So far, so good.
Closed doors hid the rooms on either side of the entrance.
"If I remember correctly, that's the front parlor." My mom pointed to the door on the right. I have no idea what that one leads to," she rattled the handle of the door on the left. "In these old houses, most of the rooms are small but plentiful. The kitchen is down the hall. The kitchen is down the hall on the left, and there's a less formal living room directly across. There's a half bath between that and what used to be the dining room. When Catherine couldn't handle the stairs, she had it remodeled into a bedroom. Those are the only rooms I've seen, but the house goes on a ways because of the addition on the back."
Then she surprised me by jumping up and down. “The joists are solid. There’s maybe a little sagging here and there, but that’s just settling due to age. Farmhouses in this era were built from whatever came to hand. Rough lumber, peeled posts and beams. But the ones like this, built for the wealthier families, were more refined. You can tell by the trim work and,” she ran a hand over the wall, “the smoother quality of the plaster.”
“Is that what everybody meant when they said the place had good bones?” I didn’t want to tell her I had no idea what a joist might be.
She nodded and headed toward the kitchen, so I followed her past a line of photos I assumed were of the former owner.
Taking one down, I called out. "Mom, wait. Is this her? Mrs. Willowby, I mean." I spun the frame so she could see the apple-cheeked beauty gazing up at a handsome man. She wore a white dress with short sleeves and a lace overlay and didn't look a day over sixteen, but I thought this must be her wedding photo. Mr. Willowby cut a fine figure in his pleated pants under a matching jacket with V-shaped lapels and a slight nip in at the waist. A fedora shaded one side of his face but did nothing to hide twinkling eyes, and a fond smile. They looked happy. I sighed at the reminder of wedding-day bliss.
Mine had been much the same. Too bad it hadn’t lasted.
Mom turned, looked, and nodded. “Beautiful, wasn’t she?”
I had to agree. How sad for this happy young woman to end up dying alone. Maybe Mrs. Tipton was wrong, and there was still a family somewhere. If so, I hoped they’d forgive me for being the erstwhile heir to her history.
“She was.” I walked down the hall, watching Catherine Willowby and her husband age from one photo to the next. Toward the end, she looked to be in her sixties, dressed in wide-legged slacks and a polyester blazer in the last photo on the wall. “No kids?”
Mom had joined me. “Sadly, no. They were never blessed.”
Still holding the wedding photo, I asked, “Why don’t I remember her? You clearly were close enough friends to have visited her here, and Mrs. Dexter talked about attending parties in this house, so how did I never meet Mrs. Willowby?”
The reply came after a moment of musing followed by a sigh. “Basil passed when you were six or seven, and I think he took a large part of Catherine with him when he went. She stopped throwing parties and became something of a recluse after that. You would have enjoyed her, much as she would have found you delightful. Catherine loved children, and since she could never have her own, tended to dote on any she managed to spend time with.”
I thought of Jacy. “That’s really sad.” And now I felt like a jerk for fostering the reputation of this house and walking wide around it when I was young. Had I known the true spirit that resided here, I might have made a friend.
I’m sorry, Mrs. Willowby, I’ll take good care of your place, I promise. If I’d been alone, I would have spoken the vow out loud.
Standing in the hallway, looking at her smiling face, I knew that if Mrs. Willowby did indeed haunt her house, I would welcome her presence as she would welcome mine. I’d been silly to worry. This was not a spooky place.
The revelation left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I should have known that much sentiment would come back to bite me on the butt.
Hanging the picture back where it had been, and with a light heart, I made my way toward the kitchen.
"It's a little cluttered, and the wallpaper is busy."
"And you're the queen of understatement. In fact, there's your crown." Or crowns, anyway. A stack of the paper ones from Burger King took up space on the top shelf of a corner cabinet. Busy was a kind word for the wallpaper. Over an off-white background were three versions of pink-and-blue berry-filled baskets. Each basket was backed by green leaves and framed in brown and tan filigree, and they all marched in diagonally repeated patterns that made my eyes want to cross.
My snarky comment earned me a raised eyebrow. “But if you look past that, you’ll see the cabinets are of good quality and design.”
Taking her word for it, I squinted and imagined the cabinets set against a solid color. Maybe a sunny yellow or, for a more contemporary look, a pale gray. Paul would have preferred the gray, my mind insisted on pointing out. Then yellow it was. Or better yet, a saucy red. Anything but gray.
While I made that decision, my mom continued. “The appliances are dusty, but appear serviceable.” She switched on one of the stove burners, but nothing happened. “Did you call to have propane hooked up?”
Oops, a detail I’d missed. “No, I’ll do that today, though.”
She pulled out her phone. “I’ll make the call. I know the owner quite well, and I can get him to send someone over right away.”
Taking my cues from her and ignoring the decor, I tried to see the assets for what they were. The dishwasher looked new, and the refrigerator was definitely not of the same vintage as the range since it had ice and water in the door. It slid out from the walls on wheels so I could reach the electric plug, and came right on with a satisfying hum.
“I’ll check—” A knock interrupted before my mom could finish her sentence. “That’s probably David.”
