“Everything goes.”
Kaye Bennett stood on the dewy grass in the early hours of a cool May morning and addressed the work crews scattered across the lawn. She pointed to the open front door of her family’s beloved shore house and spoke in a clear voice. “I want you to take it all—every dish in the kitchen, every blanket on the bed. All of it. Get rid of it.”
Three years she’d waited for this day, many times doubting it would come. Now that the moment was finally here, she was anxious to get started, to put her family’s life back together. She’d spared no expense to make it happen. The sandy road in front of her house was lined with moving trucks, non-profit donation vans, and workers’ personal cars, and her yard was humming with activity.
“Okay, you guys. You heard the lady. Let’s go.” The foreman Kaye had hired to supervise the crews grabbed a padded moving quilt from his truck and made his way into the house.
“Hang on a second.” They turned as Kaye called them back. “I forgot to tell you that I put a cooler of cold drinks on the back deck and there’s food in the kitchen. It’s going to be hot today; pace yourself.”
Then she stepped aside and allowed them to work.
The shore house had belonged to her husband’s family first and Kaye had loved it from the first moment she saw it. A three-story Dutch colonial built in 1918, it was one of the first homes in Dewberry Beach, New Jersey. The house was cedar-shingled with sensible black shutters flanking each window, and it sat behind a white picket fence on a quiet sandy street. Inside, there were two big bedrooms on the third floor, each with dormer windows that overlooked a quiet salt pond and eyelet curtains that fluttered in the evening breeze. The shared bathroom was bright with natural light coming from the skylight above. Downstairs were three additional bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a sunroom in the far corner. Each room had been painted in shades of sunny yellow or cool nautical blues and had been decorated with local flea-market finds. Renovations over the years had expanded the kitchen on the ground floor, adding a mudroom to hold beach towels and coolers, and a wide deck overlooking the pond. Her husband’s den faced the front of the house, with a view of the garden. In the middle was the family room with shelves and cabinets stocked with board games and puzzles for rainy days.
Purposefully missing from the shore house was a proper dining room, good china, crystal glasses, and anything that required silver polish. Formality was reserved for the Bennetts’ house in Princeton. Here at the shore, sandy feet were welcome, outdoor showers the norm, and kids were allowed to play outside until the streetlights came on.
Kaye and her husband Chase had spent almost every summer of their lives in Dewberry Beach. They met when they were kids, playing together every summer holiday. Years later, they spent their first summers as newlyweds in this very house, as guests of Chase’s parents. After Stacy and Brad were born, Kaye packed up the car and brought them to the shore house too. Later, when Chase’s parents were ready to downsize, Chase bought the house from them and gifted it to Kaye, who vowed to keep everything the same because it was perfect.
Three years ago, everything changed.
It began as an ordinary Saturday morning. Chase had gone into his New York City office to finish a client presentation scheduled for the following week. He was the only one in the office, but as the managing partner of a financial firm he often put in long hours. Sometime during that morning, he suffered a near-fatal heart attack and lost consciousness. If it hadn’t been for the secretary who had happened to come in because she’d forgotten her headset, Kaye would have lost the love of her life.
The doctors at the hospital in New York couldn’t predict the extent of the damage or if Chase would ever regain consciousness. They admitted him to ICU and Kaye never left his side. It took him three days to regain consciousness, another four to recognize his wife of thirty-five years. When the doctors warned of a very long road ahead, Kaye took steps to simplify her life so she could focus on Chase’s recovery. That included leasing the shore house. The rental agent had been delighted at the prospect of offering a legacy 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 two yards, picking her way across the uneven ground and leaning on her cane as she walked. Kaye tracked her progress, knowing better than to offer help.
To judge Mrs. Ivey’s character by her appearance would be a mistake, one that was not likely to happen twice. Though she’d never revealed her age to a living soul, Kaye guessed it to be closer to ninety than eighty. She’d been a full-time resident of Dewberry Beach and an English teacher at the middle school for more than four decades and she still felt duty-bound to call out former students for bad behavior. Kaye had heard that Mrs. Ivey had presented herself to a closed-door town council one year and told the members exactly what she thought of a recent ordinance. It was said that Mrs. Ivey reduced fourteen adult men to jelly with a single look.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Ivey. How are you?”
Mrs. Ivey hadn’t changed in all the years Kaye had known her. She wore the same printed summer dress she always had, paired with a lacy white cardigan whose lumpy cuff revealed a tissue tucked inside. Though she was not one to tolerate foolishness, it was widely known that her kitchen was open to anyone who needed a home-made cookie or a sympathetic ear, and almost everyone in town had found their way to her house at some point, usually more than once. “I thought you might be coming down today, but I wasn’t entirely sure.”
“I don’t know how you would have known,” Kaye replied gently. “I didn’t know I was coming myself until just a few weeks ago.”
Mrs. Ivey tilted her head, reminding Kaye of an inquisitive robin. “I knew because I’m a bit psychic; I thought I’d told you that.”
