Emily woke late on the third day. It was almost as if her body could tell it was Monday morning and that she would usually be rushing to work, shoving past commuters to get onto the metro, squeezing in beside bored, half asleep teenagers chewing gum and businessmen with their elbows protruding as they refused to fold up their papers, and had decided to let her have a well-earned lie-in. As she peeled off the covers, groggy-headed and bleary-eyed, she wondered when the last time had been that she'd slept in past 7 a.m. She probably hadn't done so since her twenties, since before she met Ben, a time when hitting the town with Amy had been her modus operandi.
Down in the kitchen, Emily spent a long time brewing coffee in a coffee pot and cooking up pancakes using the ingredients she'd bought from the local store. It filled her heart with pleasure to see the now overflowing cupboards, to hear the buzz of the fridge. For the first time since leaving New York, she felt like she'd gotten herself together, at least enough to survive the winter.
She savored every bite of her pancakes, every sip of her coffee, feeling well-rested, warm, and rejuvenated. Instead of the sounds of New York City, all Emily could hear were the distant lapping waves of the ocean and a gentle, rhythmic dripping sound as more icicles melted. She felt at peace for the first time in a long time.
After her relaxing breakfast, Emily cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom. She wiped all the tiles, revealing the intricate William Morris design beneath the grime, then buffed the glass in the cupboard doors, making the stained-glass motifs sparkle.
Empowered by having gotten the kitchen into such great shape, Emily decided to tackle another room, one she hadn't even looked in yet for fear its decayed state would upset her. And that was the library.
The library had been by far her favorite room as a child. She loved the way it was divided in half by white wooden pocket doors so that she could shut herself into a reading nook. And of course she loved all the books it contained. Emily's dad hadn't been a snob when it came to books. His thinking was that any written text was worth reading, and so he had allowed her to fill the shelves with teenage romance novels and high school dramas, with tacky front covers depicting sunsets and silhouettes of hunky males. It made Emily laugh as she wiped the dust off their jackets. It was like an awkward piece of her history had been preserved. Had the house not been abandoned for so long, she surely would have thrown them out at some point in the intervening years. But because of circumstance they had remained, gathering dust as the years passed by.
She placed the book in her hands back on the shelf as a sense of melancholy settled over her.
Next Emily decided to heed the advice of the electrician and go up into the attic to check the wiring. If they were indeed damaged by mice she wasn't sure what her next move would be-spend the necessary money on repairs or just tough out the rest of her time in the house. It didn't seem sensible to invest in the property if she was only going to be there for a fortnight at the most.
She pulled down the retractable ladder, coughing as a cloud of dust cascaded from the darkness above her, then peered up through the rectangular space that had opened up. The attic didn't freak her out as much as the basement did, but the thought of spider webs and mildew didn't exactly fill her with enthusiasm. Not to mention the suspected mice…
Emily climbed the stairs carefully, taking each one slowly, ascending into the hole an inch at a time. The higher she went, the more of the attic she could take in. It was, as she suspected, filled to the brim with items. Her dad's trips to yard sales and antiques fairs often yielded more items than could be feasibly displayed in the house, and her mom had banished some of the more unsightly ones to the attic. Emily saw a dark wooden tallboy which looked like it could have been a good two hundred years old, a sewing stool in faded green leather, and a coffee table made of oak, iron, and glass. She chuckled to herself, imagining her mom's face when Dad had hauled all this stuff home. It was so far from her taste! Her mom liked things modern, sleek, and clean.
No wonder they were going to divorce, Emily thought wryly to herself. If they couldn't even agree on interior design, what hope did they have agreeing on anything else!
Emily emerged fully into the attic and began looking around for any signs of mouse activity. But she found no telltale droppings or gnawed wiring. It almost seemed like a miracle that there weren't hordes of mice in the attic after so many years of abandonment. Perhaps they preferred the lived-in neighbors' homes, with their constant supplies of crumbs.
