by Kay Bratt
Carefree.
A few years ago, when it was time to buy a new-to-her car, Quinn wanted a Jeep, a longing that had started in high school but one she’d never realized. Ethan had researched all the industry reports and recommendations, and she had eventually settled on a Honda sedan, the car most known for dependability and longevity.
Now Quinn watched the Jeep ahead of her and felt envious for a brief second.
Once she turned off the main highway, the smaller road was bordered by magnificent banyan trees, an army of silent protectors with arms open wide, welcoming her toward something she could finally call her own.
A hidden gem, the Realtor had promised, pushing aside her concern that there were no interior photos available. Fully furnished and turnkey ready. The listing details sounded charming, and Quinn could probably recite it word for word. Banyan Bungalow: A rare piece of old Hawaii on the island of Maui. A livable original 1926 Craftsman-style American bungalow. The listing also described a one-bedroom apartment on the property that, with a little work, could be used as a vacation rental for additional income.
But how much work? The unknown of it perhaps put a damper on her excitement. However, the plumbing and the electrical in both dwellings were good, so at least the most expensive areas weren’t going to be an issue. Anything cosmetic would be easy and could be fun to take care of.
Supposedly, the small house was situated only three hundred feet from the beach, facing westward to get the most beautiful sunset views. But the image she’d held in her mind for the last few months was from the photo that showed the walkway leading up to the cozy blue door and the majestic monkeypod tree that flanked the house. Over a hundred years old, her Realtor had said.
Of course, over a hundred years old could mean big problems.
There was so much against her buying the house, yet one day she woke up and looked in the mirror and knew she had to do something new. Something to make her feel alive, before she felt completely dead inside. It was the small part of her that hadn’t yet been pushed completely down by life’s punches. A tiny flicker of excitement that grew bigger and bigger with each subsequent email back and forth to Maui.
As she became more determined, Ethan grew more concerned. He advised her that she could wind up in over her head, making a decision out of grief. For once, Quinn decided to follow her gut rather than Ethan’s advice. He would forgive her once she proved him wrong.
Hopefully, she was right.
The Realtor assured her it was a sound investment and told her if she wanted it, she would have to move fast. But she didn’t know him from Adam, and, of course, he had a family to feed, so who knew how desperate he was to make a commission.
She turned onto South Kihei road and spotted a few chickens pecking in someone’s yard, noting how skinny they looked.
As she went on, the style of houses began to show more variety. Mixed in with the smaller one-story homes were a few obviously newly constructed mini-mansions. Quinn hoped her home wouldn’t be one of those sandwiched between two mammoths and made to look small and insignificant.
When a chicken ran out in front of her, Quinn slammed on the brakes. She realized she’d been holding her breath for at least a half mile.
She missed hitting the squawking creature, but her heart raced.
Relax. It will be fine.
The next few miles were a blur, her excitement making it nearly impossible to concentrate on her surroundings any longer. Finally, she made the turn down Halama Street—her street now—and watched the numbers on the mailboxes until she came to the one marked 7895. Slowly, she turned into the property, hearing the gravel crunch under her tires as she rounded the small, curving driveway.
She rolled to a stop and put the car out of gear, then shut off the ignition and leaned back, taking a deep breath.
Well, this is it.
Her first look at Banyan Bungalow was anticlimactic, but Quinn tried to reserve judgment as she climbed out.
She shut the car door and leaned against it, taking in the property. It was picturesque—sort of. Or maybe once was. Could possibly be again.
Someone had once put some time and thought into the landscaping. It was artfully done, though a bit overgrown. She was relieved that the monkeypod tree was there, casting a big shadow over the walkway, looking a little worse for wear.
She’d expected the house to appear empty and lonely, but it actually didn’t look too bad. The owners had left behind a couple of rattan chairs that could be cleaned up and possibly repainted. A ragged doormat that read “Aloha” remained too.
For a moment she stood admiring the expansive porch with the hardy forest-green planks and the white trim that framed the floor-to-ceiling windows and porch. The steps leading to the door were painted red, now faded, but Quinn could imagine them fresh and welcoming again, especially with some brightly colored pots of flowers flanking them.
Between surfing Pinterest and all the home improvement shows she watched, she had a million ideas to improve the curb appeal. Once more, she wished Ethan was with her for the reveal, but he had high standards, and if it didn’t appear perfect on first look, he’d have a hard time envisioning what it could be.
She walked up to the porch and climbed the steps. Her pulse quickened as she stopped to fish in her purse for the key that the Realtor had mailed her.
Before she could get her hands on it, the door opened.
“What do you want?” a teenage boy said, running a hand through his wavy brown hair. He leaned against the frame, holding his cell phone, a bored expression pasted on his face. Quinn could see a small girl sitting on a couch behind him, her arms wrapped around a matching dark-haired doll, her eyes glued to a cartoon on the television.
“I—I . . . ,” Quinn stuttered, completely tongue-tied. She was expecting an empty house. The Realtor said it would be move-in ready. Just wait until she talked to him. She felt her temper flare, and a marquee of colorful words ran across her imagination.
