Page 20 of Sea La Vie
I roll my eyes and grab my bag off the counter, and after some deliberation, the coffee Eden made, then head for the Tate’s.
“The contractor did a great job,” I say, nodding at the patched ceiling in Tate’s bedroom.
“I’m happy with how it turned out,” he says. “I just wish I would’ve hired him to rip up this nasty carpet, too.”
“At least you got the raccoon situation under control,” I smirk. Midge noses around the room, no doubt sniffing out any lingering trace of the ‘coon.
Tate laughs. “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t know everyone in a hundred mile radius of this town.”
I had called Riley, a boy I went to school with who went to work for a pest control and exterminator business right after graduation. After I explained the situation to him and promised him a dozen red snapper, he moved things around to make Tate’s cottage a priority.
“I don’t mind switching jobs,” I offer. “You paint the cabinets and I’ll rip it up.”
Tate shakes his head. “I don’t have the patience for painting.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t have the patience for painting but you’re an accountant?”
“Totally different,” he says.
I shrug and pick up a paintbrush. “Suit yourself.” I head to the kitchen and assess what I’m working with. The cabinets really aren’t in terrible shape, but a fresh coat of white paint would really help brighten things up in here. Tate heaves and grunts in the room opposite me until he gets a good start on rolling up the carpet.
A couple of hours later, I have the majority of the cabinets painted, and Tate’s got the carpet ripped up and hauled outside. Even Midge chipped in and chewed up an old baseboard that didn’t need to be replaced until now.
“Hey, Lainey, look at this,” he says, after coming in from the bedroom.
I turn around and find Tate, dusting off a piece of paper. “When I rolled up the carpet in the bedroom, I found a soft spot in the floorboards. I pulled it back to see how bad it was and found this in between the joists,” he says as he unfolds it. “It looks old.”
I peer over his shoulder and read the faded ink.
Meet me tomorrow at the top of the lighthouse when the sun and the sky meet, and we’ll leave it all behind. -E
“It doesn’t spell their names out?” I ask.
“No,” Tate says. “It’s almost like whoever wrote it didn’t want to get caught.”
“Do you think it could’ve been a renter?”
Tate shakes his head. “It looks too old, plus didn’t you say the lighthouse got demolished during the last hurricane?” I nod. “I wonder if Grandpa would know.”
“Maybe you could ask him about it,” I suggest.
“Maybe,” Tate agrees. “If he remembers…” The corner of his mouth pulls in and his eyebrows draw together. “I went to see him yesterday and it took him a few minutes to remember who I was.” The corner of Tate’s mouth tugs down, and he folds the note back up. “I should’ve come back sooner.”
I walk over and place a hand on Tate’s forearm. “Tate, I think your grandpa understands that you went across the country for college, then started working full time in a completely different city,” I say gently.
“I thought calling him and sending him postcards and letters would be enough, but when I saw him yesterday, all alone in his room at the nursing home, I realized it wasn’t.”
I give his arm a light squeeze. “Go see him again,” I urge. “Ask him about the note. Talk to him. He’ll love it.”
“Will you come with me?” he asks. “You were here when I found the note. It feels like you should be there when he explains it.”
Tate’s grandfather is in a nursing home a few towns over, at least an hour away. “We can take him dinner,” Tate suggests. “You should be back off the water by dinner, right?”
He looks so eager and hopeful, his eyes wide as his hands fiddle with the note. I’m hit with a flashback of us as kids, himgiving me the same look as I tried to talk him into something that was probably dangerous and unsafe.
“I’ll go with you,” I promise.
He grins before walking over to the thermostat. “Is it just me, or is it really hot in here?”