Content that there was nothing too concerning in the attic, Emily turned to leave. But her attention was piqued when she noticed an old wooden chest that stirred a memory, pulling it out from deep within her. She heaved the top of the chest open and gasped at the sight inside. Jewels; not real ones, but a collection of plastic beads and gemstones, pearls and cowries. Her dad had always made sure he brought back something "precious" for her and Charlotte and they would put them in the chest, calling it their treasure chest. It had become the centerpiece of every play they'd performed as kids, every make-believe game they'd engaged in.
Heart hammering from the vivid memory, Emily snapped the lid shut and stood quickly. She suddenly didn't feel like exploring anymore.
*
Emily spent the rest of the day tidying, careful to avoid any rooms that may trigger a melancholy mood. It seemed a shame to her if she spent the short amount of time she had here lingering on the past, and if that meant avoiding certain rooms in the house then she would do it. If she could spend her whole life avoiding certain memories, she could spend a few days avoiding certain rooms.
Emily had finally gotten around to charging her phone and had left it on the table by the front door-the only place she had any signal-in order to collect any texts she'd not received over the weekend. She was a little disappointed to see there were only two; one from her mom berating her for having left New York without telling her and one from Amy telling her to phone her mom because she'd been asking questions. Emily rolled her eyes and put her phone back, then went into the living room where she'd managed to get a fire going.
She settled down on the couch and flipped open the well-read teen romance she'd picked off the shelf in the library. It relaxed her to read, particularly when it wasn't anything that taxing. But this time she couldn't get into it. All the teenage relationship drama kept forcing her mind back to her own failed relationships. If only she'd realized as a kid when she'd first read these books that real life was nothing like that which was depicted in the pages.
Just then, Emily heard a knock coming from the front door. She knew immediately that it would be Daniel. There was no one else scheduled to come over, no carpenters, plasterers, or joiners, and certainly no pizza delivery. She hopped up and went into the hallway, then opened the door for him.
He stood there on the step, backlit by the porch light, moths dancing through the air around it.
"The electricity is working," he said, pointing at the light.
"Yup," she said, grinning, proud that she had achieved something he'd seemed so adamant that she could not.
"I guess that means you don't need me to deliver soup to your doorstep anymore," he said.
Emily couldn't tell from his tone whether he was making friendly banter or using the situation as another opportunity to berate her.
"Nope," she replied, her hand rising to the door as if readying herself to close it. "Was there anything else?"
Daniel seemed to be lingering, like there was something on his mind, words he didn't know how to speak. Emily narrowed her eyes, knowing, seemingly instinctively, that she was not going to like what she heard.
"Well?" she added.
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. "Actually, yeah, I, um, ran into Karen today, from the general store. She, well, she didn't take too well to you."
"That's what you came to tell me?" Emily said, her frown deepening. "That Karen from the general store doesn't like me?"
"No," Daniel said defensively, "I was actually coming to find out when you were leaving."
"Oh well, that's a whole lot better, isn't it?" Emily bit back sarcastically. She couldn't believe what a jerk Daniel was being, coming over here and telling her no one liked her then asking when she would be leaving.
"That's not what I meant," Daniel said, sounding exasperated. "I need to know how long you're going to be here because it's up to me to keep this house in one piece over the winter. I have to drain the pipes, turn off the boiler, and do a host of things. I mean did you even consider how much it would cost you to heat this place over the winter?" Daniel regarded Emily's expression, which gave him all the answer he needed. "Didn't think so."
"I just hadn't thought about it yet," Emily replied, trying to excuse herself from his accusatory stares.
"Of course you hadn't," Daniel replied. "You just run through town for a few days, do some damage to this place, then leave me to pick up the pieces."
Emily was getting riled, and when someone challenged her or made her feel threatened or stupid, she couldn't help but feel the need to defend herself. "Yeah well," she said, her voice rising to a yelling volume, "maybe I'm not leaving in a few days. Maybe I'll stick around all winter."
She snapped her jaw shut, shocked to have heard the words come out of her mouth. She hadn't even had time to think them before she'd blurted them out, her mouth running away with her.
