Page 63 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

“Fastest way to find out is by opening it.”

“Excellent point.” Without further speculation, I tear open the wrapping, choking out an amused laugh as I see what’s inside. “You bought me a sledgehammer?”

He sweeps a hand toward the carriage house. “You’ve been talking about demoing this for six months. I thought it was about time. I’ve cleared out the few tools and things you might want to keep. Between the two of us, I figured we could get most, if not all, of it cleared in a day. Rahul can put the shed in the same spot until you’re ready to build a more permanent structure.”

I look at Dylan, at the crumpled building before me, at the snow-blanketed dumpster parked on the side of the driveway from the halted roof construction, and at the box by my feet.

“Are we supposed to make mochaccinos while we tear down walls?” I ask.

Dylan shrugs while fighting a smile. “Only if you don’t want to smash it.”

Oh my god. It’s truly incredible how this man just gets me.

“I think you might’ve given me my favorite Christmas present, ever,” I tell him.

“Don’t tell your parents. I’m pretty sure they already hate me.”

“They don’t hate you.” I crouch down, already ripping open the box. “They have a very specific notion of how life should be lived. Anything that doesn’t fit that notion needs to be adjusted so the pieces line up and make sense to them.”

Dylan bends to help unpackage the stainless steel and matte-black plastic contraption that would dwarf everything else in the kitchen and maybe get used twice a year if we kept it.

“Are you telling me I don’t fit?” he asks in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge kind of way.

“Oh, you fit all right,” I tease back. “Though we should check again later. Just in case.”

With a joyful smile I can’t imagine ever getting enough of, he hands me a set of safety goggles and a pair of work gloves, donning a second set himself. Then I smash the absolute crap out of the coffeemaker, glowing with pure, adrenaline-soaked bliss, swinging the sledgehammer with a strength I didn’t know I had while Dylan cheers me on with every swing.

Hours later, when the carriage house is mostly flattened and we’re tossing lengths of siding and old framing into the dumpster, a sleek black sedan winds its way down the road and parks by the snow-piled curb. I assume someone took a wrong turn and they’re stopping to ask for directions, but when a man in an expensive-looking navy suit and overcoat gets out of the car, I remember my dad arranged for his “realtor friend” to meet with me about selling the house.

“Shit.” I wrench the safety goggles off my head. “It’s the guy about the house.”

“What do you want to do?” Dylan asks.

“I want to tell him to get back in his car and go away.”

“I can do that for you if you like.” He takes a step down the driveway.

I halt him with a hand on his arm. “I’ll never hear the end of it, and my parents will only send someone else. Better to show the guy around and get it over with.”

Dylan looks unconvinced, but since I can’t take a sledgehammer to everything my parents give me, I head down the driveway, muster a polite smile, and introduce myself to the realtor. He asks about the demolition currently in progress and the paused roofing job, so I explain where I am with making improvements. Then we head inside, where I give him the briefest tour I can manage without seeming rude. He admires the architecture while noting the black mold in the dining room, the water stains on the walls and ceilings, and several signs that the house has shifted over the years and the foundation may no longer be sound. I also take him down to the dock, which he suggests needs replacing sooner rather than later. He gives me his card in case I get serious about selling, and he tells me in parting that while the property with all of its oceanfront acreage is worth several million dollars, the house is definitely a teardown, and he can’t imagine any buyer not wanting to custom build from the ground up.

As he drives off about an hour after he arrived, I meet Dylan by the dumpster.

“Well?” he asks. “Anything you didn’t expect to hear?”

I flick the card, wishing I had it in me to toss it into the dumpster with the rubble.

“Nothing my parents haven’t said or at least hinted at a thousand times, though it hits harder coming from a professional, which I suspect is what they wanted.” I turn to look up at the house, with its chipped paint, mismatched windows, broken banister rails, and unfinished roof. I know the place is old and falling apart, and it might not last a year, let alone a lifetime, but I still can’t imagine letting it go. Then watching it be torn down so wealthy New Yorkers can build a fancy summer vacation home, erasing the history of laughter and tears, of perfecting my knots, picking out names for my grandmother’s characters, wrestling with my adolescent loneliness, playing truth or dare with silly magnets, falling in love with a reclusive writer over months of seemingly inconsequential shared moments. I didn’t become a historian because I wanted to study wars and conquests. I became a historian because the past matters. If it doesn’t, then the present doesn’t matter, either. We exist not in an instant but in a trajectory with a before and an after. Our lives are an accumulation of tiny histories, and this house is so full of them, both written and lived. It doesn’t deserve to be wiped clean.

I slip the card into my back pocket. Then I find the safety goggles I set aside earlier.

“C’mon,” I say to Dylan. “Let’s get this done. We have a space to clear, a shed to get built, a manuscript to work on, an agent to impress, and a holiday meal to plan.”

He sets a hand on his chest, reeling in mock offense. “What, no pasta?”

“I think we can aim a little higher.” I pick up the sledgehammer and prepare to knock down the final corner of the carriage house. “And, Dylan? Not that I’m actually thinking of selling, but I won’t do anything without discussing it with you first, okay?”

“It’s your house.”