Chapter Fifteen
Ben
My parents lived in a cute 1920s bungalow a few blocks off Main Street in downtown Cedar Springs, the same one I’d grown up in and probably the same one I’d bring my kids to play at, if I ever got so lucky. I parked on the street in front of the creamy yellow house, smiling at the daisies that were in full bloom along the sidewalk. Daisies were mom’s favorite.
They’d been grandma’s favorite, too, but I carefully pushed that tender thought aside. I already had more memories and unwanted reminders of her popping up while I spent time with her house. I didn’t need to encourage my brain in that direction.
I didn’t knock because I’d gotten tired of my mom berating me for acting like it wasn’t still my house, too, and insisting that I was “always welcome.” Instead, I let myself in and called, “Knock, knock.”
“In the kitchen!” she shouted from, presumably, the kitchen.
I walked down the short central hallway, filled to bursting with family portraits, and greeted her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek when I finally made it to the kitchen on the far side of the house.
“What brings you here?” she asked, quartering a ruby red strawberry and tossing the segments into a giant bowl, already half full of them. “It’s not even five yet, is it?”
“It’s three-thirty,” I told her, stealing a strawberry from the bowl. “And also Saturday.”
She shot me a knowing smirk. Strawberries were my favorite.
“I wanted to ask you some questions about the house, if it’s a good time.”
“Oh.” Her hands stilled. “Sure, that makes sense, I suppose. What did you need to know?” More slowly, she went back to chopping.
“Why didn’t grandma ever get central heating and air? I figured it was probably too expensive, and I was wondering if she ever got a quote for it.”
Mom nodded. “Over twelve thousand dollars, on account of the size and age of the home. And that was two decades ago, mind you.”
Damn. Ava was not going to like that. Hell, no potential buyer would. “What about the roof? Did she ever replace it?”
Mom stopped again, this time looking upward like she was searching her memory. “She got a new roof put on just before I married your father,” she decided. “So it must have been over thirty years ago.”
Also not great, but it could’ve been worse, I supposed. She could’ve never replaced it at all.
“Do the fireplaces work? Or did they?” I amended.
“Yes,” she answered with a big smile. “Don’t you remember?”
I tried not to, but lately it had been a struggle. “Of course,” I told her.
I went through a few more of Ava’s questions, mostly getting my mom’s best guess but occasionally an actual fact. At least it would somewhat placate Ava, who had been texting me nonstop all week with more questions and, of course, helpful reminders to ask my mom.
If I didn’t have the world’s most inconvenient crush on her, it would’ve been irritating. Instead, the sadistic asshole inside me lit up every time her name came across my phone screen, as if she were just…texting me. Absolutely absurd.
When Mom had finished chopping strawberries, I helped her wash off the counter while she cleaned the knife and the cutting board. I had rather hoped she’d intuit that things were moving forward with the house after so many questions, but maybe she was deeper in denial than I’d thought.
“So,” I began, leaning against the kitchen island, “have you given any thought to what you might want to do with the money you make from the sale?” Maybe establishing the silver lining here would help the news go down easier.
Mom shook her head. “No,” she replied, the corners of her mouth stretching into a sad smile, “I’ve mostly been trying not to think about it.”
Now that , I understood. My tried-and-true method for dealing with pesky things like my outdated feelings for Ava or unwanted memories of Grandma.
“Yeah, I do that a lot, too.” I paused, choosing my words carefully, but Mom dialed in on my hesitation.
“What is it?” She narrowed her eyes even as she set down the bowl of fresh strawberries on the island between us. “Something’s off with you.”
“I think the house is going to sell soon.”
“What?” Her face scrunched in confusion. “But it just went up.”
I nodded slowly, like a defective bobblehead. “I had someone request a tour the day I put the sign up, and I think they’re serious about buying. We’re starting the paperwork.”
Mom just stood there, clearly grasping to process the news. Then she bobbled, grasping the counter.
I moved around the island so that I could pull her into a sideways squeeze, my hand on her arm to support her. She had vertigo, but she hated it when Liam or Dad or I grabbed her when she got dizzy. Instead of asking if she was alright, I tried to hide my help in a hug.
