A Safe Place to Land

by Dee Ernst

  Now, I had to find another second act. And in a small town like Cape Edwards, the options were very limited.

  I left sooner than I wanted to. I didn’t want to go back to my house. Not because I loved it less, but because I now knew that it could be taken from me, the one thing I thought was all mine. But if I stayed, there would a beer, another beer, and another after that, then someone would suggest a shot…

  I had work the next morning and had to leave my house by five thirty. So I waved goodbye, drove home, and was asleep by ten.

  My phone was always turned off during work, and all my friends knew it, so any calls I got from them went to voicemail and they never minded. However, the call from Marie the next day came in while I was on break, and luckily I took it right away.

  “Jenna, I have an appraiser out at your place now but he’s afraid to get out of the car. He says he’s surrounded by a pack of dogs.”

  I sighed. When I was working, I opened up the larger pet door so that the dogs could get in and out of the house as needed. But…a pack?

  “Marie, Bit is the size of a squirrel and Chloe has no teeth.”

  “True, but I know that Finn can be pretty loud. What do you want to do?”

  I thought. “Tell him to wait. I’ll call Dave next door. Dave can round up my savage pack and protect that poor appraiser from attack.”

  When I called Dave, he didn’t believe me, then laughed hysterically, then said he’d run right over and put the dogs in the garden until the appraiser left. I went back to work and didn’t think about it again. In fact, I didn’t think about the appraisal until the following week, when, once again, Marie called. This time it went to voicemail, and when I listened, I almost had a heart attack.

  “Jenna, babe, I sent that appraisal last week to Craig Ferris, and I just called this morning to follow up. He’s not interested in selling, because as of noon today, he’s in Cape Edwards. He was actually sitting in Ellis’ office when he took my call, getting a key. He’s intending to move in there today. I don’t know what to do to stop him, Jenna. He was every legal right to half of that house. If you can get off work early, do it.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at it.

  “Jenna, you okay?” another nurse asked.

  I listened to the message again and immediately called Ellis.

  I didn’t even tell him who I was, but I’m guessing he knew right away. “Ellis, you miserable piece of crap, how dare you give that man the key to my house?” I’m not sure how loudly I was speaking, but I did notice that every single person in the break room turned to look at me.

  “Jenna,” Ellis said calmly. “We talked about this. Craig Ferris has every right to one half of the property. I could not, in good conscience, let him leave empty handed. He’d driven all the way from Chicago, and his children were with him.”

  I stood up slowly. “Children?”

  “Three girls,” Ellis said. “Very well behaved.”

  “You mean not only is a total stranger going to be living in my house, but now three screaming brats are coming too?” At this point, everyone in the break room had gotten comfortable. Someone may have actually had popcorn, or maybe not.

  “They seemed well behaved,” Ellis repeated, louder this time, as though it would make a difference. “Are you home now? They should be there fairly soon.”

  I looked around. I had never just left in the middle of a shift. This was the ER after all, and if I wasn’t there, someone would notice. “I’m at work. But I’ll try to leave as soon as I can.”

  “That’s fine, Jenna. But remember, he has a legal right to be in that house. Don’t, well…”

  “Shoot him?” I asked. “Don’t worry, Ellis, I’m going to save that for you.” I shut off my phone, sat back down, and tried to take some deep breaths.

  The jungle drums in a small hospital are the fastest means of communication ever. Before I could figure out what possible excuse I could give my supervisor, she was standing in front of me.

  “What happened?”

  I loved most of the people I worked with and considered many of them to be my friends, but they were work friends, and I didn’t share much of my personal life with them. But they all knew about Sam and knew he had died.

  I looked up. “Sam had a son, and in his will, he left everything to him, including his share of the house. The son is apparently on his way there now. To my house. With his kids.”

  It took her less than a second. “Go. We’ll find cover. I know you’re off tomorrow anyway, but if you need extra time for this, you’ve got it.”