“You did. I’m sorry. It must have slipped my mind.” Kaye hid her smile. It was good to be back.
“Well, no wonder.” Mrs. Ivey touched Kaye’s forearm as she took in the activity in the front yard. “You’ve been very busy. This is quite a project you’ve set for yourself, but you’ve never been one to do things halfway, have you?”
“I just want things to be settled. As you know, we’ve had a… well, a difficult few years.”
“Yes, I do know. And it’s very admirable that you want everything perfect now, but be careful of expectations, Kaye.” Mrs. Ivey tapped Kaye’s arm. “Your Christmas letter said Chase has made a complete recovery—do you really think so?”
“Yes, yes of course I do, all back to normal,” Kaye murmured, not accustomed to lying to her neighbor.
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a battered work truck pulling up to the curb in front of the house. The muffler rattled for a second or two after the engine stopped, something that would not have been tolerated from newer companies. But Bobby DiNapoli had been repairing canvas awnings in the Dewberry Beach community for decades and he was afforded a latitude that others were not. The truck was the same battered workhorse she remembered—faded navy blue, with a dusting of rust along the wheel wells, a sun-bleached logo with an illegible telephone number stenciled along the side of the truck, and aluminum ladders strapped to the roof. The phone number wasn’t important anyway. The residents knew how to reach Bobby. Everyone else was discouraged from calling.
Expecting Bobby himself, Kaye was a bit startled to see a younger man exit the van, someone closer to her son’s age than her own. He approached with a wide smile and an outstretched hand, and Kaye decided he must be Bobby’s eldest son, Matty. She recognized his father’s sturdy build and his mother’s dark eyes. His cargo shorts were hitched just under his belly and secured with a wide canvas belt, and wisps of dark hair peeked out from the side of a Rangers hockey cap.
Kaye accepted his hand and shook it. “Matty, how nice to see you again. Thank you for coming out on such short notice.”
“No problem at all, Miz. Bennett. Dad said to make your job a priority.” He jerked his thumb toward the truck. “We were here last week or so to measure and we got the new awning in the back of the truck. Same color yellow, right?”
“That’s right.”
Part of the problem with living at the shore was the damaging winter winds and salty air. Mrs. Ivey had been vigilant in her reports to Kaye and had recently told her that the awnings hadn’t been taken down at the end of the previous summer, and they’d been shredded in the winter weather. Kaye wanted to believe it was a simple mistake, a miscommunication between her and the property manager, but her more cynical side wondered if it was purposeful, retribution for ending the rental agreement.
“Thank you for rushing the order, Matty, I appreciate it.”
Mrs. Ivey nudged her. “He doesn’t go by ‘Matty’ anymore, Kaye. Not since taking over the business after Bobby and Tricia retired and moved to Boca. We must call him Matthew now.”
“Is that right?” Kaye smiled. “Do you own the business now?”
“Kind of.” Matthew shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m technically the owner but Dad still directs operations. Even from Florida.” He turned and waved his arms at the others seated in the truck. “Let’s go, you guys. I’m not paying you to sit in the truck.”
Two younger versions of Bobby DiNapoli tumbled out, a little reluctantly. Matthew gestured to the back of the truck. “Jimmy, unstrap the big ladder.”
Then he turned his attention back to Kaye. “We’ll have the new awnings up in no time.” He pointed to the side of the house. “While we were taking the old ones down, we noticed a shutter off its hinges. We’ll fix that for you too, while we’re up there.”
“Thank you, Matty—Matthew. I appreciate it. Please bring the invoice to me and I’ll pay it right away. I have my checkbook. Also, there are drinks in the cooler on the back deck, sandwiches, and pastries from Mueller’s on the table inside. Help yourselves to anything you like.”
One of the brothers headed immediately for the house, but Matty grabbed his hoodie and pulled him back. “Work first. I’m not kidding.” He lifted his chin toward the truck. “Get the awnings and start unpacking them. Jimmy, you get the hardware.”
As they watched the DiNapoli brothers work, it occurred to Kaye how quickly time passed. She remembered Matty as a boy, one of a dozen kids who came together in June and played with each other all summer. Her own son Brad had been in that group as well. They’d be outside all day, biking or crabbing or swimming or sailing, coming inside only for food or drinks before going out again. It was a comfortable constant, a rhythm she had looked forward to during the hectic months of school.
“The benefits of being a full-time resident,” Mrs. Ivey commented as the boys disappeared behind the house. “You get moved to the head of the line.”
“I hope so.” Kaye gestured to a sad, leggy rose vine in the front yard. “Because this yard needs attention and I’m about to call in a favor from Gerta.”
Gerta and her partner Corrie had maintained the yards and lawns of Dewberry Beach homes for years. They cultivated, mulched, and planted annuals into gardens before residents arrived for the season, and throughout the summer they cut the grass and deadheaded the roses. When summer was over, they tucked the gardens away for the winter by removing spent annuals and wrapping delicate shrubbery and rose bushes with burlap. They were gifted, talented women and Dewberry Beach was lucky to have them.
