“We have to go,” said Jack regretfully when Charlie fell against him on the deacon’s bench near the front door. He hugged him, breathing in the scent of him. “You can come back for Thanksgiving. Your mom already said.”
“Splendid.” Gianna handed a bag of leftovers to Tuck and kissed his cheek. “Then you’ll be able to spend the day with us.”
“Thank you.” Jack got to his feet and took her hands. “For everything.”
Everyone hugged Charlie and the Llewellyns left on a chorus of goodbyes. The last one out the door, Jack finally caught Arlie’s eyes and held firm, as if to say, I’m sorry. It was as though no one else was there.
She looked away, the stiffness of her demeanor making her taller, straighter. “Good night, Jack. Be safe.”
Be safe. He wondered if she said those words whenever anyone left. He did; Tucker did. He wouldn’t be surprised if the other survivors did, too. In some ways, prom night would never end.
JACK FLEW BACK to Vermont with Charlie the next day. Tracy met them at the airport and they all had dinner together before Tracy took Charlie back to the town house they shared.
Jack checked on his house, standing outside it for a long moment and reflecting that no matter how much he liked the two-hundred-year-old brick Cape Cod, it should have been a family house. And wasn’t, because he only had a family on occasional weekends and vacations.
After a restless night, he drove his own car back to Miniagua, spending the night somewhere in the middle of Ohio. He pulled into the keyhole drive of the Dower House behind the Rent-A-Wife van late in the evening of the second day. There were lights on in both the first and second stories of the house—only the attic and basement windows were dark. He frowned at the clock on the dash of his SUV. He didn’t know how long her workdays were normally, but he thought Arlie might be overdoing it. Twilight came early to the lake these days, but she didn’t need to work after the sun had slipped below the horizon. Not on his house, anyway.
It felt strange to ring the doorbell of the house he was going to live in when the keys were in his pocket, but he didn’t want to scare her by walking in unannounced. He could see her coming through the sparkling lights beside the heavy front door. She was wearing ragged jeans rolled above her ankles and a scrub shirt that had seen better days—maybe even better years. Her hair was tied into a messy ponytail and her face was completely devoid of makeup.
She looked wonderful.
And she didn’t even check to see who was ringing the doorbell.
“You didn’t look,” he said, scowling as she swung open the door. “I could have been an ax murderer.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “Are you? I thought you were an entrepreneur and a weekend dad who was embarrassed to tell people he had a son.”
He couldn’t look away from her. After all these years and everything that had happened, he still couldn’t look away from the lights in her eyes.
Something inside him shifted. They had laughed together through learning to ice-skate, sliding down snow-covered Sycamore Hill on the detached hood of a junkyard Chevy and being stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel at Indiana Beach. Was it realistic to think they could laugh together again without reopening old wounds? Was it even possible?
Not until he explained about Tracy. About Charlie.
“I’m not an entrepreneur. I just get bored easily. And I never get embarrassed about Charlie—only by my own parental inadequacies.”
She stepped back, her expression not changing. “Come on in. It’s your house, after all.”
He went in, inhaling the fresh smells of vinegar and linen and something flowery. “It looks great.”
“This floor does,” she said. She looked cautiously pleased. “The basement is still an adventure, and I haven’t even been in the attic.”
“You have cobwebs in your hair.”
“I think it’s crummy of you to notice.” She moved ahead of him through the clean rooms. “Have you been in here at all?”
He shook his head even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “I haven’t been in this house since the housekeeper and her husband lived in it. I don’t know how long it’s been empty.”
“Four years. Your grandmother offered to let the housekeeper live in it even when she retired, but the woman wanted to live in Florida, so she turned her down.”
Jack snorted. “Knowing Grandmother, she probably wanted to charge her an arm and a leg to stay in it, or better yet have her keep working without pay to cover rent.”
They continued through the downstairs. “I can set up an office in here,” he said, standing in the doorway of the dining room. “There’s plenty of room in the kitchen for a table and chairs.”
“That’s what I did at my house. I had the counter built in to divide the kitchen from the dining area. It’s not very big, but it’s convenient.” Arlie counted outlets. “Of course, my whole downstairs would fit into this dining room and kitchen. But you have plenty of outlets in here, and your wiring is up to date, so you won’t darken the whole neighborhood the minute you start plugging things in.”
“That’s a plus.” He smiled at her, hoping the sheer comfortableness of being together would come back to them the way it had the night before his grandmother’s funeral. Before Charlie had arrived. “What’s upstairs? I don’t really remember.”
“Take a look.”
The stairway was enclosed, but the stairs were wide and easy to climb. “It won’t be too bad bringing furniture up.” The handrail felt smooth under his hand, and he smiled. He didn’t know where his appreciation for good woodwork had come from, but he was glad he had it.
There were four bedrooms and two baths upstairs. At the end of the center hall, lit by a wide window that overlooked the garden in the back, was a little cove of a library complete with shelves and a built-in desk under the window.
“I’d forgotten this.” He stepped down three stairs into the area. “It’s over the glassed-in porch off the kitchen, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “You may have forgotten it, but I covet it. It’s beautiful.”
“Do you have a library in the Toe?” He knew she loved to read—it was one of the things they’d shared.
“Sort of. There was a closet under the stairs I really didn’t need. For my birthday the year I bought the house, Gianna hired a carpenter to take the door off it, line it with bookshelves and put lighting in it. There’s even room for a chair, but when you sit in it your legs stick out in the hallway.”
“Sounds great.” He moved down the hall, peeking into the bedrooms. “I’ll use this one—Charlie can be across the hall when he’s here. How’s the plumbing—do you know?”
“I checked it when I got here. It all worked, but I imagine you’ll want to put showers in the bathrooms. All that’s in there are eighties-era tubs. I do have the master bedroom and bath clean, though. I thought they’d be the ones you’d use. You can move in whenever you’re ready.”
“I don’t want to get in your way.” He frowned at the walls. They were clean and smooth. “Is the entire house painted this color? It’s so bland, it makes off-white look exciting.”
“Yes.”
“Does Rent-A-Wife do painting?”
“No, but Sam’s wife, Penny, does.”
He’d heard that. “I’ll see if I can get her in here first. Does Sam help