  I fumed all the way out of the hospital parking lot. I fumed even harder midway over the bridge when I got another call from Ellis. I clicked on my Bluetooth.

  “Jenna, Craig says he’s afraid to get out of his car because of the dogs.”

  Good, I thought smugly. “Well, Ellis, I’m halfway over the bridge, so tell this Craig person I’m less than an hour away.”

  “Jenna, can’t you get someone to go out there sooner? He’s got three children with him.”

  “And they don’t like dogs? Gee, that’s going to be tough. How do they feel about cats, ‘cause I have one of those, too.”

  He sighed. “You’re not going to be gracious about this, are you?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “Jenna, it’s not Craig’s fault. This was all Sam’s doing.”

  I clicked off my Bluetooth. Ellis was right. This was all Sam’s fault. But Sam was dead, and I needed to be mad at someone, right?

  Right?

  There was a battered gray Suburban parked in front of my house. The windows were all open, and as I drove up, I could hear singing.

  I wasn’t much into kids’ movies, but even I knew the soundtrack from Frozen when I heard it.

  Finn and Bit were sitting diligently on the front stoop. Chloe was sitting directly in front of the Suburban. All three pricked their ears when they saw me coming around the curve, and by the time I’d parked, they were all on my side of the Jeep, jumping and barking. At least today they had something to bark about.

  I got out of the Jeep, scooped up Bit, and bent to give Chloe and Finn a few appreciative pats. Chloe may have been toothless, but she was big and had a deep, scary bark. Finn yapped, but looked pretty aggressive. I told them both to hush, then walked around the Jeep to confront Sam Ferris’ son, who though he could just waltz in and take over half of my house, some snotty kid from the big city…

  My only defense is that I’d never been good at math, plus, the shock of Sam’s death and his having a son I never knew about obviously had me not thinking quite straight. Ellis said that Sam had a relationship with Kelly Laslow when he was young. So he probably fathered his son when he was in his, what, early twenties? Maybe even his late teens. When he met me, he was forty.

  So that made Craig Ferris about my age. Almost the same age Sam had been when we first met. And Craig Ferris looked so much like his father I almost stopped breathing.

  He got out of the Suburban slowly. He was built like Sam, slope-shouldered but with a broad, muscular chest. His dark blond hair was already starting to thin on top, just like Sam’s had, and he had big brown eyes and a wide, lazy mouth. He held out his hand, and I shook it automatically, still staring at his face. Those were Sam’s cheekbones, all right, and the same jaw…good God, was that really a dimple in his chin deep enough to take a warm bubble bath in?

  “I’m Craig. Pleased to meet you, Jenna. This is awkward. I’m sorry.”

  I withdrew my hand and took a breath. “You look just like him,” I whispered.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Kinda weird, I guess.” He looked down at Chloe, sitting at my side, her upper lip curled and a low rumble in her throat. “Will your dogs eat any of my kids?” he asked.

  “What? No. She has no teeth. And Finn here will just grab the cuff of your jeans and tug until you play with him.”

  I looked past him into the Suburban. A young girl got out, tall and skinny, mayb
e twelve or thirteen. And out of the back poured two little girls, with identical faces, both wearing jeans and plain red t-shirts.

  “Are those your goats?” asked one.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” asked the other

  “Can we fish here?”

  “Do you have a pony?”

  “Do we have to go to school?”

  “Is there a bus?”

  “Can we get a boat?”

  “Girls?” Craig called out. “Manners.”

  One of the twins came up to me. “I’m Maddie. This is Larissa. You can tell us apart because I have a freckle on my nose and she doesn’t. Can I pet your dog? Please?”

  I held Bit out to her. The little girl leaned over close enough for their noses to touch. Bit started to wriggle with happiness, so I pushed her into Maddie’s arms. “That’s Bit. She likes you. But be careful, she’ll steal the food right off your plate.”

  The two girls were tiny, and had big brown eyes like their father, cute pug noses and pink rosebud lips, and long, blondish hair in matching pigtails. Seriously? They couldn’t have mean expressions and really bad teeth? They couldn’t be animal haters? They had to be adorable urchins?

