Flowers on Main by Sherryl Woods

you’ll pay us a visit soon. Now, here’s Bree.”
    There was a pause and then Bree came on the line, her voice cool and clipped. “Hello, Mother.”
    “How are you?” Megan asked, treading carefully. If she plunged right in with too many questions, she knew how quickly Bree was likely to end the call. There’d been too many other conversations over the years that hadn’t lasted past the pleasantries.
    “Fine,” Bree said, her tone unyielding.
    “Are you enjoying your time in Chesapeake Shores?”
    “Sure. It feels good to be home.”
    “How much longer do you think you’ll be there?”
    “Actually I’m home for good,” Bree said. “Look, Mother, I’m really busy, so unless there’s something specific on your mind, I need to go.”
    Bree’s calm announcement that she was staying in Chesapeake Shores stirred a hundred questions, none of which her daughter was likely to answer in a hurried phone call.
    “I’ll let you go then,” Megan said reluctantly, then added,“Bree, if you’re not going back to Chicago right away, you could come to New York for a visit.” She warmed to the idea. “We could see some plays together. I know how much the theater means to you. It would be fun.”
    “Sorry, I don’t have the time right now,” Bree said, slamming the door on the idea. “Goodbye, Mother.”
    She cut off the call before Megan could attempt to persuade her to make the trip or even to say goodbye. The abrupt and unsatisfying conversation wasn’t really unexpected, just disappointing.
    It did accomplish one thing, though. Despite the fact that she was hardly an expert on Bree’s moods these days, even she could tell there was something wrong, and it was more than a lack of desire to chat with her mother. So, Mick and Nell had been right to be worried. She was, as well. Maybe time and her actions had stripped her of the right to her anxiety, but it was there just the same.
    Her first priority when she arrived at her job at the gallery where she’d been working for the past fifteen years was to arrange for some time off. Once again, she’d be making a trip to Chesapeake Shores. Since the visit for the opening of Jess’s inn had broken the ice for these recent drop-ins, the prospect didn’t scare the living daylights out of her the way that one had.
    The prospect of seeing Mick, however, did send a shiver down her spine. Fear? Anticipation? It was getting harder and harder to tell.
     
    Bree carefully replaced the receiver after speaking to her mother and would have walked right out of the kitchen if Gram hadn’t ordered her to sit.
    “I’ve poured you a cup of tea, and there are fresh orange-cranberry scones on the stove,” Gram said as she gestured toward a seat at the table.
    Bree hesitated, wanting to bolt, but mostly wanting to avoid a discussion about her mother. “I really need to get over to the shop. There are a million plans that have to be made.” After doing just a few days of research, she was already starting to feel a little overwhelmed by how much she didn’t know.
    “Your plans can wait a few extra minutes,” Gram said. “I know I won’t be able to talk you into the kind of breakfast you should have, but you can stay long enough to share a cup of tea and some conversation with me.”
    “I don’t mind the tea,” Bree replied. “It’s the conversation I’d rather not have.”
    “Now, that’s a fine thing to be saying to your grandmother,” Gram said, lapsing into an Irish lilt that came mostly from being raised in a home with two parents who’d come over straight from Dublin. Gram herself had grown up right here in Maryland.
    “Sorry,” Bree apologized. “I just don’t want to talk about Mother.”
    “You were rude to her just now,” Gram chided.
    “I don’t know how else to be with her. She left us years ago. Am I supposed to forget that?”
    “Of course not, but you seem to have forgotten that she tried repeatedly to get you to New York, either to stay or