by Olivia Miles
Well, except for the dilapidated mansion. Still, she’d be sure to mention these paintings to Dottie Joyce, who was the head of the Historical Society. She was nearly certain that Dottie would have a personal desire for at least one of them, and a professional interest in a couple others.
Next she moved on to suitcases, which were empty and of no real value judging by the loose handles and frayed corners. She set those in a pile of things that could be discarded—with Chris’s approval, of course. It seemed odd that he would let a relative stranger go through these items, but then, she supposed they didn’t belong to him at all, only in the legal sense. Perhaps he was just as detached from them all as she was. And with the scale of the house, he clearly needed all the help he could get.
Really, she was doing him a huge favor. Meaning, really, she deserved one in return.
The real project in the room was the stacks of trunks and the boxes. She spent the better part of half an hour going through the first box, which mostly seemed to be clothes, men’s clothes, all of which eventually went into the discard pile. The next box was more rewarding: a vintage train set that she was certain the owners of the antiques shop would pay premium for. This she kept in the box. She’d ask Chris if it still worked, later. If he even knew.
She combed through a few more boxes, sneezing as she went, all too aware that by now her nose and eyes were both running and that her hair was frizzing into wisps around her face. Soon, she’d take a break, just for some air. Or water.
Not to check in on Chris. Nope.
But first… She paused. Now this was interesting. Photos, an entire chest of them. She couldn’t imagine how these would go in the discard or sale piles. Surely these were too personal for even Chris to part with? She sorted through a few, smiling as she went. Many were black and white, others faded photos, most captured here in this very house, or out in the back, near the water. They were of Marty, as a younger man, some had other people featured in them. A woman reappeared. Marty’s wife, she assumed.
She set the photos back in the box, carefully, and picked up an album, expecting it to reveal page after page of equally old photos, maybe even wedding photos from Marty’s big day. but these were in color, glossy, and there was Chris. With a woman. A very pretty woman. They were sitting on chairs, on the beach, and she was laughing. She had light brown hair and tanned skin, long legs jetting out from a sleek, black, one-piece bathing suit. And Chris was looking at her, smiling, leaning back with a drink in his hand, without a care in the world.
She stared at the picture, trying to figure out when this would have been taken. There was no date stamp on the back. And nothing else in the album revealed anything more. It was recent. A few years ago, maybe. Chris seemed so happy. So content. She wondered who the woman was, and if she was still in his life.
And no, she was not jealous. Or disappointed. Nope. Not going there anymore.
She hadn’t even heard Chris come in until he spoke. “Find anything interesting?”
She jumped, closed the book with a slap, and turned guiltily to face him as she stood up. “There’s an entire trunk of old photographs here.”
He frowned but stepped forward, studying the open crate as he approached. “Toss it all.”
“But…there are some of your uncle in here.” She reached down to grab a few, holding them out to Chris.
He heaved a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Set those aside then. I’ll sort through them later.”
Well, at least he was being reasonable. “There’s one of you in here, too.” She picked up the album again, opening it to the first page.
Immediately, Chris’s expression hardened. “I changed my mind. There’s no reason to hold onto dusty old photographs.”
“None of them?” She stared at him, aghast. “But these are priceless! They’re…they’re memories. They can never be replaced.”
“Exactly.” His jaw was set, his eyes stony. “Everything in this house can go. What can’t sell at the sale will be hauled away next week.”
He took the album from her hand and set it back in the trunk. He pulled the lid. It slammed shut, making her jump. “This was a mistake,” he said, shaking his head. “I just need to sell this house, not invest any more time into it.”
“But—” She blinked, trying to understand what had just happened, what she’d done wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he said, backing away toward the staircase. “This was a mistake.” He looked around the room, seeming almost pained. “This was all a mistake.”
Chapter Eight
Chris had just finished bringing down the last of the items from the attic when the doorbell rang. He set the painting in his hand against a wall and walked into the hallway, his speed picking up when he considered that it might be Sarah—back again—and he realized that he almost hoped it was her. God knew he needed the help. Besides, he felt bad. And he felt bad enough as it was lately.
He’d overreacted, taken his frustration out on the nearest person, pushed back against a situation that she hadn’t created and that couldn’t go away.
None of it would go away. Not until this house was sold. Not until he closed the door on it for a final time.
He’d apologize. Tell Sarah that he’d been wrong. And he had been wrong. It wasn’t Sarah he was mad at. It was this house. The memories it stirred up.
He opened the door, eager to get it out there, to have the air cleared as well as his conscience, but it wasn’t Sarah on the front stoop. It was another woman, a woman he didn’t recognize. A pretty woman with dark hair and a big smile.
“Are you Chris Foster?” she asked, tilting her head.
He nodded, guarded. “I am.” He had an instinct to close the door, and he inched it forward. Back in Boston no one showed up at his door uninvited except salespeople. People wanting something. And he didn’t want anything right now other than to be left alone.
