Page 180 of Key West Homecoming

She knew those windows.

The model had sat on her mother’s dresser for Emma’s entire childhood. She had seen it thousands of times and never once understood what it was.

Her father had built the cottage on Hibiscus Lane.

Emma held it with both hands.

The first tears came quietly. Then she cried hard enough that she had to set the model beside her so she wouldn’t drop it.

No one was there to see her.

For once, Emma was glad.

When the crying finally stopped, she sat with one hand resting on the little porch roof.

David had built it before she was born, or close to it. He had given it to Ruth, and Ruth had kept it on her dresser for thirty years.

Maybe her mother had told Emma what it was when she was little.

Maybe Emma had been four and forgotten.

She looked at the tiny house.

Her father had carried the cottage with him too.

“All right, Dad,” Emma whispered.

She sat there a little longer before wrapping the model in Ruth’s newspaper.

At the rental car, Emma put it carefully on the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt around it.

She knew it was ridiculous.

She did it anyway.

Then she went back for the photographs, the watch, the wallet and the two paperbacks.

The rest could wait.

Emma flew back Thursday with the model house in a carry-on she refused to check.

When she landed in Miami, the temperature was eighty-eight degrees and she felt it when she walked out of the terminal. By the time she reached the rental car, she was already thinking about the drive south.

She placed the model carefully in the back seat.

For most of her adult life, returning from a trip had meant going back to Chicago. Back to work, her apartment and the life waiting exactly where she had left it.

This time was different.

Emma started the car and headed toward Key West.

Toward the cottage.

Toward Jake.

Toward home.

CHAPTER 28