I stood there, unable to move as he reentered, waiting for my head to stop pounding at the notion that I’d get an entire week of this torture. An entire week of Matthew and his unintentional charm offensive.
I couldn’t decide if it made me happy or terrified.
Likely some of both.
It was past one by the time I finished the majority of my errands and got back to Boston, where I picked up a sandwich for lunch on my drive back into Newton. It had been a while since I’d visited Boston—ten years, in fact—but other than a few new stores here and there and a greater prevalence of Starbucks, the area hadn’t changed much. Still the same large houses lining the sloping streets toward Boston College, another area school. Still the tree-lined streets and neatly paved sidewalks only occasionally littered with children’s bikes or chalk drawings.
When I’d originally bought a house in this neighborhood, I’d done it with children in mind. Once, I’d had the idea of sending Olivia to a public school instead of a prep school like the ones I’d attended, and Newton had some of the best in the area. I certainly hadn’t imagined sending her hours away at the tender age of five. It troubled me still to think of the day I left her in that classroom, watched as she had stood in the window, arms wrapped tightly around her waist until the large front doors of the academy had closed behind me.
Maybe that was the reason I’d chosen Andover, a boarding school outside of Boston, instead of something closer, like Girard or Rumsey. Maybe a part of me had never completely given up on this move, leaving a clear route when I was ready to leave that life and pursue another. One where I could meaningfully be reunited with my daughter at last.
I parked the car outside the classic colonial with the bright white shingles and Tuscan columns framing a black door. At first, it looked the same. I had originally fallen in love with its farmhouse appeal, with the yawning backyard, the willow that shaded a small creek at the far corner, and the large deck where I imagined rocking Olivia to sleep under the stars I never saw in New York. I remembered thinking it would be a cozy place to live when the New England snows hit, with its multiple fireplaces and large chef’s kitchen. I had wanted to learn to cook. Maybe even one day get married to someone I actually loved and have a real family.
For a moment, I could see Matthew’s face peeking through the windowpanes, eager to greet me as I returned home. Quickly, I shook away that particular vision. Even if our future hadn’t been doomed, this was not the place for him. My love was a New York native, through and through, as much for his family as for his job and the home he had already bought for himself.
Pipe dreams, all of it. Time to let them go and find a way to make my own happen without him.
Too depressed and saddened to bother with this house, for years I had allowed Calvin to take care of it via his own property management firm. A mistake, I now knew, but one I could rectify. A simple call informed me that as of last year, they no longer managed the house, and as far as they knew, it had been vacant since the previous tenants left a few years earlier.
My heart sank as I got out of the car. Neglect of my sweet, beautiful house was everywhere. The windows were filthy after a year without washing. The bushes and trees badly needed pruning, and the grass was overgrown and gone to seed where other parts of the yard hadn’t been completely torn out. The paint was peeling, more gray than white near the foundation, and the gutters on the left side were cracked and overfilling with debris.
Vacant, I had expected. In minor disrepair, perhaps. But this utterly broke my heart.
“You there! Hello?”
I turned to find an elderly woman with tight pin curls and pale, wrinkled skin hurrying across the street toward me. Her finger was already pointed toward me, and she had that way about her I knew well—a woman of relative means who assumed her opinion was more important than most.
“Do you know the people that live here?” she demanded as she huffed to the sidewalk where I stood.