Page 190 of Key West Homecoming

Nora would want good things for both of us. I’m trying to remember that myself. Maybe one day I’ll come to Key West and meet Emma. Until then, write to me about the house, the garden and the life you’re building there.

And send me a photograph of the trees.

Nancy

Emma read the email again before handing back the phone.

“It’s beautiful, Jake. She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

“She is.”

Emma watched him look at the screen once more.

There was sadness in his face, but it wasn’t the kind that closed him off from everything around him. Emma understood now that Nora would always be part of Jake. Loving him meant there would be room for that.

She slipped an arm around his waist.

Jake kissed the top of her head.

At nine-thirty, Jake called the number on the sign in front of the blue house.

The woman who answered lived in Marathon. She had been handling her late mother’s estate and trying to sell the house since February. In her words, she had about given up on it.

She could meet him at one.

“That works,” Jake said. “I’ll see you then.”

Emma drove them to William Street and parked behind a white sedan. She reached for her bag as Jake opened his door.

“I’ll wait out here.”

Jake looked back at her. “Come look at it with me.”

“It’s your house.”

“It isn’t anybody’s house yet.” He kept one hand on the door. “And I don’t want to walk through it alone and then come back out here trying to describe it to you.”

Emma smiled and got out.

A woman in a yellow linen shirt met them at the gate.

“I’m Jake, and this is my girlfriend, Emma.”

The word still gave Emma a small rush of pleasure.

“Delores. It’s nice to meet you both.” She handed Jake a sheet with the property details, then opened the front door. “Go ahead. Take your time.”

The house smelled of dust and old wood. Somewhere beneath it was the faint trace of cigarettes smoked years ago. The front room had a fireplace no one in Key West had ever needed. In the kitchen, the window above the sink looked into the side yard and directly at the lignum vitae.

Jake moved through the rooms slowly. He pressed his palm against the plaster in the back bedroom and crouched to inspect the front step. He opened and closed one of the Bahama shutters several times.

“What are you finding?” Emma asked.

“Nothing that scares me. The roof is four years old, and the electrical was redone in 2019.” He ran his thumb along the crack in the front step. “I’m tempted to leave this exactly the way it is.”

“Why?”

“Because people walked across it for seventy years to make it look like that.”