Janet Dawson - The Things We Keep

To my mother, Thelma Dawson, and my brother, Roger (Two-Plus Guitars) Dawson, for all their love and support

The Things We Keep is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, except historical events, is entirely coincidental.

A Bodie Blue Books original

Copyright 2023 Janet Dawson

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022922512

Cover design 2022 by Interbridge

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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: Paperback 978-1-944153-26-7

Ebook 978-1-944153-25-0

Contents

One

I T LOOKS HAUNTED.

I stood on the sidewalk, looking at the old Victorian house on the corner. Like many others in Alameda, it had been built in that era from 1880 to the early twentieth century, in a style known as the Queen Anne, which often featured bay windows and turrets.

This particular house, however, was a Queen Anne gone rogue, screaming excess. It had a large bay window that jutted out from one side of the front porch, towers and turrets galore, plus a surfeit of roof finials, wall carvings and other elaborate gewgaws. There were several stained glass windows, one above the front door and others on the side of the house.

Dan Westbrook, my fianc, shut the drivers side door and pressed the key fob to lock the car. It has a general air of neglect, but I dont see any ghosts hovering in the upstairs windows.

They wouldnt lurk during daylight hours.

I knew the ghosts were there, lurking, waiting to make their presence known. I had a feeling this old house had secrets, lots of them.

It was the middle of October. Earlier this month, a fire to the north blew smoke into the Bay Area, sending air quality into the unhealthy range and turning skies a dirty orange, the smell of smoke everywhere. The fire had been contained and the wind blew away the smoke and the ash. I had washed off the dirty gray residue that had coated my car and my patio furniture. Today, Saturday, was warm, but not too warm. The sky was bright blue with a dusting of white clouds.

A few blocks away, the Alameda Farmers Market was in full swing. A young couple walked by, the father pushing a stroller containing an infant, the mother with a toddler in tow, telling him they were going to buy apples and grapes at the market. On the other side of the street, a woman headed home, carrying a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and a canvas bag with a head of romaine lettuce peeking from the top.

A dog barked. I glanced to my left, where a shaggy brown mutt strained at the leash, eager to go after the fat squirrel that was halfway down the trunk of a nearby oak tree. The squirrel chittered and changed its trajectory, climbing back up into the branches. The dog yipped its disappointment as the man at the other end of the leash tugged it away.

Dan and I crossed the street. He was right about the general air of neglect. It didnt take long for a house to acquire that patina of disrepair. The owner had moved out a month or so ago. But it looked as though exterior maintenance had been deferred far too long. The windows, especially those of stained glass, were dirty and several panes had cracks. The wooden siding had been painted different colors over the years, sometimes several colors at once. Peeling layers showed green, yellow, red and even purple. Right now the exterior was a faded blue, the trim olive green. It looked like the roof could do with some work as.

There were several rose bushes close to the house, all with spent blooms in need of deadheading. The front and side yards featured native plants and succulents instead of grass, with bark and gravel spread out around them to keep down the weeds. But weeds are persistent and they were making inroads. A lemon tree in the front yard had fruit showing bright yellow amid the green leaves. The ground below was littered with fallen lemons, some rotting, which contributed to the houses abandoned look.

At some point in the past the house, like so many of the Victorians in Alameda, had been converted from a single-family home to a multi-unit apartment building, with meters for gas and electricity arrayed on one side of the house, and covered conduits for wiring crawling up the side. A wooden stand at the foot of the front steps held four black mailboxes with locks, each with a brass letter denoting the units, A through D. Two upstairs, I guessed, glancing at the second-floor windows. Maybe two more units on the first floor. But the house also had a ground level unit, its windows shielded by horizontal blinds. I glanced up the cracked and bumpy concrete driveway on the right side of the house. Way at the back, I saw a detached garage big enough for two cars.

On the other side of the driveway, another Victorian house appeared to be empty. It sported a FORSALE sign. So did the one beyond it, with a smaller sign tacked on above, reading SALEPENDING.

A blue Honda sedan was parked in the Queen Annes driveway. It belonged to our friends, Noel Benjamin and his wife, Lakshmi Srinivasan. We were here to help them go through the house and inventory its contents. That job had been sweetened by their promise of dinner at the days end, since their kids were spending the weekend with Lakshmis parents in Fremont.

Dan and I climbed the steps to the front porch, which was decorated with big terra cotta pots on either side of the front door, both planted with bronze chrysanthemums in need of watering. A small signboard to the left of the door was meant to list the names of the people who lived in the apartments, but all four slots were empty.

Dan pushed the doorbell. A moment later, the door opened and Noel Benjamin waved us into the hallway. He was a wiry man in his thirties, brown hair receding from a high forehead, with a sharp wedge of a nose. Laugh lines crinkled around his hazel eyes as he smiled at us. Like Dan and me, he wore faded jeans and a T-shirt, ready for what would no doubt be a messy task.

Come in. And let me tell you again how much I appreciate this. Lakshmis in the kitchen making coffee. We brought pastries, so well have a nosh before we get started.

We stepped into the foyer. The hardwood floors were oak, scuffed and stained with years of wear, cracks here and there between floorboards, some of them wide enough to swallow coins or a key. The staircase on the right had a wooden banister and a faded green stair runner. To the left was a closed pocket door. The ceramic plaque on the wall next to it, in bright orange and blue, bore the letter A.

Between the staircase and the pocket door, a hallway led back to another door that opened onto a large kitchen, the walls and cabinets painted a pale green. The vinyl tile on the floor had a green and yellow pattern. In the center of the room was an oval table with metal legs and a yellow Formica top, the kind popular back in the 1950s and now sought by people who liked mid-twentieth century furniture. The countertops were also yellow Formica. There was a built-in dishwasher to the left of the sink. The white refrigerator and the smooth-topped stove looked fairly new, as did the side-by-side washer and dryer in one corner.

Several cardboard boxes sat on the floor, filled with the items common to most kitchensa set of stainless steel pans, a cookie sheet, several mismatched bowls of varying sizes, and a handheld mixer. An assortment of utensils, everything from wooden spoons to spatulas, filled a smaller box. Donations, I guessed, along with a basket that held placemats, napkins and pot holders. Canned goods and packaged food filled another box.