at two to transport the girls’ bedroom furniture and her boxes to Half Moon Bay. The main rooms of the house remained furnished, that furniture tagged either red for Justine or blue for Scott. The house looked almost model perfect. After the cleaning ladies made a run-through, it would be show-ready.
“How are you holding up?” Addie asked her sister.
“It’s very strange,” she said. “This doesn’t feel like home to me anymore. I don’t know that man anymore. The Scott I loved and trusted is gone. If his lips are moving, he’s lying. I don’t actually want that living room furniture, so I’ll sell it and we’ll get something new for the living room, but it was so obvious that his girlfriend wants it, I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. But I’m anxious for a clean slate. A new beginning.”
Addie put an arm around Livvie when she came to join them. “You doing okay?” she asked her niece.
Livvie nodded. “This place just makes me want to cry,” she said. “The last few months with Daddy hardly here for us were just terrible. I felt like an orphan. I don’t want to live here anymore.”
I hate him for what he did to my nieces, Addie thought. What a selfish, cruel bastard.
The men on the rented truck quickly loaded, drove and unloaded in Half Moon Bay. They set up the beds for the girls and left everyone to unpack. As there was no room in Addie’s kitchen for boxes full of dishes and platters, those boxes went to the enclosed back porch until they could make some choices, keeping the best and discarding the worst. There were boxes everywhere—against a living room wall, at the top of the stairs, in the kitchen and bedrooms. There was a freestanding garage, but it was already full of stuff that had belonged to their parents. Another project for another weekend. “I promise to help with the kitchen after I get the bedroom settled,” Justine said.
Addie looked around at the crunch of boxes and furniture and felt claustrophobic. Sleepovers were one thing. Even spending almost the whole summer together it had never felt too crowded. But this—giving her house over to three more people and their possessions... She suddenly felt as if she was disappearing.
“I’m getting some ideas,” Justine said. “We should resurface the beautiful hardwood floors, get some new area rugs, forget reupholstering and shop for some good furniture deals. How do you like peach for the kitchen and beige accented by navy blue walls in the living room—that would be stunning, I think. The bathrooms should be redone from the tile up. And I’d love to texture the walls in the entry and hang a large silver framed mirror and maybe an understated chandelier. We can talk about all this later... For the dining room—”
“I can’t concentrate right now,” Addie said, feeling as if she might suffocate.
“I’ll get this confusion cleared up and things put away quickly, Addie,” Justine said.
“No worries,” she said. “I think I’ll go out for a while, maybe meet up with Jake. Can I bring you back something to eat?”
“You go out and get away from this mess. I know it’s stressful, and I’ll make something simple—grilled cheese maybe for me and the girls.”
Addie stepped out onto the porch and called Jake.
“Well, hey! You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said with surprise in her voice, just realizing she almost never called him, only when she needed something. “Are you working tonight?”
“If I have nothing better to do,” he said. “Do I have something better to do?”
“I wonder if I could see your house?” she asked.
* * *
Adele hadn’t truly been that interested in Jake’s house when she called him. She really wanted to talk about the conflict she was feeling. She wanted Justine and the girls to live with her; she didn’t want Justine redecorating her house so that it reflected Justine and not Adele. Not that Adele had come up with any good renovation ideas in the eight years she’d had to think about it.
When all the boxes started stacking up, it felt like the walls closed in on her. When