My Jeep squeaked to a stop in the driveway of the white house. Siding with peeled paint and loose boards that pulled away from the frame greeted me. The yard looked decent. At least it wasn’t a suburban jungle like the house two doors down. That house was straight out of the movie Jumanji after the killer vines had taken over. My house looked deserted and unloved, but I could change that with a coat of paint and some flowers.

Would the interior have fared as well as the yard? My hope soared in search of a miracle. With the key Mr. Goodwin had given me gripped in my palm, I inched toward the door. My head grew dizzy, and my heart picked up its pace. By the time I made it to the front porch, it was banging like a bass drum in my chest cavity. An overwhelming feeling of dread blanketed me. What if it didn’t work out here? What if I couldn’t find work?

The key stopped at the first notch. I jiggled and pressed until it fully seated into the tarnished brass knob. On the precipice of my future, I sucked in lungfuls of courage. I had several thousand dollars in the bank. I had a house. There were people with less who succeeded. I could do this. I would do this.

With my internal pep talk complete, I turned the key in the rusty lock and pushed open the door. Hinges creaked like they hadn’t been oiled in years, and by the look of the place, that would be a generous timeline.

I stepped inside the almost vacant room. The same creak, reminiscent of a haunted house, sounded when the door slammed shut behind me. Light filtered through the tattered curtains. Cobwebs hung from the walls. If a voice echoed through the room that said, “Get out,” my knees would buckle, and I’d die right there. But thank God the house didn’t have a voice—at least not an audible one. A silent voice spoke of abandonment and sorrow. Of a life cut short and dreams lost.

The living room floors were hardwood and covered by a layer of dust that billowed up with each step I took. Spiders scurried in several directions, leaving their tracks in the dust. Spiders I could do. Rodents I couldn’t.

I walked around the room and skimmed the walls with my fingertips. Dull paint that had once been yellow failed to brighten the space. The door molding was etched with faded lines. Crouched down, I traced the smudged blue ink with my fingers. One year—eighteen months—two years—three years, and one line after that. The writing was faded, but I could make out the month of March. Who was this person and what happened to them? Mr. Goodwin’s words about the former owners dying hit me hard. Sadness squeezed the breath from my lungs.

A doorway opened into the kitchen. The place was a complete shithole, but it was my shithole. I flipped the light switch and waited. The old fixture didn’t crackle to life as expected. It remained lifeless like the rest of the room. No buzz of a refrigerator compressor. No hum of a microwave. No whistle of a teapot. I don’t know what I expected. Abandoned homes didn’t have utilities. Hell, some occupied homes didn’t have gas, electric, or water if the tenant couldn’t afford them.

When I blew the dust off the stovetop. I uncovered electric coils, and a song of thanks rang through me so deep it vibrated in my heart. Thank God. That meant with the flip of a switch at the electric company, I’d be in business. Gas would be more difficult since a house this old would probably need an inspection. Something was going my way.

It was a quick trip back into town. Fury wasn’t that big, which meant everything was conveniently located. My first stop was the electric company. The woman was super nice and said she could put a rush on the order, which meant I was likely to have lights by nightfall. My second stop was the water department. After an older man named Harry finished flirting with me, he guaranteed that I’d have water by the time I returned home. He also told me how to open the valves to start the flow and advised me to let the faucets run for several minutes to avoid getting sick. Stop three was the mini-mart. Nonperishable foods were a must in case the old refrigerator didn’t function. Cleaning supplies and paper goods also hit the cart along with a few treats like a candy bar and powdered donuts.

Nothing could motivate me like the smell of Pine Sol and the promise of chocolate when I finished. I ran the water until it was clear like Harry suggested. The transformation started with a bucket of cold water and a sponge. I flicked the light switch on, but it was still dead, so I went straight to cleaning up twenty years of dust and dirt. I’d just finished wiping off the flat surfaces in the kitchen when a knock on the front door echoed through the empty house.

I brushed the sweat from my forehead and went to answer it. I swung the door open to find an old woman standing there facing the doorjamb. She was holding a pitcher of lemonade and two plastic cups.

“Can I help you?”

The woman shuffled her feet to the left and faced me. Her white pin curls hugged her head tightly, and her near orange lipstick bled into the creases of her lips.

“Invite me in, dear. That’s the neighborly thing to do because we are neighbors.” She didn’t wait for the invitation. She plopped her Clarks loafers on the threshold and heaved her body through the doorway.

When her shoulder hit my chest, I stepped back. “By all means, come in.” It was a late invitation since she already stood in my living room.

“I brought lemonade. It’s my special recipe. None of that powdered junk for me. This is made from lemons and simple syrup.” She pressed the pitcher forward, but not toward me. Hastily, I grabbed it before she let go. When her hand was free, she reached for the dark black glasses that nearly wrapped around her head and exposed eyes that were more silver than blue. She squinted and turned to face me. “There you are. Damn eyes went to hell years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” I looked around the room. The only things present were the lawn chair and blowup mattress I’d brought in from the car.

She closed her eyes like she was looking through a pinhole, and I realized she probably was. Gramps had developed macular degeneration a few years before he passed. He, however, had never sported the dark glasses that were supposed to protect his remaining vision. He’d wanted to see what he could while he could.

