33. The Crumbling House
THE CRUMBLING HOUSE
JUNIE
The house before me is a crumbling monstrosity that’s been handed down through my mother’s family for six generations, and if the family fables are to be believed, each generation was only slightly less toxic than the last.
When Nolan and I were young, we made a pact to be better than our parents. Now I wonder if that’s possible when the past keeps you shackled to their pain.
The property was always a source of pride for everyone who lived here, but pride has a way of tainting reality.
I step inside, waiting for that sense of…home to hit me. With all its ghosts and painful memories, I still thought I’d feel…something. But the second I close the front door, I know I’m wrong.
This place is as cold as it’s ever been. Haunted by people who never healed.
The only place I’ve ever felt at home was…the only place I’ve ever felt at home was with Cole.
I walk the halls, dragging my fingertips along wallpaper I never chose. Drapes that hang with the heaviness of generations past.
It’s a sad house that even the Berry Brigade never managed to cheer up.
It’s always felt like the end to me—there was never a hopeful beginning here. Why did I not understand that before?
My phone vibrates, and I pull it out, expecting the group chat, but instead, it’s…
Cole: I’m glad you arrived safely.
Cole: I understand your need for space.
Cole: I’ll be here when you’re ready.
After six years of silence, he tries. It means more than I can dissect right now.
Junie: Thank you.
Turning off my phone, I stand in the kitchen—the meeting ground for the only memories of this place I want to keep.
The good memories didn’t come from my parents.
They came from the family who chose me.
They came from Cole.
I sit in the chair that had always silently been mine and in a blink of an eye, every private moment between us plays in technicolor as I soak in the warmth.
Do you often throw things away?
I do.
I did.
But now, sitting here in this sad, empty house, I know how to keep what matters.
I also know what I have to do to get there.
I spent two days packing up anything I wanted to save and left the rest untouched.
Today, I walk in the Boston summer heat to the Kent Street T-stop that will take me to Washington Square. It feels like a lifetime ago I rode this train every day.
I didn’t think I’d miss it, but there’s more nostalgia on this train than in my childhood bedroom. It’s…odd.
Rush hour ended an hour ago. If Grace is still working for the family she nannies for, she’ll be along any minute.
I find a bench facing Square Tavern and wait.
It doesn’t take long.
Twenty minutes later, she crosses Beacon Street, staring at her phone, lost in her own world.
I wait for the moment she spots me. And when she does, it’s worth it. She stops, glances around us, takes a step back, then one to the side. From fifteen feet away, I watch the color drain from her face. She doesn’t know what to do—or perhaps she doesn’t know what I’ll do.
It’s fair.
“Grace,” I say first. I am the one waiting for her, after all.
Her hands fall to her stomach protectively, and I roll my eyes. I’ve never once been a violent person, and she knows it. But she scrambles to unlock her phone, and I know instantly that she’s recording me.
I don’t care. I’m not here to make a scene.
“What are you doing here, Junie?” She’s so nervous her phone rattles in her hands.
“You wanna sit?”
She frowns and shakes her head. I simply shrug.
“Why’d you do it?” It’s the only question I have for her. I won’t be satisfied with whatever she says, but I need to hear her say…something.
A single tear falls down her face, but this is a woman who can cry on demand, so I don’t even blink.
When she doesn’t get a reaction out of me, she pockets her phone.
“Isn’t it exhausting?” I ask. “Pretending all the time?”
Grace brushes away another tear. “Paul and I just…happened. I didn’t mean for it to get so…out of hand. I was,” she peers around as though searching for her next big break, and I sigh. “Your video went viral, and I was…jealous. I had nothing and you were getting the attention and—”
“You had nothing because you betrayed me.” I don’t shout it. I don’t show any emotion at all. I simply state facts. “And the truth is, I would’ve done anything for you.”
Whatever I needed from her no longer exists.
I just needed to witness it. “Now you have to live with what you threw away in favor of strangers on the Internet who change opinions like most people change underwear. The approval you want can’t come from them, Grace. It’ll never keep you happy for long.”
I walk away, back toward the crumbling house of ghosts I’m finally ready to exorcise.
“That’s it?” She calls at my back. “You’re not going to yell? Or call me names? Anything?”
I keep walking. That’s the reaction she wants, and it fills me with happiness when I don’t give it to her.
