The Brighter the Light, page 6
“The heavy equipment will be around a week or so. Then the noise should be more manageable. We’re aiming to be under roof in a month. Cottages could be ready by midseason this year. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t get a lot of rain and the construction materials arrive on time.”
Whereas Matthew could be cocky, Dalton had a quiet confidence. She doubted even a hurricane would stop him from having those cottages ready.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” she said.
“We both do. I do want to bid on Ruth’s place,” he said.
“When’s the last time you were inside?” she asked.
“December after the storm. Though I was just moving in boxes and items from the hotel.”
“You didn’t get a great look at the place.”
“No.”
“I thought you just wanted the land.”
“Maybe I want the house.”
“Okay, but I’ll warn you it’s going to require a big influx of cash to drag it into this century.”
“Do you have time to give me a tour now?”
“It’s still a bit of an obstacle course in there, but I’ve cleared a few more navigable paths.”
“I’m game.” He told Sailor he’d soon return. The dog barked and settled in his seat.
“Follow me.” As she climbed the stairs, his steady footfalls followed close behind. She opened the door. “Welcome to the jungle.”
Inside, he wiped his feet on the mat and removed his hat before he surveyed the dark interior crammed full of boxes and rescued hotel furniture. He turned first to the kitchen, with the avocado-green appliances. “This would be a gut job.”
Ivy stared at the stove with the cracked knob and broken clock. She was ten when she’d grabbed a thin towel, reached for the handle of a hot cast-iron pan, and lifted it toward the cooktop. The heat seared through the fabric and burned her fingers. She dropped the pan, and it hit the knob. Ruth immediately pulled her toward the sink and ran cold water on her blistering fingers.
“Wish I had a nickel for all the times I burned my hands in the kitchen,” Ruth said. “I was about your age when I started helping my daddy cook at the Seaside Resort.”
Ivy hissed in a breath. “What was your dad like?”
“He was a quiet soul,” she said. “In the summers he was working in the kitchen, and in the winter, doing maintenance repairs. The man never stopped moving.”
“How old were you when he died?” Ivy had become fascinated with judging the age-appropriateness of someone’s death since her mother’s passing five years ago. Over thirty? Sixty? Eighty? There was a line dividing too young from just right, but she hadn’t decided where it was.
“I was twenty-two.” Ruth shut off the water, reached for a red-and-white checkered cotton dish towel, and carefully wrapped it around Ivy’s fingers.
Ivy shifted at the memory, reminding herself she didn’t have the luxury of saving a forty-year-old stove, even one with memories. “The cabinets are dark, but they were made from salvaged wood from a shipwreck by my great-grandfather.”
“Do you know which wreck?”
“It was a schooner that went down right after the First World War. A local guy harvested the wood and sold it to my grandfather for two dollars. That’s very illegal now, but then, anything on the beach was fair game for harvesting.”
He opened a cabinet door, sending a collection of plastic storage dishes tumbling down.
Ivy gathered the tubs, most of which didn’t have tops. “Sorry about that.”
“Safe to say these aren’t heirlooms.”
“If there’s a market for plastic storage containers, then I’m going to be rich.” She shoved the containers back inside and quickly closed the door before they tumbled out.
“The cabinets are solid, and the history is unique. They need a good cleaning and maybe rearranging so that they don’t block the view of the living room and the stone fireplace.”
She liked his idea, but future cottage renovations were not her business. “I leave all that to you or whoever buys the house.”
“Have you thought about the rest of your life?”
“Honestly, no. I’ve been consumed with the destruction of the Seaside Resort, Ruth dying, and moving. Once this place is sold, I’ll catch my breath.”
The small U-shaped kitchen was just big enough for one person and snug for two. This close to Dalton, she could smell the blend of freshly milled wood, salt air, and his scent. The room grew warmer.
She stepped back into the entryway and made her way among the boxes to the main room with the vaulted ceiling and stone fireplace that ran from the floor to the ceiling.
He followed Ivy along the narrow path toward the back sleeping porch. With a hard tug, he opened the back door and stepped outside, inviting in a cool gust of salty air. The chilled air felt good against her flushed cheeks.
He walked to the edge of the screened porch and stared out over the crashing waves. “I love this place. So will my father. He had a lot of very nice Seaside Resort vacation memories when he was four or five.”
“His family vacationed here just a few years?”
“After his father died, his mother stopped taking vacations at the Seaside Resort. But Dad’s said more than a few times that the beach got in his blood, and as soon as he was old enough, he moved back.”
“Ruth said she and her parents were in the business of making memories.”
“Made an impression on my father.”
Ivy had assumed Ruth had been friendly with the Manchesters because of her friendship with Dani.
“Your mother was young when she died,” Ivy said.
“Forty-six,” he said. “Taken too soon, like your mother.”
Shared losses had been the basis of her relationship with Dani when they’d met in elementary school. They’d been the half-orphan duo, forming their own select club. Both had known what it felt like to miss a mother, understood there was no time limit on grief, and cried with the other on birthdays and death anniversaries.
“Ruth was always kind to Dani, and that never was lost on me or my dad,” Dalton said.
“Is that why you bought the hotel land?”
