Chương 9
“This floor is beautiful.”
I looked at the orange footprints.
“It was.”
She smiled uncertainly.
Her husband crouched near the built-in shelves.
“Original?”
“No.”
“I added those.”
He ran a hand along the edge.
“Nice work.”
I almost told him I had measured wrong twice and spent an entire Sunday correcting a half-inch gap.
Instead, I said, “Thanks.”
Jenna watched the buyers walk toward the bedrooms.
Her face tightened.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed paper towels.
Then she crouched beside the soda stain.
I stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She pressed the towels into the sticky liquid.
One of the twins wandered in carrying a plastic dinosaur and watched her.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Are we not coming back?”
She stopped wiping.
I looked away.
That answer belonged to her.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“But my goggles are here.”
“We’ll pack them.”
“I like this house.”
She sat back on her heels.
“I know.”
“Eli said his dad is selling it.”
She glanced at me, then back at her son.
“He might.”
“Why?”
Jenna looked down at the orange stain.
“Because sometimes adults make things harder than they should.”
The boy considered this.
“Did I make it harder?”
Her eyes filled again.
“No.”
“You said we could have the room.”
“I did.”
“Was that bad?”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
He looked toward the hallway where Eli had disappeared.
“Do I have to say sorry?”
Jenna wiped her hands on a paper towel.
“No.”
I looked at her.
She saw me.
Then she closed her eyes briefly.
“Yes,” she corrected.
“You do.”
The boy frowned.
“Because of the boat?”
“The boat too.”
“What else?”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“For acting like something belonged to you when it didn’t.”
He kicked at the edge of the rug.
“You did that.”
Jenna’s face went still.
“Yes.”
The boy nodded as though that settled the matter.
Then he walked toward the hall.
Jenna remained on the floor.
I crouched a few feet away and pulled another wad of paper towels from the roll.
She looked at me.
“Don’t.”
“I’m cleaning my floor.”
“That was almost funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
We worked without speaking.
The stain had already seeped between two boards.
Jenna scrubbed at it with more force than necessary.
After a while she said, “I hated you for buying this place.”
I kept wiping.
“I figured.”
“No, you didn’t.”
I looked at her.
She stared at the floor.
“When Mom sent me the pictures, I sat in my car outside Target and cried.”
“Why?”
“Because you had just gotten divorced.”
“That seems like an odd reason to envy somebody.”
“It wasn’t the divorce.”
She folded the dirty paper towel into smaller and smaller squares.
“You lost something and still looked like you were moving forward.”
I said nothing.
“I had the husband, the boys, the house, the job.”
Her mouth twisted.
“And I felt like I was drowning all the time.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
She gave me a tired look.
“You fixed everything.”
“I clearly don’t.”
“You acted like you did.”
That was harder to argue with.
The buyers came back through the living room.
The woman in white linen smiled at me.
“Your children must love it here.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Eli was standing there with his repaired-in-his-mind sailboat pieces tucked beneath one arm.
“Yes,” I said.
“They do.”
The woman nodded and followed Caroline outside.
Jenna watched me.
“Still selling?”
I did not answer.
Caroline returned after walking the buyers to their car.
“They’re interested.”
Of course they were.
The cottage was a three-bedroom near the water in Malibu.
Interest was not difficult.
She closed the front door behind her.
“They asked if you’d consider a preemptive offer before the listing goes live.”
My father looked at me.
Mark stopped packing.
Even Jenna lifted her head.
Caroline opened her folder.
“They’re prepared to come in at one point two million, all cash, ten-day close.”
Caroline let the number sit in the room without touching it again.
My father whistled under his breath.
Mark looked toward me.
Jenna did not.
She kept staring at the damp paper towels in her hands.
“One point two?” my mother asked.
Caroline nodded.
“Subject to their attorney reviewing the standard disclosures, but they’re serious.”
I had bought the cottage for nine hundred forty thousand dollars.
After commissions, taxes, and what I still owed, the number would not make me rich.
It would, however, erase several things I had stopped admitting were heavy.
The mortgage.
The maintenance.
The monthly argument with myself every time a plumbing bill arrived.
Caroline turned a page in her folder.
“They also said they’ll cover the inspection cost if you accept before we go live.”
My father looked at me.
“That’s a very strong offer.”
I almost smiled.
He had spent the previous hour defending the cottage as a sacred family institution.
Now he sounded like CNBC.
“I know.”
Jenna finally stood.
She threw the paper towels into the trash.
“Take it.”
Every face turned toward her.
She shrugged.
“What?”
My mother looked almost offended.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Five minutes earlier, Jenna had been fighting to keep the place.
Now she could barely look at it.
Mark watched her closely.
“You’re sure?”
She gave him a sharp look.
“It’s not my decision.”
It was the first true thing she had said about the cottage all day.
Caroline glanced at me.
“I don’t need an answer this second.”
“How long do I have?”
“They’ll wait until tomorrow morning.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
My father frowned.
“What is there to think about?”
I looked at him.
“A lot.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
Eli came into the room carrying the cardboard box that held the broken sailboat.
The mast stuck out at an angle.
He stopped when he saw Caroline.
“Are they buying it?”
May you like
“Maybe,” I said.
His face tightened.
