“I don’t think that’s silly at all,” I said. My voice caught in my throat.
“I never looked for her, and had somewhat convinced myself to forget about it, but seeing your daughter . . .” Her voice broke and she paused. “Well, I think I might want to. Find her, I mean,” she said. “If she would want to see me. I have felt as though she might not want to meet me, or she might be angry that I gave her away.”
“I get that. But it’s been so long, and if it were me, I would want to meet my birth mother,” I said.
“If I find her, then I won’t have to wonder anymore. I had been able to forget about it, but now that all those memories have come back, it’s been hard for me to let go again. I can’t go back in time and tell David, but maybe I could forgive myself if I meet her. Would you help me?”
I frowned. “I’d love to help, but I’m not sure what I could do. I don’t know anything about finding adoption records.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t, either. But I know that you’re strong, and you understand loss. I’ve seen you at that house, and I know you don’t give up,” she said firmly.
Immediately, I wanted to protest: Yes, I do. I give up all the time.
“Please help me,” she added.
I again hesitated, not wanting to promise anything that I wasn’t sure I could deliver.
“Mom?” said a voice from the hall.
I turned my head to Abby, who stood in the doorway. Her long hair was tangled around her shoulders and her eyes squinted in the light. “I can’t sleep. Can I come in your bed?”
“Hold on just one minute, Elsie,” I said, and cradled the phone on my shoulder. I turned to Abby and nodded. “Of course.”
She padded over and climbed into my bed, the teddy bear that I bought for her when I was pregnant tucked under her arm. “Love you, Mommy.”
“Love you, too,” I whispered to her. She fell asleep almost instantly, safely tucked underneath the comforter. I thought of how I nearly died each time I had to say good-bye to her, and couldn’t imagine if I had lived my whole life without her.
I exhaled and adjusted the phone on my chin. “Elsie?” I pressed my hand against my chest. “Yes. I will do everything I can to help you find your daughter.”
CHAPTER 13
I had a nightmare about the house that night. In my dream, I stood on the sidewalk, screaming, as Jack Sullivan drove a bulldozer straight into the front porch. It was decorated for Christmas, as Elsie had explained, with evergreen garlands and a tree in the front window. Mrs. Moore was inside, hanging ornaments with her husband while David strung the lights.
Jack drove the bulldozer into the porch, and the house began to collapse, the Moore family screaming and trying to claw their way out of the rubble as the house fell around them. At the last moment, before they disappeared under the concrete, I saw that Abby was in the debris, too.
I woke up, both sweating and freezing, and glanced at the clock: 5:32 a.m. Abby was still asleep in bed next to me, so I carefully stood up and walked to the kitchen. The sunlight was just beginning to peek through the horizon, and I could hear the birds chirping around the feeder in the backyard that Abby had brought home from school last year. I took a long, slow breath as I brewed a cup of coffee. I pushed open a window, and the spring air rushed over my skin, bringing me back to reality and safety.
Taking my cup of coffee, I went out on the deck and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders to ward off any last bit of early morning chill. I sipped the cup, enjoying the silence for a few minutes, before the screen door opened and Abby padded out.
“Mom, why are you up so early?” she said. Her eyes were half-open and her hair stuck up in all directions.
“I was thinking about my house and couldn’t sleep. Do you want to snuggle with me?” I held open my arms and she climbed into my lap. I wrapped the blanket around both of us, and she closed her eyes.
I kissed the top of her head and inhaled, taking in the soapy smell of her hair. In that minute, at least, all was well.
My mind wandered back to my promise to Elsie to help her find her lost daughter. To the house, which had first lost the Moore family, and then lost its beauty due to years of neglect. To the Moores, who had lost their son and a grandchild they never knew existed. And then I considered myself, who had lost a marriage, a family, and my trust in everything I thought was true.
We each had lost so much. Yet it seemed as though there was something changing in the air, a whisper of second chances, for all of us. In that moment on the deck, I watched the sun rise high and illuminate my neighborhood, and I realized that restoring the Maple house was no longer just a renovation, but an opportunity for renewal. Maybe in putting it back together, I would be complete again. In clearing the cobwebs from the house and unsticking all the old windows, I could move forward along with it.
Maybe I, too, could be restored and be even better than before.
CHAPTER 14
Finding Elsie’s daughter was at the top of mind as I worked on the house the next day. A part of me whispered that I shouldn’t take this on. That it was really none of my business. I could simply fix the house up, sell it, and move on. But after seeing her with Abby, and knowing that I might be able to help her heal in some way, I knew I couldn’t walk away.
And so I thought of her as I worked in the upstairs hallway, ripping off yellowed wallpaper that was faded and stained by years of cigarette smoke.
“What did they use on this? Superglue?” I muttered as I grabbed a corner and gave a hard tug. A tiny corner of the paper came off in my hand, but the majority of the piece remained. It mocked me on the wall, whispering, Nice try, but I’ve been here longer than you.
I grabbed another corner and gave the blue-and-yellow-flowered print a pull, but again, only a tiny shred of paper came off, curling like a ribbon on a birthday party gift. I sighed and looked around the hallway, where every inch was covered in the ugly print. I estimated that the paper was put up some time in the eighties, or maybe the seventies, when wallpaper was all the rage.
