“I know. And we will. Just not yet. Let’s work on the kitchen today. And we still have to do the bathrooms, right? And we haven’t even started the garage.”
Her time here at Whitaker House would be wrapping up soon as they had already worked their way through most of the house.
She truly would be sorry to leave. Jess had never enjoyed a job as much as this one.
“All right. The kitchen it is.”
“Once we clear out the kitchen, I need to mess it up again, just a little, while I make my favorite pasta salad for the party. I told Rachel I would take that.”
Jess shifted, wondering if it was too late to call off her sister’s grand party. No. She couldn’t do that to Rachel. Her excitement had come through loud and clear the night after Jess had stayed with the girls, when her sister had called to thank her again and to confirm arrangements for Jess’s birthday.
Rachel wanted to do this. She loved throwing parties. How could Jess deprive her of her fun?
She would simply smile and be gracious and try to enjoy herself.
For now, she could legitimately enjoy herself doing what she did best, cleaning out her client’s kitchen.
Several hours later, Jess studied the stacks of cookbooks arrayed across the kitchen table with admiration. They had already worked their way through several cabinets and had finally reached the dusty cookbooks.
Eleanor had not been exaggerating about her collection. She had at least a hundred, most dotted with dog-eared and marked pages, in addition to the dozen most-cherished volumes she was keeping for Sophie.
“I can’t imagine how many meals have been prepared using these.”
“The best parts are the handwritten notes in some of them. That’s why I’m keeping those few for Sophie. It’s a link to her grandmother and her great-grandmother. I don’t know if she’ll want them someday but I’m going to let her decide that. As for the rest, I have no idea what to do with them. Do you think Goodwill would even want them? Some were in Whitaker House when I moved in here. They were probably here when my mother-in-law moved in here.”
“You would be surprised. There’s a healthy market for vintage cookbooks.”
“I always thought I would hand the entire collection down to my daughter someday but I ended up only having a son who isn’t much interested in cooking.”
At the mention of Nate, Jess could feel her face heat. Though she hadn’t seen him since Tuesday, when he had kissed her beside her truck, she felt like she hadn’t stopped thinking of him.
It was hard to avoid the topic when she worked alongside his mother every day, especially when Eleanor had so much good to say about him.
How was she supposed to resist him when his mother, apparently his biggest cheerleader, told her story after story that only made him more appealing?
If she didn’t know better, she would almost think Eleanor had set out on a well-organized campaign to make Jess fall for him.
She wouldn’t, no matter how hard Eleanor tried.
Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“Do you want to set all the cookbooks aside for Sophie? We could find somewhere in storage for them where we could protect them.”
“No. I think I’ll stick to giving her the best of the bunch. With that and the few recipes out of the others that I’ve saved, she should have more than enough.”
“Wise decision. As to the rest, I’ll box them up and ship them to a used bookstore we’ve worked with before in the Bay area. They’ll give you a fair price before their markup.”
Eleanor waved her hand. “Whatever you think. You definitely know best, as I’ve learned over the past week and a half.”
Did she? Jess wasn’t so sure. Her usual common sense seemed to have tumbled down into the ocean since she had arrived in Cape Sanctuary.
Eleanor surveyed the kitchen. “This house will feel so empty without all my treasures.”
Jess nudged her with her shoulder. “Think of all the dusting you won’t have to do now.”
“I know. I know. And especially all the rubbish Nate and Sophie won’t have to sort through after I’m gone.”
“Which won’t be for a long, long time,” Jess said firmly.
Eleanor wore a distant look as she gazed at the cookbooks, as if seeing all the previous generations of women who had thumbed through them, seeking an answer to the eternal and relentless question of what to fix their families for dinner.
“I’m committed to cleaning out this house for Nate and Sophie’s sake,” she said. “I have no need to hold on to things I don’t use any longer and I don’t want them to have to deal with it later. Still, knowing all that, why do I find it so hard to let go of things?”
“Most tangible things are associated with good memories of a place or a moment. It’s completely natural to want to hold on to that.”
“Thank you for being so understanding. You’re a dear. I think your job must be equal parts cleaning and therapy.”
Jess had to smile, charmed by the description. “I hope both are helping.”
“More than you will ever know. I’ve felt better these past ten days than I have since Jack died. Thank you for putting up with me.”
“It’s been my pleasure,” she said, and meant every word.
Eleanor looked around her kitchen, which looked fresh and new, almost as if they had applied a coat of paint.
“This looks like a new room. I honestly don’t know how you managed it.”
“We managed it. You’re the one making the final decisions.”
“You’re helping me every step of the way. What would I have done without you, my dear?”
“I should run this next load to Goodwill.”
“They must cringe when they see you coming. Here comes that nice girl with all of Eleanor Whitaker’s junk again.”
“I doubt that. Just because you don’t want it anymore doesn’t mean your things don’t have value. Someone else might have been looking for that mismatched china you’ve decided you don’t need.”
“I hope so. I always hated that china. But thank you again for working so hard on your birthday. Do something special to treat yourself this afternoon. You have more than earned it.”
How about sleep with your son?
The totally inappropriate thought made her blush. She could only be grateful Eleanor, as sharp as she was, couldn’t read her mind.
“I’ll see you this evening at your sister’s house.”