Except the past few hours since he’d sent Sarah away, he realized that maybe that wasn’t what he’d wanted after all. The house felt huge and quiet. When Sarah was here he wasn’t haunted by the ghosts. He wasn’t focused on the past. He was present. Normally only work could do that for him. Here he didn’t even have that escape.
“I’m Hannah Donovan. The photographer? Jim McDowell asked me to take some photos for the real estate listing.”
“Of course.” He felt foolish as he extended a hand to her. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He’d grown too used to being alone in recent years, to limiting any and all human interaction to what he wanted, to keeping life on his terms. In his control. “Come on inside.” He stepped back, letting her pass, watching as her eyes rose to the ceiling, the oversized, ornate chandelier that he had cleaned yesterday with an extension pole, a ladder, and a silent prayer. Her mouth dropped slightly.
“This is gorgeous!” She immediately began snapping some photos of the staircase with the camera she pulled from her canvas bag.
“Do you work for the real estate office?” he asked. His tee shirt clung to him and he felt the need to apologize for the heat. He could only hope that the weather would be kind to him this weekend.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, no. I work for the newspaper, actually, but I do freelance work on the side. There aren’t many photographers in a town this small, as you can imagine.”
There wasn’t much of anything in a town this small, not that he particularly minded. It was still a beautiful town with a rocky shoreline and a town center full of one-of-a-kind shops: an ice cream parlor, a few restaurants, a book store, candy shop. Life was simpler here. Easier. Or it should have been…
“This is actually my lunch break, so I won’t take long,” she said.
He glanced at his watch. It was already after one, and he hadn’t stopped to eat. He hadn’t thought to buy any food, and he hated to go into town and waste time. He’d keep going. Push through until the sun went down. Then he’d go back to the hotel and order room service. Shower first.
&n
bsp; “Take as long as you’d like,” he heard himself saying. He frowned at that. Since when did he long for company? He hadn’t yearned for so much as a pet fish back in Boston. He was content with his work, his television, his favorite take-out delivery spots.
Maybe not quite content. But he was getting by.
“Well, don’t mind me,” Hannah said as she wandered into the dining room and snapped a few more photographs of the built-in cabinets and the tall, arched, shaped windows that offset the otherwise deep red walls. “I’ll go through each room and then take a few of the backyard.”
“It’s a bit of a mess,” Chris rushed to explain as he followed her into the front parlor, where another pile of tarps was lying on the floor. “I’m in the process of getting it ready.”
“It’s okay,” she said, brushing off his concern. “I can tweak these a bit on my computer before I send them to Jim. I’ve always admired this house, actually, so it’s a real treat to finally see the inside.”
“Oh?” He felt a displaced sense of flattery at the comment. After all, it wasn’t his home. Legally it was, but nothing beyond that.
Still, it was his family’s home. He’d taken it for granted, all those summers here. Jenna had loved the house, and he’d tried to see the beauty through her eyes, but he was too close to it. Sometimes it was only once you’d taken a step back that you could appreciate what you once had.
He swallowed hard. No thinking of any of that now.
“My sister and I used to ride our bikes over here as kids and try to get a closer look at it. I remember one time the garden was featured in a newspaper article and I saved the clippings.” Her cheeks turned a little pink as she held the camera at her chest. “Sorry. That must make me sound like a bit of a creep.”
“More like a potential buyer,” he said, rolling back on his heels.
“Ha!” She snapped a picture of the grand piano in the corner of the room. “I wish.” She took another photo, and then another and then turned back to him. “But someone who can afford this will come along, I’m sure. I mean, who wouldn’t love a house like this?”
She grinned, and then, widening her eyes for his permission, let herself into the adjacent library.
Chris held back, staring at the piano, remembering his uncle sitting on the bench, playing something melancholy but equally beautiful. Chris never knew the name and had never heard it again. Now he wished he’d thought to ask what it was, just to hear it one last time.
There were a lot of things he would have done differently, if he’d known it would be his last chance.
He could hear the camera clicking, over and over. Suddenly, the thought of selling the house felt all too real. It was one thing to have an estate sale, to get rid of the faded furniture, to clear out rooms that probably hadn’t been used in decades. Marty only used a portion of the house. Kept the rest shut off. Said the electric bill would have been sky high otherwise.
Now, though, there was a photographer. Someone capturing each room from different angles. And there was Jim, who would post these photos online, probably today, for the world to see. For the world to judge. For the world to decide if they wanted to buy it. Own it.
It was the reality of the situation, he told himself. It was no different than when he’d listed the house he lived in with Jenna, watched as they photographed rooms that she’d decorated. The fake plant in the corner of the living room behind the beige sofa. The colorful area rug that had been a wedding gift from her parents. The oversized clock on the wall near the kitchen table that had ticked away their time together, without him even knowing.
He walked into the library, painted a handsome hunter green, with dark furniture which Hannah was saying would “show well.” The books that lined the shelves might sell to a collector. If not, he would donate them to the Oyster Bay Library, in Marty’s name. Most of them were classics, some were history books. Marty had always been a reader.
