Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
LAUREN
“ W hy didn’t you tell me grandma was a hoarder?”
My mother’s face looks back at me from my phone screen with surprise. “Because she wasn’t. In fact, she was obsessively neat and tidy. She’d go crazy if we didn’t put everything back exactly where we found it.”
I turn the camera around and hear my mother gulp in disbelief as she takes in one wall of the cottage. More sounds of amazement and shock emit from her as I pan the camera around the cluttered room.
“My goodness, Lauren,” she gasps in a horrified whisper when I put the camera back to selfie mode. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, well, looks like grandma died a broken woman,” I say quietly.
“She had a choice. All she had to do was pick up the phone.”
“I guess she was too proud to.”
“Well, what are you going to do? You obviously can’t stay there. Will you sell up and come back?”
“No, I’m not selling up.”
Mom frowns. “What? You can’t stay there. That place looks like it has black mold at the very least. I bet there are rats in the kitchen.”
I cringe at the thought of sharing a home with vermin.
Their black beady eyes always gave me the creeps.
“Actually, the air is pretty dry so there shouldn’t be any black mold, and there have been no noises coming from the kitchen.
If I find rats, I’ll get a cat, but I promise, it looks worse than it is, Mom.
It’s just piled high with junk. I’ll hire one of those things they call skips here in England and chuck everything into it. ”
“Honey, what’s in that house is going to take more than a couple of skips to get rid of. That looks like decades’ worth of clutter there. It’s going to take many months if not years to clear out. Surely you can see that.”
“Yeah, I know that and I’m prepared to do it.”
“But what money will you live on? You can’t work there.”
“Well, I can’t work yet, but I could get some sort of work visa based on the fact that I am partly British.”
“That’s ridiculous. What kind of job are you going to get in a tiny village called Hawk’s End for heaven’s sake?”
“I don’t know yet,” I concede.
“What kind of answer is that?” my mother pounces.
“Look, it’s true that Hawk’s End is a tiny village, but less than an hour away is a popular market town.
I drove through it and it has everything, even a very large supermarket.
People come from all over England on Sundays to buy honey, cheese, jams, fruit and vegetables sourced from the nearby farms, as well as all kinds of locally made stuff.
Who knows? I might bake my famous blueberry muffins or my sweet potato pies and sell them on market days. ”
My mother sighs wearily. “This is all starting to sound very impractical and a bit flighty, if you ask me.”
“I gotta go, Mom. Sandy is trying to get through.”
Mom looks at me unhappily. “Okay, but this conversation is not over.”
“Bye, Mom. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I end the call, put the phone on the ledge next to the cottage’s tiny sink, and hit the accept button against Sandy’s name.
“Booked your return flight yet?” Sandy’s voice crackles through the phone like she’s right next to me instead of an ocean away.
After mom’s insistence that the cottage was unsalvageable, her question hits me sideways.
A surreal feeling hits me. I hang suspended between confirmed defeat and wild, crazy faith.
I start washing my hands, the water cold and sluggish, barely cutting through the grime caked on my fingers from poking through Grandma’s junk.
Soapy water drips onto the cracked porcelain.
Why the hell haven’t I booked my return flight?
This place is a mess, a literal pile of dust and regret, and yet… I’m not ready to quit.
“Lauren? Earth to Lauren!” Sandy shouts, but her voice is tinny on the speaker.
I snap out of my surreal moment and grab the phone off the counter. “There’s running water here,” I say, dodging her jab. “My beacon of hope.”
Sandy snorts, amused. “Running water? That’s your big win? You’re chasing indoor plumbing now?”
I sigh and slump against the sink, the edge digging into my hip.
“It’s… not what I thought. I saw this huge manor next door—sleek, like a damn mansion from a Hollywood movie—and for a second, I thought that’s what I got.
But nope. This is it… Flintstones-level luxury.
Stone walls, sure, but it’s falling apart.
Junk everywhere—books, teacups, creepy old portraits.
Grandma was a hoarder, Sandy. I’m drowning in it. ”
“Oh! Er…so you’re leaving?” she asks, her voice full of hope.
I chew my lip, staring at the warped floorboards under my boots.
“No,” I say, and it surprises me how sure it sounds.
“For some reason, even this feels better than Chicago. Like there’s something to look forward to, even if it’s just…
not going back. I gave myself six months.
I’ll see it through. If I’m losing my mind at three, I’ll cut it short and come home. ”
“Wow,” Sandy says, half-laughing. “I’m inspired by your tenacity, I have to admit.”
This makes me smile. “Enough about me. What’s the latest with you?”
She groans, and I can picture her flopping onto her beat-up couch. “Same old same old,” she says, her voice dragging into a whine. “No hate, maybe I’ll lose it soon as well and come join you.”
I chuckle at the thought of where I would put her.
“You know Daniel lost his job, right?”
“Yeah,” I reply,
“Well, I’m freaking the fuck out. At first, I thought he’d be okay, you know, he’d find another, but it’s been like three months, and I feel him slowly losing motivation.
It’s alright but I’m on a teacher’s salary, and I cannot continue to handle the bills for both of us.
We fight more now, and it’s all just incredibly stressful.
