Justine started picking out colors for the walls, she began to feel as though Justine was the parent and she was the child, and she had to get out. Now she was standing on Jake’s porch waiting because he wasn’t home from the market yet.
She remembered when Jake bought this old house six or seven years ago. He said he bought it because he liked the look of the stone porch and the slanted roof with dormer windows. He had said it was a bloody awful mess that he looked forward to renovating. When she questioned the wisdom of buying a run-down house when his mother lived in a perfectly nice house, a paid-for house where Jake could live for free, he’d said, “An investment is a good idea, and one that I can take all the credit for is an even better idea. The trees around the yard are mature, the frame is solid, the wiring and plumbing are still sound and very little has to be done on the outside. Besides, how long should a single man live with this mother?”
Another complication of living with his mother was every time Marty had a marriage or romance fall apart, which seemed to happen with regularity, he moved home to their mother’s house, and he was the kind of force of nature that sucked all the air out of a room. Jake and his mother had lived quietly. There was not a quiet bone in Marty’s body.
Jake pulled up and got out of his truck. He had a grocery sack in one arm and a bunch of cellophane-wrapped flowers in the other.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have...”
“I didn’t,” he said. “They were going to be thrown out so I grabbed them. I do that all the time. Most of my diet is made up of expired food. I might not spend a lot of time here, but when I do I like it to be nice.”
He unlocked the door and motioned for her to step inside. When he came into the entry behind her, he flipped on a light. The foyer was small so the light shone into the living room. As the house wasn’t big, she could see the living room and dining room in an L-shape, and she assumed the kitchen was behind the wall on her right. She walked into the living room and looked around. The kitchen was separated from the dining room by a breakfast bar that could seat three. On the living room wall to her left was a large stone fireplace, the stone matching that on the front of the house and porch.
It was beautiful. Masculine with the dark velour sectional and recliner, heavy side tables and coffee table, chunky wood dining room table with six chairs. He had a buffet over which hung a painting of an antiquated lean-to surrounded by wildflowers with a mountain in the background.
The thing that impressed her the most was how clean it was. It wasn’t just tidy. There wasn’t a thing sitting out, not even a stack of mail. Not a speck of dust or a streak on the windows.
“Wow,” she said.
Addie was, admittedly, a little on the messy side. She tended to leave dishes in the sink and let the laundry pile up until it became an emergency. She wasn’t good about putting away her shoes, and she had far too many jackets or sweaters draped on chair backs—and that was before Justine and the girls added to the clutter.
While she was looking around, Jake went to the kitchen. He pulled some aging and tired looking flowers out of a vase, dropped them in the trash and rinsed out the vase. He snipped off the ends of the new flower stems right into the trash and created an instant centerpiece.
“How about a glass of wine,” he said, unpacking his groceries.
She watched as he put away a half dozen eggs, two oranges, two apples, two bananas, some bacon and a loaf of bread, suspecting they were past their sell-by date.
“That sounds great,” she said. “I had a tiring day. I went with Justine and the girls to their San Jose house to help them with dividing the furniture. Scott was there, too. I’m not sure, but