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“This is it,”Cass said.She didn’t get out of the rental car though Harrison had come to a stop.The house in front of her didn’t look the same as it usually did this close to Halloween.
It did, and it didn’t.The dark brown brick was the same.The front door stood tall and sturdy.The lawn had just been clipped, and all of the bushes and flowers had been pruned in anticipation of the somewhat cooler winter months.
But the house didn’t boast a wreath from the front door like usual.Cass loved autumnal wreaths, and the house felt lifeless.
The yard usually held fall plants and flowers, which Cass loved to plant and cultivate.But this year, she’d wanted it as clean as possible.Presentable.Perfect curb appeal—which the house possessed.
But it had no spirit.
“One last walk through?”Harrison said, and Cass nodded.
She drew in a breath and hitched up her courage.“My parents will be here soon.”She got out of the car then, left her purse behind, and only took her phone.
When she met Harrison at the front of the car, she handed her device to him.“Will you take my picture here?”
“Sure,” he said easily.
She paced away from him and posed, put a smile on her face, and waited for him to tap to take the pictures.She wasn’t sure why she wanted them, only that she did.
The new owners of the house would take possession of it on November first, only six days from now.Cass had come this weekend to get everything else out of it that wasn’t staying, and her parents had agreed to store a few things in their shed.It was six boxes of West’s things that Cass hadn’t needed with her on Hilton Head.Some of his case files.His bird-watching manuals.His notes on their vacations, finances, and his word puzzles.
He wasn’t a hoarder, but he loved to write everything down, and Cass didn’t need his notes.She’d kept his journals, his personal thoughts, and that was enough for her.
She’d sold all the furniture.Someone in the family had taken anything she hadn’t moved to South Carolina, like a tea set or the bath towels she’d replaced in more oceany colors for her beach house.
“Are the kids coming?”Harrison asked.
Cass shook her head.“Jane’s in Italy.Sariah is up against a term deadline, and Conrad just started that second job.”
Her son had been amazing since the mini-intervention several weeks ago.He’d called Cass and thanked her for all she’d done for him.He’d said he didn’t want to keep taking her money, and he’d been working hard to make enough to pay his own bills.
Sariah had taken some time to come to terms with the fact that no, she and Robbie were not in a position to pay for the house and then take care of it.She texted or called Cass every day too, and Cass loved talking to her children as adults.They still needed a parent, and she was happy to be that for them too, just in a different way.
Jane had gone back to her world traveling, and Cass still paid for what she needed.She had noticed that her daughter’s conversations had changed, however, and she had hope that Jane would soon return to the US and her college education.Maybe.Cass was trying to have an open mind when it came to Jane, as well as provide any help she could for her daughter.
Tires crunched over the gravel at the end of the driveway, and Cass turned back to see her parents pulling in.She smiled at their arrival and went to greet them.
They adored Harrison, and they had from the very beginning.Honestly, without their positive assessment of him, Cass might have broken up with him.She simply couldn’t see what her children did—and thankfully, her parents couldn’t either.
“Momma.”She embraced her mother, and then went to greet her daddy.“It’s only a few things.”
“Take your time,” Momma said.“I can make tea, and we can just enjoy one last moment here.”
Cass nodded.Once upon a time, she’d thought she’d live in this house forever.She took Harrison’s hand and said, “West and I bought this place intending to raise our family here, retire here, die here.”
Happy memories flooded her mind then, and it wasn’t so hard to go up the steps.“It was kind of a wreck when we first moved in.I picked out this door, and West widened the frame so it would fit.”
She ran her hand along the wood.She punched in the code for the automatic lock, and when it disengaged, she went inside.
All of the furniture had been removed.The windows sat bare, curtain-less.“I picked out the carpet in here just a few years ago.I liked to constantly be updating things, you see.”
Harrison’s hand tightened in hers.“I had no idea you did that,” he said dryly.
She laughed with him and her parents.“I would’ve remodeled the kitchen last year.The cabinets are too dark now.”
“Probably why the house sat on the market for a full month,” he joked next.
It had taken a week or two to get buyers into the house, but once the showings had started, the offers had come in.Cass had selected one that had come in above her asking price, for a couple with two small children.They wanted to raise their family with the outdoors right at their fingertips, and Cass had felt a connection to their letter, though she’d never met them.