“I have a chair for you here.” I put my free hand on her arm and led her to the plastic seat. “It’s not much, but it’s all I have for now.”

“Pour the lemonade. I want to hear your praises before I die.” The old woman chuckled. “I’m Mona Charming. I live across the street.”

Hopefully that was her last name and not an attempt to sell me on her personal attributes. She needed to work on her social skills. Walking uninvited into someone’s home wasn’t exactly among Miss Manners’s recommendations.

I offered her my hand, but of course she didn’t see the gesture, so I pulled it back and reached for the two plastic cups she held. “I’m Ana Barrett, and I recently inherited this house.” I filled a red Solo cup for Ms. Charming and one for me.

“I heard the place was sold years ago. I’ve been waiting for over a decade for this neighborhood to rejuvenate.”

“Rejuvenate?” I sipped at the lemonade with caution. How good could lemonade made by a blind woman be? Turned out, pretty damn good. Sip after sip, it didn’t take me long to empty my cup. “Delicious.”

“I knew you’d like it. Everyone does.” She looked around my house like she could see everything. As if reading my mind, she said, “I can still see what’s important. For example, I can see this place is a total piece of shit. The years haven’t been kind to it.”

Her bold demeanor was as refreshing as the lemonade. “You said something about rejuvenating the neighborhood. What happened here?”

“Nothing we want to dwell on.” She waved her hand in a dismissive fashion. “Tell me about yourself.” Elbows on her knees, she leaned forward and took me in pinpoint by pinpoint. “You’re a pretty one.” Her eyes focused on mine like they would tell her my story.

“Not much to tell.” I slid to the ground in front of her and poured another cup of lemonade. “My name is Ana. I’m twenty-four. My Grams owned this house, but she recently passed, and I inherited the property.”

“What was your grandma’s name?” She pressed forward like she was going deaf too.

“Agatha Barrett. She raised me after my parents died in a car accident.”

Mona’s shoulders sagged forward like she was weighed down with sandbags. “Tragedy.” She shook her head, and the little white curls bounced about. “Life has too much tragedy.”

“I don’t remember them, so it’s not as big of a loss as everyone thinks. You can’t miss what you can’t remember. I suffered from a brain injury, and maybe that was good. It would be hard to have a mangled heap of metal as my last memory of them.”

“Enough of that. Let’s talk men.” She leaned back in the chair and placed her hands behind her neck. “It’s been a long time for me, but I did like oral sex. Is that still a thing?”

Lemonade spurted out of my nose. Who was this woman? “Umm …”

“Oh Lord, don’t tell me you’re one of those I’m-going-to-wait-until-I-get-married types.” She snorted and moved her hands to my shoulders. “Take it from me. Try them all out. You don’t want to open a bag of Skittles and only eat the green ones.”

Laughter bubbled from deep inside me, but I swallowed the urge to set it free. “I don’t like the green Skittles.”

“Exactly, and if you hadn’t tasted the green ones, you wouldn’t know.” She looked up to the cobweb-covered ceiling, but I was pretty sure she couldn’t see anything. “You have to try them all until you find the one that tastes the best.”

“Are we back to talking about oral sex, Mona?”

“Can we?” A glimmer of light and humor sparkled from her silvery blue eyes.

“No,” I said with more tenacity than tact.

“Fine.” She let out a loud sigh. “Tell me more about you.”

Grateful to be back on a topic that didn’t include tongues and sex organs, I happily told her about myself. “I’m a graphic artist.” I scooted back against the wall, creating a strip of dust-free hardwood flooring. “At least that’s what I went to school to do. However, I haven’t been able to get my business off the ground.”

“We don’t have one of those here, so I’m sure you’ll be a hot commodity.”

A loud chirping sound came from the fire alarm in the ceiling. “We have electricity.” I hopped up and danced around the living room.

“Have we been sitting here in the dark?” She looked both ways with a confused expression. She pulled a wristwatch the size of a wall clock to within an inch of her face. “Oh, thank the Lord, it’s only three. Guide me to the bathroom, I drank too much lemonade.”

I rushed to the grocer bag on the floor and pulled out the toilet paper. “Take this with you. The bathroom is the second door on the left.” I pushed Mona in the right direction and stopped in my tracks. How did I know that?

I watched her shuffle down the hallway I hadn’t explored yet. Mona walked into what I hoped was the bathroom and closed the door. Her loafers had left a swath of clear floor on her way. I prayed that I’d led her in the right direction. If not, I’d be cleaning up after Mona when she left.

A few minutes later, she came out, wiping her hands on her pants. “You need a towel in there.”

“I need a lot of things.” The house was bare except for what I’d brought—and just bought—and that fit in the corner of my living room.

“I need to get home. Judge Judy has started.” She turned and walked toward the front door.

I had a feeling Mona saw a lot better than she let on. “What about your lemonade?”

“You finish it up.” She glanced around the room and shook her head. “What a mess.”

Yep, Mona Charming saw a lot more than she wanted to admit to, but I liked her. She was at least entertaining, if not quite as charming as her name implied.

The old woman walked across the street and into the little blue bungalow. With its boxes of flowers in the window and pink yard flamingos, it straddled the line between cute and tasteless, but since I’d met its owner, my opinion leaned toward cute.