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Kelli Thompson looked at the house she’d owned for decades now, her heartbeat giving her an extra thump she didn’t quite understand. She’d been coming here for a few months, and she’d brought Parker several times.
“Thanks, Rich,” she said to the RideShare driver. “Could you help me with the boxes in the back?”
“Of course,” Rich said, grinning at her over the console. “When are you gonna move in, Miss Kelli?” The older gentleman with rich, dark skin had a quick smile every time he saw Kelli. She’d gotten into his SUV many times for a ride from the ferry to this house, and they’d become friends over the past few months.
“Soon,” Kelli said, reaching to unbuckle her seatbelt. Getting items for the house from Diamond to Bell Island wasn’t easy, and she’d left Parker with Jean Shields today to get some things done.
The springtime ocean breeze met her as she got out of the car, and Kelli took a moment to breathe in the scent of flowers mixed with sea salt. She loved springtime in the cove, and it felt like it was coming early this year, as it wasn’t even April yet.
The sky held a shade of blue rarely seen by the human eye, and Kelli looked up into it and felt the magnificence of life pressing down on her. Gratitude for the life she now lived streamed through her, because a year ago, she hadn’t even known how unhappy she was.
She’d been through some trials in the past twelve months, that was for sure, and her mind flashed past Zach Watkins, Tiffany Mueller, her ex-husband Julian, hard work in a moldy, greasy kitchen at The Cliffside Inn, a tsunami, getting up at five-thirty to go to work every day, and losing everything she owned to water damage.
She’d also attended a court hearing to finalize her divorce, learned to let go of her tight grip on her son, and spent a lot of time with her mother and her boyfriend.
“Just in the garage, Miss Kelli?” Rich asked, and Kelli snapped out of her memories. She had plenty of others, and in fact, this house was stuffed full of them. She wanted to make even more here with her son, and she once again had the thought that she had more to do before she could move into this house.
And it wasn’t moving in several small appliances, new bedding, and a box of cleaning supplies. That all needed to be done too, of course, and she shivered as the breeze turned into a wind.
She stepped to the back of the SUV and picked up the new coffee maker, stacked a toaster on top of it, and then grabbed the basket where she’d put all the linens, as well as the new kitchen utensils. She was stocking the house one purchase at a time, using some money from every paycheck.
The house had hardly any furniture, but those were bigger purchases Kelli hadn’t been able to afford yet. She’d been saving a little bit from every check as well, and she had four big items on her list before she and Parker could move into this house on Seabreeze Shore.
Two beds—one for her and Parker. A couch. A dining room table and chairs.
If she could somehow get those pieces, she could envision herself living in this house.
“Right there is fine,” she said to Rich, and he set down the blender and the laundry basket filled with new sheets and pillows. “Thank you so much, Rich.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Kelli,” he said. “You text me when you’re ready to go back. I’ll come get you.”
“Yes, sir.” She put down her boxed appliances too and stepped into him to give him a hug. “You say hello to Miss Everly for me, okay?”
“Oh, that reminds me.” He stepped away and snapped his fingers. “She sent a buttermilk pie for you.”
“She did?” Kelli turned as Rich hustled back to the SUV. “How did she know you’d see me today?’
“It’s a weekend,” he said as he opened the passenger door and bent inside the vehicle. “I’ve had the pie since yesterday, but it’ll still be good.” He lifted it from the glove box, and Kelli gaped at the personal-sized pie. He grinned as he handed it to her, and Kelli felt more love from him and his wife—a woman she had never met—than she had from anyone but her best friends.
“Thank you.” Her voice choked slightly, and Rich held her tightly.
“She loves to bake,” he said, stepping back. “So you’re doin’ something good for her.”
“I hope she feels better quickly,” Kelli said, as Everly seemed to have a multitude of health problems Rich had told Kelli about over the months.
“I’ll tell her you said so,” Rich said. “I best be going. Lots of people coming to Bell today.”
