Finding Home (Montana Born Homecoming Book 2) (2 page)

“This is Bob,” said Jade, making the briefest eye contact with Aunt Mabel. “She is part Labrador Retriever, part Border Collie, part luck of the draw. Bob is my best friend. She is five. I am four.”

Samara felt a flush of pride. Jade had recited the explanation just as they’d practiced!

Aunt Mabel was unimpressed. “I’m not accustomed to bringing farm animals inside the house but I’ve agreed to allow it during your stay. I trust she will not be a nuisance.”

Thankfully, Eliza entered the room during Jade’s introduction and heard the veiled insult in her aunt’s response.

“Bob is simply lovely, isn’t she? And smart, too. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Aunt Mabel, I’ll show our guests to their rooms.”

Eliza herded them toward the hallway.

“Don’t mind my great-aunt. I think you’re going to love your stay with us. You’ve got a Jack-and-Jill bathroom connecting your bedrooms and there’s a sliding door to a patio off your room, Samara. Now, let’s get you settled, shall we?”

As she followed Eliza through the once-opulent hallway, Samara felt Aunt Mabel’s keen eyes boring into her back.

She feared they hadn’t made the best first impression on Aunt Mabel.

And that was before she remembered the display of underwear in the street.

*

An hour later,
lying on the bed beside her exhausted, maxed-out, melted-down-to-a-puddle little girl, despair threatened to overwhelm her, as it had so often in the bleak months since Michael’s death. To her shame, Sam barely remembered the grief, because of the devastating rush of tasks involved at the time. The mountain of paperwork at the hospital. Calling Michael’s family in Taiwan. Talking with the funeral director.

And the fear that chewed relentlessly beneath everything, of how she would raise the child screaming on her hip, without him.

Samara stroked her daughter’s damp forehead, sad again that this child had no one but her.

Then she elbowed up off the bed. There was nothing to be gained from self-pity.

She went to the window and pulled the drapes tighter, but a small ray of soft evening gold shone through, illuminating her sleeping daughter. Bob lifted her head watchfully, then sighed and tucked her muzzle up against Jade’s arm again.

Sam’s heart caught in her throat. For a moment, the fatigue and worry slipped away as she watched Jade breathe, slow and smooth, her face relaxed, her body loose as a rag doll.

This is what kept her going.

‡

S
amara shivered as
she and Jade walked through the park the next morning. The late summer sunshine slanting through the trees wasn’t warm enough for her to go without a sweater in the morning.

“You excited to see our new house, sweetie?” Samara squeezed her daughter’s hand, hoping her mood had improved after a good night’s sleep. They turned onto Collier Avenue. Bob paced evenly beside them, her tongue lolling happily.

“We’re going home?” said Jade, hopefully.

Sam sighed. It was like beating her head against a brick wall some days.

Change was not a welcome event, in Jade’s world. Switching from her favorite brand of breakfast cereal to the store version ignited a three-day hunger strike that only ended when Jade decided she preferred eggs and toast anyway.

The first day of pre-school had become the last day of pre-school when the teacher took Sam aside and suggested that Jade needed “a bit more time to prepare.” Or a one-on-one aide. Which Sam knew would be a waste of time even if she could afford it.

Michael had left them well provided for, buying her some much-needed time. Leaving their tiny but expensive Upper West Side apartment had been a bad day for both of them, but there was no choice. She should have done it sooner.

However, seeing all her toys put into boxes, the walls cleared of her pictures and posters, had sent Jade spinning out of control.

And now, Samara had brought her daughter to this new strange place they’d be calling home.

Before she’d seen the ad, she hadn’t thought of Marietta in years. Then, memories of that one good school year flooded back.

The first place she’d belonged. The first school she’d enjoyed.

The first boy she’d loved.

Her house was part of a new high-school project in which the town of Marietta partnered with the local schools to provide work experience for underprivileged or challenged students, using derelict heritage houses owned by the city.

The houses would then be sold at below-market prices, the proceeds used to fund the next project.

She paused at Second. “What do we do here, Jade?”

“Look to the left. Look to the right. No cars? Cross. We’re going home now?”

It was a treat to cross two lanes with no cars, instead of being part of a sea of pedestrians navigating over six or eight lanes, at a light-controlled intersection.

“Not New York home. Montana home. Remember?”

“I wanna go home.”

Her voice was forlorn, little, hopeless, and Samara’s heart broke. Buying this place was a risk, certainly, a pig-in-a-poke sort of situation. But it was the only way she could afford a decent house in a nice town.

She wanted so badly for her baby girl to be happy, healthy, to give her the world.

But no matter your intentions when they first place that warm, wrapped, squirming bundle in your lap, you’re going to fall short. There are no super-moms. Eventually, you just have to hope your kid survives all your parental screw-ups.

