Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved Read Free Page B

not convinced his 1986 Toyota Nova is on death’s door, and he feels a certain loyalty to the aging vehicle. I, on the other hand, believe it is time to move on. I worry about his late-night gigs and his unreliable vehicle. I don’t feel safe in the car, which rattles and shakes and farts without apology. But we are three, and his back seat accommodates full-sized passengers. Mine requires the folding of body parts and elicits complaints from any adult who is forced to ride in the rear.
    We follow Ed’s directions to a small cottage colony in Harwich Port. Once the vacation retreat of choice on Cape Cod, only a few cottage colonies are still in business these days. They once offered families a homey alternative to motels, more comfortable than a campground but with some of the same benefits: room for the kids to roam, other families nearby, and the sense of being part of a vacation village. In recent years, cottage colonies have hit upon hard times. The cottages are too tiny and too primitive for today’s vacationers, and the colonies are often located too close to what are now too busy roads. Most cottage colonies have been redeveloped, many demolished. In this case, they are making way for new homes. The sign by the road confirms the price and availability of the buildings and reminds us they must be moved.
    We discover the cottages are open to visitors, front doors unlocked. Each has a living room, a tiny galley kitchen, a minuscule bathroom, and a very, very small bedroom. They all have little screened-in porches. I imagine the vacationing families who came home to them all those years ago. Sitting on their porches late at night, content in their week on Cape Cod, they would play cards and music and sip vacation drinks. They were happy families, and these are happy cottages, though empty now and a bit worn out.
    We walk through each little house, noting the slightly varying layouts, the positioning of windows and doors. I am Goldilocks, visiting the Bear family compound in their absence, searching for the cottage that is just right. And I find it. It is at the very back of the cottage colony, the cottage farthest from the street. Though it is not discernibly different from its neighbors on the outside, the inside of “my cottage” is warm and appealing, with Mexican tiles hand-laid on the tiny kitchen wall, a deep green living room with real knotty pine paneling, a bold purple bedroom, scuffed but promising wood floors, and bright white ceilings. There are odd built-in features that speak of a weekend carpenter, and a yellow bar of soap still resting on the white porcelain sink. While the other cottages feel as though they have been abandoned for some time, this last little cottage has been loved, and recently. We tour all the cottages one more time, comparing details, measuring rooms with Harry’s footsteps, making notes, but we know we’ll return to the last little cottage in the row. Inside, I jump up and down, up and down, making my way across the floorboards. I detect no soft spots. “It seems sturdy,” I say, and Harry agrees. Bruce is slightly dubious about my research methods.
    I open up the little notebook I have brought, the gridded paper perfect for sketching a floor plan. I outline the cottage, rough the locations of the doors and windows, and Harry provides the measurements.
    “I could live here,” Bruce says, “just as it is.” Bruce has had an ongoing fantasy for as long as I’ve known him. A small-house fantasy. I first learned of it when we worked at the BU Bookstore and he was visiting me in Marblehead, a town full of charming old homes. We were walking around the Old Town section when we came upon a little house, snuggled into a hillside, a tiny porch only a few feet from the sidewalk. “Now that could be my house,” Bruce said. I agreed it was a sweet little house.
    “Whenever I see a little house like that, I think: The owners could give that house to me. They would see me looking