“I think Victor is doing what I’m doing.”
“And that would be?”
“Trying to prove the house should rightfully belong to the Tanner family, not be left equally to both families.”
I stood, Charmed completely forgotten in my annoyance over her ridiculousness. “The house, Mom, was not left equally to both families. It was left to two individual people, neither of which has any interest in continuing this ridiculous feud.”
“That’s easy to say when it hasn’t affected you personally.”
“You’re kidding, right? How many complaint sessions have I sat through with you and Aunt Verda moaning about her moose? How long were we on the phone when your shop was turned upside down?”
“Those things didn’t happen to you, Addie. They happened to us.”
That stung. Mom had complained for years that I’d run away from the family, that I’d thought I was too big for my britches and had to show off by moving to New York. She’d been so passive aggressive about it for so long that I stopped coming home to visit. And now she was essentially telling me she didn’t count me as a Tanner at all. “Yes. And I’m sorry. And if we don’t stop, things are going to get worse and someone might end up getting hurt.”
Mom sniffed in response and I decided that seven-thirty was not too early for a thirty-five year old woman to go to bed. In the morning, the floors would be finished drying, and I could go back to the house. And to Michael. My not-boyfriend who I lived with.
Maybe Mom had a little bit of a point.
The following day, I went to the house with a fresh load of laundry and a fast belief that ghosts would not be as difficult to handle as my mother. I also had a load of garden supplies I’d bought at Michael’s store earlier when I had been disappointed not to find him there. What I did find were his cousins, Virgil and Emmett, who both smelled strangely floral, as if their clothes had been washed with some too-strong detergent.
“Aren’t you that Tanner lady?” One of them asked me, narrowing his eyes.
“I am,” I agreed, feeling a little on the spot.
“The one Mike is shacked up with.” This was said by one cousin to the other, as if explaining the situation.
The other cousin nodded enthusiastically, as if this was the most interesting revelation ever to come his way.
The first one said, “Your sister is Amberlynn, right? High school teacher?”
Now I felt slightly defensive. “She is,” I confirmed, wondering what they wanted with my little sister. She might be a pain, but I was in the habit of looking out for her nonetheless.
“She may or may not have broken into our apartment,” the speaking cousin told me. I wanted to tell them there was zero chance my upstanding little sister would break and enter. But Amberlynn had gotten pretty invested in the feud. I actually didn’t doubt she would if she could.
“Yeah,” he went on. “And she may or may not have unleashed some kind of perfume bomb in there.”
The scent suddenly made sense. I wanted to smack my sister. She was perpetuating this insanity. With a bulk buy from Bath and Bodyworks, no less. “I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” the cousin said, agreeing in general, I guessed.
“I’ll have a word with her,” I promised them. “For the record, I think you smell nice,” I added.
“Screw you, Tanner,” the one that hadn’t spoken yet said. He would now be characterized in my head as the mean one.
“Nice,” I said, starting to feel annoyed at these rednecks. “Is Michael here?”
“No,” they said together, and it was clear they were not going to tell me anything more.
“Fine,” I said. “Bye.”
They did not respond, but I could feel their angry glares on my back as I left the store.
I spent the rest of the day in the side yard at the house, pulling weeds and digging out roots where I could find them. I wanted to rescue the rose garden, an idea I’d gotten from the photos we’d found. There had been a woman in a long white dress holding a parasol over her head to shade her from the sun. At her feet were at least twenty blooming rose bushes, forming a beautiful backdrop to the imposing structure of the house. I didn’t know much about gardening—it wasn’t much of a city pursuit—but I remembered a bit from the time I’d spent weeding with Mom as a kid.
I dug and pulled and sweated most of the afternoon away, and when I was close to finishing up, I was rewarded when I found two rose bushes still holding fast in the damp soil. They’d been overgrown and hidden in vines, but they were still there, and I thought maybe there was enough of them left to thrive.
Something about seeing them still there, still fighting for sun and air, gave me hope. We can all come back from hardship. And even if we think our lives might be one way, it might turn out they’ll be even better if we just hang on and open ourselves to alternatives.
“What are you up to out here?” A familiar voice came across the lawn, and my stomach gave a little jump. Michael.
“Just trying to clear out some of the weeds out here,” I told him.
“It’s looking good,” he said, striding across the lawn and coming to stand next to where I was kneeling.
I stood, letting out an accidental groan like a much older woman, and wiping my dirty palms over my jeans. “I’ve been crouching all day long,” I said, stretching.
“You got a lot done,” he said. “Did you go inside? How are the floors?”
I’d dropped my things in the kitchen, and then had spent the rest of the day outside. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that I was still scared to be in the house alone, but that was the truth of it.
“Well, if you’re almost done out here, I brought dinner and a bottle of wine to celebrate a major milestone accomplished.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That sounds good,” I said. It also sounded kind of like a date, but as I considered pointing that out or protesting, I realized the idea actually made me feel warm and giddy. I closed my mouth and smiled. “I might need to clean up a bit before I’m ready for dinner though.”
“No rush,” Michael said. “By the way, the guys told me you stopped by the store today.”
“Oh, yeah. I needed the tools.” I wasn’t sure if I should mention that they’d told me to screw off.
“I apologize for whatever stupidity came out of them.”
“It’s fine,” I said as we walked together toward the back door of the house.
“It’s probably not, but it’s nice of you to say so,” Michael said. He glanced at the little garage sitting behind the house and stopped for a minute. “You know, I almost forgot I had this key I found and I wanted to try it on the door over there.” We still hadn’t gotten into the garage, and I had no doubt it would be filled with more stuff we’d have to deal with.
“Sure,” I said, following him to the door. The structure was so overgrown with vines it was hard to even get to the door, and the windows were blackened and much too dusty to see through.
He pulled his keys from his pocket and selected the dirty brass one. He wiggled it around a bit, but ultimately stuck the keys back in his pocket. “Doesn’t fit.”