“Yes, go.” Kelli smiled at him as he got behind the wheel, and she stood in the carport until he left. She started hauling in the appliances and things she’d brought to the house that day, and nothing gave her greater joy than unpacking things she’d worked hard to afford. She put them in cabinets and closets that made sense to her, and Kelli enjoyed the progress she’d made over the weeks.
The kitchen sat clean and ready for her to use. She’d bought curtains and hung them on the windows, one over the sink and a huge one that overlooked the small back yard. The old table and chairs sat pushed into the corner, and Kelli needed to get rid of them.
She wasn’t paying for any services here yet, though, so she couldn’t just put it on the curb and have the garbage truck haul it away.
The pantry held bottled water, fruit snacks for Parker, the popcorn she and AJ shared when they came to the house for their private chats, and a box of protein shakes. Kelli needed to start thinking about stocking the house with more to eat, as well as all the home goods people needed to live.
Toilet paper, paper towels, towels, wash cloths, oven mitts. The list went on and on.
Kelli had lost everything in the tsunami that had hit Five Island Cove just before Christmas, and she’d been renting a fully furnished twinhome on Pearl Island since then. Everything she’d been able to replace, she’d brought here, like her own silverware, a few dishes, and now the linens and kitchen utensils.
All in all, she wanted to be ready to move into this house by summertime, but she still wasn’t sure she’d make it. She worked as a teacher’s assistant at the junior high on Diamond Island, and she managed to pay her bills with that income. There wasn’t much leftover, and Julian had been sending her money for Parker before the divorce was final, and now that it was, she was receiving alimony too. The money she got from her ex-husband paid for all of Parker’s school expenses, their groceries every month, and as she unboxed the toaster, she realized he’d paid for that too.
“You’re getting closer,” she said to herself.
After putting away all of the items she’d bought that weekend, she wandered from the back of the house to the front, where a large room spanned the width of the building. The front door sat squarely in the middle of the room, and a large staircase went up to the second floor directly across from the entrance.
The hall beside the stairs led to the kitchen and dining room, which took up the back of the house. Her father had kept an office in the space to the right of the front door, and the family had enjoyed their movie nights and family meetings in the room to the left.
All the bedrooms were upstairs, including the master suite, and Kelli turned to go that way. She’d shared a bedroom with her younger sister, Heather, while her older one, Sabrina, had always had her own room.
Once Sabrina had graduated and left the cove, Kelli and Heather had their own rooms. She’d always had to share a bathroom, and her parents were the type that didn’t keep their bedroom door open.
Kelli still hesitated before going into the master suite, as she was never allowed in there as a child. She wasn’t sure why. She’d started Parker’s life with him in a bassinet right beside her in the master suite she and Julian had shared once upon a time.
When he couldn’t sleep, she brought him into their bedroom. The door was hardly ever closed or locked, and Parker came into her bedroom at-will, even now.
Memories of the house flooded Kelli’s mind as she stood in the large room that had once housed her mother and father’s bed. She could see the hulking, dark-wood dresser that had sat next to the door, and the lacy, cream-colored curtains her mom had put over the bay window that looked over the back yard.
Kelli went to the window and looked out, the view of the yard, the cliffs, and the ocean beyond the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She did love the cove, though she’d always been afraid of the water. She wasn’t as much anymore, but a hint of trepidation still stole through her from time to time when she thought about swimming in the ocean or getting on a boat.
She had to ride a ferry to work every weekday, and she’d had to do the same as a child and teenager growing up. Somehow, a ferry wasn’t the same as any other boat, and especially if she stayed inside, she didn’t worry about sinking.
Her parents had forced her to join the Seafaring Girls, and Kelli hadn’t been happy about it. She was now, though, and she thought about the women she loved so dearly.
“You need to tell them all about this house,” she said to her partial reflection in the glass. Only AJ knew she owned this house, and Kelli wasn’t sure why she wanted to keep it a secret.
