3. Darcy
3
DARCY
“ I feel lost, Dad.”
I stood in the middle of my dad’s hardware store, talking to the empty room.
The smell of sawdust and leather wafted around me, bringing back memories of running through the store’s aisles as a kid. I had spent many happy afternoons after school refilling buckets of screws and sorting the bolts by size as my dad rang people up on the cash register that was almost as old as the building.
This hardware store had been in our family since 1901 when my great-great-great-grandfather opened its doors to the town. Generations of my family had run the store, helping neighbors pick out shovels for their gardens or telling them what paintbrush to buy. As I stood in the aisles I could picture all the families who had been in and out of our front door.
It’s what made me so sad the place was currently closed.
My dad passed away eight months ago from an aggressive cancer that moved far too quickly. Not that any amount of time with my dad would have been enough. After my mom died when I was young, my dad was a single parent, seeing me through all the usual childhood milestones all by himself. He had coached my soccer team and learned how to braid my hair for school picture days.
And our relationship had only grown closer as I grew up. As an adult, I spent a few nights a week at my dad’s house, either cooking dinner for him or showing up with takeout. Losing my dad was something I was still reeling from. It had been so unexpected. And then there was the breakup ...
I realized a few months ago that losing my dad had also been the beginning of the end for my engagement to John. After my dad died, I realized that life was too short to spend time with people I didn’t truly love.
“What if there’s nothing here for me anymore?”
Sometimes, when I felt especially confused, I found myself talking out loud in this old building. It wasn’t like I believed in ghosts or expected my dad to talk back or anything. But this hardware store had always been my safe space. If I was going to voice my deepest and darkest secrets, there was no better place than these aisles of household goods.
Sometimes, when I thought about losing my dad and ending my engagement all in the span of a year, I wondered why I still lived in Maplewood. I had Liz and my business. Both of those things were going great. But there wasn’t much else here for me. Sometimes I couldn’t help wondering if there was something more out there I was meant to find.
My phone buzzed in my purse, and I fished it out to see that Liz was calling me. No doubt she would ask why I’d bailed on the open house. I could only hope things hadn’t gotten too crazy and that Liz had been able to manage on her own.
“I know,” I said as I picked up the phone. “I’m sorry I left.”
“We got an offer!” Liz cried out, not even listening to my apology. “ Three offers, actually. But one of them is really promising.”
“ How promising?” I asked, catching on to Liz’s excitement through the phone.
“How’s ten thousand over asking for you?”
Liz and I screamed into the phone, and I bounced with excitement.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “I’m telling you, you really are the best closer in the business.”
“I think it’s time we put it on my business cards.”
“Maybe a plaque?”
“And definitely my own parking space.”
I laughed with Liz, relishing the high that came from doing our jobs well and reaping the benefits.
“But seriously, Liz, I’m sorry I bailed. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“First you and then Callum. Good thing I’m pretty good at handling crowds. It got busy there today!”
“Callum ditched you too?”
“Right after you left,” Liz explained. “I think he got a phone call, and he’s always been a walker. He can’t stay still, you know. Where he ended up is anyone’s guess.”
“You lost your rock-star brother on his first day in town?”
“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” Liz laughed.
“Just don’t let the tabloids find out.”
“He’ll turn up,” Liz assured me. “They always come back when they’re hungry.”
There was a brief silence on the line and then Liz asked, “Are you okay?”
I sighed, realizing I had been asking myself that very question only a few minutes ago.
“I’m fine,” I tried to assure her. “I don’t know why I got so freaked out when Callum showed up. It was just … unexpected.”
“I should have told you he was coming. I really misjudged that one.”
“A little bit,” I chuckled.
“I thought you might be excited.”
“Do you know me at all?” I asked, though there was a lightness to my voice that told Liz I was joking. “I’m not really someone who likes surprises. You know I need time to think through all the possible scenarios for what might go wrong!”
“I don’t know if even you could have predicted running out of the house before even speaking to him.”
I groaned, realizing how ridiculous it must have looked.
“Did I completely embarrass myself?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it—he was distracted by this older couple who wanted to show him pictures of their grandchildren. Where did you go, anyway? I’m heading back to the office now.”
“I’m not there,” I said. “I stopped by the hardware store.”
“Oh,” Liz said and, in her voice, I heard a question. “You didn’t get an offer, did you?”
“No,” I said. “No new offers. I just needed a spot to think.”
