There was one note, however, that no matter how hard I studied, I could not make sense of. Written in the catering notes underneath the description of the wedding cake order was a scribbled line that read “cheesecake from Joni.” I had no idea who Joni was. When I went to the kitchen to ask Gaspard, he was just as clueless.

April at least offered a little bit of direction. “I don’t know who Joni is, but that’s Ida’s handwriting. She’ll know.”

“Oh. Do you think she’ll mind if I ask her? So soon?”

April hesitated. “She might. But honestly, what option do we have?”

Great. Way to bolster my confidence.

Even though she’d hesitated to commit, Ida hadn’t denied that reopening the inn was the right decision and was precisely what Thornton would have wanted—for business to carry on as usual. But for Ida, nothing about Winding Way would ever be usual again. Somehow she had to find a new sense of normal. The longer she put that off, the easier it was to stay shrouded in her own pain, which I guessed was exactly what she wanted to do.

I knocked on the door to the main-level suite she and Thornton had occupied for the last twenty years.

“Moved in when their last kid went off to college,” April had told me when we’d first visited Ida. “Said it was easier to run the place living on site.”

I heard Ida’s voice call from inside. “It’s open. Come on in.” Ida sat in the small sitting area off the kitchen next to a wall of windows looking out into a private garden space. She had a blanket stretched across her lap. It was exactly where we’d left her earlier that morning. She didn’t have a book or a magazine, and the television wasn’t on. She simply sat, turned away from the door, and stared out the window. She looked over as I approached. “Oh. Hello, dear.”

“How are you?” It felt like a hollow question, one I immediately wished I could take back. Because, hello? How did she answer that two weeks after she’d lost her husband?

She must have sensed my discomfort. She gave me a small smile. “Don’t fret for having asked. You strike me as the kind of person who wouldn’t mind if I told you I needed to have a good cry on your shoulder. I don’t, mind you. I think I used up all my tears this morning, but if I did, I think you’d muster up some strength and let it happen without a second thought.”

I held the wedding binder close to my chest. “You can tell all that about me?”

She motioned for me to join her on the sofa. “It’s in your eyes. Kindness, yes. But also . . .” She seemed to consider. “Bravery,” she finally said. “You aren’t afraid of much, are you?”

Heat gathered in my cheeks as I lowered myself onto the cushion beside her. “I’ve had my moments. But I try not to be afraid.”