I had to clamp down to keep from whining. “David? Did you ask him to come over?”
“No, I didn’t. Daddy wanted to come to check out the furnace and get the water heater going, but he has another week of classes and then workshop week. Anyway, when David heard your father fretting about not being able to come and help, he volunteered.”
While she offered no reproach, I realized she assumed David was the reason I hadn’t spent any time with them since my abrupt return to town. “That’s what decent men do.”
It was a dig at Paul, and for once, I agreed with her.
Because I made no move to do so, she started down the hall to let David in.
When he bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek, my blood pressure shot up to the red line. How dare he be that nice to my mother? Yeah, I knew how petty that sounded, and I didn’t care. He might not be carrying a frog, but I still didn’t trust him, and everything he did seemed designed to make my mother like him more.
“Hey, Everly. Nice place. It’s a good thing you found out about it before I did, or I’d have snatched this baby right up. Look at those moldings, and the baseboards are pristine. You got a gem here.”
They were all lovely sentiments, and probably genuine, but all I heard was that he planned to stick around town if he could find a place.
There was a pause while my mother's gaze tried to bore a hole through me, and then I forced myself to thank him for coming and make idle chitchat. He'd come over to help, and my mother hadn't raised me to be churlish.
“Where’s the basement?” His gaze flicked toward me, but he addressed the question to my mother.
Mom shrugged. “You know, we hadn’t explored enough to get that far yet. We were checking out the kitchen first.”
"Old houses like this usually have over/under staircases."
Whatever that meant.
As long legs carried him down the hall, he added over his shoulder, “Saves space.” He disappeared around the corner behind the stairs toward where my mom had indicated there was a living room.
“Bingo!” drifted out of the short hallway created by the rear of the stairs. “It’s locked, though
. You got the key?”
Mom grinned at me conspiratorially. “We’ve got keys. Lots of keys.”
I went back to the kitchen and retrieved them from where I'd set them down earlier. The bundle made a heavy handful, and when I dropped it in David's hand, he whistled and looked up at me.
“Which one?”
“Well, it’s not that one. I pointed to the one that had opened the front door. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine. It’s going to take me half a day to try them all and make labels.”
Twisting the bundle in his hand, he contemplated them as if they were a puzzle he needed to figure out.
“That one there and the one next to it look like car keys. Do you mind?” Not waiting for an answer, he unlatched the hook and began easing keys off the ring. “It’s not this one, or this, or this.” Looking for a place to put them, he strode into the kitchen and began to sort the keys into piles on the table.
The two he’d designated as car keys went into one pile. The key I’d shown him earlier he set off to one side. The rest, as he sorted, looked a lot the same to me, so I had to ask. “What’s the difference between these and those?” I indicated two piles that to my eye looked quite similar.
"These are solid, those have a pinhole shank." Flipping them up, he showed me the hole at the end of the key. "The basement door takes a hollow-shank key, so it could be one of these. They all have different bit widths and lengths. This one's notched, that one isn’t. Then you have some that are the modern, flat type. Those are newer, more secure.”
“You sure know a lot about keys.” I didn’t mean to sound suspicious, but I think I did anyway.
“My first job was with a locksmith. Fascinating work. Anyhow, these are the possible matches for that door. It’s your place, so I’ll let you do the honors. There’s something about turning the keys in your own locks for the first time. It’s like magic.”
I wouldn’t have gone so far as to call it magic. If I’d had access to magic, I’d have turned back time and listened to my mother when she told me not to drop out of college and marry Paul.
Without commenting further, I took his choice of keys and headed back to try them in the door behind the stairs.
CHAPTER 15
The second key worked, and the door creaked open with a blast of chilled air up from below. I shivered, but this was my house. I was going down those stairs if it killed me.
David gently nudged me aside and felt around for the light switch.
“I’ll see if I can find a flashlight.”
“No need,” he said and pulled a penlight out of his pocket. The meager spear of light barely pushed back the dark. “There.” Pointing the beam for me to see, he traced the path made by a string tied to the pull chain of a bare bulb fixture and run through a series of eye hooks to dangle next to the door frame. “Cheaper than installing a switch, I suppose.”
I followed him down the stairs. About halfway to the basement floor, we hit a small landing where another string hung near the railing post. That one turned on another much brighter bulb, and I got a glimpse of a narrow, brick-paved floor. The air was cool but dry, which was a good sign.
As if he couldn’t help himself, David gave his opinion as he roamed through the space. “Foundation looks solid. No leaks or signs of water damage. Might be worth paying for a home inspector to take a look around, but I’m not seeing any major red flags so far.”
Reassuring as it was, I just wanted him out of my house so I could see the rest of the rooms.
“Furnace is newer, and a brand known for being efficient and trouble free.”
“I’m glad it gets your stamp of approval.” That time I managed to bite back the sarcasm. "Sounds like you know a bit about furnaces, too. Your second job?" I even threw him a grin, and it didn't hurt my face.
Which he returned. “Third, actually. Though I guess it wasn’t technically a job. I built houses with Habitat for Humanity for three summers in a row. In fact, I hitched my way south and had the honor of working on one with Jimmy Carter.”