At least here Jade would grow up safe, play outdoors, go to school with the same kids from kindergarten to graduation.

“This is our forever home now, sweetie,” said Samara, squeezing her daughter’s hand.

Once they’d crossed Third Street, she could see the old brick of the elementary school off in the distance. Their house was just ahead. She picked up the pace and then, she scanned the number – there it was.

She tugged Jade closer to her side.

“Look at the pretty house, honey,” she breathed.

Photos hadn’t done the place justice. All the homes on Collier were on oversized lots, as was typical at the time Marietta was established. Their half-acre was tiny by the standards of the day. But today? It was like having her own kingdom.

The butter-yellow Queen Anne style cottage had a small front veranda with white picket rails and gingerbread touches at the corners. The red roof was steeply pitched over what she knew would be Jade’s room. The windows had been replaced but their deep-framed casings remained true to the period.

Lattice-work enclosed the three steps leading to the front door. From the street, a gold-leafed shrub and soaring red maple accentuated the colors, dappling the sunlight and making her feel as if they were about to enter a fairy tale turned real.

Except that Samara didn’t believe in fairy tales.

“Mama!” Jade tugged her hand away. “You’re squishing.”

“Sorry, honey.” She squeezed her own hands together as nervous excitement bubbled through her.

For better or worse, she was a property owner now, a
have
finally instead of the
have-not
girl she’d been for so long.

A man stepped out of the sleek black sports car parked at the curb. A flash on the door read
Tod Styles Real Estate. Getting YOU Home!

“Hello!” he called. “You must be Samara and Jade.”

She was surprised to see him. Due to the reduced price and the unusual nature of the deal, Tod was only getting a fraction of his commission. As a result, she’d received a fraction of service. Her search had brought up two Styles realtors; she wondered if she’d have had better luck with the other one.

Tod glanced at the truck across the street.

“Foreman’s here. Let’s go see what you bought.”

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this moment,” she said.

Samara hadn’t been involved with any of the design or restoration; she had no idea who the workers were. But surely having the foreman stop by, even now that the work was completed, was a good sign. He must be conscientious.

The door complained noisily when she pushed it open.

At triple the space of their Manhattan suite, even the relatively modest front room of this house yawned before them.

“Mama?” whispered Jade. “I wanna go home.”

Samara lifted her up onto her hip, unease creeping over her.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she repeated, to convince herself or Jade, she wasn’t sure.

“No. It’s dirty.”

Bob trotted over the threshold into the front room, leaving paw prints in the thick layer of sawdust on the hardwood. A beam of sunshine slanted through the chilly room, highlighting the dust motes hanging in the air, waiting.

Jade had a point. But she knew it wasn’t the dust that bothered her child as much as the chaos. She craved routine, predictability and order; this was anything but.

“Looks like things are coming along,” said Tod. He brushed something off his tailored sleeve and walked ahead of her to the next room.

“Wait.” They weren’t supposed to be
coming along
. They were supposed to be
already there
. “You told me it was complete.”

“Yeah, today’s the date they gave me.”

She stepped into the small front room, with its wide windows overlooking Collier Avenue to the north. Samara ran the toe of her sneaker over the hardwood, to see the grain beneath, telling herself to stay calm. Polished up, it would be beautiful.

But on top of it, against the walls, baseboards lay in piles, ready to be nailed into place.

“This isn’t ready, Tod.” She bit back the stronger words clinging to the tip of her tongue. How long did it take to install baseboards? They still had a couple of days. She was probably overreacting.

Think positive, Samara. Don’t borrow trouble.

She imagined a lushly textured carpet being rolled up, so people could dance on that warm, dark wood. Jane Austen, the country-western version.

It didn’t work.

The central feature wall should be the proud home of numerous ancestral portraits, she thought with a pang, not their meager family photo collection.

And she shouldn’t be able to see the drywall tape.

The ceiling – painted at least – loomed above them, a single bulb dangling from a cord, shining down like a searchlight.

The brand-new windows still wore their factory stickers, jarring against the old, stripped and as yet unpainted trim.

These walls, so long neglected, wanted to be filled with friends and family, laughter and love and life and who were they getting? A lonely woman and her odd little girl.

Samara felt suddenly like she was trying on a princess gown, hoping it would transform her, knowing the whole time that no matter how she stuck out her chest, she couldn’t fill it.

She pushed away those thoughts and went to find Tod. Whether or not she had second thoughts, the deal had closed. She’d made furniture delivery arrangements based on Tod’s assurances that everything was on track.

And from what she could see, there was a month of work left.

*

Logan Stafford surveyed
the mess in the master suite bathroom, shaking his head. His students were in class all morning, giving him time to examine their work and do any necessary fix-ups.