My eyes scaled the dark wood of the cabin up to the red roof and trim, following it to the left side where there was a small view of the river that I was sure would be even better from the back. My stomach flipped, uneasy with a mixture of excitement and nerves. Now that I was standing in front of it, I felt a little ridiculous for driving an hour outside of the city to stay in a cabin for the summer. Yet still, it felt right, too.
The gravel driveway crunched under my knee-high Gianvitto Rossi boots as I made my way toward the cabin. I’d just reached the bottom stair when the door near the top swung open.
“Ah, you weren’t kidding when you said you’d be here in an hour, were you?” the man asked, accent thick and warm eyes crinkling at the edges as he waited for me to ascend the stairs. He met me with a firm handshake, the heat from inside the cabin wafting out a bit from behind him. It smelled of cinnamon and pine, warm and inviting. “I’m Abdiel.”
“Wren,” I said in return as he released my hand. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”
Abdiel eyed me curiously for a moment before waving a hand. “Please, it’s my pleasure. Come, take a look around.”
As we walked into the warm cabin, I shrugged off my jacket and scarf, slinging them over my arm and letting my eyes take in the space. It was surprisingly large, with a full kitchen just off to the left as soon as we entered and a wood-burning stove straight ahead. The small dining table that sat between the two spaces was littered with mail, a homey touch that was oddly soothing. I relaxed a little, following Abdiel.
“Everything works in the kitchen, though the fridge acts up from time to time. Nothing a little TLC doesn’t fix. Wood-burning stove keeps it nice and toasty in the winter. The door broke a few weeks ago, but you can prop the poker up against it to keep it shut or just let it hang open a bit to warm the downstairs even quicker. There’s no air conditioning, but even on the hottest days of the summer, opening the windows and doors usually provides a nice enough draft to cool the place off. Might get a little warm around mid-afternoon, but evening cools it down again.”
I nodded as we rounded into the living room, a quaint set up with a large sectional and flat-screen television. He walked us out onto the back porch next, which was considerably larger than the front and housed another sectional, this one with off-white, weather-resistant cushions and accented by a dark brown coffee table. A small hot tub sat covered on the opposite side, but it was the view of the river that was breathtaking, causing me to pause at the door frame while Abdiel talked on.
“Got a great view of the mountains and river, and you can walk there easily through that path I cut out down there,” he added, pointing to a break in the brush below. “Hot tub works fine.” He turned back to me, smiling a little at what I’m sure was my dumbfounded expression. I’d seen the silhouette of the mountains from the city, driven through the gorgeous Pacific Northwest a few times when we traveled for holidays, but for the most part, my view was concrete, brick, and neon lights. “Stunning, isn’t it?”
“And then some.”
Abdiel cocked his head a bit as if he was trying to figure out my story—who I was, why I was there. And I’d have told him, but I didn’t know myself.
He led me upstairs to the third level next, which played home to a cozy bedroom and simple bath. The bedroom had another small balcony that sat just above the one we’d just stood on below, and I rested my hands on the banister as Abdiel explained there were a few boards that needed replacing on all of the balconies and to be careful where I stepped. He went on and on about the cabin and the little community it rested in, but my eyes were on the water, imagining how I’d feel to wake up here every morning, to drink my coffee on the back porch, to watch the sunlight slowly touch the tips of each mountain before lazily making its way to the river.
“I’ll take it,” I said, cutting Abdiel off mid-sentence.
“Really?”
I nodded, excitement bubbling low in my stomach. For the first time since I’d left the place I shared with Keith, a small tinge of home brushed my chest. This cabin, this river, these mountains—they were where I needed to be.
“How much is it?”
“Two-hundred thousand is my asking price, but if you want to talk to your Realtor, I’m willing to come down a bit due to some of the maintenance that needs to take place.”
I blinked, whipping around to face Abdiel. “For three months?”
“What?”
We both blinked this time.
“It’s that much to rent for the summer?”
I’m not crazy, am I? I was well aware that real estate in Seattle was far from cheap, but hundreds of thousands of dollars for three months didn’t add up. “No offense, your cabin is beautiful and everything, I’m just a little shocked at that number.”
He squinted, brows pinching together. “The cabin isn’t for rent, Miss Wren. It’s for sale.”
The excitement I’d felt like a balloon in my chest just moments before popped, deflating on one long exhale.
“Oh,” I said simply, letting my eyes fall to my jacket. “Of course, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood the ad.”
The truer statement would have been that I didn’t really take the time to read through the ad completely. It’d been the first one I’d seen, honestly, and I’d stopped reading at SUMMER CABIN.
I shook my head, pulling on my jacket and scarf quickly and moving past Abdiel back inside the cabin. “I’m so sorry I wasted your time.” I offered him a smile I hoped wasn’t as pitiful as I felt. “I’ll show myself out.”
My cheeks flamed from embarrassment as I descended the stairs, but before I could rush out the front door, Abdiel stopped me.
“Wait!” he called out, carefully stepping his way down the stairs I’d just flown over. He was smiling through heavy breaths when he reached me, throwing his hands up. “Maybe we can make this work.”
“Really?” I asked, too eagerly I was sure, because Abdiel’s smile only widened.
“I wanted to make the sell before I traveled to see my family in Puerto Rico. I’m moving there, but there’s no rush. I’m retired, which means I get to make my own rules,” he added with a wink. “So, I tell you what. You pay me up front for the three months, you can stay for the summer as a rental. But you’ll have to take care of anything that breaks on your own, because I’ll be on the island. And, if you decide at the end of the summer that you want to buy, we can work out details then.”
Excitement rallied, but the realist in me squashed it down.
“And if I don’t buy?”
He shrugged, eyes still so warm. “Then I put the listing back up and you pay the gift of time forward one day when you have more of it to spare, too.”
It was in that moment that I learned my second lesson as a freshly divorced twenty-seven year old.
No one may have owed me anything, least of all kindness, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t give it, anyway.
It didn’t take long for me to unpack, especially considering I’d left nearly a decade of things behind. I just referred to all of it as things—the furniture, the photos, the memories, the “marital” property, even though some of it was rightly mine.