Chapter 8 - Reclaiming Home
The following weekend, the early summer sun warmed the wide porch of 442 Whispering Pines Drive.
The eviction tape was gone. The movers were gone.
I stood in the center of the foyer, looking at the bare hardwood floors. The house was completely empty. Every gaudy gilt mirror Evelyn had hung to impress her bridge club had been removed. Every piece of heavy, suffocating furniture had been sold or donated.
The air in the house was fresh for the first time in thirty years. The windows were thrown wide open, letting in the sweet breeze carrying the scent of blooming lilac bushes from the garden Grandfather Arthur had planted with his own hands.
The front screen door creaked open.
Lily and Toby came racing into the foyer, their sneakers squeaking on the polished wood. Toby was holding a soccer ball; Lily carried a sketchpad and a fresh set of professional charcoal pencils.
“Mom!” Toby called out, spinning in a circle. “Our voices echo!”
“They sure do, buddy,” I smiled, kneeling down to catch him as he crashed into my arms.
Lily walked over to the bay window overlooking the backyard lawn. “Mom? Are we really going to live here?”
I stood up and walked beside my daughter, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Only if you want to, sweetheart. If you think there are too many bad memories here, we can sell it tomorrow and buy a house by the ocean. It’s entirely up to us.”
Lily looked out at the massive oak tree in the center of the yard—the tree where Grandfather Arthur had built a wooden swing for me when I was six years old.
“I like the backyard,” she said quietly. “Grandpa Arthur loved this yard, right?”
“He adored it,” I whispered. “He used to spend hours out there teaching me the names of all the birds.”
“Then I want to stay,” Lily said, leaning her head against my side. “We can build a new treehouse. A real one.”
“A treehouse with a zip line!” Toby yelled, kicking his soccer ball lightly against the baseboard.
“We’ll see about the zip line,” I laughed, ruffling his hair.
Later that afternoon, a delivery truck pulled up to the driveway. Two men carried out a large, heavy wooden crate and brought it into the study.
Inside was Grandfather Arthur’s rolltop oak desk.
When Evelyn had attempted to liquidate his office years ago, Harold Finch’s firm had retained the desk in storage per Grandpa’s specific instructions, waiting for the day when the trust was restored to its rightful owner.
I sat down in his old leather chair and ran my fingers over the dark, oiled grain of the wood. In the small upper drawer, beneath a stack of old stationery, lay a small, velvet-lined box containing his pocket watch.
I wound the stem until the rhythmic, steady *tick-tick-tick* filled the quiet room.
May you like
I pulled out a piece of cream-colored paper, unscrewed the cap of my fountain pen, and began drafting the charter documents for the *Arthur Vance Foundation for Children*.
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