“Short for something, long for everything. Tell him Maude sent you.”
I smiled despite myself. “Any chance Burl sells whole porches?”
“Only in pieces,” she said, every word a pat on the cheek. “Don’t forget screws that won’t rust and paint that won’t sulk. And a good drill. Not the cheap kind.”
My stomach dipped at that. “A drill,” I echoed, as if drills were in the same species as staplers. “Right.”
Outside, the day had that particular marsh brightness that makes everything look freshly made. I locked the door without thinking, checked it once because the habit refused to die, then climbed into my little rental car and let the island unspool.
Halfway down the drive, I realized I couldn’t keep doing this for long—borrowing mobility. If I was going to be here a full year, I’d need something of my own. A car, probably. The thought made me wince; in Chicago, wheels were optional. My whole world fit between the L, the corner market, and the coffee shop that knew my order before I spoke. Independence there meant proximity. Here, it meant gasoline and maintenance and insurance—more expenses on a list already getting too long.
Still, when the road curved beneath the oaks and the first slant of sunlight hit the windshield, I felt something that wasn’t exactly dread. The air smelled like promise. Like possibility I didn’t have to schedule. Maybe that was what my grandmotherhad meant to teach me when she tied me to this place for a year—not punishment, but permission.
Live oaks arched over the road like old ribs, Spanish moss combed by the wind. The bridge was a ribbon over the intracoastal, water flashing hard light on my windshield. The world smelled like salt and something green that didn’t care what I called it.
I’d been to Kiawah once as a child—one week of sugar cookies and sea air that felt cleaner than the city’s. Now I was learning it on purpose. Where the road curved like a question. Where the golf carts multiplied. Where the post office hid behind palmettos and polite money. Johns Island was messier, which comforted me: produce stands with hand-painted signs, two goats sharing a bale of something, and a church marquee that promised forgiveness.
Burl’s place didn’t look like a hardware store so much as a dare. Weathered clapboard. Handwritten hours in a window that needed washing. A busted lawnmower sulking by the door. Inside, it was organized chaos: aisles stacked to their own ceilings, the smell of lumber and oil and dust.
A man materialized from behind a tower of five-gallon paint buckets, tall and narrow as a rake, hair gone white at the temples but eyes young with mischief. “You’re not from around here,” he said, delighted, the way some people say welcome.
“No,” I admitted. “Kiawah. The Bradford Inn.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Lord, I haven’t heard that name in a minute. You must be the granddaughter. You’ve got Nora’s chin.”
I pressed my mouth into a smile that didn’t quite fit. “I—yeah. I need screws. And wood … stuff.” Lord. “The porch rail’s loose. And the shutters are barely hanging on. Also there’s a roof leak, but I’m not stupid enough to climb up there yet.”
He laughed, a happy wheeze. “Maude sent you?”
“She did.”
“Well then. We’ll outfit you proper.” He moved like a man who’d been navigating his own maze for decades, plucking items with the care of a florist arranging thorns. “Exterior screws. Stainless. A box big enough to make you feel brave. Wood hardener. Two-part epoxy. Sandpaper—course, then fine. Safety glasses. Caulk for the windows. Gun to shoot it with. And a drill.”
He handed me a cordless that felt heavier than its size suggested. I tried to look like I knew how to hold it. The drill looked back at me, unimpressed.
“Got a stud finder?” he asked, eyes twinkling.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then said, with grim dignity, “Not recently.”
He cackled. “This kind,” he said, and slapped a small plastic rectangle on the counter. “They lie half the time, but it’s good theater. Oh, and these.” He added a tape measure and a little torpedo level to the pile. “Else you’ll hang your whole life crooked.”
He rang me up, the total less painful than I feared and more than I wanted, then threw a handful of peppermint candies into a paper bag.
“Last thing,” he said. “Confidence.”
I blinked. “Do you sell that behind the counter?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “That one you get from yourself.”
I carried my loot out to the car feeling absurdly buoyed. It wasn’t expertise, but it was a start. I drove back the long way on purpose, letting the island stitch itself into my head.
The inn sat where I left it, slouching with dignity. The porch waited like a patient relative—no judgment, just inevitability. I unloaded my supplies onto the steps and set my notebook on the railing.
“Okay,” I told the house. “Be gentle.”
The loose section was obvious: the middle rail dipped where the wood had gone soft, the balusters loose enough to shimmy with a stern look.
I could fix this. Probably. Maybe.
