Page 30 of Memories of the Lost

She narrowed her eyes. “Seriously? What does that mean?”

“Nothing bad,” he repeated. “Promise.” His thumb moved, sizzling over the long bone of her hand as if it conducted electricity. She felt it to her gut. It was enough to make her want to stop the car and makeout on the side of the road. Just so she could touch him. So he could touch her.

She glanced at him, her skin rustling. “This,” she repeated, “can’t be anything, though, can it.” It wasn’t a question. “You live halfway around the world.”

“I do,” he agreed. “But this isn’t my imagination, is it? There’s something here.”

She turned her eyes to the road, away from that burning blue, the earnestness. “It’s not your imagination. But I still don’t know how anything can emerge. Maybe we should just be here now.” She grinned at him. “Isn’t that what you guys all say?”

He chuckled. “Well, I don’t know about all, butImighthave said something similar once or twice.”

The drive looped through a dark forest, to the cottage where she’d grown up. She parked and sat for a moment with her hands in her lap, looking at the porch, bare now but once populated with a wide swing and pots of plants. For a few beats, she saw the other porch, the one from the painting with the big leafed plant, the cat, the two figures in turquoise.

Shake it off.Literally, she shook her shoulders.

“You okay?” Liam asked.

She nodded. “Here we are.” Her mother’s vast herb garden was to the left, winter barren but tidy. At the edge of the fields was the greenhouse.

“I like it,” Liam said.

As they climbed out of the car, the Realtor appeared on the porch, a slim woman with hair cut in a precise line at her shoulders. She wore muted red lipstick that made Tillie wish she liked makeup more. “Hello,” she said, coming down the steps to greet them. “You must be Tillie. I’m Beatrice.”

She didn’t look like a Beatrice, Tillie thought, but the da Vinci painting of Beatrice d’Este suddenly showed itself to her. The Realtorcould be her sister. She smiled. “Hi,” Tillie said. “This is my friend Liam.”

Liam gave her a polite nod, his attention on the farm itself. Beatrice stared at him for the barest second too long. He didn’t shake her hand, just wandered toward the side lot, where hog fencing protected the garden from deer. Rabbits often managed to find a way in and have a feast, but Arlette never got mad, just reinforced the lower levels of fencing. “They have to eat, too,” she said.

Tillie was fiercely glad that it was still so early in the spring that the garden was mostly fallow. She didn’t have to see what Arlette had planted last year when she was still alive, for a harvest she’d never see. She spied a line of garlic shoots, and if she got close, she’d see the asparagus patch. Of course, the perennial flowers along the porch were popping tiny green heads through the earth, primroses and daffodils, which not even deer liked to eat. In a few weeks, they’d be dazzling.

One reason Tillie wanted to get it on the market.

“Shall we take a look?” Beatrice asked.

Tillie nodded. It still seemed impossible that her mom wouldn’t be there. It was a relief to open the door to empty rooms, only a few boxes of paperwork remaining, which she’d drag home with her today. “It hasn’t been professionally cleaned yet,” Tillie commented. “But almost everything is out.”

“Do you mind if I just do a walk-through?” Beatrice asked.

“Go right ahead.”

Liam waited on the porch. “You can come in if you like,” Tillie said.

He shook his head. “I’m just going to wander the gardens.”

“Okay.”

The house wasn’t huge. The living room and kitchen split the main floor, and upstairs were three bedrooms of modest size. The floors were wide-plank pine, in need of a good cleaning and resealing, but solid. Tillie walked to the window over the sink and spied Liam squatting near the potato patch. He reached down to pluck what was likely an early violet, and the light caught his hair, shimmering.

Us. This. Whatever it is.

Beatrice’s boots clopped solidly on the wooden stairs, and she made notes in the kitchen. “Obviously, the appliances need updating or maybe just removal. Let the buyers figure it out.”

“Okay. That’s easy.”

“I had a walk around the land before you got here, and it’s in remarkably good condition. Your mother must have had a lot of help.”

“No. She did it all herself. She said it kept her young.”

“Really? I’m impressed.” She flicked through her notes. “Well, the house is not quite as appealing, but it has good bones. The barn is very well maintained, and there’s plenty of land for a small farm. It’s not always easy to find the right buyer for a place like this, but COVID brought a lot of young families out of the city. Some of them have stayed, building organic farms of all sorts. That’s who I’m thinking will be the buyer here.”