Legacy Rejected

by Robin Patchen

He took a tiny step toward her, and for a moment, she thought he might kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her. But they hadn’t even had the first date yet. And hadn’t she just told herself not to get her hopes up? Still, she couldn’t help it when her glance flicked to his lips.

  He smiled, and she popped her gaze back to his eyes, which were crinkling at the corners. “It was a pleasure. I’ll call you in the morning about lunch.”

  Ginny finished the second coat of paint in the room that would eventually be her office. It was technically a parlor, but she had no use for such a space. With its position right inside the front door, this was a perfect place to work. She could look through the wide window at the street outside and watch the birds in the tree.

  The walls were soft gray. As soon as the paint dried, she’d bring in the dark, weathered desk she’d found at an antique shop and hang the shelves she’d stained to match. Then, she’d decorate the space and make it hers. She couldn’t wait.

  And she wasn’t going to think about anything else.

  She’d done enough thinking the night before. She’d fallen asleep quickly, then awakened around three, Kathryn’s words pinging in her brain, the image of her and her family leaving forever burned against her closed eyelids.

  When she’d finally given up on sleep, she’d chosen one of her favorite playlists—a lot of Rush, U2, and Queen—and painted. She sang along at the top of her lungs to keep herself from thinking too much.

  After she finished closing the paint cans, she silenced the song—Rush’s “Limelight”—and glanced at the time.

  Good grief, it was after eleven. Kade had called earlier and said he’d pick her up at noon. She’d been working so hard on not thinking, she’d lost track of time.

  She rushed upstairs to the bathroom for a shower, reminding herself to scrub hard to remove the paint that had splattered on her hands and arms.

  Forty-five minutes later, as she was slipping on her shoes, her doorbell rang, though bell was a strong term. It sounded like a combination of a needle being scraped across a vinyl record and the fuzz of a TV’s bad reception. One more thing in her house that needed to be fixed.

  She called, “Be right there,” and hurried to put on her jewelry and add a bit of lipstick. After a quick appraisal in the mirror—she looked fine, thanks to the makeup that hid the dark circles—she ran down the hardwood staircase and swung the door open.

  Kade stood on her doorstep looking better than he had the night before. How was that even possible?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I got distracted. Did you hear my shout?”

  “I did. And that lovely doorbell.”

  “One more thing I need to replace. Let me just grab my purse.”

  “Mind if I come in? I’d love to see it.”

  “Sure.” She stepped back, and he entered her home. As he did, the paint fumes reached her consciousness. Not exactly welcoming. But despite the smell, this place filled her with a sense of pride. That she could own a place like this at her age, especially considering where she’d come from, was nothing short of miraculous. But right now, she saw all the problems. The scuffed wood floors that would be refinished last. The missing balusters in the staircase, and the newel that needed to be repaired. The downstairs was nearly finished being repainted, but she’d only made it halfway up the staircase wall, and the line between fresh gray and old and dingy was obvious. “It needs a lot of work.” She turned to see him looking into the office.

  He stepped onto the plastic she’d laid to protect the floor. “Pretty.” He sniffed. “Smells fresh.”

  “I hope the fumes don’t bother you.”

  He smiled at her. “In our line of work, fresh paint smells like progress.”

  She liked his take on it. “This’ll be my office as soon as the paint dries and I get the furniture in here.”

  He nodded, taking it all in. “These parlors aren’t very useful anymore, so that’s a great use of the space. You could even replace that window with a bay.”

  “I would love to do that. I don’t know if it’ll be in the budget, though.”

  “If you plan to sell it, you’ll get it back.”

  “Yeah.” But she didn’t plan to sell it. She had when she’d bought it, but now she couldn’t imagine parting with her home. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the downstairs.” She led him into the living room. This had been the first room she’d tackled, and it was her favorite in the house so far. The walls here were the same soft gray as those in the rest of the downstairs. She’d added a dark gray sofa with creamy white throw pillows that matched the two chairs that sat side-by-side opposite it. In the middle was a round coffee table. She’d already put pictures on the walls—artwork, not family photos. She didn’t have many of those. And she’d added pretty lamps throughout the room.

  “You’re good at decorating.”

  Her cheeks warmed with pleasure. “Thanks.”

  “What else have you done?”

  “Well, the kitchen’s sort of a mess.” She led him through the tiny dining room, which held her laptop and a pile of files, and into the old kitchen. “All I’ve done in here is paint and clean. I want to tear down that wall”—she pointed to the barrier between the kitchen and the dining room—“and open it up to make it one big room.”

  He surveyed the space, then glanced back into the dining room. He spoke from the doorway. “Good idea. You could even take down this wall.” He knocked on the one that separated the dining room from the living room.

  “I’ve thought of that. That would change the whole look of the room. But the cost...”

  “All that work isn’t cheap.” He turned his attention to the kitchen. “So, what’s the plan in here?”

  She gave him a quick rundown of what she hoped to do—granite countertops, new tile on the floor, pretty backsplash. She yanked open the pantry door—it had a tendency to stick. The space was small and inefficient, the old shelves too narrow to hold much of anything. Right now, she had boxes piled on the floor.

