Keys to the Castle Read Free Page B

But if you were figuring on staying here on the island . . . well, it might be good if you felt like you had someplace to come home to.”
    A pause, too long, and Sara could hear her heart beat in the silence. Her eyes, finally adjusted to the dark, could see Jeff ’s silhouette, arms resting on his knees, shoulders hunched, head down and gazing at the tip of his cigarette, a faint ember in a vast bowl of windy shadows and sighing surf.
    â€œJoe Peterson’s thinking about selling that little yellow house of yours,” Jeff went on, abruptly. “The place you were renting before . . . well, before. I think he’d give you a good price on it, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot to fix it up.”
    â€œAh,” Sara said. And that was all she could manage, because that was all the breath she had.
    Sara had moved into the little house with its scrubby yard and faded yellow clapboards less than a month after she’d arrived in Little John. It had brown linoleum floors and a kitchen the size of a linen closet, and it smelled of the sea. Daniel had moved in three months later, and permeated every corner with his presence. They had sat in the porch swing and counted the stars and listened to the surf. They had made love in every room. They sat before the fireplace, wrapped in a single quilt, and whispered their dreams to each other. And then one dark, cold night Daniel was not home when she got in from the bookstore, and he didn’t answer his cell phone, and it started to sleet, and then Stu Richman, the island’s only police officer, stood on her porch with his hat in his hand, dripping a freezing rain, and said, “Sara, I’m so sorry . . .”
    She had not been back in the house since. Dixie had packed up her things. There weren’t many; so much of what she owned was still in storage in Chicago. There had been only two sad little boxes labeled “Daniel.” Daniel had never owned much at all.
    And now Jeff was saying, “Listen, I’m not saying you should make up your mind now. But it might be something to think about, while you’re over there, you know. And if you want me to, I’ll go in and check it out for you, put together an idea of what it might cost to fix it up nice.”
    She was quiet for a time. “Daniel . . . never had time to tell me much about his childhood, or the place he grew up. All he ever said about his parents’ house in France was that it was old, and falling apart, and had rats the size of house cats.” She almost managed a smile at the memory. “He loved our little yellow house.” She took a breath—a big breath, a deep breath, a breath whose effort hurt—and corrected deliberately, “ My house.”
    Sara leaned forward, and placed her hand lightly on her brother-in-law’s knee. “Thanks for letting me live in your basement, Jeff, and monopolize your wife and steal your kids. Thanks for not saying anything when I didn’t show my face at meals for days at a time and worried Dixie sick.” And even as she spoke she began to understand how hard these past months had been on her family, even though she had never intended to bring them her sadness, and how much they had given her, even though she had never asked them for anything. She understood, and even though she knew she could never repay them, she vowed in that moment she would not steal any more of their happiness.
    She found Jeff’s fingers in the dark and squeezed them briefly. “Thanks,” she said. “Just thanks.”
    He looked uncomfortable. “Listen, Sara, it’s not that you’re not welcome here. You know that. But a person . . . well, a person needs a home. A place of her own.”
    A life of her own , Sara amended silently. She sat back in her chair, and tucked the scarf up around her ears against a gust of salty wind. “What’s Peterson asking for the house? Do you