3. Keaton Wish You Were Here
I’m chatting on the phone with my brother, Harris, as I drive, squinting, over the tiny drawbridge that leads into Beaufort and past the adorable WELCOME TO BEAUFORT, NC, POPULATION 4,789 sign. Yesterday I got up super early to leave and made it all the way from New York to Raleigh, spent the night with one of my cousins, and left around seven this morning so that I could be here early. It’s ten fifteen as I cross the bridge, and I am mesmerized by the way the sun dances on the water, illuminating the dreamy marshes on my left and the open water on my right.
“This place is like a postcard,” I say.
“I don’t know what that means,” Harris responds through my car speaker, and I’m annoyed because I can tell, from how distracted he sounds, that he is responding to an email or something. In his defense, it’s a Wednesday and some people have to work. I reach over to the passenger seat with one hand to rub my dog Salt’s fluffy blond head.
We get—well, got—four paid volunteer days per year at All Welcome, and I usually did at least two at the local animal shelter. During a regular day of feeding cats and changing newspapers, a woman came in in tears.
“My son is allergic to dogs,” she said, squeezing a little ball of blond fur close to her.
She explained that her family had gotten a mini Goldendoodle for that very reason, because he was hypoallergenic. “But as it turns out,” she said, “he’s allergic to dog saliva. Any time Salt licks him, he breaks out in hives.”
I winced.
“I don’t know what to do! I can’t find any friends or family to take him.” She snuggled him up under her chin. “But I can’t put my son’s health at risk.”
I hadn’t thought through the responsibility one bit when I blurted out, “I’ll take him.”
“Please don’t let them put him down,” she sobbed, the dog licking her tears.
It was possibly the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever seen. “No, I’ll adopt him. He’s adorable.”
She sniffed and looked up at me. “What?”
I nodded. “I’ll take Salt home with me today.”
She gasped. “You will? He’s so sweet, and he’s had all his shots, and I have a crate in the car and tons of toys and food.”
She was talking me into something I’d already agreed to. “I promise I’ll take the best care of him. Don’t worry.” I paused. “And I’ll write down my address so you can come visit him any time you want.”
She took a deep breath and, like it was taking all the strength she had, handed him over to me. She rubbed his ears, kissed his head, and said, “I love you, Salty. You’re the best pup in the whole world.” She kissed him again and composed herself enough to say, “Thank you so much. I’ll leave everything by the door.”
I knew then that she couldn’t see him again. I snuggled my face into the softest dog fur I had ever felt as Salt whimpered, watching his human mom leave him. I looked into his dark eyes with the longest lashes I’d ever seen and said, “Hi, little guy. We’re going to be best friends.” As if he knew what I was saying, he covered my face in kisses.
What can I say? It was love at first lick.
I look over at him now, full grown at thirty-one pounds, sitting at attention in the passenger seat. He was the best rash decision I ever made.
“You know,” I say to Harris, exasperated, “Beaufort so far is like a ‘Wish you were here’ postcard.”
“Like the ones with the flamingos?” he asks.
“You are impossible,” I say, and he laughs. “And you will not be getting a postcard from me.”
I turn right by a row of white clapboard houses and, when I reach the stop sign, fall instantly in love with the street in front of me. Its ancient trees reach up to touch each other, forming a canopy over the road. The water is only a block in front of me, and, even from a distance, the sun shining on it creates a sea of diamonds.
“Did you know Lon and Mom still owned this house?” I ask.
“No. I had no idea.”
“So then why aren’t you more surprised it exists?”
“Why are you surprised? Mom and Lon are totally nuts, Keat. Nothing they tell us surprises me anymore.”
I kind of get where he is coming from.
“This place is magical,” I say, taking in the beauty of the quaint downtown. I love places where you can work and live and eat and shop without ever getting in your car. It was one of the things that always appealed to me about Manhattan.
“I know you’re trying to make me come down there, but I’m not doing it,” he responds.
I drive slowly and smile at all the double front porches—and the people sitting on them who wave as I pass, as if they are expecting my arrival.
My GPS tells me to turn left onto Sunset Lane, which I do. “I don’t need you,” I say. “How hard can this be? Clean up a house, put it on the market, sell it in like a day, go home.”