Daniel looked perturbed. "You'll never survive in this house," he stammered, just as shocked at the prospect of Emily sticking around in Sunset Harbor as she seemed to be. "It would eat you up. Unless you're rich. And you don't look rich."
Emily recoiled at the sneer on his face. She'd never been so insulted. "You don't know anything about me!" she cried, her emotions spilling over into genuine anger.
"You're right," Daniel replied. "Let's keep it that way."
He stormed away and Emily slammed the door shut. She stood there panting, reeling from the heated encounter. Who the hell was Daniel to tell her what she could or couldn't do with her life? She had every right to be in her father's home. In fact, she had more right than Daniel did! If anyone should be annoyed with the other's presence it should be her!
Fuming, Emily paced back and forth, making the floorboards creak and the dust swirl. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so mad-even when she broke up with Ben and quit her job she hadn't felt the same hot lava pulsing through her veins. She stopped walking, wondering what it was about Daniel that riled her so much, that stirred angry passion within her in a way her partner of seven years had not been able to. For the first time since meeting Daniel, she wondered who he was, where he came from, what he was doing there.
And whether he had a significant other in his life.
*
Emily spent the rest of the evening ruminating on her latest argument with Daniel. As annoying as it was to be told the town folk didn't like her, and as frustrating as it was sharing her space with him, she couldn't help but admit she'd fallen in love with the old house. Not just the house, but the calm and quiet. Daniel had wanted to know when she was going home, but it was starting to dawn on her that this felt more like her home than anywhere else she'd lived in the last twenty years.
With a crackle of excitement running through her veins, Emily rushed to where her cell phone now stayed by the front door and dialed her bank. She went through the automated menu, punched in the necessary security codes, and listened to the robotic voice as it read aloud her balance. She jotted the figure down on a piece of paper balanced on her knee, the pen lid between her teeth, her phone wedged against her shoulder. Then she took the paper into the living room and began working out some sums: the cost of electricity and oil delivery, the fee and running costs of getting the Internet and a fixed landline installed, fuel for her car, food for the cupboards. Once she was done, she realized she had enough money to live off of for six months. She'd been working so hard for so long in a city that demanded it that she'd lost sight of the bigger picture. Now she had the opportunity to stop, to coast for a while. She'd be an idiot not to take it.
Emily sat back against the couch and smiled to herself. Six months. Could she really do it? Stay here, in her dad's old home? She was increasingly falling in love with the old ruin of a house, though whether that was because of it, the memories it stirred, or the connection she felt to her lost dad, she couldn't be certain.
But she resolved to fix it up, alone, and without Daniel's help.
*
Emily awoke Tuesday morning with a bounce in her step that she hadn't felt for years. Throwing open the curtains, she saw that the snow was now mostly gone, revealing the overgrown green grass of the grounds around the house.
Unlike her languorous breakfast of yesterday, Emily ate quickly and downed her coffee as quickly as a shot, before getting straight to work. The energy she'd felt while cleaning yesterday seemed to be a thousand times more powerful today, now that she knew she wasn't just staying here for a vacation but was setting up home for the next six months. Gone, too, was the claustrophobic sense of nostalgia she'd felt, the strong sensation that nothing should be touched, or moved, or changed. Before, she'd felt as though the house must be preserved, or restored to the way her father had wanted it. But now she felt like she was allowed to put her own stamp on it. The first step to achieving this was to sift through the mounds of possessions her father had amassed and sort the junk from the treasure. Junk, like her mounds of summer teen romances.
Emily rushed into the library, reasoning it was as good a place to start as any, and bundled the books up in her arms before taking them outside, strolling across the damp grass, and dumping them on the sidewalk. Across the road from the house was a rocky beach that sloped down to the ocean, barely a hundred yards away, and the distant, empty harbor.