Trends in houses come and go. In the 1950s, everyone ripped claw-foot tubs and Victorian details out of their houses, in favor of vinyl and man-made materials. Thankfully, this house had been spared some of that, since we still had a claw-foot tub in the bathroom, but the room hadn’t completely escaped the eighties. It was covered in a horrible blue and white—well, what used to be white—butterfly wallpaper pattern with flecks of metallic silver in it. If it wasn’t so faded and stained, it might have been considered a unique design feature, but it hung on the walls like a dirty blanket.
I grabbed my scoring tool and started moving it in a circular motion, making tiny perforations in the paper. Then I sprayed it with a gel that would break down the glue underneath. I stared at the wall, trying to will the enzyme to soak into the paper. After a moment, I lifted my putty knife and started scraping.
“Finally,” I said as I was able to wedge the tool under the paper and lift some of it off. “Victory is mine.” But as I carefully tore away the piece, I stopped in surprise.
“No.” Instead of bare wall under the paper, there was another layer of wallpaper, this time black and gold swirls, likely from the late 1960s. “Great.” I slumped my shoulders forward before taking the edge of the scraper and working a tiny hole in the new layer of paper. From what I could tell, there was at least one more layer underneath, so faded that I couldn’t tell the color. Three full layers of wallpaper to scrape and pull from the plaster.
I had encountered multiple layers of wallpaper before—notably, in the 1960s bungalow I did the year before—and it was one of the most frustrating and mind-numbing of all renovation tasks. I knew flippers who had pulled the face off the wallpaper, and then painted the backing after sanding the walls. They looked fine enough for the sale, but if the home owners ever wanted to change the paint color, they might curse the day when they bought the house from a flipper who wanted a quick sale. Not to mention, if water ever got into the walls
, the glue could reactivate and create a giant disaster, with the paint bubbling and sliding off, and mold growing in between the paper and the wallboard.
I scraped until my shoulders burned and my hands were nearly crippled into a half-open fist, but I had only removed one tiny section of the wall. It was the worst kind of grunt work, and I estimated it would take days, and a lot of Tylenol, to take it all down.
Sweat poured from my forehead, and as I stopped to wipe it I heard my phone ringing from downstairs. I walked down and saw that I had a voice mail. It was from Gavin.
“Hi, Alex. Thanks so much for calling me. I was hoping that you would. Dinner or drinks sound great. I’d love to come up there and meet you somewhere by the lake. What about on Wednesday night after work? Just text me a time and location, and I’ll be there. Talk to you soon.”
His voice was warm, friendly, and I could tell that he was smiling as he left me the message. I wiped my dusty forehead on my forearm and shrugged, not wanting to overreact, but I couldn’t stop the smile from moving across my face. My shoulders suddenly didn’t ache as much, and I jogged back upstairs, sprayed down another section of wallpaper, and got back to work.
* * *
Two days later, I pushed open the door to Pier 290, my stomach in knots. As I stepped onto the restaurant’s wide pine floor, my ankles wobbled slightly in the three-inch wedge heels that I had found lurking in the back of my closet. I carefully moved across the entryway’s uneven floorboards that were salvaged from one of the old historic estates around the lake, praying that I didn’t literally stumble through my first date in six months. In the hallway leading to the main restaurant area, I passed by vintage black-and-white photographs from the lake’s history and plaques indicating which pieces of wood were salvaged from various historical estates.
I spotted Gavin sitting at the bar, a tall pilsner glass in front of him. He wore a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, tan shorts, and boating shoes. His tan belied the fact that he spent every afternoon inside, teaching. I could immediately guess that probably half of the girls in his class had a crush on him.
I slowly walked forward, my hands shaking, wishing I had thought to get a manicure, or a pedicure, or a haircut. I wore a denim shirtdress, purchased from Target. It was the first outfit I had seen when I went in the day before to buy some new shoes for Abby. The model in the poster board above the display was resting against a brick wall, one hand casually tucked into a pocket. That was what sold me on the dress: pockets. They were a place to thrust my hands when I was nervous, and they could help me achieve a relaxed yet attentive stance when I would really just want to melt into the floor like butter.
“Gavin?” I said as I rested my hand on the bar.
He flashed a brilliant smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with warmth and thankfully making him look older. “Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Of course. Thanks for making the trek up here,” I said.
He gestured toward an empty seat next to him, but I shook my head and pointed outside. “Why don’t we sit down out there? There’s a great sandy beach area down by the lake.”
We settled into two Adirondack chairs on the sandy beach between the restaurant and the docks. Fire pits lined the beach area, with chairs set around them so people could enjoy a cocktail by the water. Where the inside was more formal and proper, out in the sand I could safely kick off the terribly uncomfortable wedges and exhale. Better he sees me like this now, I thought.
“So, house flipping, huh?” Gavin said as he leaned back into the whitewashed chair. As he settled backward, he looked like he fit perfectly into the surroundings. He could have been a vacationer enjoying a midweek dinner out, or a local exhaling after a long workday. “Like the people on television?”
