Chapter Four
Four
Charlie
Charlie never wanted to see another piece of dishware ever again.
Gram had squirreled away dishes in every room of the old Victorian, and only now that Charlie was trying to organize the house did she realize just how extensive the collection really was.
There were flower-patterned dinnerware sets and tea sets and crystal wineglasses and champagne flutes and…
too much. It was just too much crap for one person.
Charlie carried an empty box through the foyer, cutting into the dining room and groaned at the massive china hutch.
There were sets upon sets of dessert plates and soup bowls and silver ladles and salt and pepper shakers shaped as random animals winking at her from behind the glass.
Suddenly the freshly prepped cardboard box in her hand felt entirely inadequate.
She’d already spent the early morning avoiding the second floor by tackling Gram’s bookshelves.
Gram had put sticky notes on everything, noting which books had been slated for donation and which were to be kept in the family.
Charlie had recognized an adventure series she and Tom had been obsessed with when they were teens.
She remembered lining up in town for the midnight summer release of the last book.
Gram had indulged them both with a copy, mostly to stop them from fighting over who would get to read it first.
The memory had come out of nowhere, slipping past her defenses, as clear as the day it happened.
Remembering that night had almost winded her, and Charlie had spent an hour on the floor in front of the bookshelf, flipping through the yellowing pages, blinking away the weight behind her eyes.
She wouldn’t cry. Not in this house. If she did, she might never stop.
Her phone buzzed, and she slipped it out of her pocket to find a text from Alicia. You around?
Yes, she replied.
Wanted to make sure you hadn’t gotten trapped under a piece of furniture.
I haven’t even ventured into the basement yet, so who knows what horrors might befall me there.
Oh God, came the reply followed by a crying laughing emoji.
Charlie smiled briefly at the message. Somehow Alicia always knew when she was in need of company or a pick-me-up or just the sound of someone else’s voice.
Sure, she may have been Charlie’s agent, but she was her friend first—her best friend—and since Tom’s passing, Alicia had not once failed to pick up her phone.
Some people would say that it was a bad idea to mix business with pleasure, but Charlie had never been more grateful to have Alicia in her corner.
A person who cared not only about her career but about her as a person.
Another agent might have gotten fed up with her indecisiveness after Tom’s death and dropped her, but Alicia had promised to be there for Charlie when she was ready to perform again. Until then, she was simply her friend.
Honestly, I don’t think I realized just how long sorting through this house would take.
Well, you’re not in any rush, right?
Besides needing to get the hell out of here before Elm Springs could leave her a mess that no one was equipped to deal with, least of all her?
Yeah, sure. No rush. But something inside Charlie was racing against some unseen hourglass.
The longer she was here, the more the past would creep in.
She could already feel it pressing on her—the house, the town, Julian— and she knew she needed to escape before the threads holding her closed snapped.
The desire to flee from these feelings had been her one and only goal these past two years, and despite wanting to make sure Gram was settled at Glendale, that cloying thought beat like a drum at the back of her head.
Charlie wandered into the living room and took a beat to absorb it.
The walls were a light pink, the chunky carpet patterned with roses.
In one corner of the room stood Gram’s record player and her collection of vinyl.
In the other, by the bay window, was the empty space that used to house Gram’s piano.
This room had been Charlie’s first stage.
She’d spent countless hours bouncing on the sofa cushions next to Tom, an empty water bottle in hand, as they belted ballads at the tops of their lungs.
But this place was no longer a stage.
Soon it wouldn’t belong to them at all.
Charlie made her way across the room to a small glass cabinet.
Inside were commemorative plates celebrating anniversaries to husbands Charlie never knew.
In some ways, Gram’s house had always felt like a museum.
A trove of treasures she got to pick through every summer.
Now, with Tom’s face immortalized in pictures on the walls—gap-toothed smiles looking back at her, cheeks sun-kissed and freckled from hours spent down by the river—it was starting to feel like a tomb.
Charlie placed the cardboard box on the floor as she hunted down the Bubble Wrap she’d bought earlier in the week. The last thing she needed was for her mother to sift through the boxes to find everything broken.