She finally composed herself and straightened to her full height. “I want to know what you are doing here. This is my house.”
He let out a harsh laugh. “Your house, huh? Well, that’s righteous.”
Before she could reply, a woman came hurrying out of a side room and to the door. “Pali, go on. I’ll talk to her.”
“Fine. You talk to the fancy haole. I’ve got plans, anyway.” He rolled his eyes at her as he walked away, joining the young girl on the couch. He kicked up his feet on the coffee table—Quinn’s coffee table, no less—and turned his attention back to his phone.
Quinn wasn’t sure whether to be offended by being called a haole or not. She’d read it just meant “mainlander,” but the way the boy had said it sounded much worse. But he was a kid. Obviously one with an attitude problem.
She turned her attention to the woman, who appeared beyond frazzled. But at least she was making an attempt to be polite. Quinn was beginning to feel dizzy with shock. Was she even at the right house? Could she have gotten the number confused? It sure looked like the photos, but maybe there was another house just like it on the same street.
It would’ve been so much simpler if that was the case. She dreaded what Ethan would have to say about her predicament. But he wasn’t here, and for once it was up to her to fix things.
First, though, they needed to remain calm.
“Look,” Quinn began, “I think there might be a misunderstanding. I’m Quinn Maguire, and I bought this house.”
The woman held her hand up for Quinn to stop talking. They locked eyes as she wrung the dishcloth between her hands, a silent plea for mercy, Quinn would think later. It took her a few seconds to speak, and when she did, everything became more complicated.
She looked toward the living room first, then leaned in, speaking in a hushed voice. “I’m Maria. Please, let me apologize for my son. We’re in a state of shock. We just got the news yesterday that we’ve been evicted. I guess you could say, since we didn’t even know our home wa
s being sold, I would appreciate you giving us some time to get out.”
Quinn stared at the woman, absolutely speechless. Of all the possible things she’d thought could go wrong, the previous owners still living in her new home was not one of them.
Chapter Four
Only half an hour before, Quinn had been ready to accept all the challenges of becoming a homeowner. Now, however, she sat at the kitchen table and waited for Maria, the previous owner, to return and explain why she was still living in a house that didn’t belong to her or how she didn’t know it was being sold in the first place.
As Quinn waited, she looked around. The room was interesting. The seventies-style orange countertops definitely needed to go, and the floor tiles had seen better days too. She thought the cabinets themselves might be salvageable, with a good sanding and a new paint job. Maybe some different handles on them.
At least the original wainscoting was still in place. That was going to look nice freshened up. The kitchen had good bones and, with some changes, could be exactly how she envisioned.
Quinn felt silly, remembering that she wasn’t here to have coffee with a friend and fantasize about new floors. Her dream house, unfortunately, had come with a family included.
She wondered if she had any sort of trial period where she could back out of the contract. Did house buying include such a clause? Sort of like the thirty-day trial on a new mattress, or the twenty-four-hour clause when you bought a new car? And wasn’t this a criminal matter? Should she call the police? Tell them she’d bought a home and didn’t know it included people, and she wanted them out? What kind of monster would that make her?
“Just let me get them settled so we can talk privately,” Maria had said after leading Quinn into the kitchen, then disappearing into the family room.
To make things worse, Maria had a nice face. Probably about forty or so, she fit the mold of just a regular stressed-out mom. Quinn wished the woman wouldn’t come off as so nice. That would’ve made it easier for Quinn to stand her ground.
She heard a discussion start. The teen boy didn’t sound happy either. The girl piped in with a comment, and her mom shushed her, but she did it kindly, with a gentle voice.
Quinn couldn’t count the times someone had asked her and Ethan if they had children or when they were going to have them. She never could understand how a stranger could look so innocent when asking such a personal question.
“We are childless by choice,” she’d answer, though, truth be told, it was more Ethan’s choice than hers. She never pointed out that they hadn’t even crossed the first milestone of getting married. They’d been together so long they automatically looked the part.
Now, with the sound of the cartoon blaring and the boy giving his mom all the reasons she should let him use her car, Quinn let herself think about what motherhood would’ve been like. She wanted to believe she’d have been a good mom, but the truth was that taking care of herself and Ethan while juggling a high-paced career was exhausting, and she’d never really thought she’d be able to take on a child too. Even if she had wanted to, Ethan had made it clear in the first year they’d been together that he had no intention of ever procreating. He took it as a personal affront that so many children were being born in a world that was already overcrowded and facing an inevitable lack of resources one day. Yet, when she’d brought up adoption, he wasn’t interested in that either.
Quinn’s own childhood had been just fine, but if she were being honest, it had also been lonely at home. If—and it was a moot point now—she had gone the route of being a mother, she would’ve never had just one. Her imaginary child would have siblings, something that Quinn had always longed for.
The front door slammed, and other than the cartoon, the house was silent. At least the little girl wasn’t trying to give her mother a nervous breakdown.
