Chapter 1 #2
He looked at me, a faint, sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m not sure I can let it go just yet.” My mind went to the tiny studio apartment in Queens that Lucy and I had rented before my career took off and royalty checks started coming in the mail.
We loved that apartment and found it difficult to move.
But our townhouse in Manhattan was something entirely different—it was a part of us.
Even though I’d fled from it in a hurry, the thought of selling it and never being able to return, of losing that connection to Lucy, her presence carved into the walls, made me feel sick.
“But why me?” I asked. “You don’t even know me.”
Gill’s expression was thoughtful. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But I know grief. And we certainly share that in common.”
My head swam. Am I out of my mind?
“The truth is,” Gill continued, “I don’t need a tenant. I need someone who’ll see the place for what it is. Someone who might even breathe some life back into it.” He paused. “And I think maybe you need that too.”
I took Gill’s hand and squeezed it. He knew I understood.
It was then that I saw some light return to his eyes. He glanced at me, a small grin on his face.
“It needs a bit of work, but I may have some coupons for the hardware store you could use?”
The only tool set I’d ever owned was one I’d purchased from .
“I’ll take all the help I can get.”
I immersed myself in the house, pouring every ounce of my energy into its creaking floorboards and peeling walls. It became my refuge, the ultimate escape, a place where I could disappear from the world, and lock my heartache outside.
I learned a few things about my new home in that first month after Gill gave me the keys.
One-third of Colorado is forest—more than twenty-two million acres of ponderosa pine, aspen, blue spruce, and cottonwood willow.
The roads wound through canyons, and, without warning, a snowcapped range rose in the distance, stealing my breath.
Everston was the kind of town that felt like a secret, tucked in between these swaths of forest and mountain peaks.
It was the kind of place where Sam’s Diner never closed, where there was always a fresh pot of coffee brewing and a slice of pie waiting, whether at noon or two in the morning.
The local florist included little handwritten notes with every bouquet, and the only bookstore in town had a resident cat that slept on the windowsill.
On warm nights, the town square hosted movie nights under the stars.
I also learned a few things about old houses.
Like how century-old pipes don’t care about your schedule.
Wood rot spreads faster than you think. Sometimes I’d peel back a wall expecting a quick fix, only to find the whole structure held together by sheer will.
The house needed more work than I had anticipated, but then again, so did I.
As it happens, small town folk are curious about newcomers, which made staying invisible difficult.
But I hadn’t just picked a town no one would think to look for me in, I’d made sure I wasn’t someone worth looking for.
Grief had changed me. I’d lost weight in the way people do when they forget to eat, when exhaustion takes over hunger.
I’d dyed my hair from dark to light brown.
Swapped glasses for contacts. Traded my tailored jackets and polished pumps for thrifted sweaters and scuffed work boots.
I started going by Wren, my middle name.
It was easier that way, less explaining, fewer questions.
Wren wasn’t a name tied to fame or tragedy.
It was a name that let me start over, to become someone unremarkable in a town where people knew each other by name and routine, not by headlines.
But calling myself Wren wasn’t just about hiding.
It was also about holding on to Lucy. Wrens were Lucy’s favorite birds.
She’d said so on our second date, and she loved that it was my middle name.
She’d even gotten a delicate little tattoo on the inside of her wrist. She treasured all animals, but she had a quirky fascination with wrens; she thought their plump little bodies were adorable, and she loved the fierce protectiveness with which they watched over their nests.
She once told me that wrens were resourceful and would build their nests wherever they saw an opportunity—in a brush pile, inside a tree hole, or, if desperate, even in something like an old shoe.
They could find a home anywhere. I wondered if I could do the same.
I certainly didn’t feel at home in Everston yet, but when a person is your home, where do you go when they’re gone?
Gill cleared his throat and pulled me out of my reverie. “You’re doing a great job on the old lady, you know. I can already see her coming back to life.”
He walked over and placed a gnarled hand on the area that I’d been sanding and gave me a look of approval.
“She’s tough, Gill, like me.” We laughed. In working on the house, I’d already hammered my thumb—twice—and caught countless splinters, not to mention that I’d ripped my jeans on some old aluminium plates I tripped over in the shed.
But I didn’t want it any other way. The hard labor allowed me to focus on something else apart from my own life; it gave me a sense of purpose while I was adrift. Gill letting me stay in his house in exchange for the work was just a bonus.
“You know…If you ever need other people to talk to, I know a few folks in town who—”
“Will play chess with me?”
He laughed. “Well, that too.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Gill. I’m coping.”
I could tell Gill that I’d found an elephant in his attic and it would be more believable than what I’d just said, but he nodded anyway.
“Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” He picked up the safety goggles I’d tossed aside and handed them to me.
“Best let you get back to it.”
He smiled and waved, and I watched him as he slowly made his way down the driveway.
I sighed and returned to inspect my handiwork.
I’d made good progress on the door: I’d scraped away the paint then sanded it down to the bare oak.
The door had been stripped back down to its natural state—a clean slate, a blank canvas to start over—but I wondered if even a full restoration would really be enough to make anyone want to enter the house once more.
After taking another break, I gave the door a fresh coat of paint and replaced the wire screen window.
I propped it back into place with new hinges and a shiny new brass knocker.
Not bad. The evening rolled in then, bringing a familiar coolness to the air as the sun retired for the day.
I decided I’d done enough work, so I went inside to wash off the grime that had caked itself to my skin.
As I had done for so many nights since I moved in, I sat on the porch swing, a blanket draped over my lap and a glass of wine sitting on the small wrought-iron table beside me.
The swing was my favorite part of the house.
It seemed to be the only thing that was untouched by age, as though it were deemed off limits to the elements.
I stared out past the picket fence that encompassed the property, wildflowers snaking themselves through the palings.
“You should pick some.”
I turned to see Lucy sitting beside me on the swing.
“I thought your favorites were marigolds?”
She shrugged. “These ones are pretty too.”
I smiled, wondering how many I could pick if I started now. Lucy loved fresh flowers on the kitchen counter. I realized how much I missed always having fragrant blooms in the house.
“I should start putting fresh flowers on the kitchen counter again. The way you used to.”
“It would brighten up the place a little,” she said, tipping her head to assess the work I’d done today.
“I’ll pick some in the morning. It’ll tidy up the fence and brighten the kitchen.”
Lucy shifted her gaze to me, her soft eyes narrowed in concern.
“Bee, why am I here?”
“Because I wanted to see you,” I replied quickly, as if it were the simplest answer to the simplest question in the world. Because it was. “Besides, you said you would always be here. Don’t you remember? You always said that to me. ‘Bee, I’m not going anywhere.’ ”
She exhaled softly, her expression full of something I couldn’t quite name. “Sometimes life doesn’t let us keep the promises we make, Bee,” she said softly. “You of all people should know that.”
I swallowed hard. “Well, what do you want me to say?” My eyes burned, and I clenched my fists, willing the tears not to spill over.
“Goodbye.”
“Well, I can’t. I can’t do that.”
“You have to try.”
“Why? Why do I have to say goodbye when I can sit out on this porch swing every night, looking at wildflowers, with you here beside me as more than just a memory? This is what makes Everston so special, because, of all the places in the world, I somehow found you here.”
“That’s not the reason you ended up here.”
“Oh? And what is?”
I could see Lucy looking up at the sky, which was now dark and spattered with stars. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmured. A car drove past us then, its headlights washing over me. When the light faded, Lucy was gone, and I was alone again.