“That’s not funny, Goldie,” Mom says with a weary reprimand in her voice. “This house has been in the Gardner family for generations, and Dad couldn’t say no when the opportunity came to buy it back.”
“Well, Lili and I are the only Gardners left, so can we say no?”
I get out of the car, hugging my bare elbows against a sudden breeze and the sound of Goldie continuing to argue with Mom.
One of his last postcards to me was the day he got the keys.
A Gardner house, Lili! A family house. And one day, it’ll be yours and Goldie’s house, your legacy to continue. Let me fix it up first and then you can both come visit next summer.
It’s summer now, and I’m here, but he isn’t.
It probably looked much the same back then. I’m sure he had plans for it, but Dad’s plans had a way of never quite making it out into the real world. But I know he would have seen this house and instantly understood its worth, and with a not-unpleasant ache in my chest, I see it too.
An older woman with short, spiky gray hair and tan skin kissed by years of salt and sun walks out of the front door. “Hello, Gardner family!” she calls out in a warm voice as she carefully navigates the porch steps while holding a huge furry cat in her arms.
Mom and Goldie step onto the patchy grass with me, the late-afternoon sun catching Goldie’s pale hair and turning it nearly white. The woman doesn’t hesitate—she walks right up to Momand gives her a one-armed hug, deftly avoiding squashing the enormous Maine coon cat in her other arm.
“You must be Mia,” she says, pulling back. Her smile sweeps over the rest of us, wide and bright enough to make me feel immediately at ease. “And these are your girls, of course. All that blonde hair!”
“Mrs. Mayhew?”
The woman laughs. “That’s me. And this”—she lifts the cat slightly—“is Ollie. Or maybe Stan? I never can tell the difference. Anyway, come on in, and let me show you the house.”
She waves us toward the small saltbox home without waiting for an answer, her energy more inviting than demanding. The cat stays perfectly docile in her arms, its thick fur rippling in the breeze as we follow her inside.
The house is dim, the light filtering through wavy glass windows that distort the view of the garden. It smells faintly of lemon polish and something older, deeper—like wood warmed by the sun for decades. Mrs. Mayhew leads us through the narrow rooms, her voice lively as she talks about the house’s history.
“No renovations or improvements since your late husband bought it last year,” she says cheerfully, her heels clicking on the wood floor.
I glance at Mom, waiting for the inevitable flared nostrils or the tightening of her mouth. But there’s nothing—her expression is perfectly neutral, her lips pressed into a polite line. I can’t tell if she’s doing it for my sake or Mrs. Mayhew’s.
“Too busy chasing the past to worry about the present, hmm?” Mrs. Mayhew shakes her head and adjusts the cat in her arms. “My Henry was the same way. Kept a whole attic full of his collectibles—refused to show a single soul. A friend offered to assess it after hepassed, but I’m quite sure it only had value to Henry. So there it sits.”
“Maybe you could sell some of it online,” Mom suggests, her hand landing lightly on Goldie’s shoulder. “Goldie is great with eBay, aren’t you, sweetie? How many items did you sell last year? Two hundred?”
“Two hundred sixty-one.” Goldie shrugs, but there’s pride in her expression. As part of her homeschool math curriculum, Mom had her start a business for a mini-entrepreneurship unit. So far, she’s already made enough money flipping thrift store finds to buy her own gaming laptop.
Mrs. Mayhew brightens. “Come by anytime if you want to make a little money this summer.”
She doesn’t wait for a reply, plunging right back into the history of the house. It was lovingly restored in the 1920s, she explains, then less lovingly updated in the ’80s. Now it’s dated but clean, the walls a mix of faded wallpaper and peeling paint.
When she mentions previous plumbing leaks, Mom’s expression wavers—just for a second—but I catch it. Her pallor hasn’t improved much since the ferry, and talk of water damage isn’t helping.
Mrs. Mayhew pulls an envelope from her bag. “The plumbing issues have been repaired and were isolated to the second story, so nothing down here was damaged.”
Mom nods as Mrs. Mayhew hands her a stack of papers and a full keyring. “Those will open any room in the house. The iron one is for the shed, which has two bikes with freshly aired-up tires in it.” She winks as Goldie perks up at that announcement. “And the brass one is for the study.” She indicates a closed door just offthe kitchen that I’d assumed was a closet. “I’m sorry to say I never could find one for the old locked desk in there, but maybe you’ll have better luck.”
It’s my turn to look excited. “Desk?” Dad’s death blindsided us all, but the one silver lining had been learning he’d left us this house. I’d wanted to come right away, as if setting foot on the island could somehow right a world that had just been turned upside down. But Mom had looked at me with those green eyes of hers, wild and panicked like a cornered cat.
So, I backpedaled. Compromised. We made plans to come in the summer after I graduated and Goldie finished homeschool for the year, and instead held a memorial service in Arizona while some of his smaller, personal effects were boxed up and sent to us. I thought we already had everything important of his—the watch from his grandfather, his first edition ofMoby Dick, the framed Gardner family tree he’d researched all the way back to the 1700s—but what if he left something else behind?
Mrs. Mayhew nods. “Looks like something that would have come over on theMayflower. I hate to say it, but I’m glad my husband never saw it. He’d have no doubt tried to buy it for some exorbitant amount of money, and I just don’t know where we would have put it.” She laughs, oblivious to the way my eyes are now focused on the closed study door.
“I think old desks are gonna have to wait,” Mom says. “We need to unpack and do a million other things first.”
Mrs. Mayhew smiles. “Of course. Well, Ollie and I will leave you to get settled then. I wasn’t sure what you’d have on hand to eat, so I left you a basket out on the porch including some of my homemade blackberry jam. The wild shrubs grow all along theharbor from Monomoy to Quaise, and lucky for us, they bloomed early this year.” She gives us a warm smile. “If you need anything else—or want more jam—I’m just a mile down the road.”
As soon as Mrs. Mayhew steps out the door, Mom exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. She sends Goldie to pull the sheeting off the furniture, then drops onto the couch with a thud. The cushions puff out a faintly musty smell, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