  “I plan to replace those old shelves with winder ones, maybe add a big spice rack, since it’s so close to the oven.”

  “That’ll add value.” He looked around, then stepped back. “And upstairs?”

  She closed the pantry door, then gave it another push with her hip to make sure it latched. One more thing on her to-do list. “Except paint the woodwork, which I’ve done throughout the house, and paint my bedroom, I’ve done very little up there.”

  “You’ll get there. I have no doubt.”

  She was starting to doubt she would, not because she lacked the resolve or the resources, but because she didn’t know if she should stay. Kathryn’s words came back. Was Ginny a fool for not leaving like Kathryn had suggested?

  “Are you ready?”

  She shook off the worry and snatched her purse from the kitchen counter. “Ready.”

  It was lovely outside, sunny and in the fifties. She’d not moved to New Hampshire until early summer the previous year, so she hadn’t experienced a spring yet. It was a magical time of year. After the long cold winter, the rebirth made her heart swell.

  She climbed into Kade’s Mercedes. On the outside, it looked brand new, but inside were signs of age. When he sat beside her, she said, “I like your wheels.”

  “It’s a decade old now. My parents gave it to me when I graduated from college.”

  He’d gotten a Mercedes? Her parents hadn’t even come to her college graduation. “It’s nice.”

  “I like it. It’s expensive to repair, though.” He headed toward downtown. “Next time, I think I’ll go with something a little more practical.” They reached Crystal Avenue, and he turned to face her. “Do you mind a little drive, or are you in a hurry?”

  “I have nothing scheduled today.”

  “Good.” He turned toward the highway. “You like seafood?”

  “Love it.”

  The drive took less than twenty minutes. The coast was beautiful. She watched the surf splash
against the rugged rocks, then turned her focus to the giant homes overlooking the sea on their left. They boasted old trees and gardens to match the majestic structures. Unlike most beach houses, which were usually packed so closely together a person could jump from one roof to the next, these homes were spaced a good fifty, sometimes a hundred, feet apart. “What are those places worth?”

  Kade glanced at the one they were passing. “Depends. The ones in good shape? One to three million.”

  That was all? She couldn’t imagine what they’d cost in California, or even south of here in Massachusetts or Connecticut. “Ever been in one?”

  “There was one in Rye a while back that I walked through. Great house, and the views were amazing.”

  “You have any desire to live closer to the ocean?”

  He shot a quick smile her way. “I love Nutfield. I’m happy to visit the coast, but I don’t want to live here. In the summer, this traffic is bumper-to-bumper.”

  “I remember.”

  “Did you spend a lot of time here last summer?”

  The road led them inland. She wasn’t sorry to watch the ocean disappear from view. “A few times with my nephews and nieces when Kathryn and Matthew needed a babysitter.” At least the kids loved her. But a decade from now when they hadn’t seen her or, presumably, heard her name in years, would they even remember her?

  She needed to keep her thoughts far from Kathryn and her family today. “So, where are we going?”

  “We’re almost there.” A moment later, he pulled into the parking lot beside a two-story building about the size of a three-bedroom house with weathered gray clapboard siding. The sign read Petey’s.

  She studied the colorful… she wasn’t sure what they were. They must have been related to fishing or boating. They hung from the siding and the railing of the porch and gave the building a festive, almost whimsical feeling. “What are those?”

  “Lobster buoys. They mark the locations of the traps.”

  “They set the mood, then. Good food?”

  “The best.” He found a spot in the crowded lot and opened his door. She reached for her handle, but he stopped her with a gentle squeeze to her wrist. “I’ll come around.”

  She’d never had a guy open her door before. She hadn’t done much dating, but she didn’t think most men still did that sort of thing.

  Her door opened, and he held out a hand. She took it, surprised by the rush of warmth, and stepped out of the car.

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” He let go of her hand when she was standing by his side, and she was sorry for the loss.

  Inside, they were seated in a wooden booth with green leather-like seat covers and backs. The walls were plastered with fake lobsters and wooden oars and photos of boats. Hanging from the ceiling were lobster traps and more buoys. A kayak had been propped against the far wall. It wasn’t a fancy place, but, based on the scents of fried food and fresh fish wafting from the kitchen and the fact that Ginny and Kade had been given the only open table in the room, she guessed the meals would be yummy.

  They ordered their drinks—Coke for him, water for her. Amid the chatting and laughter of other customers, they studied the paper placemats that doubled as menus. The selections were just what she’d expect at a down-home seafood place.

  “What’s good here?” she asked.

  “They make the best clam chowder in all the world, but everything’s good. Should we do lobster?”

  She considered that but got a glimpse of the table beside them, where a plate was piled inches high with fried goodness. “Don’t judge me, but that looks delicious.”

  He followed her gaze and smiled. “A woman after my own heart.”

  After their drinks arrived and he placed their orders, he sat back and gazed at her. “Did you eat a lot of seafood in California?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, but it was salmon and mahi-mahi and ahi tuna. Good stuff, just different.”

