A Happier Life

Prologue The House on Sunset Lane Pioneers

Houses outlive the people they love. When my fellow clapboard houses on Sunset Lane in Beaufort and I were being built by shipbuilders just discovering this port, proud and young and new, we had no idea what our futures would hold. How could we? In 1769, we were the first houses on this street, as much pioneers as the fishermen, whalers, and shipping merchants, like the Saint James family—my family—who made us their homes.

But what we understood immediately was that it was our job to care for the families who lived within our wooden walls—often repurposed from the ships they came in on—who loved us, who filled us with furniture and bedding, crotchety aging grandparents, and howling, beloved infants. It was our job to remember every word spoken, every breath breathed, to store their secrets and successes, heartbreaks and joys, and keep them safe.

Here, on Seven Sunset Lane, the sun still glints on water that slowly, patiently laps the sandy shore. People marvel at us, these structures that have been here since before America was America.

But I alone hold the distinction of still, two hundred fifty-four years after I was first built, being the Saint James House. Other houses on this street have changed hands, been sold, filled with fresh wallpaper, trendy paint colors, and new people who don’t care quite so much about the stories their houses hold. That I have been owned by one family should be a point of pride. Only, it has been nearly fifty years since anyone has lived inside of me, since I have swayed with voices singing Christmas carols, vibrated with dog paws speeding down my halls, and cheered with friends blowing out birthday candles. But those aren’t the moments I miss most. What I long for is the sound of my door swinging open, the rush of sea breeze through cracked windows, my kitchen filled with the scents of cakes and cookies, roasts and chickens, the simple laughter of ordinary days.

I loved all the families who brought those days to me. But my happiest years, my best times, were with Becks and Townsend Saint James and their children, Lon and Virginia. Sometimes, when I miss them most, I cling to the specks of sand between my floorboards, reminders of when the children tore inside with such jubilance that I would have cried if I had tears. Their mother, Becks, instead of scolding them, wrapped them in towels and kisses and fed them homemade strawberry ice cream on my wide, spacious front porch. I kept them cool in the summer and warm in the winter, a product of facing perfectly south, to the credit of my savvy builders.

I once believed, foolishly, that the parties and dinners, friends and fun—and, most of all, great love of this family, love so big and so pulsating that I could feel it down into my very foundation—would stay forever. For years I have hoped, prayed, wished that they would return, ever since Rebecca and Townsend Saint James unexpectedly met their demise on August 28, 1976. I alone know the real story, have held the truth right here all this time, if anyone had bothered to uncover it.

But that is the plight of old houses. At some point in our seemingly infinite lives, we may be forgotten. And so, we must cling to the joys and secrets forever stored within our walls, until we are remembered again.