A few months ago, I had decided to put my dad’s store on the market. After all, my dad and I both knew I was never going to be passionate about the hardware store business. Despite working in the store through high school, I couldn’t drum up excitement for garden rakes and mousetraps. But instead of being disappointed, my dad had been nothing but excited for me.
“You get to go out there and find the thing you love,” he would tell me often.
It felt good to have his blessing to move into a different profession. And my dad had been so proud when I got my real estate license and opened my office. But that didn’t mean I found it any easier to walk away from my family’s business and legacy.
“Have you had any showings lately?” Liz asked. “There have to be people interested in that place—it’s one of the best retail spots in town!”
“There’s interest,” I said, but I let my voice trail off, leaving something unspoken. Of course, Liz caught onto it immediately.
“Not the right interest?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, walking to the checkout counter to drop down onto the stool. “I know I’m dragging my feet on it. And I know my dad would want me to let the place go. But it feels wrong to sell the place to someone who’s going to gut it and put in an ice cream shop.”
“ Ooh we could totally use a good frozen-yogurt place!”
“ Liz! ” I cried out, laughing along with Liz on the other end of the phone.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Liz said, her voice much more serious. “But you might be looking for a unicorn. In a small town like Maplewood, I’m not sure you’re going to find someone who wants to buy a building just to keep it running as a hardware store.”
“I know.”
“It’s not like your dad was raking in the money. These old, town hardware stores are sort of a dying breed these days.”
I hated to admit that Liz might be right. The idea that someone would come along to buy the store and keep it exactly the same was probably a fantasy. But if I was going to let the store out of my family, I at least wanted to find a buyer who would preserve some part of the store’s legacy. Was it so hard to imagine someone who might pick up right where my dad left off?
“I’m willing to wait,” I told Liz. “I still have hope the right person is out there.”
To Liz’s credit, she had never pushed me when it came to the hardware store. Despite the store’s listing with our office and the potential commission we were set to receive if the building was sold, Liz knew this building was my own thing. And so far, she seemed prepared to let me deal with the building in my own time.
“It’s alright,” Liz said. “Take the time you need.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I glanced down at the desk where mail had piled up on the counter. Pulling the stack to me, I flipped through the envelopes I had been avoiding. I knew I would find bills and invoices in most of them. Settling my dad’s estate and planning a funeral had all come with endless expenses I hadn’t anticipated. And then there were all the canceled wedding expenses: A lost deposit on the venue, an invoice from the graphic designer who made the invites, a bill from the seamstress. Selling this building could go a long way toward paying off these debts.
“I’m at the office,” Liz said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I’ll drop everything off, and then I have to pick up the kids from camp. Do you need anything else today?”
“You closed another deal,” I said. “Go get that frozen yogurt with your kids and celebrate!”
“Will do,” Liz said. “You should come! Please don’t hide out in that empty hardware store all night!”
“Tell me when Callum leaves town, and I’ll feel comfortable showing my face again.”
When I hung up, my cheeks were sore from smiling so much with Liz. It was another moment when I thanked the universe for bringing such a great friend into my life.
“We’ll find the right person,” I told the store, feeling hope rise in my chest. “I know the right buyer is out there.”
I stood from behind the desk and began walking down the closest aisle. I liked the ritual of walking from aisle to aisle before going home, imagining my dad doing this at the end of a long day. As a kid, I always wondered why he did it. Was he checking if anything was stolen or looking for broken shelves? But when I was older, I finally asked him.
“Why do you always walk all the aisles before you leave?”
I remembered the way my dad had shrugged beneath his baseball cap.
“Gives me time to think,” he answered as if trying to brush aside the question. But then he took a moment to think more deeply about it and looked thoughtfully at me before continuing. “A lot of people worked hard to make this place what it is. I like to spend a little time thinking about that.”
And so, after my dad was gone, I found myself reenacting the ritual. I walked aisle to aisle, guided by the bright fluorescent lights humming above me, and thought about my dad. I liked to run my hands along the shelves, checking that items were lined up properly even though no customers had entered the space for nearly a year.
I was in the last aisle, shifting my thoughts to dinner and what I had in my freezer to defrost, when I heard the ding of the front door. The sound surprised me. I hadn’t heard the bell over the door for months, and my heart beat faster as I raced through all the possibilities of who might come through that door.
“Sorry, we’re not open,” I called out as I rounded the aisle to meet whoever it was at the front door.
Of all the possibilities I thought about and the people I pictured, I never imagined that Callum Jones would be standing at the front door of my dad’s hardware store, smirking at me.