  “We do seafood right.” He sipped his Coke. “But that West Coast lifestyle must seem normal to you, being from that part of the country.” Before she could answer, he said, “Wait, though. You said you’d lived a lot of places. Where else?”

  “I was born in Louisiana. We lived there until Katrina.”

  “Were you in the path?”

  She could still smell the stench of the filthy water that covered the city. “Unfortunately.”

  “Where did you evacuate to?”

  “We didn’t until after. My parents decided to wait it out.”

  His eyebrows rose, and he sat back. “Where were you?”

  “New Orleans. It didn’t work out, as you can imagine.”

  He was nodding slowly, no doubt remembering all the images he’d seen on TV. She remembered the images, too. And the smells, and the sounds, and the fear.

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.” Not that she hadn’t tried. “We lived in a little shack, and the downstairs completely filled with water.” As she said the words, the memories tried to force their way in, but she held them at bay. She’d lived through it once. She didn’t need to relive it now. “My sister and I hid in the attic until our parents got us out of there.”

  “That must have been terrifying.”

  He had no idea. That was a story from her past she didn’t tell. One of many.

  “We left then. Since we’d lost everything, literally, we started over in Houston. After a few years there…” Would this be too much information? What would he think about her parents’ lifestyle? And did it matter? It wasn’t as if she’d chosen it. “My parents were sort of nomads for a few years. After Houston, we moved to Dallas, then Oklahoma City. After that, we lived in Colorado for a while, Kansas, back to Texas.”

  Kade sat back. His eyebrows lifted high on his forehead as if he’d never heard anything so strange.

  “Then we moved to Indiana, but my parents hated the weather. We made our way west again. Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, a little town in Nevada not far from Reno. And then at the end of my sophomore year of high school, we moved to San Francisco.”

  “That’s… Wow. That must have been…” He seemed to grope for a word to describe it. Finally, he said, “But they settled in California.”

  “My sister was at Stanford, and I think they wanted to be near her. And now I’m here.”

  “All that moving must have been really hard.”

  The waitress delivered their meals—fried haddock, French fries, and coleslaw, plus a side of clam strips.

  Ginny tried a bite of the haddock and groaned with pleasure. The crispy, salty breading was the perfect match to the flaky fish. “This is delicious.”

  Kade ate some of his meal, too, but his gaze hardly drifted from her. She could see the questions in his eyes.

  She set her fork down. “I learned to make friends fast.” If only she’d also learned not to get attached. But she’d never been able to keep her heart from latching onto anybody who was kind to her. In every new town, her parents had promised that this move would be permanent. And, fool that she’d been, she’d believed them, over and over. So every move brought with it heartbreak.

  “Did you guys live in a motor home or something?”

  Her laugh was short and humorless, but she forced a smile to cover. “That would have been nice. At least there’d have been some semblance of home. We had a Chevy Astro, one of those full-size vans. Most moves, if it didn’t fit in the van, it didn’t come with us.”

  Like the first bicycle she’d ever owned. Her parents had given it to her for Christmas. It was one of the Christmases they’d purchased gifts of any value. Other years, there’d been little under the tree—if there’d been a tree—and what was there was secondhand or came from the dollar store. Ginny had loved that bike—brand new, bright blue. She’d imagined herself riding it for the rest of her life, imagined all the amazing places she’d be able to see from the seat. They’d been living in Colorado, and the bik
e trails had been amazing.

  The night they’d packed their belongings and left, her bike had been leaning against the little house they’d rented. It hadn’t fit in the van.

  Kade was watching her, lips closed. She didn’t like the pity she read in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “I’m just feeling maudlin today because of Kathryn. It was normal for us. We always had each other.”

  “Your family must have been really close.”

  She tamped down a scornful laugh. She’d shared enough truth for one day, so she just shrugged and ate a fry.

  “Were you homeschooled?” he asked. “With all that moving…”

  “Nope. Every move, we started in a new school. Kathryn was great about making sure I did my schoolwork. Some of the schools were better than others, so if we went somewhere and I was behind, she’d tutor me. When we went to lesser schools, she tried to fill in the missing parts of my education. When she’d get too bossy and serious, I’d call her Professor McGonagall.”

  She’d expected a smile at that, but his frown only deepened. “You and your sister were close.”

  “When we were kids, yeah. After she started at Stanford, she got her own life, made her own friends. Even though, for a year, we lived close to her, we hardly ever saw her. She’d call and make sure I was doing well in school, but after a while, it felt like… I don’t know, like she felt obligated to take care of me.”

  Kade’s head titled slightly to the side, his eyes filled with compassion.

  “Can you blame her, though?” she asked. “She has her own family to worry about now. She’d been taking care of me for years. When we were little, we were playmates, but after Katrina… Everything changed that night. I think she just wanted to leave all of us in the past. Leave all the memories.” Ginny forced a smile and chose a French fry. “I don’t really want to talk about Kathryn, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry if I—”

  “No, no. It’s not your fault. How can you know my personal minefields?”

  He took a bite of his haddock, and she did the same. Why had she told him all of that? She never talked about her past.