Present Day
The rain started up again in the night, the sound of it beating against the porch roof moving through Tom’s dreams in different ways. Memory and fear twisted, the steady patter of rain becoming the ticking of a clock. Shadows darted out from corners, lingering only long enough for him to step close. The scent of rot wrapped everything, and a sense of urgency underscored all of it. By the time he cracked his eyes open to a gray and miserable dawn, Tom felt as though he’d spent the night running in circles.
Also, his mouth tasted like a skunk had laid a turd inside it. Drinking the rest of the bottle of wine had been a mistake. Frank’s departure from the patio had left him feeling oddly bereft, though.
Well, maybe not oddly . . .
Fuck.
Scrubbing his eyes, Tom rolled away from the window and contemplated pushing his face into the darker side of the sofa. Overhead, the floor creaked. He listened to Frank cross his room, the bathroom door squeak open and close, and what sounded like a fire hose draining into the toilet. Ignoring the press of his own bladder, Tom stared up at the ceiling and wondered, in a vague way, why they were both awake so early on a rainy Sunday. Surely if any day deserved a late start, it was today.
Maybe Frank would go back to bed.
The shower started.
Tom pushed the blanket back and got up.
By the time Frank arrived in the lobby, he was alarmingly put together in another pair of pants, another button-down shirt, both casual, but obviously expensive. The kind of clothes Tom would mistake for business wear until he arrived in a boardroom and realized he was actually dressed for Saturday lunch in the Hamptons or some such crap. Frank didn’t have a suitcase with him, but Tom expected him to announce he was leaving.
Instead, he regarded Tom with surprise. “You’re up.”
And washed, and dressed, and still looking like the discount version of Frank. “Yeah. I can make breakfast if you want.”
Frank’s eyebrows rose. He gave a short nod. “I could eat.”
Given he’d skipped dinner last night, he must be starving. Frank had trimmed down since boyhood, but he wasn’t a small man. He wasn’t stocky, but neither was he willowy. He was tall and strong and solid. Tom liked the look of him. Then again, he always had, even when Frankie had had round cheeks and shocking hair. Frankie . . . Frank had always been Frank.
And Frank had always liked food.
Tom gestured toward the guest dining room. “Do you—”
“The kitchen is fine. If that’s all right.”
“It’s fine.”
Frank took a step toward him, and Tom forgot to step back. His heart beat wildly in his throat as he struggled with the concept of moving his feet independently to his thoughts, and found he was still standing there a moment later. Hopefully it had only been a moment. A couple of breaths? Frank wouldn’t be in front of him, eyebrows raised, if he’d been standing still for too long, would he?
Then again, Frank had always had incredible patience when it came to his moods—the understandable and the just plain weird.
“I’m sorry about last night. Yesterday afternoon,” Tom said.
Frank answered with a grunt.
“I feel like . . .” Tom licked his lips. “When I found out you were coming up, I thought about leaving, you know? Just leaving all the paperwork on the desk and locking up. I figured that would be the best thing all ’round. But . . .” I wanted to see you. “I also kind of figured I might be able to help, and that maybe it would be altogether too sad to let you do this alone.”
Frank’s eyebrows had been slowly settling. Now his entire expression changed. Sadness happened first, pinching his brow. Glancing away, he rubbed at his forehead and took a step back, thankfully, widening the space between them. When he looked up again, his expression had saddened further. His smile, what might have been a smile, had turned into a grimace.
“I appreciate all you did for Robert. Don’t for a minute think I don’t. And I know—” he squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them “—I should have come back more often. It’s too late to tell him I’m sorry, but I am. I’m sorry, Tom. And I’m sorry if I made you feel as though you weren’t welcome here. This place has always been your home.”
Shaking his head, Tom swallowed over lumps of emotion until his feet finally decided to move. Unsteadily. He backed up a step, then another. Shook his head again and tried to say something, but his voice had ceased cooperating, which was for the best. What could he say that Frank could possibly understand?
“Let’s have breakfast and then maybe we can sit down and go through the paperwork,” Frank said. “Figure out what we’re going to do with this place.”
We’re. The intimation that they might work together sent a sharp pain through Tom’s chest . . . and he nearly said it. Nearly blurted out the other apology, the one he’d been holding in for so long, it might not meant anything anymore.
Swallowing again, he led the way into the kitchen.
After filling Frank with pancakes and coffee not made by the “nasty little machine,” they returned to the office where Tom indicated the thick envelope on the desk. “That’s for you. Guest logs are over here.” He pointed toward file drawers. “Older logbooks are in the basement. We did start transferring everything to computer, but only the last ten years or so, which isn’t a lot? I just didn’t have time to go back further, and Robert wasn’t interested in using a booking system. The website we have is pretty out-of-date, but honestly, there hasn’t been much point in updating it.”
“Unless you’re trying to sell the authentic experience of yesteryear, not updated since then.”
“Which reminds me, I need to head up to the attic and find the source of that smell. It’s only gotten bad over the past couple of days, so hopefully it’s nothing major.”
“Okay. You do that and I’ll start going through all of this.”
Tom paused by the doorway until Frank looked back at him. “There’s no debt. The biggest reason the place is in such bad shape is that Robert didn’t want to spend money on it. He paid his taxes and his bills and . . . I dunno. I don’t think he minded so much that we were all but closed. He would have retired when Madge died if the place wasn’t doing as well as it was, even then.”
Frank nodded. “Good to know. About the debt.”
Still, Tom lingered, but he couldn’t ask the question he most wanted the answer to—probably because he already knew what Frank would do. What any sane person would do: sell up and walk away.
Another minute passed, Frank waiting patiently for him to say his piece. Tom ended the weird quiet by offering a nod and departing. He visited the laundry to grab a flashlight, a couple of towels, a bucket, and a roll of silicone tape, hoping the problem would be as basic as his supplies.
It wasn’t. It never would be. The water heaters were all fine. The water was coming in through the roof, and it obviously wasn’t a new hole because the insulation beneath it was dark with mold. He suspected it had been a small leak and a small problem until the recent storm.
Tom put down his bucket of useless supplies, pushed up his sleeves, and prepared to roll the insulation back to see what sort of mess lay underneath it.
“Let it not be bad,” he whispered. “Please let it not be bad.”