  The older girl came around the Suburban and stuck out her hand. “Amanda. Hi.” Her face was thin and sad, her eyes small with dark smudges beneath.

  I shook her hand. “Jenna Ferris.”

  “Are you our grandma?” Larissa asked. She’d come up beside her sister, and Bit was frantically licking the side of her face.

  “No,” I said, rather too loudly. “I am nobody’s grandma.”

  “But,” she went on reasonably, “you were married to Grandpa Sam.”

  “True,” I said. “But I had nothing to do with your dad, here. In fact,” I said, looking straight into Craig’s big brown eyes, “I didn’t even know he existed.”

  Craig cleared his throat. “Do you think, maybe, we could go inside?”

  Plan A had been, if he asked that question, to say no. That was before he was tall and drop-dead gorgeous with twin cherubs and a teen with such sad eyes. I pushed my way past him and unlocked the front door.

  The dogs all rushed in from behind me, and Larissa and Maddie ran all the way from the front door to the big picture window overlooking the Bay. Craig let out a low whistle.

  “That’s some view,” he said.

  I nodded. “Yep. I get some amazing sunsets. Uh, listen, I really didn’t expect you to just show up here.”

  I looked up at him. He was obviously uncomfortable. “Yeah. Well, we left Chicago in sort of a hurry.”

  Larissa had wandered into the kitchen, Maddie right behind her. I tried to remember if I’d let any food on the counter or dishes in the sink…

  “Grandpa Rob was coming after us,” Amanda said, sinking into the couch and stretching her legs out, propping her feet on the coffee table.

  “Feet off the table,” Craig said immediately. She threw him a look of absolute disgust and dropped her feet to the floor.

  I put my feet up there all the time but knew this wasn’t the time to mention that. “Coming after you?”

  Craig ran his fingers through his hair, and then tugged at the ends. A Sam move. “It’s complicated. The thing is, we’re here because we have no place else to live, and my girls need a roof over their heads. This house is huge, so I’m sure there are a few rooms we can move into until we get a more, ah, formal arrangement.”

  Well.

  Craig Ferris looked so much like his father had looked when we first married that all sorts of long, forgotten feelings came rushing back. I hadn’t been a virgin when I first met Sam, but compared to the boys I’d slept with before, he’d been a revelation. Sex between us had been so hot that we stayed together for that reason alone, long after everything else we thought we shared had fallen apart. And looking at Craig, those shoulders, the strength in his arms, well…whatever. I was thrown off balance. Big time.

  But he wasn’t. Looking at me obviously didn’t evoke anything, and he was all business.

  “Sure,” I said. “Come on this way.”

  Maddie and Larissa had already made their way to the far side of the house, and were in the room with the twin beds. Maddie was jumping on one, and Larissa was looking into the closet critically.

  “Stop,” Craig said, and Maddie immediately hopped off the bed. If nothing else, he had them well trained.

  “So, I guess this could belong to the two of you,” I said. “What do you think?” I hadn’t been in any of these rooms in a while, and had almost forgotten what they looked like. This one was pretty grim. The color of the walls looked like wrinkled elephant skin and the carpet seemed to be growing stuff out of it.

  Larissa opened one of the dresser drawers. I could see old shelf paper, faded and browned. “We need another dresser,” she said. “And the closet needs fixed. And the walls?” She looked up at Craig. “Pink?”

  He nodded, and ruffled her hair. “Whatever color you want.”

  He peeked into the hall bathroom. Entirely beige. “At least there’s a tub,” he muttered. The next bedroom was brighter, and had a small, private bath attached. “Amanda,” he said. The final bedroom was dark and narrow, no curtains or a bedspread.

  “Guess you don’t really use these rooms much, do you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I live pretty much on the other side. Sam had wanted a big house because he always thought there’d be a ton of kids living here.” I stopped. I guess now there were.

