Page 68 of The Trust We Broke
“Come home with me,” Grudge says. “I need to go by the house.”
“I don’t know. I think we?—”
“Please.”
I sigh. “Okay.”
“Just follow me home.”
I watch as he jogs to his truck, which I guess someone moved over here for him after the raid. When he pulls out, I turn and follow him.
New York City, for all its positives, made me feel a little claustrophobic. With all the tall skyscrapers looming over me the whole time, I felt boxed in. Exhaust fumes clogged the air as wind tried to dance its way in and around buildings.
Depending on the weather, I tried to make it to the water that surrounds Manhattan. Not that much of it is safe to dip your toes in. But just the sight of the Hudson River from the West Village, or the East River from the Brooklyn Bridge, brought me a peace I felt as though I were continually chasing.
But here, as we wind our way to Grudge’s home, I find myself taking bigger breaths than my chest should be able to allow.
Excitement ripples through me at the thought of seeing Grudge’s home. Perversely, I wonder if it’s the kind of home we dreamed of in that awful apartment of his.
And a wave of nostalgia hits me when I realize it is. It’s a stunning split-level ranch property with so much land and outbuildings and a huge wraparound porch painted red.
The long drive snakes around the back of the property, where there’s a large lake with a dock. We pass a barn that has a large tractor outside, and end up in front of his home.
Zach pulls his truck up in front of the house, then signals that I should park in front of the large garage doors. Then, he hops out of the truck and waits for me by the steps as I grab my briefcase.
“This property is beautiful,” I say.
“It’s fourteen acres and a bitch to snow plow in the winter, but it’s the privacy and space we…I always wanted.”
I guess the slip of the tongue is fair. Living in New York all these years probably does make it look a little like I gave up on the dream.
“How long have you been here?” I ask as he pushes the door open and holds it while I step inside ahead of him. There is a rack with shoes and boots on it, so I toe off my sneakers and add them to it.
“Bought it about six years ago. Ray, who used to live here, was friends with my father.” Grudge copies me and toes off his own boots. “After his wife died, he wanted to downsize and move to Utah to be closer to his grandkids. He’d heard I was looking, so we did a private deal to avoid broker fees. He also threw in the heavy-duty equipment, like the snow plow and tractor.”
From the front door, we’re immediately in a large open-plan living area. To my left is a dark gray sofa, facing a large wall-mounted television. Beneath it is a real fireplace made of brick. To my right is a rectangular dining table with six matching chairs. In the corner is another fireplace, this one a large cast-iron affair, that I imagine does yeoman’s work in keeping the house warm in winter.
Across the room from the front door is a large kitchen, with an island that has four bar stools beneath it.
There are mismatched and dated accessories around the place. A large tin jug with dried flowers and the wordhelloin white wooden blocks on top of the fireplace.
The walls are painted an uninspiring taupe, and while everything looks a little tired and worn, it’s a pretty space. But the two large windows are the feature.
“It’s deceiving how high we climbed,” I say, taking in the gray skies and swaths of trees.
Grudge shakes out of his coat and hangs it on the hook by the front door. If I lived here, I’d build a closet in the corner of the dining space for coats, so they weren’t messily out on display.
Grudge comes to stand next to me, and I feel the warmth of him.
“It was one of the things that sold me on the place. Always liked the idea of being above the tree line. See where the mountain starts to rise again over there?” He points ahead, dipping low so his outstretched arm is in line with my eyes.
I squint into the distance. “I do.”
Grudge nods. “That’s part of the boundary. No one can build or disrupt the view unless I decide to sell any portion of the land.”
The smile comes unbounded. “You found an uninterrupted view.”
It was our dream. To find a place where we could sit out on the porch for the rest of our lives and never have to worry about the view being taken away from us.
