Chapter 7: The House in Vermont
We drove up on a Saturday, three weeks later.
Zachary had contacted the lawyer who had handled Eleanor's estate — a woman named Patricia Holt, based in Burlington — and she had met us at the property with the keys.
The house sat at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by birch trees that had gone gold in the October cold.
It was smaller than I'd imagined.
White clapboard, a covered porch, two dormers on the upper floor.
Paint peeling at the window frames.
A garden at the side that had gone wild but still showed the shape of what it had once been — raised beds, a stone path, the skeleton of a rose arbor.
Patricia handed Zachary the keys at the front gate.
She was a small woman in her sixties, practical coat, no-nonsense manner, but she looked at Zachary with something careful in her expression.
"She talked about you," Patricia said.
"In our meetings, when we were drawing up the final documents.
She wanted to make sure the bequest was ironclad." She paused.
"She said she didn't want anyone to be able to take it away from you."
Zachary looked at the house.
"She knew someone might try."
"She suspected." Patricia left it at that.
We went inside.
The air was cold and still, the way houses get when they've been closed up for a long time.
But it wasn't neglected.
The furniture was covered with dust sheets, but the floors were clean.
The kitchen was small and well-organized.
On the windowsill above the sink, three small clay pots, dried herbs still in them — rosemary, thyme, something I didn't recognize.
Upstairs, there were two bedrooms.
The smaller one had been used as a study.
Bookshelves along every wall.
A writing desk by the window that looked out over the birch trees.
On the desk, one more envelope.
Our names on the front.
Both of ours — *Zachary and his wife* — in the same careful handwriting from the letters.
Zachary picked it up.
He opened it standing at the desk, with the light coming through the window and the birch trees moving outside.
It was short.
Half a page.
*If you're reading this, then someone finally did the right thing.
I'm glad.
The house needs work, but the bones are good — like most things worth keeping.
Do with it whatever makes you happy.
Use it, sell it, let it sit.
It's yours.
I only ask one thing: don't let anyone make you feel guilty for accepting what was always meant for you.
You owe no one an apology for being loved.*
Zachary stood at the window for a long moment after he finished reading.
I didn't say anything.
I just stood beside him and looked out at the birch trees with him.
After a while he said, "I want to fix it up."
"I know."
"I want to come here.
Actually use it."
"I know that too."
He folded the letter and put it in his jacket pocket.
He looked around the small study — the books, the desk, the dried herbs on the windowsill downstairs that we could no longer see but both knew were there.
"She would have liked you," he said.
I looked at him.
"You think so?"
"She wrote eleven letters because she refused to give up on people she hadn't even met yet." He almost smiled.
"Yeah.
She would have liked you."
We stayed for two hours, walking through every room, making notes on what needed repair, what could wait, what was already exactly right.
May you like
When we finally locked the front door and walked back down the dirt road to the car, I looked back once at the house standing quiet among the birch trees.
It had been waiting a long time for someone to come.