Who knew taking the high road could feel better than spite?
The doorbell rings at 12:03 the next day. It’s followed by a long string of curses that belong to my father.
“Damn it, Juniper. Open this damn door.”
He’s pissed off that I had all the locks changed. This is no longer a house with a revolving door for people to take advantage of.
I’m not that person either.
Instead of opening the door, I slip out the side and meet him on the porch.
“Juniper, you’re the one who asked me to meet you here. I—”
“I’m here,” I say.
He spins, and I get a good look at him for the first time in years. I don’t actually remember the last time I was this close to him. My mother’s funeral, maybe?
“Let me in.”
I do remember his entitled tone though. “I won’t be doing that.” I sit on a stone pillar that’s to the right of the old stairs.
“This is still my house—”
“Actually, it’s not. It never was. It never will be.”
“Your mother owed me—”
“I’ve seen the documents, Tommy.” I’ll never call him dad again.
“You married her knowing that you would never have a legal claim on the business or this property. Yet you tried to steal it anyway. Or at least, you tried to steal the value, and you didn’t give a single shit about what happened to me while you did it. ”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” His face is a mottled red color that happens when someone spends their life drinking away their problems instead of facing them.
“I do though. You never had a legal claim to anything. And you never will. But I do know what you tried to do to me. I’m here to tell you that you will pay for what you’ve done. Regardless of whatever ‘proof’ you attempt to bring forward, I will win.”
“You have no idea what I have on—”
“Cole?”
He blanches.
“Or are you talking about the loans with my name illegally attached? Because I know everything. Nolan knows everything. I asked you here today so I could look you in the eye because regardless of what you and Anna put me through, I’ll never be like either of you.”
“Open this goddamn door, Juniper. You have no right to keep me out.”
“I do, though. Everything you see here is mine. It’s my house, my land, my decision. You’re just the sperm donor I learned spite from. You’re nothing, Tommy. You never will be.”
“You listen to me—”
“I won’t be doing that.”
His hands ball into fists, but for some reason, I’m not scared of him like I was when I was a child. The monster is older now, gaunt, vicious in tone but not in action—there’s nothing he can do to me anymore.
“Then why the hell am I here?”
“Because I want to know why?” I ask the same question I asked Grace. The same one I asked Natalie. But as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I have an epiphany.
I don’t need their reasons. I just needed to find the confidence to believe that I’m not someone they can walk all over ever again.
And standing here, on the porch of my childhood home that raised me more than my parents ever did, I finally understand.
My voice has always been my own. It’s good enough. It’s loud enough. It’s strong enough all on its own because it’s mine.
It all happens in less than three seconds, so when Tommy opens his mouth to rage against me the way he did in my youth, I simply walk away.
The house is locked up. My feelings are decoded, labeled, and stuck in the appropriate columns.
I can turn the page now, content in the knowledge that Nolan and his friends are building a case that will take away Tommy’s choices like he tried to take away mine.
Surprisingly, I pull into The Haven three days later completely undetected. There’s no welcome committee this time, no Stanley, only silence as I make my way down the peaceful streets and park at the clubhouse.
I’ve only been gone a week, yet everything has changed.
I’m not sure why I don’t go straight to Cole’s, but honestly, sneaking in will give me a little more time to figure out what to say when it’s time to face him.
I’m not even surprised when I end up outside of Bea’s house. It’s Wednesday, but I’m thirty minutes late, and Bea isn’t outside.
“Juniper,” Bea calls, out of breath and rushing onto her porch before I can make it three steps. “I was just reading and needed, ah, I’m here.” Perhaps I didn’t arrive undetected after all. What did this old lady do? Run a mile to make it look as though she’s been ready for me all along?
“Hi, Bea.” For some reason, when she places a book upside down in her lap, I smile.
“You missed tea,” she says conversationally, finally getting a grip on her panting. “It was at three, dear.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Don’t be. The kettle doesn’t require an audience to boil.” She turns a page in her book she only now realizes is upside down but stubbornly refuses to fix it. “You’ll come next Wednesday. Or you won’t. Either way, the kettle will boil.”
“Okay.” I study her for a moment while she continues to pretend she’s reading. “Bea?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you do…when you don’t know who you are?” It’s like tiny dinosaurs are dancing on my chest.
Bea doesn’t look up from the book she’s not reading.