Sunset
By Karen KingsburyTyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2008 Karen Kingsbury
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8423-8758-3Chapter One
John Baxter had Dreaded this day with everything in him, but the knock at the door told him the time had come. It was the last Tuesday in January-Christmas far behind them and long past time to take this step. He'd made the decision months ago, and now he needed to follow through with it.
"Coming ..." He walked from the kitchen to the front door and opened it.
"John." Verne Pick nodded. He was a friend from church whose kids were involved with CKT, and he had a reputation for being one of the best, most thorough Realtors in Bloomington. His expression told John that he knew this was going to be a rough day. "You ready?"
John steeled himself. "I am." He opened the heavy wooden door and welcomed the man inside. "Let's move to the kitchen table."
He had brewed a pot of coffee and poured cups for both of them. They made small talk, and after a few minutes, Verne pulled a folder from his briefcase. "We have a standard questionnaire we need to deal with first."
John blinked, and a memory came over him. When Elizabeth died, it had taken every bit of his strength to walk through the planning of her service. But he remembered this one detail: the young woman from the funeral home who helped him with the process had presented every question couched in concern, as if she wanted to apologize for each step of the ordeal. That's exactly how Verne was now, his brow raised as he waited for a response.
John motioned to the two closest chairs. "Let's get the questions out of the way."
"Okay." Verne opened the folder and took out the document on top. He drew a long breath. "I guess we better talk about the fire first. It's bound to come up."
"Right. Just a minute." John went to the next room and found a folder on the desk. He brought it back and set it on the table in front of his friend. "The garage has been completely redone, and all the repair work was signed off on. Everything's in the folder."
"Good." Verne lifted his chin and sniffed a few times. "No smell of smoke?"
"Not at all."
"The place is really something." Verne's smile was tentative. "Should have it sold by summer, I'm guessing."
"Yes." A bittersweet sense of pride welled in John's chest. "It's a great house. Held up well through the years, even with the fire."
Verne settled in over the paperwork. "I've got some of this filled out already. Let's do the basics first." He lifted his gaze, pen poised over the top sheet. "Number of bedrooms?"
John pictured them the way they'd looked twenty years ago. He and Elizabeth in the large room at one side of the house upstairs. Brooke and Kari across from each other at the south end of the hall, Luke in the next bedroom on the left, and Ashley and Erin sharing a room at the north end. He pushed away the memory. "Five." He took a quick sip of coffee. "Five bedrooms."
The interview wore on, each question stirring another set of memories and reasons why he couldn't believe he was selling the place. When they reached the end of the document, Verne bit his lower lip. "The tour comes next. I need to measure each room, get an official square footage."
"The tour?" John looked toward the stove, and he could almost see Elizabeth standing near the kettle. "John'll give you the tour," she would say when company came over. "He's so proud of the place-I like to let him do it."
"Sure." John gave his friend a smile. "Let's start in the living room."
They worked their way from one part of the house to the next, and as they went, Verne pulled out his measuring tape and captured the length of the walls.
John remained quiet. He wasn't seeing his friend taking matter-of-fact measurements of the house he so loved. He was seeing Elizabeth rocking their babies, Ashley learning to walk, Brooke bringing in a bird with a broken wing, and Kari screaming because she thought it might attack her. He could hear the piano, filling the house with hour after hour of not-quite-perfect songs during the years when the kids took lessons, and he could see the grandkids gathered around their tree each Christmas.
Whatever the square footage of the house, it couldn't possibly measure what these walls had seen or the memories housed here.
They finished the final room, and Verne closed the folder. "Well, that's about it. Just one more thing and I can get back to the office and list it." He walked toward the front of the house. "I'll get what I need from the car."
John followed him into the entryway, and when he was alone, he slumped against the doorframe. For a heartbeat, he felt like he was no longer attached to his body. What was he doing, selling the house? Certainly one of his kids should've wanted it, right? He had six of them in the area, after all. But John had already asked each of them.
Brooke and Peter liked the house they lived in because it was easy for Hayley and comfortable. "We have our own memories here," Brooke had told him. "The Baxter place would be much too big for us."
Kari had felt the same way about having her own memories. Ryan had designed the log house they lived in, and it had a sort of rugged lodge feel both Kari and Ryan loved.
Ashley had been a possibility at first. She had told him a number of times that she would love to raise the boys here, where she'd grown up. But she wasn't painting enough to bring in regular money, and the mortgage on the house would be far beyond what Landon could afford, especially with their growing boys.
Once John had even considered calling Dayne, because it would've been nothing for him to loan Ashley and Landon the money-maybe at a lower rate or for a longer period of time. But Ashley had begged him not to. "I don't want Dayne to think of us like that, using him for his money."
John could've argued with her, but there was no point, really. Ashley was right; the situation would have been awkward.
As for his other kids, Luke and Reagan needed to be close to Indianapolis for Luke's job, and things were still very shaky between them. They'd found a nearby church, and John was encouraging them to get counseling at a local center. There was no way they'd be interested in moving again.
Last there were Erin and Sam. At first, when Erin called to announce that they were moving back to Indiana, John thought he had his answer, a way to keep the house in the family. But Sam worked long days, and Erin was busy with the kids. Upkeep on a house with acreage was more than they were willing to take on even for the sake of nostalgia. So they were out.
John wandered into the front room and peered through the window at Verne. Way down at the end of the driveway, his friend had taken a large For Sale sign from the back of his car. John's heart swelled with frustration and futility as he watched Verne position the sign not far from the road. The Baxter house ... for sale. John gritted his teeth and looked away. This was where he'd wanted to live out the rest of his days, so maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was all a mistake. He looked out the window again and narrowed his eyes.
No, there was no mistake in what he was doing. Living in this house into his twilight years meant sharing it with Elizabeth, and since she wasn't here, the house could go. It had to. He and Elaine Denning were moving ahead with their plans to marry, and they needed a new place to begin their life together and-
The echo of a mallet against a stake resonated...
