Page 4 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

“I’ll miss you,” I say.

“We’ll keep in touch, no matter where you end up.” She pulls back but gives my hands a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “And for what it’s worth, I kind of envy you.”

I blink at her in confusion. “Because I’m jobless, homeless, and likely to only Netflix and chill in the most literal sense of the phrase for the foreseeable future?”

“Because you’re doing something brave, even if it doesn’t feel like that right now.”

Her comment hits me like a warm hug, and I will myself to believe it. If anyone knows anything about bravery, it’s Amelia. I might work with a bunch of mediocre white men who band together the instant one of them feels his self-imposed significance is threatened, but Amelia has way more to deal with, like listening to her colleagues complain about affirmative action hires while patting themselves on the back for making a vague public DEI statement they pulled off a pop star’s Instagram post. Not that everyone who works here is a racist, sexist asshole. A lot of incredible people are trying to improve academic culture, but it’s an uphill battle.

Amelia and I part with plans to meet for dinner and drinks at the end of the week. I keep my goodbye upbeat and my expression cheerful as I wave from my doorway while peeling my name off the wall just outside my door. It’s scribbled on a torn scrap of notebook paper I taped up as a joke when I first started, declaring with a heavy dose of sarcasm that it would still be up when I retired. Removing it from an office that never should’ve been an office is, perhaps, a fitting end to my tenure, and one that should take the edge off my decision to quit, and yet . . .

And yet . . .

As I take in the half-emptied shelves, the books on the floor, and the desk at which I penned three monographs and graded countless student papers, a single thought engulfs me.

What in the hell have I done?

Chapter Two

News of my quitting travels fast. Two of my colleagues don’t reply to the announcement, and the other two send brief and bland Good luck with whatever lies ahead! emails. They both sign off with Best. I might loathe people who sign off with Best even more than I loathe people who chuckle, though a Venn diagram would likely prove that most of them are one and the same.

I had no intention of telling my family I quit my job without another one lined up, but I slipped and mentioned it to Louisa, my youngest sister, who called to remind me about her upcoming engagement party, which she’s elated I’m now free to attend. I made no such claim, but I could no longer say I’d be working, and I didn’t have a lie prepared, so I mumbled my way into a “maybe.” Louisa told Haley, Eleanor, and Riley about my quitting, earning me renewed invites/demands to attend their respective baby shower, holiday house party, and wedding. All four of my siblings’ events take place within the year and will be held within a few hours’ drive of Portland, as I’m the only one of the five of us who left New England. Everyone understood when I told them I had to go where the job was, conveniently omitting that I also had offers in New Hampshire and Vermont. Chicago held appeal at the time. The distance would give me a fresh start, a place to be myself, away from the constant parade of my siblings’ successes.

Turns out you can run away from home, but home doesn’t run away from you.

And so, when my parents call right as I hang up with Riley, gasping with astonishment that I’ve “thrown away” my academic career—the only thing they’ve ever mentioned with pride when they talk about me—I regress to a childish need to prove I’m not a failure, telling them I’ve started a job hunt for a new faculty position, I’m confident something will come through, and a few months between jobs isn’t a big deal. It’s a chance to catch my breath. That’s all.

They pressure me to come home. My siblings pressure me to come home. This goes on all month while I fruitlessly apply for retail and server jobs, sell off my furniture on Craigslist, and try to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve shacking up in a decaying ghost magnet with grumpy Einstein. I go a little overboard with the life purge, but hanging on to an armchair or a coffee table seems pointless if I’m not hanging on to my career and my once-beloved library, so by the end of June, all I have left is a laptop, a sleeping bag, and a near-constant sense of panic.

Eventually, I’m forced to embrace Amelia’s suggestion, so I open my laptop and email Mr. Sterling, letting him know that while he’s welcome to remain at 13 Tamarack Street, I’m arriving on Saturday, July 1, and plan to reside at the house until further notice. I go on to say that I’m sure we can find ways to share the place, and I promise not to interrupt his writing or any other routines. My email gets long-winded, as I can’t help but take an overly apologetic tone when that scowl haunts my memory. Every word feels like poking the bear, even though I’ve never met said bear, and from what I know of him, verbosity is unlikely to win his favor.

A reply comes the following morning.

See you on the 1st

DS

I instantly regret my email, now certain I’ve set myself up for the worst cohabitation ever, one that also involves proximity to my family without the one member who knew how to make me okay with the ways their lives reflected on my own, the one who taught me to tune out the noise while straddling the bowsprit of her outlandish ship with the wind in my hair and her laughter in my ears, the one who accepted me precisely as I am even though I couldn’t have been more different from her. But three days after I email Mr. Sterling, I’m in the back of a cab, turning the corner onto Tamarack Street and confronting my neglected inheritance.

The house looks just like I remembered it, though it’s more faded, more chipped, and more boarded up where unpruned trees and random detritus have broken windows in harsh coastal winds. It looms tall on its jagged outcropping, with a jutting central towerlike section that reaches four stories and adds to the sense of height and scale, despite a large nest of pigeons that’ve generated an enormous streak of bird shit on the uppermost window. Any semblance of a yard has gone completely to seed with waist-high weeds poking in all directions through cracks in the rocky foundation, still littered with weather-worn shipping gear. Behind the house, about twenty yards past the broken balustrade of the wrapped porch, the rocky foundation drops away. Beyond it, pale-gray clouds hang low in a boundless sky while the ocean laps the shore, never fully still or silent. Even in its dilapidated condition, the house has a presence. I can’t look at it without feeling something, though what that something is, I’m not entirely sure.

The last time I was here, I’d flown out for my grandmother’s funeral and driven over from Augusta with Haley and Eleanor to check the place out after we learned it was mine. My grandmother was generous in her will. While most of the income from her literary estate still gets funneled to my mom, Grams put aside enough money to fully fund college educations for any and all great-grandchildren. She also left my siblings $100,000 each, whereas I got the boat, the house, and its contents. No one complained about unfairness, even though selling everything might net me more than my siblings’ cash inheritances. They were all glad they didn’t have to deal with the place, especially since dealing with the house also meant dealing with Mr. Sterling. He wasn’t home when we visited, so I had to discuss his residence by email, which was awkward on my end and curt on his, but once I confirmed no one else would be moving in and he offered to take care of essential repairs, there wasn’t much more to talk about. I was glad to put the matter behind me, just like I was glad I had a reason to be a thousand miles away. Distance and distraction were the only things that kept me going when my grief was at its sharpest, and I’m not sure how I’ll handle being back. Already, memories are surfacing. I can picture Grams now, opening the front door to greet me with her arms spread wide and an irrepressible grin that always brought out my own.

If she was still alive . . . , I think.

And then quickly force my thoughts elsewhere.

I pay the cab driver who brought me here from the nearest airport, which isn’t near at all at forty miles away. I would’ve rented a car, but a small town is nestled into a cove two miles down the coast, so I can get any essentials there, and I have no other immediate transit needs.

The cabbie peers up at the house as he removes my luggage from the trunk, two rolling suitcases that contain all of my worldly goods, other than some books Amelia is storing for me.

“You sure you don’t want me to stick around for a few minutes?” the cabbie asks.

“I think I’ll be okay,” I tell him, though I don’t sound convincing, even to myself.

“Doesn’t look like you have many neighbors to call on if you need anything.”

I smile at his understatement. No other homes are within view. Just rocky coastline, hardy evergreen trees, and scraggly brush that weathers storms well.