Home Again: A Door County Novel

By Morganne L. MacDonald

Home Again is a 76,500-word work of women's fiction with elements of magical realism set in the small resort town of Fish Creek in Door County, Wisconsin (USA).

Self-help author, Garrett Oakley, isn't feeling the love of self, help, or writing as he struggles to finish the sequel to his best-selling book on parent-child relatio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781941884072

Book preview

1

Garrett Oakley, a bestselling self-help author, was a fraud. He knew it and soon, if he didn’t do something drastic, the rest of the reading world would know it too, including his agent and soon after, his publisher. Then his career would be over. The one-hit-wonder. The man who almost was.

Garrett didn’t fool himself into believing he couldn’t write. He could. He wasn’t one of those writers who waited for his muse to move him or lightning to strike. He believed in sitting his ass in a chair and hitting the keyboard. He’d done that. Typing out a series of words wasn’t Garrett’s problem. His problem was that all those words strung together, sucked.

He hadn’t written anything worth reading in months.

The reasons he was stuck made no sense to Garrett. In his life and his career, he did what needed to be done when it needed to be done. Always. Why was this time in his life any different? When he figured that out, he’d have his sequel to Parents Are Forever.

Garrett’s first draft was overdue by a week. He didn’t have time to waste on why he was stuck, he simply needed to get over it, or pound keys through it, or figure it out, and bleed his soul onto the page.

Introspection needed to come with the force of a gale wind or at least a cream pie in the face, because in the four years since he’d written Parents, it hadn’t gently crept its way into either his consciousness or subconscious. The second that thought entered his head, Garrett banished it. He was a man of science.

His mother and, after she died, his stepmother, both instilled in Garrett a healthy respect for the intuitive and the unexplainable: Don’t tempt fate, Garrett. You never know what you’ll get. Listen to your heart, Garrett. It knows more than your brain is telling you. Pay attention, Garrett. There’s more to this life than you can see, hear, or touch.

Garrett shook off the voices of memory echoing in his head. Thinking about the passing of his mothers had the propensity to bring him to a dark place, one he quickly exited before it threatened to shut him down completely. He was still so angry about both deaths and their aftermath that closing the door was healthier than analyzing why he blamed a man who wasn’t responsible for taking either mother away.

That was a worry for another day.

Today he had to get his shit together, his literary shit, and write the damned book. Today he had to be brilliant because everyone loved to hate a sequel that didn’t brilliantly surpass the original.

In hindsight, Garrett would have been better off scribbling in crayon on scrap paper than letting the first niggling of a crazy plan brew in his head. Putting anything on the page, anything at all, even if it started as complete garbage, would have been safer. Smarter. Less self-defeating. He would have at least been able to get something useful out of that.

Instead, he tried to be clever. Instead, he tried to outsmart his fiancée and his agent, two of the savviest minds in each of their respective businesses. He may have survived that bit of stupidity had he not added to his negative instant karma by sending yet another unopened box back to his father at the Red Robin Inn.

Garrett knew what the box contained because it was about the same size and weight as the first one he sent back to Robert. When Garrett opened the first box some months ago, it was filled with copies of letters Robert had written but never mailed to him over the years since Garrett left home.

Garrett kept one. It lay in his sock drawer, unread. It wasn’t sealed. The fold of the envelope was tucked neatly inside. Garrett could have read it without having to tear it. The simple truth was he didn’t much care what it contained. Why he kept it was a mystery to him.

He no longer wanted or needed anything from his father. He’d gotten exactly nothing from his father after his mother died. He’d gotten even less years later when his stepmother passed. Garrett needed a father then. He needed less than nothing from one now. The coldness of that thought didn’t sway him from what he was about to do. Rather, it helped convince him duplicity was a fine plan.

And so it was on that bright blue-sky, fate-filled Wednesday, he unwittingly set in motion a series of events that would pave the way to his professional doom. Or so it would seem to him, his agent, his soon-to-be ex-fiancée, her morning show cable-viewing audience at large, and one single mother from his hometown who couldn’t mind her own business by pulling the foundation out from the house of cards Garrett was trying to build.

Funny how fate works.

But this wasn’t fate. Not exactly.

This was the not-so-gentle push of two mothers who could no longer hug their son or gently kiss the husband they each loved during their time with him. The spirits of Garrett’s mother and stepmother each smiled as they looked down at Fish Creek, the small town each loved. Both women thinking the boy they unwillingly left and the man they still loved were both about to get a kick in the pants they were going to hate. That couldn’t be helped. Garrett and Robert Oakley were each living in a past that didn’t exist, and it was keeping them from living in the present. If left to their own devices neither would have a full, rich, love-filled, frustrating, but never boring future to look forward to.