Dalton worked the toe of his steel-tip boot into a bit of rot on the porch. “It was good business.”
“Be careful, Dalton; I’m going to peg you and your dad as soft touches. First bacon for Sailor and now a sympathy buy.”
A small smile tugged the edges of his lips. “Don’t worry about us. We’re good at making money.”
“I have no doubt.”
“I’ll make you a fair offer for the cottage.”
“I look forward to seeing it.”
He inspected a stack of black metal chairs from the hotel’s banquet room. “Not all this is sentimental.”
“No. Ruth could have told you down to the penny what she paid for each item in the hotel. The woman always guarded her pennies. Maybe she thought I could sell them and make a few bucks.”
“You’re selling the hotel stuff?”
“Donating,” she said. “It’s all in good shape and will benefit someone else more than the few dollars it’ll earn me.”
He shook his head. “What’s crammed into this house is worth more than a few dollars.”
“Better karma to pass it on.”
He paused a long moment, staring down at her. “Anything sentimental so far?”
“There was an old hotel registry and an address book under the mail on the dining room table. I’ve no idea why she saved the registration book.” She made her way to the table and picked up the address book. “Maybe you’ll have better luck recognizing some of the names.”
He gently thumbed through the small black book. “I recognize a few names. Henry Anderson was a local craftsman and fisherman. He did cabinet work for Dad in the early days of his business.”
“I remember Henry. He worked in the kitchens until I was about six or seven. Nice man.” She had vague memories of Ruth dressing them for his funeral. Sitting next to Ruth on the pew in the Methodist church, she’d watched a tear trickle down her grandmother’s cheek.
“Dora Bernard Walton was a friend of my mother’s. So was Jessie Osborn Lee.”
The women’s married names were written in a different shade of blue ink, and the loops on the Os and Bs were smaller, more controlled. “She updated their addresses several times.”
He thumbed through the pages. “My grandmother’s or Aunt Bonnie’s names are not in here.”
“Makes sense that they’d lose touch after your grandmother stopped coming to the beach.”
“When my aunt Bonnie died, I was about twelve. Ruth attended the funeral.”
“Really? She didn’t take me to that one.”
“Ruth and my dad spoke in the reception line.”
“Were you close to your aunt?”
Dalton frowned. “Aunt Bonnie didn’t have much use for me. Never made it a secret that Dad was making a mistake adopting his wife’s son.”
Ivy could almost feel Ruth’s outrage. Ruth didn’t tolerate that way of thinking. She accepted everyone.
“There are two downstairs bedrooms. One was Ruth’s bedroom. The other was her art studio and is crammed with easels and paintings. I’m leaving the art room untouched until I can clear this room out. Hopefully, I’ll have one of the bedrooms cleaned out soon so I can sleep in a real bed. The couch is as uncomfortable as it looks.”
He glanced toward the couch, the rumpled blanket and pillow with a fading impression of her head. “Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Dani’s interested in seeing the paintings. She said there could be a real demand for Ruth’s work. More income for you.”
“Dani’s seen them?”
“They used to paint together. It was good for them both.”
Ivy didn’t want to be jealous, but it did bother her that Dani had had a part of Ruth she’d never known about. “Maybe. We’ll see. I want to really look at the paintings before I make any kind of decision.”
“You haven’t seen them yet?”
“Working up the nerve.” She still wondered why her grandmother had never told her about painting. “Ruth guarded her sketches closely, so I can only imagine the paintings were just as personal.”
He reached for the hotel registry on the table and opened the cover. “1931 to 1939.”
“I have no idea why she saved the registration book.”
“The records room at the Seaside Resort was a total loss. The storm tore off that portion of the roof, and the rain flooded the room. Nothing could be salvaged, so she must have kept it here.”
“Wonder why?”
“Maybe she wanted you to find it.”
“Why not just tell me? Why the tangled mystery?” Ivy asked.
“I don’t know.” He scratched his beard. “That generation didn’t do open and honest too well. Or maybe it was too painful.”
“She always had a reason.” Ruth had lived a regimented and predictable life. Laundry on Saturday morning, fried chicken on Sundays and barbecue on Mondays, bookkeeping on Tuesdays, and grocery shopping on Wednesdays. Off-season, Ruth had spent some time with her sketch pads, but the next season had always been looming on the horizon.
“Let me know if I can help.”
“The construction dumpster is a big help. I just might fill it.”
A heavy sigh shuddered through him. “I suspected that when I carried all the stuff up here.” He strode toward the door and paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll be right next door if you need anything. Plenty on my crew to haul out the heavy stuff.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
“Good.” He twisted the rusted knob, descended the stairs, and strode toward the running truck, where Sailor was waiting in the front passenger seat.
Thunder cracked in the night sky and vibrated through the house, waking Ivy out of a quasi-sound sleep. She was still on the couch, huddled under one of the three dozen rose quilts salvaged from the hotel. She’d stopped cleaning out Ruth’s room about six, when she’d seen the rain-plump black clouds gathering above the dumpster. Her phone’s weather app had made no mention of a storm.