Apparently, though, the property manager in charge had neglected to call them—Kaye’s garden needed work. Most of the rose bushes had succumbed to black spot disease and the vines were in desperate need of a good pruning. The hydrangea that Chase’s mother had bought them as a housewarming gift the week they moved in was overgrown, the woody stalks split nearly to the ground. The annuals could be easily replaced, of course, with a trip to the big garden center off Highway 35—red geraniums and variegated trailing ivy for the window boxes, blue sage and wispy sea grass for the pots out front, and rosemary for the back deck. The perennials were more of a challenge. Three summers of neglect had taken their toll; she could see the insect damage from where she stood. All the plants would need to be dug up and discarded, the beds turned, replanted, and mulched. It was too big a job for her alone.
“Gerta won’t be able to help,” Mrs. Ivey said. “They went out of business.”
“You can’t be serious. When did that happen?”
“Last summer, I think. Maybe the winter before? With all the development on the vacant lots, there was too much demand for them to handle on their own. They didn’t hire anyone because they liked the personal touch.” Mrs. Ivey sighed. “It wasn’t long before the developers lost patience, and in came the rented trucks and day workers with substandard plants and estimates so low that she couldn’t compete. The developers loved it—they didn’t care if the plantings died in a year or the sod burned in the sun because it wasn’t watered. They put her out of business.”
“That’s terrible.” Kaye couldn’t imagine Dewberry Beach without Gerta. “Where are they now?”
“I don’t know and believe me, I’ve asked. My own yard needs attention and I’d rather not do business with those New York people… not that I have a choice.” She scowled. “When I call them, they don’t come, not even for an estimate. After they drove Gerta and Corrie away, they raised their prices and are very picky about what jobs they take.”
“Picky? How so?”
“They only work with builders on the big jobs, mostly the new development near the inlet.”
One of the volunteers from the community center emerged from the house carrying a box. She noticed Kaye in the side yard and strode toward her, a purposeful look on her face.
Mrs. Ivey noticed too. She touched Kaye’s arm gently. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Dinner’s at six and I’ll make up a bed for you. I know your family comes soon, but it will be nice for us to catch up until then. I hope you don’t mind indulging me.”
She left before Kaye could refuse.
It took three days to reassemble the shore house into something recognizable. A full day to clear the house of everything they’d bought for rental families: furniture, board games, linens, and cookware. Another for a crew of five to clean the house, erasing all memory of other tenants. And an entire day to set Kaye’s house back to the way it was. The physical work, unloading the truck from the storage unit and unpacking the boxes was only a morning’s work for the crew she hired. When they left, and she was alone with her things, she took her time. She poured herself a glass of wine, flicked on the radio, tuned the dial to an old serial program, and let the memories come.
Hours later, when every painted shell and potholder was in place, Kaye finally allowed herself to rest. She wandered the rooms with an open heart. The house looked exactly the same as it had before the tragedy. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the rustle of the morning newspaper coming from Chase’s chair in the den, the clatter of silverware in the kitchen as Stacy and Brad sneaked another slice from the sheet of crumb buns.
When she was finished, she retired to her own bed knowing that Chase would join her in a few days. That night she slept more soundly than she had in the previous three years.
Early the next morning, Kaye brewed herself a pot of coffee and brought it to the back deck, her favorite place to greet the day. There, she allowed her mind to drift back to Chase’s heart attack and the destruction it had left in its wake. The last three years had been the worst of her life, and despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that it wasn’t over—to believe that her husband of thirty-five years and the love of her life had actually recovered and would be fine. Truthfully, it was the unexpectedness of it that haunted her; the idea that she could do everything right and still be faced with tragedy. She didn’t believe the doctors, no matter how much she tried. Her more generous self might allow that they’d done their best, but she didn’t really believe that either. Despite annual check-ups and following their advice on diet and exercise, the unimaginable happened and Kaye had no faith in their ability to predict his future now.
So for the past three years, she’d been bracing herself for a second attack. The one he wouldn’t recover from. She knew it was coming.
It occurred to her, months after his collapse, that she should ask God’s forgiveness for the things she’d said to Him, especially during those first few nights. The nights her husband lay in the ICU, his future unsure and Kaye overcome with panic. But it wasn’t God who had exploited business connections and strained friendships to locate the best cardiologist in the tri-state. It wasn’t God who had telephoned that very doctor at home and badgered him until he agreed to consult on Chase’s case, driving to Princeton General in the dead of night. And it wasn’t God who had located the rehab facility, the nutritionists, the acupuncturist, or the yoga center, made appointments at each one and forced Chase to keep them.
That was all her.
So she would deal with Saint Peter when the time came for her reckoning. She had a few things to say to him anyway.
But right now, she was too busy caring for her family.
Across the lake, an egret unfurled his wings, rising from his place on a log and lifting himself into the sky, soundless but for a soft whooshing as he crossed the water. As the first rays of the morning sun ascended the horizon, the air warmed. Mosquitos would come soon. . .
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