Page 44 of The Price of Protection

It was clear that, somehow, Harry knew Willow had met Rose on her own, without his needing to guide her. It meant that he was watching them.

That evening, Willow checked out of the bed-and-breakfast, carted her stuff over to Rose’s, and showed her the letter. She shivered, watching Rose read it. And then, Rose threw it into the fireplace and slapped her hands together. “That’s about enough of that,” she said. Sitting on the sofa, Willow listened as Rose went to the kitchen and called Eleanor Pike, demanding to know why she hadn’t dealt with Harry Orlett yet. Listening to her mother take care of something so enormous, listening to her care for Willow, calmed Willow down so greatly that she fell asleep on the sofa sometime in the middle of Rose’s phone call, as though she were still a child.

When Maxine returned from her father's to live at Rose’s again, Rhett went back to his sailboat, and Willow decided to get her own apartment near their house. She knew that Rose wanted to explain the relationship with Willow before their initial meeting, and she had to respect that. On the day of the move, Rhett helped her carry her things through a startlingly clear and blue-skied October day, whistling.

“How much longer are you going to stay in Nantucket?” she asked him.

Rhett laughed. “I don’t make any plans in this life. Not anymore.”

He went on to explain that his ex-wife had been incredibly organized, so much so that he’d felt that the rest of his life was planned, and it had been suffocating. “I want to go where the wind takes me,” Rhett said.

Willow didn’t point out that the wind was growing faster and faster, yet it still seemed unable to pull him away from Rose Calder. She smiled to herself. It was funny to watch people fall in love with one another, especially when they didn’t realize it themselves.

“What about you?” Rhett asked. “Do you have to go back to work soon?”

They were on the threshold of her new temporary apartment. Willow used the keys she’d picked up that morning to open the door and guide him into the one-bedroom place, with a harbor view out the window. “I work for myself, technically,” she said. “Nothing’s calling me back.”

Rhett’s eyes brightened. “Does that mean you could build your business here?”

“Are there enough people on Nantucket who need music therapy?” Willow asked.

“If I knew more about your career, maybe I could answer that. But I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Rhett said.

Over the following few days, Willow set to work on building her Nantucket brand. She published social media advertisements, posted papers in every coffee shop and at Rose’s bakery, and spoke with local psychiatrists and therapists, hoping they would send their clients to her. One psychiatrist in particular, Victor Sutton, seemed especially keen to work with her, and he sent her three clients within the same week. Two of them were older, with failing minds for reasons that had more to do with dementia and Alzheimer’s and the way the aging mind could confuse you. Another was a child named Kasey.

Realizing she needed a space for music-making, Willow rented a small office near the bakery and moved in a secondhand piano, several secondhand guitars, a few secondhand drums, and a speaker system she rented from the library.

Her first session was on Halloween. Kasey, her new eight-year-old client, came in wearing a costume from a television show Willow had never heard of before. Something from Asia, Kasey explained. She looked adorable and not the least bit spooky, although when Kasey asked Willow if she looked scary, Willow assured her that she did.

For a little more than an hour, Willow and Kasey chatted about Kasey’s interests and what she felt and knew about music. Throughout, Willow felt her own heart opening. She’d forgotten how invested she got in people’s emotional lives through talking about music.

She felt the way she had when she’d begun working with so many of her Boston-based clients. She genuinely believed she could help this little girl. She couldn’t wait to dig deeper.

When their first session ended, Willow walked Kasey outside to meet Kasey’s mother, who was preparing to take her trick-or-treating. Willow and her mother chatted for a bit, smiling. It was clear that her mother was assessing Willow, trying to understand her.

“You know,” she said. “You look tremendously like Rose Calder. Do you know her?”

Willow said she did, but she kept it at that. Nobody needed to know the details of their lives. But strangers could speculate as long as they wanted. What did it matter to her?

As arranged with Rose, after her first session with Kasey, Willow walked from her studio to Rose’s place, where she found Maxine and Rose on the front porch swing, waiting for trick-or-treaters. It was the first time Willow would meet Maxine, and Willow’s stomach was in knots. When Maxine stood, her eyes widened, as though she hadn’t expected Willow to look just like her mother. It was probably disconcerting.

“Willow, hi,” Rose said. “Happy Halloween.”

Willow knew it wasn’t a perfect first meeting. As she sat with Maxine and Rose, she felt Maxine’s jealousy and confusion, shimmering in the air between them. Willow did her best to be friendly; she asked questions about Maxine’s school and Maxine’s friends. Maxine said she had a new boyfriend, but when Willow asked about him, she wouldn’t say anything else.

“He’s cool, I guess,” was all Maxine would give her.

Sitting awkwardly in silence, Willow wondered if Maxine would ever accept her. She knew being an only child was tough.

When Rose got up to fetch something from the kitchen, the first two trick-or-treaters arrived. They were dressed like little pumpkins, and they could hardly articulate “trick or treat.” Willow watched as Maxine gently passed out the candy, calling the kids by name. When the kids scampered away, she turned to Willow and said, “You’ll get to know everyone on the island, too. It won’t take you very long. There aren’t that many of us.”

Willow saw this as a blessing from Maxine. It meant Willow was allowed to stay in their lives a little longer.

“Mom said you lost your mom,” Maxine said.

“Yes. She had dementia,” Willow said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“That’s really sad,” Maxine offered.