Ruth had never been a fan of television, so there wasn’t one in the cottage. And Dalton would have warned her if this was a big one. Impending storms were always the talk in town, and no one at the breakfast diner had said a word yesterday. But gales did pivot and surprise everyone.
She shifted off the bruising pressure on her right hip, looked out a window as lightning flashed in a starless sky. The winds howled, punching the cottage with twenty- or thirty-mile-an-hour gusts. Old timbers rattled, the eight-foot pylons under the house swayed, and the walls creaked.
She rose, wrapped the quilt around her shoulders, and padded in red Wonder Woman socks to the window. Drawing back the curtain, she squinted through the porch and the blackness toward the dunes and the beach. Thunder roared, and a bolt of lightning cracked the sky over churning waters.
Ivy tightened the folds of her blanket. Ocean waves rushed over the shore, up under the dune stairs, splashing white foam on the beach grass.
How many times had she weathered storms with Ruth, who had taken them all in stride? When other families had evacuated, Ruth sent Ivy with the Manchesters and always promised to follow. But she never had. She’d stayed in this cottage, keeping a watchful eye on her hotel. Her stubbornness had confounded local authorities, who’d reminded her repeatedly that if it got really bad, they couldn’t save her. She understood, but she’d held her ground right up until that last December night, when the sheriff had threatened to arrest her if she didn’t leave.
The curtains slid from Ivy’s fingers as she retreated back to her couch. She slipped on her shoes and set her purse and keys beside her just in case. Cell phone in hand, she switched her pillow to the opposite end of the couch, lay on her other side, and stared out the window toward the storm. Driving now would be more dangerous, but if the storm worsened and the house became unstable, she would leave.
Leave. Right. Who was she kidding? If the storm grew in intensity, the road would not be drivable. Hell, the bridge might be closed. And she would be screwed.
“Wouldn’t that be the perfect ending?” Ivy muttered. “The cottage and I get taken out in the storm.” The dark rafters exploded with another jab of lightning sizzling through the room. Rain pelted the gabled roof, tumbled down the chimney, and seeped through the closed flue onto the fire grate.
“Ruth, if you’re there and this is a test, it’s really not funny. It’s been a hell of a year already, and I don’t need this.” She drew her knees up into a fetal position. “And if this isn’t you and you have some pull wherever you are, I could use a little help here.”
CHAPTER SIX
IVY
Wednesday, January 19, 2022, 7:00 a.m.
Sleep came and went with each crack of thunder, which did not ease up until four o’clock in the morning. By then Ivy was so tired of worrying if the cottage would fall down that she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep—a rarity for her.
She might have slept the morning away if not for the bright light streaming through the open curtains of the sleeping porch. She opened an eye and glanced at her phone. Seven a.m.
“Too early. More sleep.” She yanked the covers over her head, determined to stay hidden until she’d logged at least three more hours. She would make up the lost cleaning time in the afternoon. It had been years since she’d slept late. No harm, no foul.
The engine of a dozer, no, two, roared outside her window. Their engines groaned as their metal belts dug into dirt and rolled forward, while another vehicle’s beep, beep signaled it was backing up. “Of course. The construction site.”
Ivy rose up off the couch. The air in the cottage was cold, so she moved to the thermostat and realized the room was fifty degrees. “Please tell me I have electricity.”
She tried several lamps, and none worked. “It gets better and better.” Slipping on her jacket, she went outside and hurried down to the circuit breaker box. She checked, saw that the main breaker had popped. She flipped it back on and heard the heating unit rumble to life.
Glancing over at the construction site, she saw Dalton standing next to a truck, giving instructions to the driver, who was surveying the muddy puddles covering the lot. She appreciated his confidence and how he moved around the site as if it were his kingdom. She’d been just like that in Vincenzo’s kitchen. No problem was too big or small for her in that world. She’d been a master and enjoyed her life. Even when the problems had mounted one on top of another, she’d never once doubted herself. And now she was here, with no job or plans for the future. Should have been freeing, but it felt a little like being on a high-wire act without a net.
She climbed the stairs, pushed through the front door, and made a pot of coffee. The machine quickly gurgled, and when the pot was a third full, she filled a blue OBX mug. Cradling the cup, she tunneled through the stacked chairs, tables, lamps, and nightstands to the porch. The sun splashed yellow light over now-calm waters touching the horizon. The fickle weather at the end of the earth could be as breathtakingly beautiful as it could be dangerous.
Her gaze drifted to the ribs of what looked like an old ship jutting out of the sand. It wasn’t unheard of for storms to unearth the bones of sunken vessels. The area offshore was known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic because hundreds of vessels like this one had sunk off the shore over the centuries.
When Ivy was in elementary school, a clipper ship had risen from the sand near Hatteras and had remained above ground long enough for her fourth-grade class to take a field trip to see it. Her teacher had explained that off the coast, there were two great landmasses that butted against each other. Natural currents were constantly shifting underwater sandbars that could easily beach or sink a vessel.
Curious, Ivy took a swig of coffee, set it down, and then crossed the sleeping porch, opened the squeaking screened door, and descended the stairs to the moist sand. She zipped up her jacket and jammed her hands in her pockets as she crossed to the wreckage.
