“You and me both,” I tell him.
The inn sits at the far end of a narrower road lined with camellias and old porches and enough peeling paint to make my fingers itch. When it finally comes into view through the trees,my hands tighten on the wheel so suddenly the leather creaks under my grip.
Photographs did not prepare me.
The Carrington House Inn rises behind an iron gate that hangs slightly crooked on one hinge, the old sign out front half faded, the script still elegant even under the weathering. The main house is bigger than I expected and somehow sadder too. Four square stories of age and promise and neglect. Wide front porch. Tall, narrow windows. Trim that was once intricate, now cracked and pulling away in places. A roofline that still holds itself with dignity even where the shingles have darkened and curled.
My father would’ve fallen in love with it on sight—again. I sit there with the engine idling and stare. He wanted this building. Not in the abstract, not in one of his passing “maybe someday” moods. He wanted it the way he wanted things that got under his skin and stayed there. He talked about the bones. The symmetry. The way the porch sat just close enough to the road to feel welcoming but not exposed. He talked about the old carriage house out back and all the possibilities of converting it into a private guest cottage. He talked about restoring instead of replacing, about keeping what the building had already earned.
He was sick by then. Not fully. Not obviously. Just tired in a way my mother kept brushing off, and I kept pretending not to see because naming it might have made it real too soon. By the time the inn finally came up for sale, he couldn’t walk it without stopping twice to catch his breath.
Michael took over the numbers conversation after that.
I grip the wheel harder.
Michael, with his spreadsheets and his efficient voice and his relentless calm. Michael, who knew how to say all theright things in rooms full of men who preferred certainty over instinct. Michael, who watched my father decline and somehow came out the other side more embedded than ever. Michael, who started as my father’s trusted contractor and ended up the one everyone turned to for decisions. Michael, who told me after the funeral that maybe this project was too emotionally loaded for me to handle “objectively.”
The dog whines softly from the floorboard, pulling me back.
“Right,” I murmur.
I cut the engine, grab the bag from the vet, and step out into humid salt air carrying the dog against my chest. Up close, the inn is worse.
The porch boards near the far railing are soft enough that I spot the trouble before I even step onto them. Two shutters hang crooked. One window on the first floor is broken and boarded from the inside. The paint has lifted in long strips near the eaves. Vines crowd one side of the foundation and need to be cut back immediately if I’m going to keep moisture from becoming a bigger problem than it already is.
Still.
The shape of it is there. The dignity of it. The heart.
I fish the key out of my pocket, unlock the front door, and push it open. The smell hits first. Mildew. Dust. Animal urine. Old air. Rot around the edges.
I stop just inside the threshold and close my eyes once. Then I step fully into the foyer. Sunlight filters through dirty glass in weak stripes, catching floating dust and showing me everything the photos didn’t. Torn wallpaper. Water stains blooming in the ceiling corners. Tracks in the grime near the parlor doorway. Someone has been in here besides the realestate agent. More than once. Vagrants, most likely. Teenagers maybe. Any vacant place in a small town eventually becomes a challenge or a refuge, depending on who finds it first.
The main staircase is still beautiful. Worn. Scratched. Dirty. But beautiful.
My father sketched this staircase from memory once on the back of a diner placemat while we waited for grilled cheese and soup. I can still see the lines of his hand.
The dog squirms against my chest and makes a low, unhappy sound.
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s bad.”
I set him down gently in the foyer while I step through the main level, room by room.
Parlor—vandalized but structurally promising.
Dining room—ceiling stain in the far corner, likely roof leak or old pipe issue.
Kitchen—worse than expected, cabinets sagging, one section of subfloor visibly bowed.
Rear service hall—filthy, but maybe salvageable with enough work.
The first-floor bedroom at the back of the house turns out to be the least destroyed. The mattress is unusable—not that that was ever the plan. The curtains are gone. Somebody has spray-painted one section of the wall, and I can’t tell if the smell in here is mold or old smoke. But the windows open. The floor feels solid. The attached bath has working fixtures, according to the sale inspection, though I’ll believe that when I see it.
I leave the dog in the bedroom doorway and head out back to assess the carriage house. That dream dies quickly.
The little building is charming in theory—brick foundation, old stable bones, potential everywhere—but the roof is in far worse shape than I expected . A section near the rear corner has partially given way, and the interior smells strongly enough of wet wood and long-term damage that I don’t need to step inside to know it’s not happening.
No guest cottage.