“You need to tell your mother.”
She wasn’t sure how her mom would take the news that Kelli had bought this house and had owned it all of these years. Her mother hadn’t wanted it, not after everything that had happened here.
The walls started to whisper, little hisses of sound in Kelli’s ears.
She turned quickly and left the master bedroom, skipped going into the one she’d once used, and hurried downstairs instead. She burst out the front door, as she’d done many times before, one instance of when she had fresh in her mind.
When her father had lost the Glassworks, it had felt like everything in Kelli’s life stopped making sense. That was the beginning of the end for her family as she’d previously known it, and she remembered keenly listening to her parents argue in loud voices that only increased in volume. She remembered the feeling of unrest, the worry which writhed way down deep in her soul, and the fear that if her family fell apart, she’d crumble too.
She remembered jumping to her feet and leaving Heather and Sabrina huddled together in the hallway outside their parents’ bedroom and racing down those steps. Two long strides, and she reached the door.
A twist, a pull, and she burst onto the front porch.
She stood there now, letting the fear and doubt and worry wash through her. Accepting how she felt was the only way she’d been able to rid herself of it. If she didn’t allow herself to feel the feelings, they built up to dangerous amounts, infecting her thoughts and influencing her actions.
She didn’t want to live like that anymore. She wasn’t afraid of what might happen anymore. She’d learned that she could take a situation and work through it. She could think, and she was smart enough to come up with solutions. She could help others, because she wasn’t drowning the way she’d once been.
She drew in a deep breath and found her center. “You’re okay,” she said out loud. She had no idea how to start a conversation with her mom about this house, and she hoped all the progress they’d made over the past year wouldn’t be undone when Kelli finally confessed she owned the house on Seabreeze Shore.
Her friends could help her, and she took out her phone to send a few texts. Number one, she needed to get this Wednesday off of work. Her friends met for lunch every Wednesday. Kelli could never go, and she tried not to let it bother her. In her quiet moments, though, it definitely bothered her that everyone had a job that allowed them the freedom and flexibility to lunch together every week.
Kelli didn’t have that luxury, and her ideas of starting a yoga studio in the right part of the house where her father had once kept his office entered her mind again. That would have to wait though, as she needed money for furniture, food, and the necessities of life before she could even think about starting her own business.
A business that may fail.
Kelli was still mighty afraid of failing. Failing herself. Her son. Her friends.
Her principal said, I’ll call Miriam, and if she can come in on Wednesday, you can have it off.
Thanks, Kelli typed out.
Before she got confirmation from her boss, Kelli sent a message to the group string that housed Alice, Robin, AJ, Eloise, Kristen, and Laurel.
I have something to tell everyone on Wednesday for lunch. Will everyone be there?
They’d talked about getting together for Sunday dinners, but it had only happened a couple of times. Alice and Robin loved to entertain, and without them, the dinners probably wouldn’t have happened at all.
Messages started to pour in, and before another sixty seconds had passed, everyone had confirmed that they’d be there on Wednesday, even Laurel.
Kelli’s lungs tightened, but she pushed through the pressure on her chest. This was okay. She could tell her friends about the house, and when she asked for their help with how to break the news to her mother, they’d all have solutions and suggestions she hadn’t thought of.
That honestly wouldn’t be that hard, because every time Kelli thought about telling her mother about this house, she pushed the idea away. She didn’t even entertain it, and keeping the house on Seabreeze Shore a secret was second-nature to her now.
She took another breath and released the tight grip her fingers had on the railing. She looked down at her fingers as the tension released, a plan coming together. Kelli loved plans, and once she had one, she could execute it. Her friends would help her come up with a plan to tell her mother about this house.
“Kelli?”
She looked up from where she’d been staring at the porch railing, her pulse pounding at the familiar voice.
Her mother stood just on the other side of the white picket fence separating the front lawn from the street, pure confusion on her face. “What are you doing here?”
