What's Mine and Yours(29)

He was at the store, and the girls were hiking the state park with Robbie, when she finally arranged a meeting about the house. She was waiting for the realtor when her old neighbor, that fat nurse, climbed onto the porch, uninvited, in a pair of pink scrubs and rubber shoes.

“Hey there!” she said, and Lacey May couldn’t help but scowl at her. All this time, and Ruth Green was still here, living in these woods, driving her cream-colored car with the hospital parking pass stuck on the windshield.

“Can I help you?”

“I hear you’re getting the house appraised. Your tenants told me.”

“Unh-hunh.”

“I wondered if I could talk to you.”

“Aren’t we talking now?”

“I was hoping you’d come over. I made us some lunch.”

Lacey said yes before she could catch herself, her own eagerness surprising her. Was she so desperate that she’d accept an offer from Ruth Green? She had watched Lacey lose her life, return to tend to the house, and never once had she said good morning. She had denied her the little loan that might have spared her everything. Still, Lacey followed her across the yard.

Ruth’s house was plain and pretty: pale wood floors and seafoam-green walls, her son’s toys and her knitting in straw baskets strewn through the rooms. They drank sweet tea and sat looking out at the garden, where Ruth’s boy was watering his tomatoes. Lacey complimented her on her home, asked whether she was thinking of selling, too.

“God, no. We love it here, me and Bailey. I want to die in this house.”

Lacey remembered when she’d thought the same.

“There’s some developers who’ve got a plan to buy up all this land. They want to build a community with town houses, a playground, a pool. I’m worried if they get your land, they’ll just build around me. They’ll clear out the woods, and my view will be of some big old gate.”

“You expect me not to sell my house because you’ll miss the trees?”

Ruth pointed at Lacey’s finger. “You remarried?”

“Not yet.”

“You going to try for more kids?”

Lacey laughed. “I got my tubes tied right after I left my husband.”

“Your fiancé know that?”

Lacey shrugged. “He hasn’t asked. Sometimes it’s better to just let a man dream.”

“As long as you don’t get caught up in the fantasy.”

“Please. I couldn’t forget my circumstances if I tried.”

“No, you can’t. Not when you’re a mother. Your circumstances stare you in the face every morning, ask you what’s for breakfast.”

Lacey May laughed, and Ruth went on. “My ex always had his head in the clouds. He was all, Let’s travel here, let’s move there, let’s have ten kids. I had to be the boring one who said things like, But what about the car payment? and Bailey needs new shoes. He called me a killjoy.” Ruth shook her head, sipped her tea. “He gives surf lessons now, lives with his girlfriend on the coast. Well, it’s always a new girl, and he’s always living with her on the coast. He doesn’t get out to see Bailey much.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Lacey said.

Ruth grew somber. “I wanted to ask you not to sell the house. But it’s not about me or my view. I’ve been carrying around this guilt since that winter you left. I didn’t help you, and I’ve never stopped wondering what it cost you. That’s why I never say hello—I’ve been too ashamed. You see, I was raised to be hard, and you seemed so…Would you believe me if I said I thought I was helping you back then?”

“What I needed was a loan.”

“I was relieved you didn’t wind up having to sell the house. And I’m telling you not to do it now. That house is your wealth. It’s your future.”

“That house is a monthly payment, and my ex is no help.”

“What about your girls? It’s their inheritance.”

“My fiancé doesn’t want me to keep it.”

“Well, his name isn’t on the deed, is it? You can’t let these two men yank you around so you forget what really matters.”

The woman had some nerve. Lacey May rose to leave, and Ruth stood and stammered.

“I’m not very good at holding my tongue. Please forgive me. I hope you’ll come back. Next time, I won’t have a lecture prepared. We can just have tea. You can bring the girls.”

Lacey made no promises, moved for the door. It shocked her when Ruth pulled her into a hug. Lacey didn’t resist her strong arms. She let the woman hold her. It was as if Ruth were a deep-rooted tree, as if she knew that what Lacey May needed was a steady thing.



The realtor didn’t mention a developer, and the number he gave Lacey wasn’t much more than she and Robbie had paid for the house. Lacey didn’t like to think she was being cheated, but it bothered her even more that he genuinely couldn’t see how much the house was worth. She and Robbie had loved that house and loved in that house. That kind of love did something to a place, it lived in its walls. You could feel it when you walked in. A house was more than windows, wood, and frame.

The girls were waiting for her on the porch when she got back. They were covered in mud, electric, babbling about their morning with Robbie.