“I know you thought you’d have longer to get it all sorted out. The good news is that even if this goes through, it will still take a couple of months to get everything in order before closing.”
Her hands reached to grip the countertop in front of her. “I can’t believe it,” she muttered. “Just like that, it’s gone.”
Something inside my chest banged against my ribs, begging to join her in that grim thought, but I refused. I knew she wasn’t talking about the house.
“I’ve collected most of Grandma’s things,” I continued, lowering my voice to match hers. “Stuff we haven’t gone through yet, papers, crafts, photos, and the like.” I didn’t remind her that she hadn’t even gone through Grandma’s clothes yet.
“I can’t look at them yet. Not yet.”
I rubbed her arm, nodding my understanding. “I’ll set them aside for now. I just need you to think about one specific thing, and we can put everything else off a bit longer.”
She took a deep breath. “What’s that?”
“I need to know what to do with the furniture. We have a few options, and you don’t have to make a decision right away. We can keep anything you’d like, and that’s the only thing I need to know soon. The rest, we can offer to family and friends and then donate what’s left, or we can include the pieces in the sale of the house.”
“Do I know them?”
Her question threw me off. “Know who?”
“The buyer. Am I allowed to know who it is?”
I smiled at her, grabbing a strawberry slice. “It’s actually several people, and you know most of them.”
That perked her up. “Oh?”
“Riley and her friends are going in together to buy it,” I explained. “They want to convert it into a bed and breakfast.”
Mom grabbed a couple of strawberries, chewing on that new bit of information.
“It would make a good bed and breakfast,” she decided. “And I know Riley will take good care of it. Wait,” she furrowed her brows, “does that mean Riley’s moving home?”
“It sure does.”
“Well,” she said on an exhale, “isn’t that quite the development?”
I couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that. I’d deliberately saved that morsel for the end, counting on it cheering her up and taking her mind to happier things.
Like weddings. And daughter-in-laws. And no doubt grandchildren, if I knew my mother.
Riley’s parents had been in the same social circle as my parents in high school, and had stayed close afterward. So close that Riley had always felt more like my big sister than a family friend. There were pictures of her and her siblings running around our living room with us in diapers, wreaking havoc and laughing like crazy.
And while I always felt Riley was family, my brother very obviously thought of her in a different way even though, somehow, he’d never managed to get around to asking her out. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had time. Maybe he honestly didn’t see what was so, painfully obvious to the rest of us. Maybe he had other reasons. Either way, Mom firmly believed that one of these days Riley would officially become part of the family, whenever Liam got his head out of his ass.
“Does your brother know?” she asked, as though she’d been riding the same train of thought.
I was about to answer in the affirmative when it hit me that he probably hadn’t actually spoken to her the weekend she came to visit. “You know, I’m honestly not sure.”
“I told him she came back last weekend to visit her parents and Ava, but you know how busy he was with the team.”
He was always busy with the team. My brother was the head coach of our football team at Cedar Springs High School, a job he poured his heart and soul into. When the team wasn’t practicing, conditioning, or watching film, he made sure they had regular team-building events. Like last weekend, when they planned and executed an absolutely flawless raid on Eagle Lake to reclaim the banner and push Little Turtle Lake into the lead. Or the week before that, when they’d volunteered to help out Mr. Schuman at the farm.
“I’ll mention it to him the next time I see him,” I promised. “I don’t think she’ll be back right away. Ava’s handling the sale.”
Mom’s expression sobered a touch. “I’ll let you know about the furniture. Knowing it would go to Riley would make me feel better, anyway. She’s like a part of the family. Everything else will have to wait a bit longer.”
“No rush at all,” I assured her, wrapping her in a hug. “And thanks for the strawberries.”
She pulled my head down to plant a big kiss on my cheek. “Come back soon.”
After saying my goodbyes, I left the house carrying a little less weight than before. I knew it would shake her to think about going through Grandma’s things—there was a reason she hadn’t done so in the last twenty years—and to come to terms with selling the house. But she’d taken it better than I’d thought. When all was said and done, I had at least a few answers for Ava.