“Yeah, it’s still there.” But not for long. She’d been meaning to get rid of that thing for months, but it hadn’t been a priority, and lately she’d been mostly using the back door. Jim had bought the mat on sale at one of the big box stores the summer before Jessie died. Liddy’d thought it was tacky when he’d brought it home, and she still thought it was tacky. Mentally she added toss front doormat onto her list of things to do.
“So? That work for you?” he asked impatiently, apparently wanting to get back to the job at hand.
“That would be fine. Thanks.” She paused, thinking about that mat. “On second thought, just put it under the flowerpot on the wicker table on the front porch if I don’t answer the bell.”
“Got it. Maybe I’ll see you later, then.” He went back to what he was doing.
It took Liddy only ten minutes to walk home. She went up the front steps and stared down at the welcome mat, which now seemed to offend her even more since Tuck had mentioned it.
“You really are ugly, and you’re not adding anything to the curb appeal,” she told it as she picked it up. “But I have just the place for you.”
She went inside, picked up the mail from the floor inside the front door, and left it on the hall table, then went through the house and out the back.
“I should have made Jim take you with him when he left. No one liked you but him,” she said aloud as she dropped it into the trash can.
She went back inside to look for the key for the little house, which was just next door, muttering to herself. “Yes, it’s come to this. I talk to the trash.”
The little white house stood at the end of a long paved driveway. Once upon a time, it had been a dirt path, but when Jim had decided to use it for his insurance business, he’d had macadam put down. He’d had sod brought in to replace the wild grasses growing around it, and he’d had a big sign installed out by the sidewalk. Now the sign was gone—she’d made him take it with him when he’d left, since the Bryant Agency was leaving town with him—and the tall grasses and wildflowers he’d tried to eliminate had reclaimed the property. As Liddy walked along the winding driveway, she wondered if all that pricey sod was still under there somewhere.
The door unlocked easily, and Liddy went inside. The air was stifling, and the room was dark. She brushed away a spider’s web from one of the front windows, tossed aside the desiccated remains of what had been several flies and a yellow jacket, and pushed up the sash to let in some air. Her left hand searched the wall for the switch for the ceiling fan with its light fixture before she remembered the electricity had been shut off. But she knew the building well enough to know the front room led into a hallway off which were four doors. The break room and powder room were on the right, Jim’s office and the big room housing his assistants on the left.
“Well, crap, Jim. You couldn’t take your old banged-up file cabinets with you?” Liddy walked into the first office and kicked the bottom drawer of the closest cabinet. “Ugh, and I hate those venetian blinds. They never did work very well. Those gotta go, regardless of who ends up here. Even if no one lives here.” She stared at them. “Off with their heads.”
“Liddy?” Maggie called from the front room. “Who are you threatening to behead?”
Liddy went into the hall. “Jim. He left some stuff here I’m going to have to deal with now.”
“Why don’t you just call him and tell him to come get his shit?” Grace poked her head into the first room on the right.
“Because I don’t speak to him.”
“So send him an email.” Grace disappeared into what had been the break room. “So this would be the kitchen?”
“Yes, if your idea of a kitchen is a small sink, an under-the-counter dorm-size refrigerator, and a hot plate,” Liddy said from the doorway.
Grace went from room to room, occasionally commenting on the size of the room or the number of windows.
“I don’t remember the rooms being so big. Of course, I was only in here a few times,” Maggie said. “It’s actually a nice-size little cottage.”
“Cottage is a bit of a stretch.” Liddy snorted. “Cottage makes me think of a cozy place with lots of charm. Cozy and charming are not words that come to mind here.”
“It could be cozy and charming. And it’s not all that small,” Grace pointed out.
“I guess it looked smaller when Jim and his staff were here because there were desks and office equipment everywhere. The front room had the receptionist’s desk and a sofa and a couple of chairs. That second room on the left had three desks in it and a bunch of filing cabinets. Empty—except for the damned cabinets—it’s actually quite a nice space.”
“I remember this place. Jessie and I used to come down here on the pretense of visiting her father. But that was just a cover to grab a can of soda and a Popsicle from the freezer. Then we’d go out back and play around the pond. Catch salamanders.” Grace rejoined them in the hall. “I was so obsessed with salamanders my science project for school that year was titled ‘All about Salamanders.’” She turned to Liddy. “Are you aware Massachusetts is the home to eleven different species of salamanders? Oh yes—several are on the state’s concerned and endangered list: the blue-spotted salamander, the marbled salamander. One species is all female—they reproduce without fertilization of their eggs—though at ten, I didn’t really understand what that meant. And some don’t have lungs. They—”
“Breathe through their skins, like the Eastern red-backed salamander.” Maggie finished the sentence for her daughter.
“How’d you know that?” Grace asked.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Please. I was your audience every night for a solid week while you practiced the oral presentation of your report. I remember as if it were yesterday, the same way I remember the words to ‘American Pie,’ ‘Crocodile Rock,’ and ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee.’ Who knows why?”
“Oh my God. Songs from the past and Sam McGee.” Liddy laughed. “What were we, in fifth grade or so then?”
“Something like that. My sister had a radio, and she played it all day, every day, after school.” Maggie fell silent, and Liddy suspected Maggie was recalling that Sarah had passed away within a year or two of that memory. When she saw Grace give her mother’s shoulder a squeeze, she knew Grace, too, was aware how the aunt she’d never known had died at fifteen after she’d ridden her bike over a yellow jacket nest. Highly allergic to their stings, Sarah hadn’t even had time to call for help.
To change the subject, Liddy gestured with one hand to encompass the entire building. “So. What do we think?”
“It’s quite a project.” Maggie understated the obvious. “For starters, the gold wall-to-wall carpet is, in a word, hideous.”
“Absolutely. It needs to go. I wonder if there’s nice wood underneath.” Grace knelt and tried to pry up a corner of the carpet, but it was firmly affixed to the floor. She gave up and stood, brushing dirt and dust from her knees and her hands. “The entire place needs reno. Like, a lot of reno. A full bathroom. A real kitchen.”