It was still very cold outside-cold enough to turn her breath to coils-but there was a bright winter sun attempting to burst through the clouds. Emily shivered as she straightened up, then saw for the first time since she'd arrived that there was another person out on the sidewalk. It was a man with a brown beard and mustache, dragging a trash can behind him. It took Emily a little while to realize that he must live in the house next door-another Victorian-style mansion like her father's though in significantly better shape-and tried to re-categorize him in her mind as her neighbor. She paused, watching as he placed the can next to the mailbox then collected his mail-abandoned in the mailbox for days thanks to the snowstorm-before trotting across the well-kept grass and back up the steps of his enormous wooden porch. At some point, Emily would have to introduce herself. Then again, if she was as disliked as Daniel had suggested, maybe that wasn't so much of a priority.
As she walked back across her own lawn, Emily made a great effort not to look over at the carriage house, though she could smell the smoky scent of Daniel's wood burner and knew he was awake. She didn't need him coming over here, sticking his nose in her business, mocking her, so she went quickly back inside to search for more things that needed to be thrown out.
The kitchen was filled with junk-rusty utensils, colanders with broken handles, saucepans with burnt stuff at the bottom. Emily could see why her mom got so frustrated with her dad. He hadn't just been an antiques collector or bargain hunter, he'd been a hoarder. Perhaps her mom's love of the clean and sterile had been caused by her dad.
Emily filled a whole bin bag with bent spoons, chipped crockery, and various useless kitchen gadgets like egg timers. Then there were reams of baking paper, tin foil, kitchen roll, and all kinds of electronic equipment. Emily counted five blenders, six mechanical whisks, and four different types of weighing scales. She bundled them all up in her arms and carried them to the sidewalk, where she dumped them with the other bits of junk. It was starting to turn into a heap. The mustached man was out on his porch again, sitting in a deck-style chair, watching her, or, more specifically, watching the mound of junk that was slowly growing on the sidewalk. Emily got the sense he was less than thrilled by her behavior and so she waved in what she hoped looked like a friendly manner before retreating into the house to continue her purge.
At midday Emily heard the sound of a thrumming engine outside. She rushed out, excited to greet the service man who was coming to set up the phone line and Internet.
"Hi," she beamed from the door.
The day had brightened even more than she'd anticipated and she could see sunlight glinting off the ocean in the distance.
"Hello," the man replied, slamming the door to his truck. "My clients aren't usually so happy to see me."
Emily shrugged. As she led the man inside, she felt the eyes of the mustached man following her. Let him stare, she thought. Nothing was about to bring her mood down. She was proud of herself for having sorted out another necessity. Once the Internet was installed, she'd be able to order some things she needed. In fact, she'd order a whole shop online to avoid bumping into Karen again. If the townsfolk didn't like her, then she wasn't about to give them her business.
"Do you want tea?" she asked the Internet man. "Coffee?"
"That would be great," he replied as he bent down and opened his black tool bag. "Coffee, thanks."
Emily went into the kitchen and brewed up a fresh pot of coffee as the sounds of drilling emanated from the hallway. "I hope you take it black," she called out. "I don't have any cream."
"Black's fine!" the man shouted back.
Emily made a mental note to put cream on her shopping list, then poured two cups of steaming coffee, one for the service man and one for herself.
"You just moved into the place?" he asked as she handed him a cup.
"Sort of," she replied. "It was my father's house."
He didn't push her further, clearly inferring that she'd been left it in a will or something similar. "The electric system's pretty shoddy," he replied. "I'm guessing you don't get cable here or anything."
Emily laughed. If he'd seen the house just three days ago he wouldn't have needed to even ask the question. "Absolutely not," she replied jovially. Her dad had always loathed TV and had banned it from the house. He wanted his kids to enjoy the summer, not sit around watching TV while the world passed them by.
"Do you want me to hook you up?" the man said.
Emily paused, considering his question. She'd had cable TV back in New York. In fact, it had been one of her few pleasures in life. Ben had always derided her for her taste in TV, but Amy had shared the same love of reality shows and so she'd just talk to her about it. It became a sticking point, one of many, in their relationship. But he'd finally accepted that if he was going to spend every weekend watching sports she was allowed to watch the new season of America's Next Top Model.
