Almost Home

by Mariah Stewart

  “They triple-wrapped the sandwiches in heavy foil, so they should stay nice and warm. I’ll just visit with a few old friends I saw outside. I’ll be back when the crush is over.”

  “Great. Thanks, Mom.” Stef turned her smile on the next person in the queue.

  It was after two when Stef pulled up the chair next to her mother’s at the corner table in the shop.

  “Sorry, Mom. It’s Historical Society day.”

  “I know. I saw Eliza Sherman and Peg Wordsworth outside a while ago, and I ran into Grace Sinclair when I first got here. Amazing that Grace is still running that paper.” Shirley opened the bag and handed her daughter a foil packet. “I thought the St. Dennis Gazette was almost ready to fold when your father and I moved to Havre de Grace four years ago. Remarkable that she’s been able to hold on all this time.”

  “It’s the advertising that’s keeping her going. All the town merchants advertise in the Gazette every week so the tourists and the weekenders know what shops are in town and what’s on sale where.” Stef unwrapped her sandwich. “Yum. The roll is still warm.”

  “Mine, too.” Shirley smoothed out the foil wrapping.

  “I’m so hungry today I could eat five of these.” Stef took a bite of her sandwich. “Yum. Just … yum.” She took another bite, then stood. “Would you like something to drink? I have bottled water and tap water, root-beer floats …”

  Shirley held up a hand to stop Stef from running through the entire menu of drinks.

  “Bottled water would be perfect.”

  Stef went to the cooler and grabbed two bottles and a couple of straws.

  “So what’s going on? What brought you to St. Dennis today?” She sat back down at the table.

  “I had to meet with Cousin Horace’s attorney,” her mother told her. “About his will.”

  “Oh.” Stef frowned. “I miss the old guy. Well, not like he’s been the past few years, but before. Gosh, he was a fun guy. I owe this”—she gestured around the room—“to him. He taught me how to make ice cream when I was, like, twelve or thirteen. Remember that old ice-cream maker he used to have? The one with the handle that you had to turn?” She took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I wonder whatever happened to that.”

  “I imagine it’s still somewhere in his house.” Shirley put her sandwich down. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Shirley reached into her pocket, pulled out a brass key, and handed it to Stef.

  “I met with Jesse Enright this morning. Remember him? Mike and Patti’s nephew who used to visit sometimes in the summer?”

  “Sort of.” Actually, Stef couldn’t place the face though the name was vaguely familiar.

  “Mike took over the law practice when his father—who would have been Berry’s age—passed away. Since Mike and Patti have no children, everyone was delighted when Jesse agreed to join the firm,” Shirley said. “They’ve represented my mother’s family forever. Mike contacted me some time ago to come in to discuss the terms of Horace’s will, since he’d made me executor, but since Mike and Patti are on a cruise this month, I met with Jesse.” Shirley stopped and tapped her daughter on the arm. “You must remember him, Steffie. He’s tall and very good-looking. He used to be really shy, but I think he might have outgrown that.”

  Stef shrugged. “He’s not really ringing any bells, Mom.”

  “Well, anyway—to make a long story short: Horace left the house on Olive Street to you.”

  “Huh?” Stef’s jaw dropped and hung open.

  Shirley nodded. “It’s all yours. Lock, stock, and cobwebs.”

  “But … but …” Steffie stared at the key that rested in the palm of her hand. “Why me?”

  “Partly because he liked the fact that you were named after him. Stephen was his middle name, I’m sure you’ll recall, since you used to call him H. Stephen, which always amused him.” Shirley reached over and pushed a strand of loose hair behind Stef’s ear. “And partly because of the ice-cream machine, I suppose. You were the only one of the kids who ever went over on your own to visit with him—at least, the only one who hadn’t had to be dragged by the ear to go. No children of his own, no wife … I expect he was a lonely fellow. He often mentioned that he appreciated the time you spent with him because he knew you were there because you wanted to be.”