Ultimately, it would be up to each of them to prove they were brave enough to earn their happily-ever-afters.

Spirits could only do so much.

That’s just one of the reasons why the Goddess created dogs.

2

And the boxes just kept coming.

None of them opened. All of them in worse condition than the pristine, almost loved, condition in which they were originally sent. And that just pissed Poppy Hansen off. Her friend, her employer, and the most decent man Poppy knew, did not deserve the ungrateful superstar of a son who never bothered to visit or read a damned letter.

In fairness, Robert Oakley sent boxes full of letters at a time. Even so, one would think if one weren’t a celebrity advice-giver, that one could spare a half-hour out of their busy day to open a box, pick a letter, and read. Not Garrett Oakley. Garrett Oakley, an only child, couldn’t be bothered.

The next time Poppy saw Garrett, she was going to strangle him. Even if she had to stand on a step stool to do it. Not that she’d have to worry about that bit of uncharacteristic, daydreamed, premeditated violence. The last time Garrett visited his home in Fish Creek, over a year ago, he hadn’t bothered to see his father. Robert only found out Garrett had been in town because Garrett stopped by the Red Robin Inn for breakfast. Before anyone even knew Garrett was home, he was gone.

Astrid caught a glimpse of him. Poppy’s daughter could often be found in the Red Robin kitchen. Cherry coffee cake, made fresh there daily by Beth Zimmerman, confectioner extraordinaire, could be easily scalped by an enterprising seven-year-old.

Astrid had been six when she peeked out of the kitchen and saw Garrett eating alone. She must have peeked more than once because as she relayed the story to Poppy, the beautiful dark giant winked at her and smiled a smile to slay evil dragons. Yep, to slay evil dragons.

At the time, Poppy had been reading Sleeping Beauty to Astrid mainly because of the discussions they’d had over princesses needing to save themselves and the fact that evil stepmothers should always appear in evil dragon form. It was also the first book Poppy could remember her mother reading to her at night. She didn’t start with it, but last year Astrid was going through a Disney princess streak that ended almost as quickly as it started. Now she was a Jedi warrior. The tiaras only came out at night.

The trouble for Poppy was she remembered this particular giant’s smile. She couldn’t have described it any better had she tried.

Poppy shook herself out of a year of yesterdays to focus on the box Jo, Fish Creek’s mail delivery person, was handing to her. Didn’t have the heart to leave this at the Red Robin, Poppy. Robert deserves better than this. The least that boy could do is open a box. Better yet, not send it back. Garrett could pretend. Save the old man the heartache.

Poppy took the box. Does everyone know Garrett’s sending the boxes back? Fish Creek was a small town in the midst of a handful of small towns that make up the resort and tourist area of Door County, Wisconsin. And like all small towns, news, especially conflict-ridden news, spreads faster than mosquitos after the first thaw.

A pained look flashed across Jo’s face. No, no one knows. I deliver the boxes only to you. I was a year above Garrett in high school. I watched him stand up to three senior girls—

Jo laughed, a low brutal sound that hurt Poppy to hear. —all members of the poms if you can believe it. He shamed them into leaving me alone. The whole thing took less than fifteen seconds. Life got better for me after that. Jo swallowed hard. I’m having a hard time reconciling that Garrett with the man sending these boxes back. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Poppy nodded, accepting the box, setting it down on her front porch. Me too, she said, smiling at Jo who didn’t have a clue how beautiful she was. Why she stayed in Fish Creek, Poppy couldn’t fathom. It couldn’t have been easy coming out in high school in a town of less than a thousand.

Poppy gestured for Jo to come in. Got time for a cup of coffee?

Jo flashed a smile. No, the sooner I finish, the sooner I’m headed to Green Bay.

Jo was seeing someone from Green Bay, about forty minutes south. She worked at St. Brendan’s, an Irish pub and guest house where Poppy and her siblings liked to hang out when they were in town.

Poppy waved Jo off. Have fun.

Always do, Jo said as she made her way down Poppy’s front steps and onto the sidewalk that connected Poppy’s cottage to the Red Robin Inn. Good luck with the box.

Thanks, Poppy muttered more to herself than Jo, who was moving at a clip too fast for Poppy’s low voice to carry. It was still too early for most Red Robin guests to be up and about.

Poppy glowered at the box. She needed a plan. She’d tried doing this the easy way, gently nudging Garrett Oakley into a place she wanted him to go. That had failed. Poppy was used to that. She wasn’t very good at bending the universe to her will. What in the world am I going to do now?