Home. Where is home now? Not with Jonathan. Not at my parents’, where my mother told me, in no uncertain terms, that I would not lie around and rot. Her exact words. Not at All Welcome where, apparently, I am the only one who is not welcome. Well, good riddance. I don’t want to be with those sycophants anyway. But even as I think it, my heart breaks a little. I did love Jonathan. At one time, anyway. I am furious that he could have been sleeping with his ex-wife for months while we were together, upset at myself that I hadn’t known.
But, even more than that, I am mourning the loss of my life, what’s driven me for the past twelve years. They are launching the first book for All Welcome’s new lifestyle imprint today—the first book that wasn’t penned by Allison, anyway. I spent more than a year working on marketing plans for Growing with Grace, a stunning coffee-table-style parenting book written by mommy blogger extraordinaire Grace Collette. And I won’t be there to see it launch. I won’t be there to oversee the massive pub day party at Serendipity 3, where influencer parents and their impeccably dressed children will sip the legendary frozen hot chocolate while perusing their copies—and, obviously, posing for social media pictures. My stomach grips.
“Okay,” Harris says, redirecting my attention back to the task at hand. “I have a sense that this will somehow be more difficult than you think it’s going to be.”
“Well, I have the whole summer,” I say. “As long as it’s sold by Labor Day, Lon says we’re good.” And then, “Harris… I have to find a job.” I groan.
“You’ll be fine,” he says. “People will be lining up to hire you.”
Brotherly confidence is nice. I peer out the window and stop when my GPS tells me to. Seven Sunset Lane. Like the other homes in the neighborhood, it is a large white clapboard house with a pair of brick chimneys, black shutters, a double front porch, and a white picket fence. It is beautiful.
“Harris,” I gasp. “It’s perfection. It’s a storybook house.”
“Write me from happily ever after. I’ll be here in New York awaiting your distress calls.”
“Haha,” I say, hanging up and hopping out of the Bronco.
I can’t immediately tell if the brick driveway to the left of the house is mine—or, well, my grandparents’. Am I claiming ownership of this place already? To be safe, I swing into a parking spot by the water across from it. It seems to be the only one left, which surprises me in a town this small.
I walk around to the passenger seat, clip Salt’s leash to his harness, and hoist him out of the car.
I wave at a mom pushing a little boy in a stroller as the breeze gently pushes my hair back in the most perfect way. I have to stop myself from thinking how much she would probably love Growing with Grace. “Dog!” the boy calls with glee, pointing to Salt, who jumps on the stroller enthusiastically.
“I am so sorry!” I exclaim, but the toddler squeals with delight.
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” the mom chuckles. “We’re very dog friendly.”
I smile, corral Salt, and walk across the street to stand in front of my grandparents’ house. The paint looks fresh, which is notable given the toll saltwater can take. The yard is newly mowed. Bright red begonias grace a pair of black planters on either side of the front door. I look down at Salt, who is sitting attentively at my feet. “This is going to be a piece of cake,” I say. He tilts his head at me like he gets it.
I unclip his leash and open the gate, and he runs through. I close it behind me, making sure it’s latched. Salt isn’t the escaping kind, but I’m still glad the tiny front yard is surrounded by a sweet white picket fence.
I make my way up the brick walk and the three front steps to the porch. I turn to take in the beautiful view of Taylor Creek in front of me as Salt chases a butterfly around the yard. I am totally taken aback because, when Mom and Lon talked about “the creek” that was by their house growing up, I visualized a shallow, babbling, stone-filled thing. This, instead, is a wide, deep channel that connects the ocean and the sound. It’s a thing of beauty. And it is most certainly not a creek. There’s a little island across the way, covered with green trees, and people are kayaking to it. I want to be one of those people.
I turn to the front door, scolding myself. You aren’t going to be here long. Don’t get attached.
I’m fiddling with the key Uncle Lon has given me, which seems like it doesn’t quite fit. I finally get it in the corroded lock and, as I turn it, open the front door to find green shag carpet in the entry. Salt peers inside too. Then he looks up at me. “I know,” I say. “I’m kind of scared.” I take a deep breath. “But we’re here. It’s now or never.”
As if I’ve inspired him, Salt tears into the house, and I decide to step over the threshold. I squeal as I walk through a spiderweb.