She found the Bubble Wrap in the front hall, where she’d dropped her keys and her purse upon returning from Glendale yesterday.
There were pictures there, too, in thin gold frames, set out on the entryway table.
They were displayed to visitors like an offering—her, Mom, Dad and Tom at Christmas.
Her and Tom as kids, Gram’s feather boas wrapped around their necks, pearl necklaces strung around their wrists like bracelets.
Her and Tom, basically babies, in a wagon, so young and blond they’d almost looked like twins.
Her and Tom with Gram on her birthday, fighting over who would blow out the candles.
Her and Tom in their respective caps and gowns.
It seemed like every moment of their lives had been captured on this table.
Except the one that changed everything.
The photos stopped abruptly, each frame like a headstone dedicated to what had come and gone. Charlie had the sudden urge to flip them all face down. To tear the photos from the walls. Soon enough, she thought, carrying the Bubble Wrap back down the hall.
She loved this house. But she also hated it now, too.
Her phone buzzed as she reached the living room, this time with a call. Charlie picked up, and Alicia’s voice poured through.
“You never answered my question,” she said without even a hello.
Something in Charlie unraveled at the sound, the ache inside her lessening.
Alicia had a short, choppy way of speaking, her words always tumbling from her mouth faster than Charlie could keep up with them.
And her laugh! Her laugh could be heard in the next building, so loud and infectious and filled with joy.
Alicia was the type of person who could make your day better just by the sheer force of her presence.
“Which question?”
“I said you’re not in any rush, and you ignored me.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” Charlie said.
“How are things going at the retirement home?” Alicia asked.
Awful, horrible, terrible. Charlie didn’t even know where to begin.
She’d walked right into an unexpectedly frigid winter storm named Julian who had the audacity to say he hardly remembered her.
And then—and then—ask her to give up her already limited time to some nonexistent music program.
Her pulse sped up just thinking about the smug satisfaction in his eyes as Gram roped her into the job.
Charlie flopped down on the nearest sofa, a hand pressed to her forehead as she stared at the ceiling and sighed.
Alicia made a sound. “Uh-oh, everything okay with Doris? Is she having moving reservations?”
“Oh, Gram’s fine,” Charlie said. “Frankly, I’m surprised she isn’t complaining more about having to leave her house. But she’s taking it in stride.”
“Did that fall scare her more than she’s letting on?”
“Maybe,” Charlie agreed. “I’m just glad she didn’t actually break her hip. I think it would have made the move that much worse.”
“It’s a big shift either way,” Alicia agreed. “Going from that massive house to a tiny apartment.”
“Going from being completely independent to…” Charlie hummed. “I mean, she’s still very independent, and there’s plenty to explore at Glendale.”
“But she’s recovering okay?”
“Yeah. Apparently they have some yoga class they like to take the residents to, so knowing Gram, she’ll be more flexible than I am in a month.”
Alicia laughed, the sound making Charlie smile. “I wouldn’t put it past her. You got everything moved over?”
“The piano made it.”
“Priority number one,” Alicia said. “The rest of it?”
Charlie rubbed her hand over her face. “God, there’s so much. Every time I put something in a box, a new stack of crap appears.”
“Take it one section at a time,” Alicia suggested. “And take breaks so you don’t get overwhelmed.”
The corner of Charlie’s mouth quirked.
“So, what’s the actual problem then?”
“Hmm?”
“That was an awfully heavy sigh.”
“Okay, listen to this,” Charlie said.
Alicia chuckled. “I like when your stories start like that.”
“Gram is giving me a tour of Glendale a couple days ago, right? Because the movers have to do their thing.”
“Sure.”
“And there’s this really lovely woman showing us around and introducing Gram to all these people, and so she wants to introduce us to the activities director as we pass his office.”
“That’s great.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Especially because I scoped out the website, and I realized that I know this activities director from my college days. So my first thought is oh, Gram’ll have a familiar face around.”
“Know him how?” Alicia asked.
“We dated about eight years ago. No, er, not dated. We flinged.”
“Flung?” Alicia snorted.
“Sure. We had a fling-thing for the summer.”
Charlie could tell Alicia was grinning as she asked, “How awkward was that?”