“I prefer to call it ‘renovating,’ but sure,” I said. “Except HGTV isn’t exactly breaking down my door to come and film. They only seem to be interested in people who renovate houses in places like California, where the market is insanely expensive. And, of course, there’s little reality to anything that happens on those shows.”
He laughed. “Ah, too bad. But seriously, Traci said you’re working on some historical property right now?”
I raised my eyebrows, wondering just how much my cousin had told him. I had the feeling that he knew volumes more about me than I did about him. “One hundred and fifteen years old, actually. The foundation was a disaster, the roof has some leaks, the plumbing was a nightmare, and the electrical system was a serious fire hazard. But it’s . . . beautiful.”
He cocked his head to one side and gave me a small smile. “That’s great. I’m a history teacher, as I’m sure Traci told you, and I’m kind of mildly obsessed with preservation. I grew up in one of those old, rickety houses with noises and quirks and secret passageways.”
I leaned forward, forgetting to sit perfectly or tuck my hair behind my ears. “Really? I love that. Any buried treasures?”
He laughed. “Not at all. We did have this one door that never seemed to want to stay shut, though, and we were convinced that we had a ghost living with us.”
I nodded. “You probably did. I totally think houses collect all kind of energies from the people who used to live there.”
“Any ghosts in your current property?” he asked.
I thought of Elsie, and shook my head. “Maybe skeletons in the closet, but nothing ghostlike.”
“Well, I’d love to see it sometime. I’m sure you’re doing right by it,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the waitress. “Should we order some food? More drinks?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “This is your out, you know. If you think I’m a troll, just slowly get up and leave. No hard feelings.”
I smiled before I looked up at the waitress. “We’d like to see some menus, please.”
“Ah, good. I haven’t scared you off yet,” he said as she left.
“Night’s still early, though,” I said as I tucked my bare feet underneath my skirt.
“True. I won’t get too confident,” he said. The waitress brought more drinks, and we settled back into our chairs. He looked out onto the water. “What a great spot.”
The water was calm, only dotted with one boat in Williams Bay that bobbed on the surface. I could see the boaters sitting up front, feet up, drinks in hand, heads turned toward the brilliant sunset.
The warmth of the sunset moved over my shoulders, and I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the lake water. “It’s perfect,” I said.
Halfway through dinner, he leaned back and smiled. “So, how did you get involved in all of this house restoration stuff? Was your dad a contractor or something?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. He was an engineer before he retired a few years ago. But he always loved to fix things up around the house. Probably because he loved figuring out how everything worked. He always had me watch him while he would tinker with the kitchen sink, or made sure I knew the exact place to spread joint compound on drywall. One time, he quizzed me on the difference between various paint strippers before I could go outside and play with my friends. You know, your basic schoolgirl knowledge.”
He laughed. “That’s great, though. Clearly it all paid off.”
“And what about you? Why did you want to become a history teacher?” I said.
“I told you I was always kind of mildly obsessed with preservation, and so I started off as a history major at the University of Illinois. But, as you might imagine, that doesn’t really leave too many options for careers, so I switched to education with a history minor. I figured if I couldn’t do, I would teach,” he said.
“And now you teach world history in high school,” I finished.
He nodded. “Yes, and I’m kept on my toes every single day. The amount of times I have had to defend and explain nearly every single historical event would leave your head spinning.” He took a sip of his beer and shook his head. “But I love it. Great school, great kids. I’ve been teaching for six
years now and no burnout in sight.”
I easily did the math, confirming his age to be twenty-eight, but before I could get nervous about our age difference, he said, “Traci said you’ve been flipping houses for only a few years now. Why didn’t you start sooner?”
My smile faded slightly. “Oh. I started after my divorce. It was something I had always planned to do, and suddenly I found myself at a time in my life when . . .” I trailed off as I swallowed hard. “I had to.” The words popped out quickly, before I could stop them, and I felt my face flush slightly. I grabbed for my glass of water, taking a long, slow gulp to steady my nerves. Talking about Matt on a first date definitely wasn’t on the agenda.
He nodded quickly, and changed the subject by telling me more about his childhood home. He told me how it was filled with strange nooks and crannies, and how, when he was twelve, he and a friend tried to talk to the ghost with a Ouija board during a sleepover, but a thunderstorm knocked out the power and they were too terrified to go through with it in the dark.
After dinner, we left the restaurant and walked to our cars. Now for the uncomfortable part, I thought. The part where he would try to kiss me, or run away, or awkwardly ask for another date. The time when the last couple of hours could be summed up with a few words or a gesture.
“I’ll walk you,” he said. As we reached my car, he said, “Well, Alex, it was great to meet you. I had a really nice time.” His eyes flickered back to the restaurant, and I noticed they had flecks of green in the center.
I nodded, my throat growing dry in anticipation. “I did, too.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I surprised myself by talking over him. “Dinner again sometime?” I said. I nervously laughed as he lifted his eyebrows in surprise.
“I was just going to say the same thing. Of course. Why don’t you check your schedule, and we’ll come up with another time?” he said.
I nodded quickly and rubbed my sweaty palms on my skirt. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek, soft and sweet, before flashing me another smile.
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