  Craig walked back and called to his girls. I sat and watched as they carried in suitcases. Maddie made a second trip for a clothesbasket full of stuffed animals.

  Bit followed her down the hall. Finn jumped up on my lap and looked confused. “Yeah, buddy, I know,” I told him. “We have something of a roommate conundrum.”

  He whimpered and tried to snuggle in closer.

  “No, I don’t know how long they’ll be here.”

  Chloe, came up and put her giant head on my knee.

  “Yes, Bit is acting like a traitor, but you know how he feels about shiny new things.”

  I felt Ghost jump up behind me. My family watched as Sam’s family carried more things into the house.

  I kept repeating, this is not his fault, this is not his fault. This man had absolutely nothing to do with the situation we were both in. He was obviously under pressure to find a safe place for his kids, and I was sure that once things calmed down, we would reach a nice, sensible agreement, and he would get the hell out of my house.

  Finally, Craig came into the living room. He stared down at me, and I thought how I must have looked to him, in wrinkled scrubs, my hair pulled up and looking like a rats nest, surrounded by animals.

  “No reflection on your housekeeping skills, but is there a vacuum cleaner we could use?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “Good. And some spray cleaner? And lots of paper towels?”

  I should have felt embarrassed, but I didn’t. If he was going to just move into a person’s home with no warning, then he could do his own cleanup.

  “Done.”

  “We should probably go to the grocery store,” he said. “They’re going to be hungry pretty soon.”

  I took a breath. “Well you’re going to hit traffic right now. I have juice in the fridge, a rotisserie chicken, frozen green beans, and an apple pie, if you think that can hold them until tomorrow. I only work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’ll be happy to show you around tomorrow. I guess you have to get them in school?”

  He nodded.

  I sighed. “I really don’t want you here, Craig. I can’t even imagine how this is going to work. But until we figure something else out, I can’t throw you and your girls out in the street. In fact, even if I could, I probably wouldn’t.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, at least you’re honest. Yeah, this sucks for me, too. I wouldn’t be here if I had another choice.” He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you’d be way older. Y
ou know, Sam’s wife.”

  I smiled back. “And I thought you’d be younger. Sam’s kid.”

  “He was something else, my dad.”

  “I thought I knew him. I thought he was my friend.”

  “He was my father.”

  We looked at each other for a few seconds.

  “Well,” I finally said, “it looked like he lied to us both.”

  “That’s one thing we have in common, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  We looked at each other for a bit more, then he shrugged and left.

  I texted Stella, Karen Marie and Terri for an emergency beer at DeeDee and Jacks.

  I got there first and snagged a booth. DeeDee practically ran over to me.

  “Was that Sam’s son in town today? Melanie said he looked just like him.”

  I nodded. “Yep, he’s here. With three daughters. Right now, they’re watching Jeopardy in my living room while my dogs are locked up in the laundry room. Bit’s fine, but Finn is being a real stinker.”

  “Oh, Jenna, what are you going to do?”

  “Hope they win the lottery.” I looked up as Stella and Terri came in together. Terri was still in her work clothes, black pants and a polo shirt with US Post Office embroidered on the pocket. Her gray-blond hair was straight and cut in a short bob, and her blue eyes were wide as saucers.

  She slid in beside me. “What is going on?”

  I looked up at DeeDee. “Just bring a pitcher, Dee, and glasses. We may be here a while.”

  Dee shook her finger at me. “Don’t talk about nothin’ important without me,” she said before darting off.

  Stella sat across from me. “I hear he’s the image of Sam,” she said.

  I nodded. “Yes. But not the sixty-something-year-old, gosh-if-he-had-hair-and-no-paunch Sam. Remember Sam when we were first married? And he was tall and good looking and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other? Well, that’s what Craig looks like.”

  Stella sat back. “Oh, my.”

  DeeDee set a pitcher in front of us and poured. “I do remember Sam when he first got here. Every single woman in the county wanted him. Lots of married women too. He was a looker, that boy.”