Page 23 of Drawing Home
“Well, I think the situation is peculiar.”
“That is it, Angus. It is most definitely peculiar. And I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“What are the options?”
Emma leaned back on her heels, wiping her brow with the back of her arm. “I could just leave the house alone and let Penny deal with it when she turns eighteen.”
“Or?”
“Or I could move in. But that woman is going to fight me in court. I don’t have the resources to fight back.”
“What if she doesn’t bother taking you to court?”
“Okay, so, another thing is I guess a part of me can’t imagine living in that big fancy space. Can you?”
Angus laughed. “I’m not living in that crazy house.”
She looked at him, startled. “What? Oh, Angus. Of course you will. We need you around.”
He smiled. “I didn’t say I’m going to disappear. But maybe this is a sign it’s time for me to live on my own.”
Emma dropped her clippers onto the grass and stood up.
“No, it’s not. And you know Celia would agree with me. There was a reason she made both of us promise that you would move in with us. She didn’t want you living alone.” In her final days, Celia had been thinking only about Angus. She told Emma, “I’m not afraid to go. I’m just afraid to leave him behind.”
Angus shook his head. “I have to say, though I never admitted this to Celia, it was a mistake to have sold the Ninevah Beach house. I’ve never felt quite at home since.”
Angus, like many of his generation, had faced a real estate dilemma. The former African-American enclaves of Ninevah Beach, Azurest, and Sag Harbor Hills had become appealing to a wider number of home buyers when the entire Hamptons area exploded in popularity. By the early 2000s, Angus’s family home had increased to nearly ten times the amount it had been purchased for. And as he and Celia faced retirement, the ballooning property taxes combined with the potential payday of selling had made holding on to the house impractical.
“Angus, I understand that the idea of moving from here might trigger complicated feelings. But whatever decision is made, I want us to make it as a family.”
Across the lawn, the buzz saw started up again. Angus waved her closer to the house. When she reached the porch, he said, “Emma, this really isn’t about what you want or what I want. There’s only one thing to think about here: What’s best for the child? The rest of it is just noise.”
It wasn’t just the deep voice; Anguswaswise.
Chapter Ten
On the southern end of Main Street, quaint, historic clapboard houses merged seamlessly with the commercial storefronts. Penny’s favorite yogurt shop, BuddhaBerry, was a two-story house with wide stone steps and white pillars. If it weren’t for the chalkboard sign outside that readARTISAN-QUALITY FROZEN YOGURT! WAFFLES! CREPES! BUBBLE TEAS!,it would be easy to miss.
BuddhaBerry had colorful mosaic-tiled tables, bright orange walls, and lots of Asian lanterns. It was just the medicine Penny needed before starting her sentence—sorry, her shift—at the historical society. Considering what time it was, she should have taken her pomegranate yogurt topped with shaved coconut and chocolate chunks to go, but she couldn’t resist stalling at a table.
God, she hated the historical society. It was just across the street but it might as well have been in another universe. The museum was formerly the Annie Cooper Boyd House, an eighteenth-century shack. Angus always tried to make it sound interesting but failed miserably.
“The house was once thought to be the place where David Frothingham first published theLong Island Herald. That was Long Island’s first newspaper in the 1790s,” Angus had told her.
“Okay,” Penny had said politely.
“But in fact, research has proven this untrue. It’s more likely that Frothingham ran the business from a building across the street.”
Thanks to Angus, Penny knew enough trivia about Sag Harbor to make her a useful volunteer. But, as she told her mother,it was so friggin’ boring!
Penny pulled a book out of her bag,The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World. This was a reread for her, but she needed something light afterThis One Summer. This old favorite was way less depressing. It was about a girl her age named Doreen Green who moves from California to New Jersey and totally doesn’t fit in. But she has superpowers. All the books Penny liked best were about underdogs who finally got their day.
Squirrel Girlwas the first graphic novel she’d shown to Henry. When she’d pulled it out of her bag, he was initially dismissive.
“I’ve never been a fan of comics,” he’d said.
“It’s a graphic novel.”
