Page 41 of The Treasure House

“Pleasure. I’d best get off now. Have to make sure things are in order at the campground before I wrap up for the day.” He gave me a wave over his shoulder as he headed off.

“Mom!” Flo’s voice came honking down the side of the house. “I lost the cat in the house!”

I sighed. Of course she had.

Ten

By the end of the week, Flo and I had met everyone in town. Or rather, everyone had met us. One by one they dropped by to evaluate us, and one by one they stayed, chipping in to help. Ted and Lila de Marche didn’t spend the next day surfing with their father—instead their father spent the day watching the Pirates–Cubs game on an old color TV with Wayne as the two men pretended to sort through the detritus in the laundry. Perry de Marche seemed relieved not to be surfing, while Ted and Lila had taken a shine to the house and had spent hours combing through the rooms with Flo, who was in her element as she instructed them to collect any and all porcelain cats.

Colleen from the café came by with a plate of whoopie pies and ended up instructing me on how to recognize quality china; we also met Josie from the library, who dropped in to welcome us to Oxeye and was soon enthusiastically cataloguing the stacks of newspapers. Alan and Roger were frequent visitors too—Alan was as fascinating as an episode of Antiques Roadshow, assuring me my Tiffany lamp was genuine, and Roger kept up a steady supply of coffee and scones for everyone. Elton from next door arrived with a tent he’d borrowed from a friend of his in Camden—it was the kind people put up for weddings and was perfect for protecting our culch from the weather. He put himself in charge of organizing the collection that grew out there. By the end of the week, the kitchen had been entirely cleared out, as had the back porch and the laundry, and our upstairs landing and bathroom were spotless. Even Flo’s little attic room had been emptied and made habitable. Every other room was now filled to the brim, but that was next week’s problem.

As was my new job. I’d gone for an in-person interview on our third day in town, after a phone interview with one of the doctors. The medical practice was in Rockport and looked more like a church hall than a doctor’s office. It sat between a pair of beech trees and had a gray shingled roof and blue-gray shiplap walls. The window frames and front door were jaunty white, and on each windowsill planter boxes exploded with geraniums.

I liked the look of it. I could imagine walking in that white door every morning, passing the funny little timber sign that read:

DR. MAUD GERRISH

Quality healthcare with a smile

&

DR. PARKER NOCK

Book an appointment with someone who knows what they’re doing and stop googling your symptoms

There was a sign taped in the window: OFFICE MANAGER NEEDED. MUST BE ORGANIZED AND NOT TALK TOO MUCH. I’d gathered my courage and gone in, but I needn’t have worried. A smiling and very kind Dr. Gerrish offered me the job before I even opened my mouth. I left with a stack of forms to fill out and Dr. Gerrish’s best wishes for our move. I hadn’t even met Dr. Nock. But it felt meant to be. And any anxiety I might have about starting a new job could wait until we’d wrestled the Tinker Street house into a semi-livable state.

During that busy first week, Jake’s cousin Hud had appeared, as promised, with a trailer full of equipment and a couple of helpers. He plowed his way through our front and back yards, his power tools a persistent whir through the hot afternoons.

“I’ll try not to cut down anything worthwhile,” he’d said when he’d arrived, eyeing the jungle. “But I can’t promise anything.” He was a weather-beaten, laconic guy, probably in his forties. He wore a faded and crumpled old Red Sox cap and a pair of plastic sunglasses that looked straight off Jake’s rack at the lobster shack. I didn’t see how he could tell what was worthwhile or not, but he seemed to know what he was doing. It took him three days, but by the time he left, the gardens had a shape, even if they still looked like they’d been neglected for a lifetime. Now we could see the stand of crabapples, and several other sturdy old trees.

“You’ve got a nice hornbeam there,” he’d told me, pointing. “And mountain holly and moosewood.” He’d managed to find the old vegetable beds that Jake had mentioned, which were marked by weathered wooden railroad ties, and a rose garden too—the roses running wild and witchy. “Give them a hard prune and they’ll come good,” Hud told me. He shook his head. “Marly never was one for gardening. Didn’t have the patience for it.”

I felt a stab of curiosity about the woman. Everyone kept mentioning Marly, but when I tried to ask questions, they clammed up. It seemed Mainers were a close-mouthed lot.

In my mind, I pictured Marly as a scruffy old woman, stuck in her ways, irritable. Isolated. It was the only way I could imagine a woman who’d buried herself alive in stuff.

“So Marly lived here?” I said to Hud, hoping he’d tell me more.

“Ayuh.” Hud drawled the Maine slang for yes and shook his head and grinned. “Not a lady to suffer fools.” He laughed and reached into his back pocket as he closed the topic. “Here you are.” He handed me his card. “If you want me to come mow the lawns and keep things under control, just hit me up.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have the budget for that,” I admitted, but I took the card, disappointed that he wouldn’t say more about Marly.

“I’ll give you family rates.” He took a last lingering look at the backyard. “I’m glad someone’s doing the place up. It was a shame to think of it being sold, but if it has to pass out of the family, I’m glad it’s gone to someone who’ll love the place.”

Family?

“You were related to Marly?” I said, surprised. “Oh.” The penny dropped. “That means Jake is too?” That explained why he’d thought he could steal my front door without asking.

“Ayuh. But everyone’s related to everyone around here. It’s that kind of place.” Hud headed for his truck. “Nice to meet you, Zoe. You take care of that garden, eh,” he told me. “It deserves some love.”

When he finally sent the bill, I assumed he’d made a mistake. But it turned out family rates were bargain basement rates, and I realized that maybe I would be able to afford him after all.

“You didn’t tell me you were related to the woman who lived in my house!” I accused Jake when I went down to the hardware store to buy sealant to repair the kitchen sink.

“You didn’t ask.” He was untangling his dog from her leash. She was tied up by the cold potbelly stove and had somehow knotted herself up. “Does it matter?”

“Sure,” I said, hunting through the shelves. “It makes you seem less creepy, for a start.”