It wasn’t the world that answered her question. It wasn’t even the known universe.

It was a smallish, dirty mutt of a dog, peeking its dingy white head with oversized ears out at her from behind the old, massive oak tree in the Red Robin’s yard.

The dog just stood there, appraising her. Ears perked and head cocked as if willing her to figure out the mystery of the unopened boxes, how to bring Garrett and Robert together, and what to do with her own crazy life, admonishing her to get on with all of it already.

3

Robert Oakley was the kind of man who needed a woman, and sometimes several, in his life to make it complete. He wasn’t a ladies’ man. He only loved one woman at a time, and then with his whole being. Robert simply loved to have women around.

Unfortunately, every woman he loved in a I-want-to-hitch-my-star-to-yours-until-death-do-us-part kind of way had up and died on him. There were two exceptions to that, his second-grade crush who was still happily married to her husband of forty years, and his meddlesome pastry chef who never missed an opportunity to remind him why he was still single.

That’s not to say he didn’t have women in his life whom he looked after and loved. He did. Two of them: Poppy Hansen, whom he’d taken under his wing after her divorce from a man unworthy of her, and her daughter, Astrid, who was still a baby at the time. Robert remembered Poppy as a teenager. She used to hang around with Garrett and her brother, Leif, Garrett’s first real friend when they moved to Fish Creek.

Poppy had been fearless then. Always smiling. Always on some adventure, which usually involved bruised arms, legs, and a trail bike or a toboggan, or some other piece of sporting equipment most people used without the peril Poppy seemed to find. When Mark Meadows, Poppy’s ex-husband, got done with her, Poppy was in her early twenties, tired, and she no longer had smiles for everyone. Her fearless adventuring was a thing long past.

Seeing such a vibrant woman shrink into a distrustful shell, tore at Robert. It hurt almost as much as losing Garrett when he left home and never came back.

So, Robert reached out. He offered her a job. Robert could still see Poppy’s expression when he asked her if she wanted to come work for him at the Red Robin Inn. The look she gave him then etched itself in his brain and on his heart. Part hope, part fear, and the smallest spark of the enterprising I-can-do-anything-I-put-my-mind-to spirit she exuded growing up.

And Poppy Hansen was still exceeding his expectations every day. If anything, she worked too hard, which was hard to do in the hospitality industry.

Just then, the tiny whirlwind of energy who owned his heart blasted into his office. She brought all that was right with the world—and more than a few dandelions. She presented them to him every spring morning because his office needed cheering up.

Astrid put the dandelions in the vase she’d made for him in kindergarten which he kept on his desk right next to a photo he’d taken of Garrett at his first book signing. He’d had to use a telephoto lens, but he managed to capture Garrett in an unguarded moment smiling as he used to when he was a child.

Grandpa Robert, guess what? Astrid said, after jamming the dandelions into the vase.

What?

Uncle Leif’s painter let me pime the walls in the bluebell cottage.

"Prime the walls?" Robert asked, smiling as Astrid grabbed the photo of Garrett, came around, and plopped herself on his lap where he sat behind his desk.

Astrid nodded. Yep, I got to wear a mask and everything. I pimed them. I did a good job too. Big John said so.

Big John ran the hardware store in town. He was a retired professional painter who took so much pride in his work that if it wasn’t right, he did it again. He also loved kids. Robert wished he’d given Astrid a hat. Her white-blond hair was covered in specks of light blue primer.

I’m sure you did an excellent job, sweetheart.

That’s what Big John said. Astrid cocked her head at him as she looked from Garrett’s photo to Robert and back again. How come Garrett isn’t here helping with the building? Everyone else is helping.

Poppy had suggested the construction of Red Robin’s newest cottages. They were standalone, self-catering units, each with a different Door County theme and all done in bright beachfront colors. The construction was almost complete on the last two cottages.

Garrett lives in New York, Astrid. That’s too far to come and help with painting.

Astrid scrunched up her brow. If he lived here in the house Uncle Leif keeps clean for him would Garrett help?

Astrid had no idea how much that innocuous question pierced Robert’s heart. Probably not. Garrett’s a very busy man with his own life to lead.

Too busy to help his dad? Astrid asked, sounding like his tiny protector, spoiling for a fight. That thought cheered Robert tremendously. He gave her a gentle squeeze.

When he didn’t answer her, Astrid set the silver-framed photo on his desk. I think you should put Garrett in timeout. Sons should help their dads build things. It’s like a rule.

