Page 22 of The Treasure House

Seven

The master bedroom ran along the entire front of the house, over the parlor and dining rooms, an ocean-facing sweep of coziness. And it was the only room in the house that wasn’t full of junk—in fact it was immaculate. The far wall was dominated by three dormer windows, all of which looked out over the quiet little dead-end street, out to the cliffs and the bay below. From this high, the glitter of the water filled the view. As I stepped over the threshold, I could see the lazy gulls drifting on the sea breezes.

“The windows are clean,” I said stupidly.

“Yeah.” Jake leaned against the doorframe.

“And so is the room.” I took in the long sprawling upstairs room at the front of the house, with its pale rugs and brass bed. A pink-and-white patchwork quilt sat folded neatly at the foot of the bare mattress. There were no plastic bags, no boxes, no milk crates. The floorboards were glossy and worn, honey colored where they weren’t covered by the expensive-looking rugs.

Facing east, the bedroom would catch the dawn and full morning sun. There was a little sitting area with a squashy floral loveseat and a couple of matching armchairs. The wall sconces were pairs of upside-down frosted glass tulips and there was a scalloped mirror hanging on the wall above the loveseat, reflecting the sea and the sky.

It felt like home. Only no home I’d ever known.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, drawn across those honeyed floorboards to the windows. The sky was bluer than blue, and the ocean was sequined with jumping silver sunlight. From here I could see the bulk of the forest to the right, the shingled roofs of the summer cottages to the left, and Jake’s store at the corner of the street.

My breath caught as a cloud of orange-and-black butterflies rose from the tangle of the front garden.

“Monarchs,” Jake said. He’d followed me to the window. “They like the milkweed.” He was sounding terser than ever. “Look, Ms. Copeland. You don’t want this house.” He was firm.

“I don’t?” Wasn’t the fact I’d made it through the entire house tour enough to prove to him that I was serious? And I knew they were monarch butterflies; I didn’t need him to tell me. There’d been plenty of butterflies in Suni and Wayne’s garden.

“This place is a wreck,” he said forcefully.

“I thought you said it was just culch?” I kept my eyes on the butterflies as they spiraled across the green wilds. I wondered if I’d be able to make this garden as pretty as Suni and Wayne’s. Maybe Wayne could teach me a thing or two about lawns…

“A lot of culch,” Jake snapped. “And plumbing and window screens and lightshades and all the rest of it.”

“You said a plumber would make short work of that toilet and that I could find lightshades cheap online.” Annoyed, I turned away from the butterflies and the bright day and turned back to Jake Abernathy. He was standing with one hand braced against the sloping shiplap ceiling; his silly cartoon lobsta T-shirt had ridden up, showing his bronzed stomach. I tried not to look.

“You’re not the type for this,” he told me firmly. “This place needs serious time and money spent on it.”

“How do you know what type I am?” I wasn’t even sure I knew which type I was, but I didn’t appreciate him mansplaining me to myself.

“You ever renovated a house before?”

“I’ve never had the chance to own a house before.”

“Mom, come see this!” Flo’s shrill excitement cut through the quiet house.

“It’s work,” Jake told me flatly. “Owning a house like this is work. Nothing but. This place needs someone who can restore it, not let it fall apart even more.”

Oh. My. God. Was this guy serious? Did he think I couldn’t see with my own eyes how much work this was going to be?

“Mom!” Flo interrupted, her voice echoing from the bathroom down the hall. “You have to come check out the tub!”

Pointedly, I turned my back on Jake and his disapproval and went to see the tub.

The bathroom was another time warp, this time to the 1930s or ’40s. Flo was enamored with the clawfoot tub and floral wallpaper. The same upside-down glass tulip lights that were in the master bedroom hung on the walls. Whoever had decorated this place sure had a thing for fancy light fixtures.

“We’re keeping this bath,” Flo declared. “It’s got feet. It looks like it might walk around while you sit in it.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Your mother hasn’t bought the place yet,” Jake said from the doorway. “And she should think about it carefully, because this place—”

“—is a lot of work, I know,” I finished his sentence for him. I wished he’d go wait outside and let us look around by ourselves. Maybe he could make friends with a snake or two while he was at it.

“Mom’s good at work,” Flo told him. “How do you think she got the money to buy a place like this?” She climbed in the tub.

“Don’t.” I reached for her but wasn’t fast enough. She was already reclining in the tub.