Chapter 8 Anne #2
Anne was determined to dig her out.
She found her mother sitting on the lanai, obediently soaking up a patch of sunshine. Dawn accepted the coffee with a quiet word of thanks but didn’t drink it; she just sat with both hands wrapped around the warm mug.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Anne said.
“You can stay here as long as you’d like,” Dawn told her, sounding a bit more like herself. “You know that.”
“Thank you, but no. It’s something else.”
She turned to look at her, and Anne was shocked to realize that this was the first time since she’d been home that her mother had actually met her eyes.
Dawn’s eyes were a vibrant azure, just like Pete’s.
There was a frightening amount of pain in those blue eyes, but at least they were open. At least she was there. They just had to keep pulling her back into the light.
“I want to rent out the empty bedrooms,” Anne said.
“Rent them out,” Dawn repeated, looking confused.
“Like you’ve done before. But consistently this summer, with nightly rates. I’ll fix the rooms up, take pictures, and post them online.”
“For tourists?” She looked vaguely appalled.
“For visitors, Mom. Yes. Just for this summer. I could earn enough to get back on my feet, and the house would be lively again.”
Dawn was quiet, thinking.
“This is something we could do together,” Anne pressed. “You and me and the kids. A family project.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Zoe said bitterly.
Anne started and turned to see her eldest child. Zoe stepped out onto the lanai, and the screen door slammed shut behind her.
“You just got here and you’re already trying to make a buck off of us?”
Dawn put a hand up, and Zoe quieted immediately.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Anne said vulnerably.
“Obviously,” Zoe said with quiet venom. “Why else would you be here? You got out as soon as you could, and you didn’t come back until you had to. Now you want to pimp out our home to make a quick buck? And for what, so you can leave again?”
“That’s enough,” Dawn said quietly.
Zoe stomped down the wooden steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
“You’re always welcome here,” Dawn said to Anne, “but I don’t know if I can deal with strangers coming through all the time. It’s a lot to ask of us.”
Anne gritted her teeth against a sudden rush of frustration.
Her entire childhood had been nothing but strangers coming through. Foster kids, mostly, but sometimes entire families who needed help getting back on their feet.
Her parents’ dedication to helping people in need had given Anne four sisters, countless playmates, and deep friendships with local kids who had lived with them for stints of time.
But it had brought some really messed up kids into their home too.
She had lost sleep and study time to wailing babies and screaming teens and kids with night terrors.
Once, when she was nine, a teenaged boy climbed into her bed.
She froze in terror, unable to even utter a sound as he climbed on top of her.
Oakley clocked him with a lava lamp, and her screams brought Kimo running.
He and Dawn implemented some changes after that. The four younger girls had all shared a room for years, and Kimo put a strong lock on the door.
There had been other incidents, other damaged children passing on their own trauma. Memories that she chose to leave buried rather than dredging them up again.
Anne didn’t speak any of this aloud. She didn’t have to. It was heavy in the air between them.
Dawn knew most of what had happened, and she knew that the chaos she had allowed to color her daughter’s childhood was the main reason that Anne had bolted at eighteen and never come home again… until now.
“The good outweighed the bad,” Dawn insisted whenever Anne brought up some of the more difficult aspects of her childhood. “Didn’t it?”
And she was right. Anne’s upbringing had been mostly idyllic.
She and her sisters had spent vast stretches of their childhood in the forest that grew along the cliffs, climbing and building forts and jumping into the plush carpet of fallen pine needles.
There had been countless bright beach days with a dad who doted on them.
Adorable babies and always enough kids for a game of tag.
The good had outweighed the bad, always.
But it didn’t erase it.
No amount of sunny memories could transform a childhood where she had never felt completely safe in her own home – a life of tearful goodbyes and new arrivals, where the ground was constantly shifting beneath her feet.
As a child, she had trouble understanding how her parents could prioritize strangers above their own children.
As a parent, she understood it even less.
“I don’t want to turn this place into a hotel,” Dawn said at last. “What if I decide to foster again? I might be too old to keep up with the little ones, but there are so many teens who need a safe place to stay. I’m not ready to close the door on that chapter of my life, Annie. Not yet.”
“Nothing’s forever. Let me fix the rooms up and bring some paying guests through. I’ll get back on my feet, find my own place. And when you’re ready to foster again, those rooms will still be there.”
“Okay.” Dawn’s shoulders relaxed into a quiet sort of acquiescence. “Try it your way. No sense in letting this big house go to waste.”
“I’ll put some of the money back into the house. Shore it up.”
Her mother nodded distantly, retreating back into the haze that she had been living in for so many months.
Anne would have to find a way to draw her out, sooner or later. Maybe new people passing through would wake Dawn up a bit. She had always seemed to thrive in the chaos of new arrivals.
But first things first. Anne needed guests coming through as soon as possible, but she also needed to spruce the place up.
She’d made a good start: airing out the empty rooms, hanging quilts in the sun, scrubbing the place from top to bottom. But first impressions mattered. She walked out onto the lawn and turned to look at the grand old house, mottled gray and blue and just generally looking worse for wear.
The place needed a fresh coat of paint, and she had just enough room left on her credit cards to make it happen.