Dewberry Beach home for the summer. It rented quickly and Kaye’s only stipulation was that strangers not be allowed to use her family’s things. The agent arranged for storage and filled the house with impersonal, practical furniture for tenants.
For three summers, a parade of strangers lived in her family’s shore house. And although she read the income reports and the spreadsheets of expenses, she left the management to the agent because she couldn’t bear to visit.
But now she was back to reclaim it.
“What about the boxes in the kitchen? You want them?” one of the volunteers called to her from the side door. “Maybe there’s something in there you want to keep?”
Kaye shook her head as she walked toward the house. “The boxes in the kitchen go to the rummage sale at the church. They should be coming by to get them.”
There wasn’t anything in that house she wanted. In fact, she never wanted to see any of it again.
By mid-morning, most of the big furniture had been taken away. The last of the bedroom furniture had been loaded into a waiting van parked in the street. It had been wonderfully cathartic, purging the house of everything the rental agent had ordered, scrubbing it clean and filling it with her own things.
“What about that thing?” One of the workmen jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the tiny outbuilding at the end of the side driveway.
The shed had been designed to replicate the house, with the same weathered cedar shingles, Dutch-door entrance, and flower box under a paned window. The box had been filled with blooms when Kaye let the house, but now the only sign of life was a few weak shoots struggling in the sodden earth. She’d address that, too, before her family came. She added a trip to the nursery to her growing mental list.
“You want this house cleared by three, we’re gonna need to get inside-a that,” the worker continued, turning to view the little shed with a critical eye. “No telling what’s in there or how much we gotta haul out.”
Kaye shook her head. She had insisted on the padlock when turning the house over to rent, despite the agent’s objections—a shed would be a great place for guests to store surfboards, umbrellas, and beach chairs. But the shed, and what was inside, held some of her best summer memories. Strangers would never be allowed access.
“The shed isn’t part of the clean-out. Just the house,” Kaye answered.
Chase had wanted the shore house to sit vacant until he recovered, though neither of them knew how long that would be. He suggested that their adult children, Brad and Stacy—and Stacy’s family—could enjoy the house even if he and Kaye were stuck in Princeton.
But Kaye knew better.
Her children were grown and busy with their own lives. Stacy and her husband Ryan hadn’t been to the shore house for anything longer than a weekend visit since Connor was a toddler, and he was six years old now. Brad was occupied with college and everything that went with it. She had told Chase that her decision to lease out the house was a practical one, that worrying about a vacant house was the last thing she needed at the moment, and he had been satisfied.
But none of what she told him had been the truth.
Kaye refused to drive to Dewberry Beach, even for a weekend, because she was afraid to leave her husband’s side. She was afraid to travel outside the protective bubble of his doctors and therapists in Princeton. She was terrified, even three years later, that Chase would suffer another heart attack.
The door of the delivery van slid open with a thump, pulling Kaye from her thoughts. Since they’d been working, the dew had burned off the grass and the crispness in the air had softened into something warmer, more in keeping with Memorial Day weekend at the New Jersey shore. The workers brightened as they peeled off their gloves to break for lunch. They even offered to help carry the delivery inside, with one man taking the case of drinks and another the tray of sub sandwiches that Kaye had ordered. They’d been working hard all morning and Kaye was happy for them to rest for a bit.
“Kaye, dear, how lovely to see you’ve come back at last.”
Shielding her eyes from the early summer sun, Kaye turned toward the familiar voice to see their neighbor Mrs. Ivey making her way down the short path that connected the