Good grief, next he was going to tell me he’d given away a kidney. As if I didn’t already feel like a loser for having mean thoughts about him just because he was sleeping in my old bedroom while I was camped out at the motel. Didn’t stop them from coming up, though. Even a saint could feel like a rock in your shoe under the right circumstances, I guessed.
With as little sleep as I’d had the night before, his energy tired me out, but I was thankful he’d come. I’d never have figured out any of this by myself.
“Now to see if she heats up. We’ll look for the furnace switch while we turn the power to the heater on at the breaker box. I’ll just follow the wires leading from it and see if I can figure out where to look, okay?”
Saying no didn't seem like it would work, so I waved a hand to indicate he should do whatever he wanted to do and sank down on the landing to watch. He looked, he poked around, he tested the poles that ran from paving stones to the ceiling at strategic intervals. After five minutes or so, he finally decided he’d seen enough.
I didn’t want to go up the stairs ahead of him because they were steep enough to put my backside at face level, but since the reverse held even less appeal, I didn’t see any other choice. He probably wasn’t looking anyway.
“Propane’s here,” Mom practically sang out when David closed the basement door behind him.
“What did you do to get someone so fast?” Being tired makes me snarky.
But my mom gave it right back to me. “I promised him sexual favors, of course.”
“As long as they’re not from me, I don’t even care, and your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell Daddy, but you’ll probably have to bribe David for his silence. ”
David held up both hands as if to distance himself from the conversation. Based on looks, most women would think seriously about making the offer, but even if he filled out a pair of jeans in all the hot ways a man could, he wasn’t ever going to be my type.
With a twinkle in her eye, Mom answered the knock on the door and let the propane delivery guy in to test the stove. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and I wondered if he’d heard our banter because the tips of his ears looked like they were on fire.
Keith, according to his name tag, said, “You’re all hooked up. I’ll just check the stove if that’s okay.”
I waggled my brows at my mom and led him to the kitchen.
When Keith left, I had a working stove and a bill for a little over a hundred dollars. Totally worth it. Meanwhile, David had found the breaker box and the furnace switch, so I followed him back downstairs because I wanted to watch. It turned out the furnace needed to be bled which involved a tube, a container, a wrench, and some really smelly oil.
“Listen, I know I haven’t been the nicest person to you since I came home, but I do appreciate everything you’re doing to help.” I waved a hand to indicate the furnace and water heater. “Can I pay you for your time?”
To me, it sounded like a reasonable question, but I guess to him it came off as the ultimate insult.
“No. Thank you, but no.” He pinned me with a look that made me squirm. “One of these days, we’ll have a talk about how I came to be staying with your parents. Today is not that day.”
“I’m sorry.” The taste of crow wasn’t nearly as bad as that of my foot in my mouth. “I didn’t mean to … there’s no excuse. I’ll look forward to that discussion, but in the meantime, please accept my apology.”
Sure I was tired, and yeah, my nerves were taut as piano strings, but neither of those things was his fault. He didn’t respond, and afraid I’d make it worse, I turned coward, clapped my trap shut, and headed upstairs.
“Everything okay, dear?” Mom had her radar going.
“Fine,” I lied. “It’s a little overwhelming, but in a good way.”
While I’d been preoccupied, my mom had found the key to the room she called a front parlor.
“It’s dusty,” I said when she
all but dragged me in for a look. “But there are some nice pieces in here. It might be the perfect place to set up my library.”
While the drapes were too fussy and I might not care for Catherine’s choices in wallpaper patterns, the mix of antiques and newer furniture made my heart go pitter-pat. Nice pieces, not too ornate, and upholstered in subdued fabrics that I could totally live with. I practically heard my wallet sigh with relief.
Friction with David notwithstanding, this was turning out to be a good day.
Speaking of the man, he popped his head around the corner, scanned the wall, and retreated.
“Something wrong?” I called after him.
“I need to find the thermostat.”
We found it in what my mother called the formal living room, and I abandoned the two of them to deal with things while I retrieved the rest of the keys and toured the first floor of my new home. My home. Mine. Mind-boggling concept.
I’d known the place was big, but I hadn’t expected to find so many rooms. I could have lived quite comfortably in the downstairs section of the original structure alone. Then there was the upstairs and the addition on the back. Why on earth had Catherine Willowby needed so much space?
The doorbell rang, a lovely chiming sound, while I pictured the paint colors for the closet-sized bathroom in the remodeled bedroom mom had told me about—a charming room with access to the porch facing the backyard.
“Hey, Ev. Let me in. I come bearing gifts,” Jacy called through the door. “Come on, I’m dying to see the place.”
When I opened the door, the mouthwatering aroma of Mabel’s fried chicken followed her inside. “I figured you guys might be hungry by now, so I grabbed lunch.”
“Smells amazing. Want to eat first or take the tour?”
There wasn’t time for Jacy to answer because the furnace fan kicked on before she could. I heard my mother’s muffled exclamation—a word she normally never used—and saw a cloud of dust rise out of the heating vent in the hallway.
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