Lake Michigan at sunset, the grandeur of the dunes, gardens of purple foxglove, ice-blue hydrangeas and red rhododendrons as big as trees—offering the promise of what’s to come.

What if I offered painting classes at my new inn? I think. Or painting weekends in the fall? City people eat that up.

I pass a historical marker on the way through town. Its history is embedded in my mind, as I used to work summers cranking the chain ferry, one of Saugatuck’s biggest tour attractions. I speak as if I’m back on the chain ferry, reciting memorized lines in a robotic tone to tourists: Saugatuck’s setting has drawn urbanites from Chicago and as far away as St. Louis since the early 1900s. A resort, tourist and cottage culture emerged in the 1880s and exploded in 1910 when a group of artists from the Art Institute of Chicago established the Summer School of Painting on the Ox-Bow Lagoon and when a huge dance hall, called the Big Pavilion, was built on the waterfront. The resulting influx of well-known artists and big-name Chicago architects resulted in a wave of buildings in the Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival manner. Now, the galleries, the golden beaches and towering dunes, the wineries and U-Picks, and the unsalted majesty of Lake Michigan beckon tourists.

I laugh. How can I remember old song lyrics and things like this from my youth, but can’t remember to take out the trash?