The Hideaway

“He is. Although he wasn’t a friend.”

“Well, I wondered.” She sat in the chair William had just vacated. “I didn’t take you for a woman with gentleman callers as old as Bert.”

“Aren’t you and Bert the same age?”

She waved the thought away. “Don’t tell him that. So who was the visitor?”

“It was William.”

Her rocking chair creaked to a stop. “William?”

I nodded. “He saw the obituary in the paper. Remember me telling you I saw a man at the cemetery after everyone else left? That was him.”

“The thought crossed my mind, but it seemed unlikely. It’s been so many years.”

We rocked in our chairs, each lost in our own thoughts. Around us, crickets practiced for their evening serenade, stretching their legs and testing instruments.

“What was he like?” she asked.

“Amazingly, still lovestruck. He’s been married twice, but he’s still in love with her—or at least, who she used to be. It was sad to hear him talk that way about her, especially since she’s not here to see him again. Do you think she still loved him at the end?”

She shrugged. “On the one hand, Mags was a smart woman—I’d like to think she wouldn’t have let her heart stay tied to a man she met in her early twenties, but the head and the heart rarely agree. A woman never fully forgets her first love. And I’d imagine that’s especially true if she never finds love again—not to mention if she carried his child. I know she loved him, but I always had a hard time swallowing the fact that he left and never came back.”

I told her about William overhearing Mags’s conversation with her father and how he planned to come back with the means to compete against Robert’s wealth and status.

“Then why didn’t he? Mags would have gone back to him in a heartbeat—especially after Robert died.”

“That’s the thing—he did come back, but he saw Mags and Robert in the backyard with a little girl—Mom—and he assumed it was Robert’s and her child. He didn’t want to disrupt their life or hurt the child.”

“My goodness.”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it? It would have been so easy for them to be together again, but neither of them knew.” I sighed. “I wish Mags hadn’t held on to her secrets for so long. I wish I had known all of this.” I cradled my chin in my hand. “I wish I had known her.”

33

SARA

JULY

At the house, the construction team took out the wall dividing the kitchen and dining room and the one between the foyer and the main parlor. Even with everything covered in dust and plastic tarps, I could tell the decision to remove the walls was a good one. Despite the noise and dust, it was easier to breathe in the house with the rooms opened up.

The new bathrooms upstairs were framed out, and the old ones were updated to include spa baths and separate showers. Major was the biggest fan of the new bathrooms.

“Have you seen those bathtubs?” he asked Bert one morning over cowboy coffee on the back porch when the electricity had been temporarily turned off. “They’re huge. I’m not too keen on men soaking in tubs, but these may change my mind.”

Downstairs, the kitchen floors went from yellowed tile to hardwood and the counters from ugly linoleum to butcher block. I walked in the kitchen one day to find Bert leaning over the new counter, his ear an inch from the wood and his eyes closed. Major stood in the corner of the kitchen, just out of Bert’s line of sight, doubled over in quiet laughter. I gave Major a stern look and walked over to Bert.

“Bert?” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

He straightened up and smoothed his hand across the surface. “I’m just fine. And Major, I see you over there laughing. I read that some butcher block comes from ancient trees, and if you listen hard enough, you can hear the sound of wind in the branches.”

Major couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Ancient trees? Wind in the branches? Did you forget to take your pills this morning?” He laughed and grabbed a dish towel off the counter to wipe his eyes under his glasses.

“I’m not crazy,” Bert said. “You know how you can hear the ocean in a seashell? It’s the same thing.”

“I do know about the seashells,” I said, hiding my own laughter. “And you may be right about some butcher-block wood, but I ordered these from Ikea, so I don’t think they’re ancient. More like Swedish.”

“Sweden? I bet they have ancient trees there.”

I chose creamy white paint for the cabinets and a soothing pale gray for the walls throughout the rest of the house. It would make the spaces feel even larger and pop against the new white crown moldings. Everything was coming together just as I’d imagined. My favorite change was in the center hallway, which had previously been lined with built-in bookshelves, making it seem slimmer than it was. I asked Crawford to rip them out, and what a change it made. The hallway was now ten feet across, and when I opened the front and back porch doors, the breeze floated through the house like a cool whisper.

I ended each day a hot, sweaty mess, but I was satisfied. Exhausted and bleary, but satisfied. It was early evening on such a day when a car pulled up in the driveway. I smiled. Crawford was coming over for dinner, and he must have decided to come early. The last of the workers would be out of the house soon, and he’d said we needed to celebrate my victory.

“Victory?” I said when he asked me about dinner.

“The house is incredible. I may have coordinated the actual work, but it’s all your plans. You made this house what it’s becoming. Your phone is going to be ringing off the hook with people wanting to book their vacations when it’s finished.”

“What vacations?” I asked. “No one even knows about this place anymore, other than the neighbors who probably don’t care.”

“You know how word spreads. Once it gets out that there’s a fancy new bed-and-breakfast in Sweet Bay, they’ll start coming. You haven’t said it, but I think this is what you want. Otherwise, why go through with the renovations?”

Is that what I want?

“It’s settled,” he continued. “I’m bringing dinner and wine, and you don’t need to do a thing. I’ll be there by seven.”

“Okay then. As long as you don’t mind hanging out with a girl who’s spent all day cleaning the bathroom floors.”

“There’s no one I’d rather spend my evening with. As long as you keep your hands to yourself.”

I laughed. “Thanks.”

“On second thought, forget I said that. I’ll just need to check them for germs first.”

I was still smiling when I heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway. I welcomed the pleasant clench in my chest as I thought about Crawford—his warm eyes, his slow grin, his rumpled clothes and hair. How was it possible that in this small space of time in Sweet Bay, my life had changed so remarkably?

Every time my mind crept back to New Orleans, I forced myself to focus on what was in front of me rather than what waited for me in my real life. It was a trick I’d learned since I’d been back at The Hideaway—pretend to be the spontaneous, go-with-the-flow person I wished I was and I could almost forget that I was going against the grain of my cautious, orderly life.