  “Are you kidding? I loved going there. I always felt like he was doing me a favor by spending time with me,” Stef said. “He was such a cool guy. He had all these fun things in the house and he let me play with anything I wanted. He never treated me like a little kid. He was more fun than any other grown-up I ever met.”

  “Well, there was more than a touch of the kid in Horace, we all knew that. And I suspect there will be lots more fun in store for you, since I doubt the house has changed much since you were a child. We closed it up when he went into the assisted living home, and I don’t think anyone’s been inside since. I always made sure there was someone to keep the grass cut and to shovel the walks if it snowed, but other than that, I haven’t been inside since your dad and I moved, except to help Horace distribute some of the furnishings. Most of it went to Nita’s antiques shop. I imagine she’s sold almost all of it by now.”

  “Holy crap, he left me a house.” Staring at the key once again, Stef shook her head. “I can’t believe it.” She looked up at her mother. “Are you sure you don’t mind? Would you rather he’d left it to you?”

  Shirley laughed. “What would I do with it? I already have one house here in town that I don’t know what to do with. Why would I want another?”

  “Well, he really was your cousin, not mine.”

  “No, he was my mother’s cousin, remember? He and Gramma were first cousins.”

  Stef nodded. “I do remember that. But what about everyone else? Your cousin Kathleen, and your sister Betts and their kids. Are they going to be annoyed that I got the house?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about what anyone else thinks.” Shirley dismissed Stef’s concern. “For one thing, none of them ever bothered to send so much as a birthday or a Christmas card to Horace. Certainly no one other than you, Grant, and I visited him after he went into the home. Besides, he left everyone else cash.”

  “Including Grant? And Evie?” Stef hoped that her good fortune wasn’t at the expense of her siblings.

  “Both were well taken care of,” Shirley assured her. “That was one of the reasons I stopped by the clinic. The copies of the will had to be distributed; which reminds me. I have your copy here in my bag.” She leaned over and began to rummage in a tall green leather tote.

  “I have a house. And not just any house. The house on Olive Street is mine.” Stef held up the key. “Is it mine now, officially?”

  “There are some papers to be signed, which you can do over at Enright’s office as soon as you get a chance.” Shirley handed Stef a brown envelope that was addressed to her. “But Jesse said you can go on in and move in or sell it or—”

  “Sell it?” Stef’s eyes widened with horror. “Sell the house on Olive Street?”

  “I told him that was most unlikely,” Shirley assured her.

  “I’ve been saving money since I opened this shop so that someday I could buy a house.” Stef clutched the envelope containing the will to her chest. “I never thought I’d be able to afford one in that neighborhood, though. I never dreamed that someday I’d be living on Olive Street.”

  “I imagine the neighbors will be delighted to see you move in. The house has been vacant, and no one likes to have an empty house on their street.”

  “When can I move?”

  “Whenever you want, though I think you’re going to want to take advantage of the fact that the house is empty to do some updates. Nothing’s been touched in many years, Stef. I’m sure the wiring and the plumbing and God knows what else needs to be brought into the twenty-first century.”

  “Let’s go look at it.” Stef’s eyes were shining. “Can we go look at it now?
”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  They finished their lunches, and after assurance from Tina that she and Claire could handle the after-school crowd for a while if Stef wasn’t back by the time the kids started pouring down Kelly’s Point Road, Stef and her mother took off for Olive Street.

  Four streets formed the second oldest section of St. Dennis: Parish House Road, St. James Street, Cannonball Road, and Olive Street. All the houses on these four streets had been built in time to see the British shell the town in 1814, during the War of 1812. Many of the houses were brick, but a good number were clapboard. Steffie had always thought that Olive Street was the prettiest street in town, because it had a nice mixture of both.