I’m frantically wiping the silk threads off myself, praying there isn’t a spider on me too. My dad always says that walking through a spiderweb is good luck, and from the look of this place, I’m going to need all the luck I can get.
The dust floating in the light streaming through the windows is the first thing I notice. I cough. Clearly, the person who has been “cleaning” this house is not doing a great job. I take in the butter-yellow couch, which is flanked by a pair of wood-framed chairs—all super retro. Well, of course they’re retro. They’re original seventies pieces.
What strikes me even more, though, is the newspaper neatly folded at the end of the couch, the black patent leather pumps sitting by the sofa, the pair of glasses on the wooden coffee table, the small stack of mail in the center.
My heart starts to race. I was expecting to walk into a spartan, nearly empty house. Their shoes are still sitting here, for heaven’s sake. I pick up a framed photo on a wooden end table and realize that I have never seen a photo of my grandparents before. It has never struck me as odd until right now. They are probably around my parents’ age in the photo, dancing and grinning at each other with such love that it makes my heart feel full. Instantly, I picture them in this house, place them here among the things they chose and loved. I can almost imagine them walking right through the front door.
I put the picture down and open the window closest to me. There isn’t much dust collecting on the windowsills, which is a positive. I walk through the den with its plaid couch and huge wooden box of a TV, noting the dead roaches in the corners. I pick up something that looks like a sci-fi ray gun, examining the buttons. “Is this the remote?” I ask out loud.
A glass candy dish sits full of change, a pair of sunglasses hanging on its side.
I step slowly into the dining room, which is less seventies, more classic. The linen tablecloth has turned beige in places, and the Herend chargers—the same ones my mother has—are still on the table. Is this the aftermath of a dinner party? Or a table waiting to be set? I pick up the place card at the head of the table and trace Townsend with my finger.
I keep walking, running my finger along the mantel above the fireplace, watching the dust fly. The kitchen is such a time capsule I have to laugh.
Everything is shades of green and yellow, but what catches my eye is my grandmother’s silver in a pile on the counter, turned gray and black with time, but clean and waiting to be put away.
My mind races as I realize the herculean task before me. I don’t even want to think about the bedrooms—one of which I’m going to have to clean if I want to sleep here.
I can’t resist the urge to text my mother: Do you think you might have misled me about what I was walking into?
I am trying to be sympathetic, but come on. This is so typical. Just let Keaton do it herself. Why would she need any help? Not at six. Not at sixteen. Certainly not at thirty-three.
Is there a lot to do, darling? I haven’t been there in so long I hardly remember.
Uh-huh. Yeah. You don’t remember leaving the place like a mausoleum? Sure. The thought gives me the creeps. As I look around the kitchen and peek back at the dining table that looks like everyone just got up and left, I have the distinct feeling that this place must be, has to be, haunted. As if on cue, a cold shiver runs down my spine.
This place is like an untouched crime scene, I respond.
This is actually the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m reeling as I look around at the wood-paneled walls, the dark cabinets.
It’s like everyone walked out of here almost fifty years ago, locked the door, and never came back. Salt—thankfully—bounds into the room. “Buddy, this place is so creepy.”
That’s when I realize he has something in his mouth. “Salt,” I call as he runs off again. “Come here right now!” As I chase him, I yell, “Drop it! Drop it!”
I literally cannot believe it when he does. He’s so stinking cute, but he is not a good listener. I lean over to pick up whatever was in his mouth and brace myself for something truly horrifying—something of the fur-and-tail variety, perhaps. But instead, it’s a beautiful white leather notebook with REBECCA SAINT JAMES’S GUIDE TO ENTERTAINING embossed in gold on the cover. In the bottom right-hand corner, in the same gold, is embossed 1976.
I hear a noise near the cabinets and, without looking up, run out of there, notebook in my hand, Salt on my heels. Maybe it’s a ghost, maybe it isn’t. But I can’t stick around another second to find out.
It’s only as I clip Salt’s leash to his harness in the bright morning sun that I realize that, for the first time in my life, I am holding something of my grandmother’s. My grandmother’s. And the only thing that could possibly inspire me to walk back through that front door is the feeling that washes over me, that little voice telling me I want to know more.