Page 8 of The Summer Club

He smiled again. “Like you said, it’s getting late and I am starting to get hungry. If we want to look at it, we can always come back and stop on our way out.”

He was saying it and she knew he meant it, because Morty was a good man like that. Unselfish, even when he wanted something badly. Accommodating, even if he wasn’t really tired or hungry—like she was. It drove her mad, and it was also why she was mad about him. “Come on.” This time she grabbed his hand.

“Where to?”

Wordlessly, she tugged him around to the front of the house and right up the two sagging steps to the door. There wasn’t even a proper walkway. Tish stood on her tiptoes and ran her hands over the top of the doorframe.

“Honey, what’re you doing?”

Her fingers darted back and forth across the wood. Nothing. “You want to see the place.”

“Well, yes. But we can make an appointment with the Realtor. For another day.”

She bent and lifted the edge of the threadbare welcome mat. Nothing there either. “We’re here now.” There were two scraggly hydrangea bushes on either side of the door, the only living things in the yard. The bleached grass didn’t count. Tish bent and reached her hand along the base of each bush, feeling around the ground.

“Honey, please. This is silly. You’re going to ruin your dress.”

It was too late for that; her skirt had already caught on the branches twice. But she wasn’t upset. A whiff of rebellion whirled up inside her. Unwilling to give up, as a last resort she tried the door handle. When it gave, she spun around to face her husband, a triumphant grin on her face. “How about that?”

Morty beamed. “Atta girl.”

The inside of the cottage was exactly what she’d feared. Dusty. Dark. And positively musty. But it was tidy nonetheless.

The main room held a small wicker couch and coffee table. In one corner stood a round kitchen table and two wooden chairs. The kitchen was situated against the back wall, light filtering through a small window over the sink.

“It’s tiny,” Tish said.

Morty pushed open a small door off the kitchen. There was one square room, barely large enough to house the double bed in it. “And spartan.”

With nowhere else to go, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the center of the house, looking about them. Examining every angle.

“Well?” Tish said, turning to face her husband. “Are you satisfied?”

Morty draped his arms around her waist. “With you as my wife?” His brown eyes twinkled. “Until today, I did not know I was married to a vandal.”

“The door was open,” she reminded him.

“Still. You’re a trespasser.”

She smiled back at him. “Which makes you…?”

Morty pressed his lips to hers and a thousand promises passed between them. One thing Tish knew for sure: this man loved her above all else. And would never hurt her. If she did not like this house, which she really did not, he would leave it at that. That’s how Morty was.

“You hate it, don’t you?” he asked, his voice soft.

Morty knew her too well for her to lie. She lifted one shoulder. “I suppose I do.”

He nodded. “All right then.”

“Wait.” She placed both hands on either side of his face. “But I love you.”

By the end of that weekend, the cottage was under contract in their name. Instead of a lazy hotel stay on the Cape shore, they’d spent the better part of their little vacation swathed not in sunshine but in the fluorescent lighting of the Realtor’s office, signing papers. And then, back at the cottage, which they’d already begun to clean out. The previous owner had passed away, and the contents were theirs with the house.

Wasting no time, Tish rolled up her sleeves, pulled her hair back in a silk kerchief, and began cleaning and emptying the kitchen cabinets. She was no stranger to hard work. Morty tackled the heavy stuff, dragging the old furniture out into the yard for the garbage men to take away. Straightening the shutters. Coaxing open the old windows that had swollen shut. As they were finishing up and preparing for the long drive home to New York, Morty came back inside. He found Tish scouring out the old kitchen sink.

“She needs a name.”

Tish chuckled. “So she’s a she?”

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