Since coming to Maine, it hadn't even occurred to Emily that she'd missed all her favorite shows. And now, the idea of inviting that trash back into her life again seemed strange, like it would sully the house somehow.
"No, thanks," she replied, a little shocked to discover that her TV addiction had been cured just by getting out of New York.
"Okay, well, that's all done. Phone line's installed but you'll have to get a handset."
"Oh, I have a hundred," Emily replied, not exaggerating in the slightest-she'd found a whole box of them in the attic.
"Right," the guy replied, a little bemused. "The Internet's up and running too."
He showed her the Wi-Fi box and read out the password on the back aloud so she could connect her phone to the Internet. The moment she got her phone online, it, to her surprise, began vibrating, a constant stream of emails flooding in.
Her eyes glazed over as the counter in the corner kept going up and up and up. Amidst the spam emails and mailing list emails from her favorite clothing companies, there were a handful of sternly titled emails from her old company regarding the "termination" of her contract. Emily decided she'd read them later.
A part of her felt her privacy invaded by the Internet, the emails, and immediately longed for the past days when she had none. She was surprised to realize her own reaction, given how addicted she used to be to her email, her phone, hardly able to function without it. Now, to her shock, she actually resented it.
"Someone's popular," the service man said, chuckling as her phone vibrated again with another incoming email.
"Something like that," Emily mumbled, stowing her phone back in its perch by the front door. "Thank you, though," she added, turning to the service man as she opened the door. "I'm really glad to be connected to civilization again. It can get a little isolated out here."
"You're most welcome," he replied, stepping out onto the front steps. "Oh, and thanks for the coffee. That was really great. You should think about opening a cafe!"
Emily saw him out, mulling his words over in her mind. Maybe she should open a cafe. There wasn't one on the high street that she'd seen, whereas in New York there was one on every corner. She could just imagine the look on Karen's face if she decided to open her own store.
Emily got back to work cleaning the house, adding stuff to the mound on the sidewalk, scrubbing surfaces and sweeping floorboards. She spent an hour in the dining hall, dusting the picture frames and all the ornaments in the display cabinets. But just as she felt like she was finally getting somewhere with it all, she took down a hanging tapestry to shake the dust out and saw that behind it was a door.
Emily stopped short, staring at the door with a deep frown. She didn't have even the vaguest memory of the door, though she felt certain a secret door hidden beneath a tapestry would be the sort of thing she would have adored as a child. She tried the handle but found that it was jammed. So she rushed into the utility room and fetched a can of WD-40. After oiling the handle of the secret door, she was finally able to turn it. But the door itself felt like it was stuck fast. She rammed her shoulder against it once, twice, three times. On the fourth shove she felt something give, and with a final almighty push, she forced the door open.
Darkness opened up before her. She felt for a switch but couldn't find one. She could smell dust, the thickness of it getting in her lungs. The darkness and creepiness reminded her of the basement and she ran to get the lantern Daniel had left for her on the first day. As she brought the light into the darkness she gasped at the sight that opened up before her.
The room was enormous, and Emily wondered if it had once been a ballroom. Now, though, it was crammed with stuff, like it had been turned into yet another attic, yet another place to dump stuff. There was an old brass bedstead, a broken wardrobe, a cracked mirror, a grandfather clock, several coffee tables, a huge bookcase, a tall, ornamental lamp, benches, couches, desks. Thick cobwebs criss-crossed between all the items like threads tying everything together. Awestruck, Emily slowly paced around the room, the lantern light in her hands revealing mildewed wallpaper.
She tried to remember whether there was a time when this room had been used, or whether the door had been hidden beneath the tapestry when her dad had first purchased the house and he had never discovered the secret room. It didn't seem plausible to her that her dad wouldn't've known about this room, but she simply had no memory of it and so it had to have been closed off before she was born. If that was the case then this whole wing of the house had been abandoned longer than any other part, had been abandoned for an indeterminate amount of time.