  Stef stopped in front of the red-brick house that had the numeral “32” in black letters on one of the porch columns. Rhododendrons rose two stories high on either side of the porch, edging out what might have been hydrangeas and possibly a rosebush or two. Dead stalks of hosta lilies poked out from beneath a network of ivy, and ferns grew uncontrolled along the driveway. A white fence was missing some of its pickets and most of its paint.

  “It is a bit overgrown,” Shirley noted as they got out of the car. “Nothing that can’t be cleared away.”

  “I think it’s beautiful.” Steffie stood at the front gate, her eyes glistening. “I think it’s the most beautiful house in town.”

  “Let’s go see what’s going on inside, shall we?” Shirley reached around Stef and pushed the reluctant gate aside. “You have the key, sugar?”

  “Right here.” Stef paused on the front steps and studied the porch columns where the paint had weathered and peeled. “I guess it could use a little paint.”

  “Hmm, yes. A little.”

  “But paint is pretty cheap, right?” Stef said as she fitted the key into the lock and pushed open the wide oak door.

  “Relatively speaking, yes.” Shirley stepped into the foyer behind Stef.

  “Oh.” Steffie stood inside the door and gazed starry-eyed at her inheritance. “I’d forgotten how big the entry was, and how cool the steps were, the way they wind up to the second floor. And that chandelier … how beautiful that is.”

  “I imagine it could be cleaned up.” Shirley assessed the finish on the overhead light fixture. “It looks a bit tarnished.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t take much to pull that old peeling paper the rest of the way down the wall, right?”

  “It looks like it will come right off with a good tug.” To demonstrate, Shirley pulled on a strip that was hanging from the wall. It kicked up a bit of dust on its way down the wall, but it did in fact peel off with very little effort on her part.

  “That’ll be an easy job,” Steffie assured her mother—and herself—as she followed the hall to the back of the house. “Oh. Looks like the kitchen could use a bit of paint, too.”

  Her mother stepped in behind her. “I think paint is the least of what this kitchen needs.”

  Stef quietly surveyed the room. “It’s a big space, and the cabinets are fine. I like those big old doors. I’m just going to paint everything white.” She nodded as she studied the space. “Maybe I’ll put in an island. And maybe replace those counters with something really good, like granite, because I work at home a lot.”

  “The linoleum is older than I am,” Shirley noted.

  “I wonder what’s underneath it.” Stef went to the threshold and tried to peel up a bit of the flooring, but it cracked and pieces came off in her hand. “I’m betting it’s wood. We just need to rip it up.”

  “Maybe you should wait until you know for certain what’s under there,” her mother cautioned.

  “Too late.” Steffie pulled a jagged strip of flooring off. “And it looks like pine. Super. I just need to peel this all off and refinish the floor and it’ll be like new.”

  “Will that be before or after you paint all the cabinets, install the island, and replace the counters?” Shirley leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her palm.

  “I guess I should slow down for minute.” Stef felt an urge to pinch herself. “But, oh, Mom, it’s just the way I remember it. The old stove—I’ll bet that’s still a good working stove, Mom—and the old refrigerator, though I will need to replace that for one with a bigger freezer.” She reconsidered. “I could make more ice cream at home if I had a really big freezer.”

  “Horace cooked many a pot of soup on that old stove,” Shirley remarked.

  “He never married, did he?”

  Shirley shook her head. “He always said there was only one girl he’d share his house with, but she’d never cross the threshold. Not sure what that meant, but that’s what he used to say. I don’t remember him ever bringing a lady friend to dinner, even for holidays, so who knows.”

  Stef unlocked the back door and went through an unheated space to a second door that opened onto the back porch.

  “Horace called this the shed.” Shirley trailed behind Stef. “He used to store stuff out here in the winter. Potatoes, onions, things like that.”

  “Who did you say you hired to cut the grass?” Stef stood on the top step, her hands on her hips.

  “One of the Anderson boys. Why?”

  “It looks like that’s all he did.” Stef moved down to the next lower step when her mother came out the door.

