Page 116 of Eight Years Gone

Once upon a time, the Evans mansion had been the popular hangout spot for movie nights and pool parties. Bea had fed packs of hungry football boys over the years. Now all ten thousand square feet sat uninhabited and silent, except when the once-a-month cleaning crew came by to vacuum and chase away the dust.

Moving down the hallway, she stopped in the large game room, smiling as her gaze wandered over various pinball machines, then the ping pong table where hundreds of heated matches had been lost and won by Logan, Jagger, and dozens of their friends.

She snorted out a laugh when she spotted the crappy patch job Logan and Jagger had attempted to pull off after Tucker Winslow’s elbow damaged the drywall after a particularly spirited victory dance their junior year.

Drinking in the good memories, she moved on, walking by Bea’s old room. Then she stopped by her dad’s office—where he’d spent most of his time on his occasional trips back to Wakeview.

She sighed as her gaze wandered over his various trophies from his high school and college glory days. Sports had been his life—an expectation he’d unfairly passed on to his son.

Her father had always made it back for Friday night football games and Saturday afternoon marksmanship competitions during their appropriate seasons. Dinner at the country club typically followed as a family of three, plus Jagger. Otherwise, the good doctor tended to clinic business or dictated patient notes right there in his leather chair.

She exhaled another quiet breath as she stared at the papers stacked on the edge of the desk—the same papers she’d carelessly pushed to the floor in her frantic search for the colonel’s address among her father’s things.

Feeling the gloom and regrets creeping back, she gave the space a last look, then stepped away, heading for the rear staircase she’d rarely used.

She moved down the rambling hallway, taking only a moment to glance in each spare bedroom, pausing when she came to the attic door.

She opened it and flipped on the light, heading up the steps, chuckling as she remembered the tense moments when she and Jagger had stood in the dusty silence, half-naked with their clothes in their hands one unfortunate afternoon.

Her dad had made an unexpected trip home when she and Jagger had thought they had the place to themselves. When they heard her dad calling their names as he walked up the grand staircase, they’d booked it out of Jagger’s room and hid in the only place they imagined he wouldn’t go looking for them.

Laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, she stopped on the top stair, glancing around at the items that hadn’t been used in decades.

Logan’s old soccer nets and lacrosse gear, Grace’s pottery wheel she’d lost interest in sometime in middle school.

She quickly walked around the space, making certain she wasn’t leaving behind any long-lost treasures.

She stopped by the garment bag holding her old prom dresses, pausing with her hand on the zipper when she spotted the small stack of boxes in the corner.

Moving closer, she recognized Bea’s handwriting as she read what each box contained in black permanent marker: board games, golf gear, puzzles, Rose

Grace frowned, surprised to see her mother’s name.

Resituating the dust-laden boxes to get to the one she wanted, she eagerly tore at the tape, then lifted back the flaps, staring at a picture of her mom and dad in a pretty wooden frame.

Grace grinned at the wedding photo she remembered from her parents’ bedroom in the suburbs. “You guys were so young. So gorgeous,” she whispered. “I miss you like this. When everything was happy.”

Setting it aside, Grace lifted a pink floral book, fanning through the pages of her mother’s beautiful handwriting. “Your journals. How did I forget that you journaled?”

Every evening her mother had tucked herself in with a cup of tea and whatever book she was writing in at the time.

Grace snuggled next to her mother and brother as all three lay in the king-size bed. Friday nights were the best nights—movie nights to kick off the weekend after a long week at school. “Mom, why do you do that?”

Mom paused with her pen on the page. “I like thinking about my life—about how lucky I am to have you and your brother. Your dad, too.”

Grace sat farther up on Dad’s side of the bed, eager for him to come home to join them. “So, you write it all down?”

Mom nodded as she smiled. “Someday, when I’m an old woman, I’ll read everything I’ve written and live the best parts of my life all over again.”

Grace smiled sadly as she glanced at the box full of books her mother had never gotten the chance to read. She had just turned forty-two when the accident ended it all.

Putting the book and picture frame back, Grace hefted the box, bringing it down the stairs, eager to find Jagger and show him her discovery.

* * *

Jagger looked around the room he knew he would never see again as he put the last pictures Grace wanted to take with them into the box they found in her closet.

It was odd to be back at the mansion—to step back in time in the place that the secretly sentimental Dr. Evans hadn’t been able to let go of.

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