It dawned on Emily that it would take even more effort to get the house cleaned out than she'd previously anticipated. She was exhausted from the day's work and still hadn't even made it to the upstairs yet. Of course, she could just shut the door and pretend the ballroom didn't exist, as her father clearly had, but the idea of returning it to its former majesty was too great a pull. She could picture it so clearly in her head; the floorboards buffed and gleaming, a chandelier hanging from the ceiling; she would be in a long silk dress, her hair up in a bouffant; and they would be twirling, waltzing together across the ballroom floor, she and the man of her dreams.
Emily looked at the heavy, massive objects in the room-couches, metal bed frames, mattresses-and she realized there was no way she'd be able to move them by herself, to fix up the ballroom alone. Getting the house in shape was a two-person job.
Though she'd resolved not to draw on his help, Emily had to admit for the first time that she needed Daniel.
*
Emily stomped out of the house, preemptively frustrated for the conversation she was about to have. She was a very prideful person and the idea of asking Daniel of all people for help irritated her.
She strolled across the backyard toward the carriage house. For the first time, the snow had melted enough to give her a clear look at the grounds and she realized how well kept they were, something that was clearly Daniel's doing. The hedges were all trimmed neatly and there were beds for flowers, bordered with neat pebbles. She could imagine it looking beautiful in the summer time.
Daniel seemed to have sensed her coming, because when she looked away from the hedgerow and back toward the carriage house, she saw that his door was open and he was standing with his shoulder wedged against the threshold. She could already read the look on his face. It said, "Come to grovel?"
"I need your help," she said, not even bothering to say hello.
"Oh?" was his only response.
"Yes," she said brusquely. "There's a room in the house I've discovered and it's full of furniture too big for me to lift. I'll pay you to come help move it all."
Daniel clearly didn't feel the need to respond right away. In fact, he didn't seem bound by the rules of normal social etiquette at all.
"I noticed you'd been doing some clearing out," he said at last. "How long are you planning on leaving that mound for? You know the neighbors will get twitchy."
"Leave the mound to me," Emily replied. "I just need to know if you'll come help out."
Daniel folded his arms, biding his time, making her stew. "How much work are we looking at?"
"To be honest," Emily said, "it's not just the ballroom. I want to clean out the whole house."
"That's ambitious," Daniel replied. "And pointless, considering you're only here for two weeks."
"Actually," Emily said, drawing the word out to delay the inevitable, "I'm staying for six months."
Emily felt a thick tension in the air. It was as though Daniel had forgotten how to breathe. She knew he wasn't particularly fond of her, but it seemed like rather an extreme reaction on his part, like someone had told him of a death. That her presence in his life could cause such palpable distress irked Emily immeasurably.
"Why?" Daniel said, a deep line creasing his forehead.
"Why?" Emily spat back. "Because it's my life and I have every right to live there."
Daniel frowned, suddenly confused. "No, I mean, why are you doing this? Going to all this effort to fix up the house?"
Emily didn't really have an answer, or at least not one that would satisfy Daniel. He just viewed her as a tourist, someone who breezed into town from the cities, made a mess, then swanned off back to their old lives. To think that she may enjoy a simpler life, that she may have a good reason for running away from the city, was clearly more than he could comprehend.
"Look," Emily said, growing irritable, "I said I'd pay you to help. It's just moving some furniture, maybe painting a bit. I'm only asking because it's more than I can do on my own. So are you in or out?"
He smiled.
"I'm in," Daniel replied. "But I'm not taking your money. I'm doing it for the sake of the house."
"Because you think I'll break it?" Emily replied, raising her eyebrow.
Daniel shook his head. "No. Because I love that house."
At least they had that in common, Emily thought wryly.
"But if I do this, know that this is strictly a working relationship," he said. "Strictly business. I'm not looking for any more friends."
She was stunned and irritated by his reply.
"Neither am I," she snapped. "Nor was I proposing it."
He smiled wider.
"Good," he said.
Daniel held out his hand for her to shake.
Emily frowned, uncertain about what she was getting herself into. Then she shook his hand.
"Strictly business," she agreed.