I exhale heavily. “That sucks. I’m sorry, Sandy. I’m sure he’ll pick up. It’ll get better. God, I wish I were in a position to help you.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I know you’re penniless. Anyway, you just got there. Have you met anyone yet? You mentioned a manor? Have you met the owners?”
My stomach does a little flip, and I grimace, pacing the cramped kitchen, my shoes catching the warped linoleum. “Oh, yeah,” I say, letting the sarcasm drip. “I’ve met my neighbor. A he. And surprise, surprise, he’s a total asshole.”
She is amused at this. “People already aggravating you? You went there to find peace.”
“Well, it’s clear to me now that he’s going to try to stress me out. You wouldn’t believe it, but he came here on a horse. Could hardly believe my eyes.”
“Wait? What kind of place have you ended up in? Have they got no cars over there?”
“Yeah, they do. Looks like it’s only the rich that ride out here,” I explain.
“What did he want? He just came to say hello or what?”
“No, he wanted to buy this place. I guess they’ve been waiting for the owner to come here, he wants to add it to his land, probably demolish the cottage.
I can’t lie, I would have been tempted if I wasn’t so tired from the flight and all, but he was just so haughty.
No pleasantries. Nothing. Just got straight to the point. ”
“That is usually a good thing,” she murmurs, trying to hide her snicker, but I hear it anyway.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t in the mood so I drove him off.”
“Expected,” Sandy says. “Please tell me if he rode in on a damn horse he was at least good looking?”
I instantly groan, not wanting to pay him any compliment whatsoever, but I cannot bring myself to say otherwise. “He’s, um…. I hate to fucking admit it, but I guess he’s handsome. Tall, dark hair, gray eyes that just… God, they’re ridiculous, I’m ridiculous. But none of that matters. He’s a prick.”
“Ooh,” Sandy teases. “Handsome? Ridiculous eyes? Prick on a horse? I don’t care what you say, you’re living in a romance novel! His eyes though—tell me more. Are we talking, like, smoldering? Piercing? Give me something here.”
“Oh my God, Sandy.” I mutter, but I’m grinning now, shoving off the counter and carefully maneuvering myself around the piles of rubbish towards the kitchen.
“C’mon,” she cajoles. “This was part of the plan, right?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Just fucking tell me about him already. Describe his eyes.”
I sigh but give in regardless. “They’re…
piercing, I guess. Like he’s staring right through you, all cold and shit.
Whatever. Point is, he’s an ass, and I’m not budging on that.
” I yank open the fridge, and a sour stench slams into me.
In amongst an assortment of what was once food, I make out a thick piece of moldy cheese and something green and fuzzy that might’ve been a vegetable once.
“Fuck,” I curse, slamming the door shut.
“Are you okay? Lauren?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, waving off the putrid stench. “The fridge is a nightmare—it stinks, like death or something. Sorry grandma. I’m starving, though, and it’s getting dark. I can’t go out now. Not if I want to end up in a ditch or something.”
“No, no,” she says. “You definitely can’t go out now. You should have gotten something on your way there.”
“Yeah, coulda woulda shoulda.”
“Check the pantry,” Sandy suggests. “All these cottages always have one. Maybe you’ll find a tin of something edible there?”
”Right,” I say and follow her advice. Soon I find it and it’s a small cupboard-like hole in the wall. I start digging through, the cans clanking, and pull out a Campbell’s tomato soup. “I found some soup.”
“Check if it expired,” she says. “You have got to be careful about that.”
“Yeah.” I turn the can around and I’m glad to see that it still has a couple of months left on it. “It’s good. It’s not expired. This will do for the night.”
“That’s a relief,” she says. “It’d suck if you had to go to sleep with a hungry belly as well as a throbbing pussy.”
“Can you stop, please?”
She laughs uproariously as I rummage around and find a pot. After cleaning it as thoroughly as I can, I dump the soup in, and work out how to flick on the stove. The burner hisses like it hates me.
“Thank God the stove works, I would have cried if it didn’t.”
“I don’t know. I’ve had cold soup before, and it’s not the end of the world.” I can hear her smile through the phone.
“Wish I had some bread though.”
“Isn’t there like a sort of DoorDash service there or something?”
“I have no idea,” I reply, and frankly, I don’t care. I’ll just down this and call it a night.”
Soon enough, the soup is ready, and I carry the pot with me over to the sofa.
It’s old, scratchy, and still smells like dust even though I washed it thoroughly—but I am long past caring.
The soup smells wonderful. I flop down on the sofa, the springs creaking loudly under me.
I’ll have to buy some new furniture too.
I eat the soup straight from the pot. It’s warm and salty, and because I’m really hungry and a bit cold, it tastes better than any soup I’ve ever had.
I continue chatting with Sandy about Daniel, her familiar voice grounding me and giving me a sense of normalcy, so I’m not too freaked out by being in the middle of nowhere.
The pot is scraped empty by the time I’m done.
I put my spoon down and I put the pot on top of a nearby pile of books and try to settle into the couch.
I have no plans of moving for the next hour at least so I listen to Sandy and thank God, as always, she’s able to go on and on.