Now, as someone who lived alone himself, he longed to have one last conversation with Marty. To ask how he did it. How he kept from going crazy. How he busied himself on those lonely winter nights when the wind was howling and the snow was coming down and all that he had to fill the silence were the memories that couldn’t be banished, no matter how hard he tried.
The house grew quiet as Hannah moved through it, first the day room, the kitchen, the various little pockets on the first floor, and then upstairs, while he waited below, staring at the piles of tarps in the corners. Each one he removed seemed to bring the house further back to life. Back to the way it used to be.
Finally she came downstairs, grinning broadly, and he led her through the halls into the conservatory, which leant a view of the back terrace and the grounds beyond it. He stayed inside, watching as she snapped photos of the carriage house and the extensive garden.
Eventually, he opened one of the French doors and stepped outside. The temperature outside was hot, but not as hot as the air inside of the house. Hannah caught his eye and waved.
“Almost done here,” she said as she snapped a few more shots of the back of the house. “The ivy growing up the stone really adds a special touch. It’s a stunning property.”
It was, he knew it was, but he couldn’t be so objective about it, and that was just the problem.
“I have a confession to make actually,” she said, letting the camera drop back against her chest from the strap that hung around her neck. “I always dreamed of getting married here. Right here, actually. In this very spot.”
She smiled and stood facing the garden, where roses seemed to burst with every color. “Wouldn’t this be the most beautiful place to have a wedding? With this stone backdrop and the terrace expanding all the way to the gardens and the sea?”
He swallowed hard, hoping the tension didn’t show in his face. This photographer was a nice woman, a happy one, too, and from the ring that sparkled on her finger, she had weddings on the brain.
She didn’t need to know how his had turned out. She didn’t need to know that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.
“It would be a beautiful place to have a wedding,” he said sadly, his eyes pained as he took in the view and then looked back up at the great stone house towering above him.
And it had been.
***
At six that evening, Sarah pulled her car to a stop in the lot outside of Serenity Hills and sank her face into her hands. She had blown it. Not just the chance to have Hannah’s wedding day be saved, but also the chance to save her career. And the worst part of all was that she didn’t even know what she had done wrong!
She’d replayed the events from this morning all day, and still she couldn’t make sense of it. But it didn’t matter if she understood or not, she supposed. Chris had made his decision, just like Chloe had made hers. She’d messed up. And now…Well, now she would do what she always did every Wednesday evening and visit her grandmother.
And then she would go home and put together a resume. Forget finding a man when she had to find a new job! She’d ask around, see if Posy needed a second hand at the flower shop. She wouldn’t mind making arrangements.
Even if they would be for weddings that Chloe would be planning.
She groaned, grabbed the white bakery box from Angie’s, and pushed open her car door. No time for pity now. For the next hour, she had to shelve it. But she highly doubted she’d succeed in forgetting about it.
There was once a time when she could see her grandmother looking out the front window at her, anticipating her arrival in a blue wingback chair that gave her good posture, something ladies of her generation prided themselves on, she would remark, in a passive-aggressive way of hers that Sarah had come to find charming. She carried the box of chocolate chip cookies with her, but her heart still sank a little when she entered the lobby and saw that no one was in the window, even though she had called ahead to let her grandmother know she would be stopping by today. Esther had no other grandchildren, and Sarah’s parents didn’t get to town to vis
it as much as she knew her father would have liked.
Lately, her grandmother perked up when Sarah told the stories from Bayside Brides. Esther especially liked the part when someone pitched a fit, like the bride who ripped a veil from her head so hard that Sarah could have sworn a bit of hair came out with it, all because her mother and she disagreed over the length for twenty-five minutes while Chloe nodded and murmured soothing words, and Melanie had to keep excusing herself to the storage room to have a good hard laugh. Today, though, the only titillating story Sarah would be able to share was her own personal conflict, and she didn’t want to dwell on it.
She found her grandmother in the courtyard, sitting on a bench near the hydrangea bushes. It was a warm evening, but not hot enough to melt the chocolate chips in the cookies, and Sarah proffered the box as she took a seat beside her.
“How was your date?” her grandmother said in response, and despite the reminder of last Friday’s disappointment, Sarah was pleased to hear it. It meant her grandmother remembered their last conversation, and that today’s visit would hopefully be a good one.
“Oh…he had to cancel.”
“Had to?” Esther’s mouth pinched. “Pity. A pretty, young girl like you should be turning heads. What’s wrong with these men nowadays?”
“Tell me about it,” Sarah grumbled, but the truth of the matter was that the person she was starting to wonder about was herself. After all, every day at work she met women who had not only succeeded in finding a boyfriend, but a man who wanted to commit. She couldn’t even have a guy stick to a date with her anymore.
Maybe Melanie was right. She was looking in the wrong places. Falling for the wrong types. She was setting herself up to fail.
But Melanie wasn’t right about Chris.
“Well, the men here at Serenity aren’t much better,” Esther said as she pulled out a chocolate chip cookie and took a small bite. “A couple ladies thought it might be a good idea to have a dance every Saturday. Do you know how many men came to the event last weekend?”