  “That’s all I paid him to do.” Shirley followed Stef’s gaze around the yard. “Oh, you’re looking at all the overgrowth? It does appear that things have gotten a bit out of hand, doesn’t it?”

  “Nothing that a good pair of shears can’t handle. I’ve never pruned before, but I’m sure I can learn.”

  “If you get stuck, I’ll give you a hand.”

  “I might take you up on that.” Stef motioned for her mother to go back inside. “Let’s check out the rest of the house.”

  They poked their heads into the butler’s pantry, then went up the back stairs, past more peeling wallpaper and no small amount of crumbling plaster, to the second floor.

  “The wallpaper is definitely early last century,” Steffie observed after she’d gone through each of the corner bedrooms. “And the bathrooms are right out of Psycho.”

  She turned a faucet in one of the bathroom sinks. Dark water trickled out.

  “I think you’ll want to let that run for a time,” her mother said calmly. “Clean out the pipes, and all that.”

  Steffie nodded.

  “I suppose I should make a list of everything that needs to be done, then decide which are the priorities.”

  “Good idea.” Shirley started down the front stairwell. At the landing, where the steps turned, she looked back over her shoulder. “You might want to have someone go through the place and tell you what should be done first and how much it’s all going to cost.”

  “Cameron O’Connor is a contractor. I can give him a call.”

  “Good idea.” Shirley turned and went down the steps to the first floor, Stef behind her. “Cam did some work on our house about six years ago and he did a terrific job. He wasn’t inexpensive, though.”

  “So the money I saved to buy a place will go for the repairs on this one.”

  “I’ll bet you spend every penny of it.” Shirley looked as if she was mentally tallying up the cost of the renovations.

  “I remember that the dining room was so pretty,” Stef said, her flip-flops flapping on the wooden floor from the foyer to the dining room. “Oh, and it still is.”

  “It looked different with the furniture in it, didn’t it?” Her mother stood in the doorway.

  “But it’s still a pretty room.” Stef ducked to avoid the crystals that dangled from the chandelier. “It has lovely leaded glass windows and the fireplace and all that nice wainscoting …” She stared at the walls. “Mom, that paper has to go.”

  Shirley laughed. “With any luck, it’ll come off as easily as the paper in the front hall.”

  “I can deal with that,” Steffie murmured.

>   “I’m sure you can, sweets, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can do everything at once. Go step-by-step, and by the time you’re ready to move in—”

  “I’m ready to move in now. As soon as I get back to the shop, I’m going to call Cam and see when he can meet me here. I know exactly what I want to do, and I want to get started as soon as possible. I can’t wait to move in.”

  “You should call Jesse first, get all the papers signed. His card is in the envelope I gave you.”

  “I left that back at the shop.” Stef glanced at her watch. “I need to get back there anyway. I don’t feel right leaving Tina and Claire to deal with all those rowdy schoolkids on their own. Claire’s only supposed to be working part-time this week.”

  She took one long look into the living room, and remembered there was a room off to the right that had glass windows on three sides—Horace had called it the “conservatory”—and a small library that they hadn’t looked at. Well, she knew what the rooms looked like, and besides, she’d be back soon enough.

  She turned the key to lock the door and took her mother’s arm as they strolled back to the car. She looked over her shoulder as she went through the gate, and smiled.

  Good-bye, my house, my very own wonderful, beautiful house. I’ll be back soon.

  EARLY the following morning, a tap on Scoop’s door sent Steffie’s pulse racing.

  “What is it with him and his early-morning visits?” she muttered. Clearly expecting Wade, she fixed her most bored and disinterested expression before venturing from the back room to the front of the shop.

  She couldn’t decide whether she was happy or disappointed to find her brother at the door.

  “Oh, hi.” She unlocked it and let him in.

  “Great to see you, too.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek.

  “Sorry.” She gave him a quick hug and closed the door behind him.

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “Not really.” She shrugged. “Come on in the back room. I was just finishing up today’s batch of lemon meringue.”