June 4, 2007
She’d waited until school was out to close on the house, giving Ada time to make the huge transition of leaving the home where she’d spent thirty years. What would it feel like to lose someone you’d loved all your life? It had been hard enough to lose Ryan and they’d had less than a decade together. What if you’d been with someone for multiple decades? Her heart clenched at the thought. She’d never know that now.
She had arranged to meet with Ada and Arthur to do one last walk-through of the house before she took possession at the closing. She found herself pausing to give Ada the space to say good-bye, her heart breaking a little each time the old woman’s voice quivered. Just before they left the house to head to the closing, she put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “I want you to know I’ll take good care of this house,” she said.
There were tears in Ada’s eyes that she didn’t bother to hide. “I know you will. I prayed about who should have this house and I know you’re it.” She pointed at Emily with a commanding finger. “But I also know this is no place to be alone. This is a house for a family.” She gestured at the expanse of the great room/kitchen area behind them, filled with the old furniture she’d thrown in with the house simply because she didn’t know what else to do with it. “Lots of room for kids to play here, memories to be made. When our kids were little this place used to be full of wet bathing suits and shell collections, and this floor”—she gestured at the dark hardwood beneath their feet with a laugh—“used to always have sandy footprints tracked across it.”
Together they walked out of the house, Ada linking her arm through Emily’s for both emotional and physical support. They were about to tackle the few steps from the front porch when Ada turned to take in the house one last time. She looked back at Emily, her eyes widening as if she had remembered something, but then seemed to think better of it.
“Yes?” Emily asked, wondering what it was the woman was not saying.
Ada waved her hand through the air, dispelling whatever thought she’d had. “Nothing, nothing. I’ll take care of it,” she said. As they made their way slowly down the stairs, she heard the old woman say under her breath, “If I can remember, that is.” But Emily didn’t press. She didn’t want any more advice from Ada, or anyone else for that matter, about what this next chapter of life was supposed to look like.
Emily returned from her day of unpacking for one last night in her second stay at the motel, wanting a bed that was made, a television that was already set up and working. The first thing she’d done was to put the plaque with Jeremiah 29:11 in a prominent space in the house, to remind herself of that hope and future Ryan had said was coming for her, though it seemed out of reach at that moment. All she could see right now was work, work, and more work in her future. She was looking forward to Marta’s arrival the next day, both for her best friend’s moral support but also for her help with the physical labor of unpacking boxes. Her mom and dad had offered to come down, but Emily had asked them to wait until she was settled. The last thing she needed was her mother’s brand of help, which was synonymous, in Emily’s world, with critique.
That afternoon standing in her new (old) house, she’d thought better of having them come anytime soon. There was still a lot of updating the house needed and she wondered if her parents would question her sanity at having picked this particular house. Indeed, at that moment she questioned her own sanity. Her emotional reaction to Ada’s story, the connection they felt as widows both trying to honor their husbands’ last requests, and the way the view of the backyard at sunset all seemed trivial months later in the light of day. She had a panicked thought: What if she’d made a mistake? She shrugged. It was buyer’s remorse, and everyone got it. Even she and Ryan had felt it when they’d bought their little starter home—not much but all they could afford at the time. She’d worried about the neighborhood being safe enough. He’d worried whether he could keep up with the responsibilities of home ownership like yard maintenance and household repairs. And it had all turned out okay then.
Trying to block her erratic thoughts, she went to switch on the TV and veg out properly. But when she hit the remote, nothing happened. She began pressing random buttons, watching the blank screen to see if anything happened. But the screen remained black. There were moments when she missed Ryan more acutely than others, and this was one. She wanted him there to help her figure out why the remote wasn’t working. In their marriage he handled all the “technical difficulties,” as he called them, which basically meant he dealt with anything that ran on electrical current. She looked around the empty room, then, frustrated, called down to the front desk to ask what to do.
The young girl answered, which didn’t surprise Emily. She’d yet to see the father. She wondered if he was even around and if the girl was covering for him somehow. Could a girl that young maintain a motel all on her own? More important, could she fix a broken remote? “Hi, this is Emily. Shaw. I’m in the studio room upstairs?”
“Unh-hunh,” the girl replied dully.
“My remote control isn’t working and I was wondering if you could fix it?”
“I can bring you a new one,” the girl said.