Maria returned, her face red and sweaty. She took the seat across from Quinn. “I’m so sorry. He’s going through quite a bit right now. He’s not usually like this.”
He’s going through quite a bit? Quinn had just spent a fortune on a house that someone else was living in! She stared at Maria, wondering how to phrase all that without sounding like a completely unfeeling robot. She decided to just cut to the chase—put it out there like pulling a Band-Aid off.
“Look,” she began, keeping her tone neutral and as kind as possible, “I don’t know what’s going on in your personal life, and you have my sympathies, but I’ve got closing documents to prove that this is my property now. I’m sorry, but I’m confused as to why you haven’t moved out yet.”
“Have you ever been to Hawaii before?” Maria asked.
“Well, sort of. When I was a baby.”
“I can tell. You’re a bit shell-shocked. People come to Maui expecting to find nothing but paradise. If they ever run into the real Maui, far from the grounds of the fancy resorts, golf courses, and restaurants, they see where real people are struggling to lead real lives, and they are shocked. Because of people like you, the prices of homes and rent have risen astronomically. Believe me when I tell you that finding a new place to live isn’t going to be easy. I can’t afford the rent most are charging out there now.”
Quinn stared at her, not knowing what to say. In a way, the woman was right. When she’d ever thought about Hawaii before, she’d only seen visions of beaches and palm trees. Mimosas and poolside umbrellas. She’d never considered the local families there struggling just to keep a roof over their heads.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “But the fact is I bought this house. There’s obviously been some kind of misunderstanding. I don’t mean to seem as though I don’t care, though.”
Maria nodded. “Thank you. And I’ll admit—I’d be really upset if I were in your shoes too. Let me get the papers.” She stood and went to a kitchen drawer, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and returned.
She set them in front of Quinn and pointed at one that had the word notice in big block letters across the top.
“This is what I found posted on our door yesterday,” she said. “I haven’t even had time to contact an attorney yet. I had no idea the bank was taking this house until a day ago, I swear to you.”
She stared hard at Quinn.
“How could you not know?” Quinn said. “If the bank was involved, that must mean you weren’t paying for it. They obviously sold it to a broker who put it out there publicly, where I found it.”
“But we didn’t owe anything on this house,” Maria said. “It’s been in my husband’s family for more than sixty years, and when his parents died, it went to him. We’ve lived in it for more than twenty years. I called this morning and talked to my friend who works in the loan department. She looked it up and told me that Jaime put it up for collateral for a loan late last year. He didn’t need my signature because this house was in his name long before we married, and we never added mine. She said the mailing address on file was a mailbox downtown. That’s why I hadn’t received any of the notices until they came and put these on the door.”
“And where is your husband? Has he—um, passed too?” Quinn asked.
“No, as far as I know, he’s very much alive. You didn’t see him when you signed the papers?” Maria asked.
“It was a mail-away closing. They sent them to me, I signed, then sent them back. The Realtor said he does it that way all the time. You don’t know where your husband is?”
Maria shrugged. “He left more than three months ago. No one knows where he is.” Then she burst into tears, her shoulders shaking as she rested her face in her hands.
Public displays of emotion made Quinn feel helpless. She had no idea what to say, or do, to make it less awkward.
She reached over and patted the woman on the shoulder. “What kind of person does that?” she said, feeling genuinely furious at a man she’d never met.
Maria looked up and gave her a stern look, bringing her crying under control. “I don’t know what has happened, but I know this: my J
aime is a good man. Or at least he was a good man. He was probably taken in by some harlot.” She composed herself, straightening her shoulders, a proud expression coming over her face before it crumpled again and more tears came.
Quinn felt helpless. And torn. On one hand, she was really upset that the Realtor had not done his due diligence and made sure the property was empty. He told her he had done a walk-through and everything was fine! But she was human, too, and it sounded to her as though this woman—Maria of the many tears—was in a worse predicament than she was. Maria had nowhere to go, an absent husband, a mouthy teenager, and a young daughter to care for. At least Quinn could hop on a plane and go back to her organized and semisuccessful life. She had options.
But Maria . . . well, Quinn had yet to hear any options from her. And it sounded like another round of tears might be on the way. “Don’t cry. We’ll figure this out,” Quinn said, thinking quite the opposite as she visualized money being thrown out of a car window. “Have you filed a missing person report?”
Maria used the end of the dish towel to blot her tears. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, forcing the curls together and then wrapping it all into a twist behind her head and tucking the end inside itself. It made her look even older.
“I tried. But they said since he took clothing and toiletries, it appears he left on his own free will, and adults have the right to do that. I just can’t believe this is happening to us,” she said. “This is the only home my children have ever known, and now we have to leave? And my father. He’s too old for this.”
Quinn’s heart sank. “Your father? He lives here with you?”
Maria nodded. “Of course. Well, I mean, he’s not here right now. He’s at the beach. But he lives here, and my mother did, too, until she passed.”