I Left Him at the Altar to Hide Our Daughter, and Now He Owns the Inn Where I Cook novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: His Mother

Eleanor Thayer shames Mara in front of the lobby, sees Poppy's eyes, and tells her in dry storage that the terms still stand; at dinner she orders Lawrence to fire the chef, and he says the chef is baking his wedding cake.

I didn't go out to the lobby.

I went back to my tarts.

Lawrence went out through the swinging door, and Blair followed him, and I lifted Poppy back onto her stool.

"Stay right here."

"But Gary is..."

"Right here, Poppy."

Through the round window in the door I could see the front of the lobby.

A long black car sat at the foot of the porch steps.

The driver held the back door open.

Eleanor Thayer stepped out in cream linen with a cashmere wrap around her shoulders, though it was June and seventy degrees.

Her silver hair was cut to the jaw exactly the way it had been six years ago.

Her pearls were the same pearls.

I had carried a cup of tea to her once in those pearls, and she had told me it was stewed.

The front door chimed.

"Mother," Lawrence said.

"Darling. The porch is sagging. I nearly turned my ankle."

Her voice carried.

It always had.

It was built for big rooms full of people who were supposed to listen.

The lobby had six guests in it, checking out, and the front desk girl, and the housekeeper with her cart.

"We'll fix the porch," Lawrence said.

"You'll fix a great deal, I imagine."

Then she said, "Is it true? Is she here?"

I set the piping bag down again.

I should have stayed in the kitchen.

I didn't.

I pushed through the swinging door and walked into the lobby in my whites with lemon curd on my sleeve.

Eleanor turned and looked at me.

She looked at me from my clogs to my bandana.

"So it is," she said.

"Mrs. Thayer."

"Miss Ellison. Still in kitchens."

A woman at the desk with a rolling suitcase stopped signing her bill.

"You'll forgive me," Eleanor said to the room, pleasantly, as if she were explaining a menu. "This young woman and I have history."

"Mother," Lawrence said.

"She cost our family two hundred thousand dollars, and my son a very expensive wedding."

The guest with the suitcase looked at me.

So did her husband.

So did the front desk girl, who'd gone to high school with me.

She'd bought day-old bread from Aunt Hattie every Thursday of her life.

"And here she is," Eleanor said. "Running his kitchen. Port Alder never changes."

"That's enough," Lawrence said.

But he didn't say it hard.

He said it, asking his mother to lower her voice in church.

The swinging door banged open behind me.

"Mama, Gary's eating!"

Poppy ran out into the lobby in her paper hat with her shoelaces flying.

She skidded to a stop on the old rug beside me and grabbed my apron.

Then she looked up, at the tall lady in the pearls.

Eleanor looked down.

I saw it hit her.

I saw the color go out of her face.

Her hand moved to her pearls and stayed there.

She looked at Poppy's eyes.

She looked at Lawrence.

She looked at Poppy.

"Whose child is this?" she said.

Her voice had gone very quiet.

"Mine," I said.

"Hello," said Poppy. "I like your necklace."

Eleanor didn't answer her.

She turned to Lawrence and put on a smile.

"Darling, have someone take my bags to the Captain's Suite. I'll be staying the summer. Blair needs help with the wedding."

"The summer?" Lawrence said.

"The whole summer."

She walked past me toward the stairs.

As she passed she said, low, only for me, "Dry storage. Five minutes."

Five minutes later I stood among the flour sacks with the door closed.

Eleanor came in without knocking.

She didn't sit. There was nowhere for her to sit that she would have sat on.

"How old is she?"

"She's mine."

"That isn't what I asked."

"It's the only answer you're getting."

Eleanor looked at a fifty-pound sack of bread flour.

"I remember a pharmacy box in your handbag," she said. "At the rehearsal dinner. You thought I didn't see."

My heart was banging so hard I could hear it.

"I remember what I told you that morning," she said. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll know it still stands. All of it. Every word."

She stepped closer.

She smelled of the same perfume. Gardenias and money.

"I have more lawyers now than I did then. And I still hold the paper on that sad little bakery of your aunt's."

"Get out of my storeroom."

"It's my son's storeroom."

She opened the door.

"Do your job, Miss Ellison. Feed the guests. Say nothing. And when the summer's over, you'll go back to being nobody we know."

That night the dining room was full for the first time in weeks.

Everyone in town had found a reason to eat at the Harborlight.

Lawrence sat at the round table by the window with Blair and his mother.

I sent out the halibut myself.

I stood at the pass and watched them through the round window while the servers carried the plates.

Eleanor took one bite and set her fork down.

She said something.

Then she said it louder, so the tables nearby could hear.

"Fire her, Lawrence. Tonight. I won't eat food that woman has touched."

The room went silent. Forks hung in the air.

Lawrence put his napkin down.

"No," he said.

Eleanor stared at him.

He lifted his glass and looked straight through the round window at me.

"She stays," he said. "She's baking my wedding cake."

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