Robert laughed. I can’t put Garrett in timeout, Astrid. He’s a grown man. You can’t put your mom in timeout, can you? he asked, sure that his logic was sound.

I’d like to. I’m not a baby. She should be letting me take care of my dog. I’m beginning to think mamas don’t always know what’s best.

How she jumped from cottage building to pet care, care of a pet Astrid didn’t have, had Robert rubbing his head. Before he could formulate an answer regarding the stray dog Astrid wanted very much to adopt, she jumped off his lap and headed toward the hall.

When his seven-year-old friend made it that far, she turned around and gave him a parting piece of parenting advice. You should have put Garrett in timeout when he was little, she said, bending her chin down a bit. In that moment she looked like an admonishing octogenarian giving sage grandma-like pearls of wisdom. If you put Garrett in timeout when he was little, then he’d probably be helping us build now.

And then she smiled and skipped out the door to find her dog or some other bit of mischief, no doubt. Robert was really going to have to get that dog to the vet. Then give it a bath. It wasn’t going away and neither was Astrid’s devotion to it. All the adults in her life were just going to have to get with the program.

Robert picked up the photo of Garrett and put it back in its spot next to his drooping dandelions. She’s right, you know. I should have nipped your distancing in the bud when I had the chance.

A niggling of a plan started to present itself. It wasn’t a great plan. It wasn’t even a very good one. But it would be proactive. Robert had already written the letters, piles of letters, to Garrett. Starting the day they’d put his second wife in the ground. Garrett had been unreachable then. Robert had no answers for Garrett or for himself. He’d been to a therapist who suggested the letters. She said it was important for Robert to write them, even if he chose to never show them to Garrett.

Robert followed his therapist’s advice. He’d written, sometimes more than once a day, sometimes only once or twice a week. But he never stopped writing.

He would make copies and send Garrett all the letters. By the box load. He’d inundate Garrett with love and kindness. Not that all the letters were filled with kindness, they weren’t, yet every one of them was written with a loving heart. Robert couldn’t make Garrett read them, but he, sure as the day was long, could show Garrett a day didn’t go by that Robert didn’t think about him.

Robert sent the first box of letters that day, and the second before all the finishing paint was done on the last of the new cottages. The simple act of sending the letters started a fire all its own in Robert’s heart, steeling his resolve to do everything he could to have a meaningful relationship with his son while there was still time to do it. He would no longer sit idly by waiting for Garrett to come home.

He was going to start his own version of the Oakley timeout.

Astrid was right. Parents didn’t always know what was best for their children.

Children, especially adult children, sometimes needed a timeout to figure out what was best for them and that their parents still mattered.

On that hopeful note, Robert sat down at his desk and penned a thank you note to Astrid. It would be the first of many notes Robert planned to write to Astrid. The last note would be written in a light, spidery script on the day he would die, many, many, years from now, long after Astrid had children of her own that she’d inevitably put in timeout.

4

Garrett Oakley knew he was in trouble. In fact, he’d been in trouble ever since he asked Morning Glory Wilson to marry him. If he were honest with himself, he’d been in trouble long before that or he never would’ve asked her to marry him in the first place.

He’d gotten complacent.

He’d gotten lazy.

He’d gotten comfortable, and that was just the start of his current downward spiral.

Garrett hadn’t written anything, not anything meaningful, in more than six months. His newest book, one he hadn’t bothered to start yet, was past due by three weeks. And, he didn’t have one clue how to start, where to go, or how this better-be-a-best-seller to match the one before it, would end. What he did know was his reputation with his publisher was hanging by a silk thread, still strong, but breakage could happen at any moment.

His public appearances, especially the televised ones, had become fewer and farther between as months passed with no new work.

When he started dating Morning Glory Wilson, she had just signed on to her early morning cable talk show. She was new, untested, fresh. Beautiful and wicked smart. Determined to be the best.

At that time, Garrett had been at the height of his career. His first book had been on the USA Today bestseller list for over a year, and the New York Times rated it a top ten pick of the year. That was four years ago.

Now, Glory’s ratings were off the charts, successful by every measure although she didn’t see it that way. Glory hungered for more—more money, more fame, more of everything she imagined would make her happy.

Garrett didn’t blame Glory for that. He envied her determination, her drive, her absolute single-minded vision. Glory loved him. Or at least he thought she did in the beginning. When he was a means, an attractive means who satisfied her in bed and could afford rent in Manhattan, a means to greater things for her. His dark features and camera-ready smile were a perfect foil for her ivory-skinned perfection, framed by immaculately coifed ash-blond hair that was naturally