as she moved closer. It looked at lot like a twin bed hung from the ceiling by two lengths of fat nautical rope. The yellow cushions on the furniture seemed new too. Stacy remembered blue. She also remembered spending entire afternoons buried in the cushions of those chairs reading a book from the library, completely lost in the story.
She looked forward to doing that again.
Stacy pushed opened the gate for the white picket fence that surrounded the front yard, delighted to hear the familiar creak of the wood. The front garden was planted with clusters of white inpatients and blue lavender, same as always, and on each of the steps were big clay pots overflowing with red geraniums. Stacy remembered sticking little American flags in the soil of those pots to celebrate the Fourth of July.
“You mean the garden?” Stacy asked. “It looks the same.”
“That’s just it, Stace.” Ryan swept his hand in a wide arc across the house. “This has been a rental for the past three summers. Do you have any idea how hard renters are on stuff they don’t own? The amount of work it must have taken to transform it into something that looks the same would have been enormous.”
Stacy stepped forward and looked at the house with fresh eyes.
The front garden had recently been tilled and planted. The scent of turned soil was still in the air. The wicker furniture had been scrubbed clean, with sharply creased cushions on each chair. The strangest thing was the soft cotton throw that had been casually draped across the back of a wicker chair.
Then she knew. Stacy’s mother, who never seemed to care about anything but utility and practicality, had staged the front porch. The realization stopped Stacy in her tracks.
She glanced at Ryan for confirmation. He nodded.
She wondered what else had changed.
“C’mere.” She took his hand and led him around to the back of the house.
The outdoor shower was still there. And although a shingled half-door now replaced the flimsy yellow curtain from years past, the top of the shower remained uncovered, open to whatever might fall from the sky. When they were younger, she and Brad used to fill water balloons with frigid tap water and drop them from the attic window on anyone stupid enough to use the outdoor shower. After a particularly satisfying summer of sneak attacks, their father had cobbled together a makeshift roof for the shower, using scraps of wood from their grandfather’s work shed. Except that Stacy’s father wasn’t the carpenter her grandfather had been. The roof he built, crooked and riddled with nail holes, had leaked rainwater and collapsed the following year. Their mother eventually hired someone to have the debris removed and forbid them both from continuing their balloon war. The promise was quickly ignored, and the attacks continued. What she and Brad did do was stop shrieking when they were hit. Revenge that year was stealthy.
Stacy glanced from the outdoor shower to the attic window above. The roof was still open to the sky, the window in perfect alignment. Brad might remember to be watchful while rinsing off beach sand, but Ryan wouldn’t. He would make an excellent target. With a smile, Stacy turned to her husband.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
Stacy’s smile widened as she took his hand. That water would be so cold. “Nothing. Just thinking.”
Ryan had insisted on carrying the heavier bags, so Stacy grabbed Sophie’s tiny pink roller and followed her husband and children into the house. Even from the driveway, she could hear the kids’ excited shouts as they pounded up the stairs inside the house.
“Come in, come in.” Kaye held the screen door wide. “Just leave everything right here. We’ll sort it out later.” Her mother moved to hug Ryan. “How was the drive in? The weather said it was still raining over by you?”
“Not too bad,” Ryan answered, as he set the bags in the hallway and returned the hug.
“Where did the kids go?” Stacy glanced up the stairs.
“I’ve sent them to the yellow room.” Kaye slipped the roller from Stacy’s grasp and set it on the floor beside the suitcases. “I may have hinted about pirate treasure under their pillows so they’ve gone up to look.”
As that moment Connor leaned over the banister and shouted down the stairs. “Bunk beds! Mommy, we have bunk beds just like Archie and his brother.” His eyes widened with excitement as he caught his breath. “I get the top bunk because I’m the oldest, right,