At least I saw her go this time.
Thumbing the email app on my phone open for the first time in thirty-six hours, I climbed the stairs to the small conference room on the top floor of the Walsh Associates offices and groaned at the landslide of new messages. I sank into my seat at the round reclaimed wood table, and if that table wasn’t Sam’s baby, I would have banged my head against it a few times.
Six or seven years ago, Sam stumbled upon the fallen red oak on a camping trip to Acadia National Forest in Maine and dragged it all the way home. He fashioned the table in his workshop, crafting the wood for months until it was just right. Getting the table to the top floor meant hiring a crane to move it out of Sam’s shop and into Beacon Hill, blowing out a row of windows, and lifting the table from the narrow street below through the bank of windows. Much like everything Sam did, the event was a massive pain in the ass, but I readily admitted the table was gorgeous, and uniquely suited for our sustainable preservation work.
It also forced us to replace those windows, and back then, not a day went by without finding something new to replace. Those were long days, and they weren’t easy.
The Beacon Hill home went into foreclosure during the last housing market crash, and Shannon pulled some strings to bid on the property right when it hit the market. The firm owned office space in downtown Wellesley, and had been headquartered there for almost six decades, but Shannon and Patrick always insisted it was critical that we establish ourselves without Angus’s interference.
Getting out of Wellesley didn’t remove Angus from the business as much as we expected, though.
We didn’t realize the amount of work this place required until we peeled away the mustard yellow paisley wallpaper, discovering decades of water damage and decayed structures. The wiring was one blown fuse away from an electrical fire, and at least eight layers of oil-based paint covered every old brick, every inch of hand-carved wood, and every pipe in the five thousand square foot home.
If we didn’t know each other after growing up together, going away to college together, and then working together, living through that renovation taught us everything else we needed to know. There were more than a couple heated arguments, and even more drunk nights spent wondering whether we were crazy for doing this, and the one time when Patrick almost severed an artery with a jigsaw. Taking our degrees and finding normal architectural firms that weren’t embedded in our blood and bones would have been the easier path, and some days, I thought I wanted that path.
But one look at the brick walls, the ones I spent weeks treating to remove the rainbow of paint, and I remembered how much I loved this work and this place. Even when I hated it.
After more than two years spent working out of Shannon’s little apartment near Suffolk Law, where we couldn’t move without tripping over each other or milk crates overflowing with blueprint canisters, we were desperate for more space. Sam was finishing school around that time, and after some high-profile restorations grabbed the media’s attention, we were doing well enough to consider expanding.
That, and Patrick and I showed up at Shannon’s place one morning to find ourselves face-to-face with a naked dude sipping juice in her kitchen like he owned the joint. He was as surprised to see us as we were him, yet he made no attempt to cover up. The three of us stared at each other in awful, naked silence until Shannon called out from the shower, inviting him to join her. He did, and Patrick and I spent the day working from a coffee shop, ignoring her calls, and murmuring that we were too old for this shit and we needed legitimate office space. At one point, we looked at each other, and I said, “We can agree that was the biggest dick in the universe, right?”
“Yes,” Patrick said. “And I never want to talk about this again.”
Open laptops, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee cups, and cell phones ringed the table, and I leaned back in my seat, surveying my partners. Directly across from me, Patrick scowled at his laptop screen and rubbed a hand over his auburn hair. He leaned against Shannon’s shoulder and pointed to her screen while her fingers flew over her phone, her coppery red hair glinting in the morning sun.
Though her hair was styled in a trendy cut with waves and side-swept bangs framing her face, Shannon’s resemblance to our mother was undeniable and at times, eerie. She shared many of Abigael Walsh’s mannerisms and all of her passion, wrapped in a fireball personality that often scorched everyone in spitting distance.
Riley and Sam bracketed me at the table, their heads bent toward their screens. A printed call sheet flanked Sam’s phone and I rolled my eyes at the extensive list of inquiries into his services. After gracing the cover ofBostonMagazinethree winters ago and showcasing a North End restoration outfitted with cutting-edge sustainability features, Sam’s celebrity was born.
It didn’t matter that I had the same skills and certifications with the added benefit of more experience. All the calls were for Sam. The team could stop working on individual projects and pick up Sam’s excess, and we still wouldn’t be able to handle the surplus.
It was probably a good thing. Annoying, but good.
It wasn’t long ago that Patrick and I were restoring every random barn and boathouse that came our way while Shannon finished law school. We operated on the blind faith that we’d survive and find our niche. Eventually, the niche found us.
Staring at Riley while he yawned widely, I ignored the urge to slap my youngest brother upside the head. Unless he liked Patrick’s method of asshole ripping, Riley’s hung-over frat boy routine needed to end. Patrick insisted we dress like we knew what we were doing, and he never tolerated anything short of professional.
Riley’s shaggy, messy hair looked suspiciously like bedhead and it fell past the collar of his plaid shirt. A pronounced coffee stain traversed the leg of his wrinkled khakis and his fly gaped open, exposing a flash of Batman boxers. With his ankle crossed over his knee and sockless feet shoved into untied boat shoes, I shook my head.
We had a lot of work to do with this kid.
At the sound of a new text message arriving, I pulled my gaze away from the frayed hem of Riley’s pants and swiveled toward my phone.
07:31 Lauren:hi.
07:31 Matthew:hi
07:32 Lauren:sorry I ran out. I just have a lot going on today.
07:32 Lauren:but I can meet you around 3
“You seem damn pleased with life for a Monday morning,” Sam said. “Are you cutting your coffee with whiskey now? If that’s your new normal, I’m good with it. Whatever it takes to make you smile, Matt. Most days I think you’re plotting your escape.”
I closed my fingers around my phone before turning to meet his amused expression. “No,” I said evenly. “I don’t need whiskey to be pleased with life today.”
Sam’s eyes glowed, and he leaned toward me. “Satiating weekend?” I tried hiding my grin behind my coffee and ignored Sam’s chuckle. “That’s splendid news.”
“Something you need to share, Sam?”