Emily thought about asking the girl to leave the office, felt bad for pulling her away from her desk. She was all alone, manning the phone. Then she thought of the last time she’d been there, how she’d seen the girl leaving another room. She obviously expected to have to visit rooms from time to time. “That would be great. I was hoping to watch something mindless, unwind a bit. I bought a house here and—”
“I’ll be right up,” the girl said and hung up.
She looked down at the dead phone in her hand and shook her head. Teenagers could be so rude. But usually she could find a way past the bravado and posturing and get to their heart. She liked to think that most of her students liked her at school. But none of them unnerved her like this girl, got her rambling in an attempt to create a conversation. She sounded like an idiot and she knew it. She’d have to play it cooler around her. Not act like she cared. And why did she care, anyway? Chances were she’d never see this girl again unless she made an effort. And yet there was something about the girl—the guy she’d seen flirting with her, the way she seemed alone all the time, the flat way she answered questions that told Emily the girl was quietly longing. But for what, Emily couldn’t say.
Emily wandered around the room, her eyes straying to the black screen and the door, alternating between the two as the minutes went by. She walked over to the window and peered out, looking for the girl, but saw nothing but the parking lot and the pier beyond. Though it was the beginning of summer, the motel didn’t have that many guests, most people visiting Sunset preferring to rent a house and all that came with it. She smiled. A house. Her house. Hers.
She sat down on the loveseat that came with the studio, taking the quiet moment to think of all she should do to set up the house. A list formed in her mind, one that got long quickly. She needed to buy new linens and get groceries—staples—and she wanted some new dishes for the kitchen, beach dishes, she’d come to think of them as. Happy dishes to eat fresh-caught shrimp from, forks to twirl pasta around the tines, glasses to fill with water, yellow rounds of sliced lemon floating on top. Her mother had offered to buy her something as a housewarming gift, perhaps she would ask for those things. And then she would pray about what faces would gather around her table to eat. Beyond the usual suspects, she hoped she’d find some new faces too, that Sunset Beach would offer her some new relationships with people who didn’t know her as Ryan’s widow first.
She heard heavy footsteps lumbering up the stairs. She waited for the knock to tug open the swollen door, the girl’s green gaze meeting her own as she did.
“Hi,” she said. She opened the door widely and gestured for her to come in. She watched the girl pass by, noting that she seemed a bit heavier than the last time she saw her. Too much sitting, not enough exercise, too much junk food. Emily remembered a large fast-food cup sitting on the motel desk, filled with soda. She would bet that there’d been fries and a burger with that soda. Maybe she’d start making healthy meals and invite the girl over. With no mother to tend to her, she was unsure whether the girl got many home-cooked meals.
She retrieved the remote from the coffee table and handed it off. Amber pressed buttons just like Emily had done, also watching the TV to no avail. Finally she sighed and put the remote down, crossing over to the TV set itself. She bent down and looked at the set, then crawled around behind it. After a moment she came back out, then walked over and pushed one button on the remote, the set blinking to life with too loud voices. Emily wondered why she’d even wanted it on once the canned laughter and grating voices of a sitcom filled the room. “What did you do?” she asked, impressed.
“Plugged it in,” she said. Then she gave Emily a look that told her all she needed to know as to her opinion of Emily’s intellect.
Amber gave a little wave and headed for the door, Emily casting about for something to say but reasoning it was best to let her get back to work. The girl was almost at the door when she stopped short and bent over at the waist, her hand covering her mouth. Emily rushed to Amber’s side, put her hand on her back. “You okay?” Her voice was barely a whisper in spite of the loud TV.
The girl straightened up, her back stiff and proud as she did, her momentary weakness gone. She looked at Emily and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, then she hurried out of the room, leaving Emily alone with just the TV for company. She stared at the open doorway, wishing Amber had stayed, had told her what accounted for the depths of sadness she kept behind those startling green eyes of hers.
She stepped outside into the breezeway, wanting to smell the salt air and wondering if it would’ve been better just to stay the night in her new house than to come back to this place. As she did she could hear a sound below. Someone retching into the bushes by the parking lot. She couldn’t see the face, but she knew who it was. She listened for the sounds to stop and then she heard footsteps walk away and the door to the office open and shut again. “Okay,” she said to the air. “I’ll help her.”
She went back into the room, thinking of another sermon her father preached as often as he could, the gist of which was that we are all connected, we are all here to help each other, and the most random encounters are all part of a bigger plan.