Chapter 24: The Sea

The house stood on a bluff above a gray beach in Carpinteria, and it was ugly.

It had a sagging porch and a green door and one crooked chimney.

A realtor's sign leaned in the weeds.

"I didn't buy it," Declan said, before I could speak.

He stood beside the car with June in the sling against his chest.

"I put a deposit on a thirty-day hold."

He rubbed his neck.

"If you want it, it's yours. If you don't, it goes back on the market. You said you wanted to choose."

"You found a house."

"I found a house with a bad kitchen."

I laughed.

It was the first time I had laughed since the courtroom, a real one, and it surprised me.

He unlocked the green door, and it stuck.

He put his shoulder to it and it gave all at once, and he nearly fell in.

Inside, the floors were scuffed oak.

The kitchen was a nightmare.

There was an avocado-green stove, a sink with a crack down the middle, and a counter that sloped toward the window.

"The oven works," Declan said. "I checked. I had the man come on Friday."

"You checked the oven."

"I know what you'll ask first."

I walked through the rooms with my hand on the wall.

The living room had a fireplace.

The bedroom upstairs had a window with a long, long view.

I stopped at it.

The whole bay lay below, grey and silver and moving, with the afternoon on it, and the sound came up through the glass.

I put my palm on the pane.

I had spent two years in a glass house on a beach I was never allowed to walk down alone.

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