8. The Back Porch
Chapter eight
The Back Porch
Lila got home a little before two.
She set her bag on the kitchen table and stood there for a moment, letting the quiet of the house settle around her.
Everything was exactly where she’d left it.
The folded piece of paper with the phone number sat on the counter.
Through the kitchen windows, the Gulf moved steadily beyond the yard, doing what it always did whether she was watching or not.
She opened the back door and let the afternoon air in. For a few minutes, she didn’t do anything else. Then she crossed back to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
The file waited in front of her. She opened it. Looked at the first page. Closed it again.
He knew something, she thought again. It died with him.
The thought had followed her all the way home, mile after mile, and apparently it had settled in the passenger seat beside her because it was still here now.
Wade’s text came in around five-thirty.
Wade: How’d it go today?
Lila stared at the message for a moment before typing a reply.
Lila: Come by after work. I’ll tell you.
His response came almost immediately.
Wade: I’ll be there around six.
He knocked on the back door at six-fifteen. She held out a Cold Water Creek IPA before he’d fully stepped inside. It came from a local brewery, two blocks from the marina, that Danny had told her about. Wade looked at it.
“Upgrading from sweet tea?”
“It’s been that kind of day.”
He didn’t ask anything else. He just took the bottle and followed her outside.
They sat on the back steps the way they always did, side by side with the yard stretching in front of them and the scrub path curving toward the beach. The evening was warm, but not heavy. A breeze moved through the palms near the deck as the night settled in around them.
For a while, Lila held the bottle in both hands and looked at the water.
“He was gone by the time I got there,” she said.
“Gone?” Wade turned to look at her.
“Forsythe.” She took a breath. “He died Monday morning.”
Wade didn’t say anything right away, and she was grateful for that.
“The woman at the desk was kind about it. She said his daughter was with him.” Lila looked at the Gulf. “I asked if he had family before I asked anything else. I don’t know why that was the first question.”
“I think I do,” Wade said.
She glanced at him.
“You didn’t want him to have died alone with it,” he said. “Whatever he was carrying.”
She looked back at the water. “No,” she sighed. “I suppose I didn’t.”
The breeze moved through again, stirring the palms beyond the deck. Somewhere down the beach, someone had a small fire going, the faint smell of smoke drifting in and disappearing again.
“I drove almost three hours for a conversation that was already over before I got in the car,” she said. “I had the list memorized. I knew exactly what I was going to ask and in what order.” She almost laughed. “I think that’s probably the most Lila thing I’ve ever done.”
Wade’s mouth moved. Not quite a smile, but close. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
“Don’t agree so quickly.”
“Too late.”
She laughed—a real one. He looked quietly pleased with himself.
“I like answers,” Lila said. “I’ve always liked answers. I used to think that was just the way I was wired—the accounting brain, the lists, the need to understand how things fit together.” She paused. “But I think it started earlier than that.”
Wade waited.
“When my dad disappeared, I was ten. Nobody told me anything. Not really. Just that he was gone, and nobody knew where.” She began peeling the label from the bottle in her hands.
“And then when I was twelve my mother told me he was dead. Just—said it. Like that was the end of the question.” She paused.
“I accepted it because I needed something to be true.” She was quiet for a moment.
“But I think some part of me didn’t accept that.
Some part of me kept the question open even when I told myself it was closed. ”
They were both quiet—they knew the story.
“I don’t think I realized how much that stayed with me,” she continued. “For years I thought if I could just get enough information about something, I’d be okay.”
She took a sip from the bottle.
“When you joined the military, every time the phone rang, I wondered if it was going to be bad news.”
He turned to her. “I didn’t know—“
She gave a small shrug and kept talking, her eyes fixed on something—or nothing—in the distance.
“I couldn’t do it anymore. So, I left.”
“Lila—“
“I’m not relitigating it,” she said. “I’m just telling you.”
He nodded. She could feel him listening.
“And then Kevin came along.”
The sound of his name surprised her a little. At one time it had been so familiar, now it was the name of a stranger.
“Kevin always had an answer.”
She gave a small laugh.
“Or at least I thought he did.”
The breeze lifted a strand of hair across her cheek. She tucked it behind her ear.
“If I worried about money, he had a plan. If I worried about work, he had advice. If I worried about the future, he already knew what we should do.”
She stared out at the water.
“It took me a long time to realize most of those answers weren’t answers at all.”
Wade didn’t interrupt.
“They were just whatever he needed me to believe.”
The words hung in the air between them. Not dramatic—just true.
She could tell he was paying attention and not simply waiting for the story to end or already preparing a response.
The evening settled around them. And for a while neither of them spoke.
Then Lila smiled faintly.
“Salt Flower Bay has been…” She looked for the word. “Clarifying,” she said.
Wade looked at her. “I see that.”
She turned toward him. His expression hadn’t changed and neither had the certainty behind it.
“I’m glad you came back.”
The words landed softly. No pressure. No expectation. Just truth.
“So am I,” she said.
They sat quietly after that, looking out at the water while the last of the evening light faded along the Gulf.
Wade left a little after eight.
Lila stayed on the back steps after his truck disappeared up the street. She thought about what Wade had said.
I’m glad you’re back.
She was too.
Not only because of Wade. Not even mostly because of Wade.
Salt Flower Bay had given her something she hadn’t known she was missing, and she was only beginning to understand what that might be.
After a while, she went inside.
The kitchen was dark except for the small light above the stove. The file sat on the table. The folded piece of paper with the phone number sat beside her notebook.
Lila picked up her phone and texted Danny.
Lila: That property on Marlowe. Can you send me the address?
His response came in under a minute. Just the address—no commentary.
Lila typed it into the real estate app on her phone and sat down at the kitchen table while the listing loaded.
Three bedrooms. One and a half baths. Built in 1987. The description used phrases like full of potential and waiting for the right vision, which meant it needed more work than the listing wanted to admit.
She scrolled slowly through the photographs.
A narrow front porch.
An overgrown yard.
A kitchen with dated cabinets and lighting that did no one any favors.
Original hardwood visible in the corner of one room beneath flooring that should never have been installed over it.
The bathrooms were rough. But the bones were good.
She could picture it almost immediately. The proportions of the main room. The way the back of the house faced the yard. The mature palms. No beach access, but two blocks from the water.
It wasn’t a decision. Not yet.
It wasn’t even a plan.
She pulled out her notebook and opened to a fresh page. At the top she wrote:
Marlowe Lane