Hold On

When I look back, Bethany is staring at me, her face white, and she’s holding a file folder open in her hands.

“What is that?”

Her lips open, and she stands to hand it across the desk to me the folder trembling slightly in her grip.

When I look down, my blood is ice and a fear like nothing I’ve known before clutches around my throat.

Bethany looks at the folder in my hands, then back at me. “Where’s Emmy?”

I can’t answer. I’m out of the office at a dead run to my car, dialing her number and peeling out of the parking lot, murderous thoughts thundering through my brain.

Fourteen

Emmy

WHEN I ARRIVE AT THE small, white house set back in the trees, I sit in the Jeep and remember all my years here.

The front garden beds once full of irises and hydrangeas, are now choked with weeds. The paint peels and chips like a snake shedding it skin, waiting for what’s next, and there’s a gutter falling over the crooked front porch.

The gingerbread accents my grandfather added to the porch when I was around ten used to be a lovely mixture of blue and orange colors they let me pick out even though they were probably hideous. Now they’re faded, no longer the cheerful childlike crayon colors I remember.

That spring day they let me paint, my grandfather’s hands held my waist from behind on the ladder as I slathered on the paint, dripping it everywhere. Neither of them ever complained or corrected me, taking joy in the simple moment, which a lot of people forget to do.

I turn and look at Buddha lying in the backseat, his eyebrows alternating up and down as he looks at me then out the window.

“Wanna go see how the other half lives?”

He lifts his head, and his tongue flops out of his mouth.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I hop out and open the back door, grunting as I grab Buddha under his front legs.

“Geez, Buddha, you seriously need Jenny Craig.”

I put him down on the grass and he shakes his head, drool flying in a shimmering circle, making me duck to avoid a wet strand that flings over my head.

“You’re a class act there, Buddha.”

He toddles off toward the magnolia tree in the front yard and lifts his leg as I make my way to the front door, the house key in my hand. There are tire tracks that look fresh in the dirt drive looping around where I don’t usually drive, and I’m guessing they’re from the architect or builder doing their preliminary look around.

I start to imagine what the place will look like when all the renovations are done.

I see the small cottage still, but with sleek new updates. Maybe a copper roof, a large glass sunroom addition at the back. Fresh paint, maybe yellow with deep blue trim, and hydrangeas and wisteria under a new pergola off the front porch.

With a swing. We used to have one on the front porch until the wood above rotted, and Gran and I had a shock a few years ago when it broke loose, spilling our lemonade all over us as we hit the floorboards, both of us laughing and telling the other it was time to lose some weight.

“Don’t wander far,” I shout to Buddha as I unlock the front door and step inside, but he’s already plopped himself down by the front walkway for his third-morning nap.

The front door creaks on its antique hinges, and the out-of-square screen door doesn’t shut behind me, which is fine because then Buddha can come in when he gets his second wind

I snap some pictures on my phone as I wander around, thinking of all the possibilities of bringing this place back to life. There are a few pieces of the furniture I’ll want to keep, but most of it is faded and broken, repaired, then broken again, so my nostalgia is limited.

The walls are still covered with photos and memories and several layers of dry, peeling wallpaper, and I know I want to restore the photos. I’ll leave some hanging here, but there are some I’d like to have with me back at Marshall’s place.

I pause on that thought.

Our place. In such a short time, it does feel like it belongs to me, too, mostly because Marshall doesn’t go a day without telling me everything that was his is now ours.

Working through the small house, I reach the back where the kitchen opens onto a summer porch and see the back door is cracked open. I narrow my eyes, thinking back to when I was here last and whether I would have left it open.

It’s certainly possible. Living back here in the woods, we never worried too much about locking up. It was rare anyone traveled the long dirt road, then down our secluded driveway, unless they knew us and had good directions.