The Doctor's Do-Over. Karen Templeton

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      To Amy and Lainey

       Here’s to memories of hot summers,

       frigid swimming pools,

       sighing over boys

       and more good times than I can count.

       Miss you guys.

       Chapter One

      Her nostrils twitching at the putrid mix of mildew, ancient grease and whatever it was that had died in her grandmother’s Nixon-era refrigerator, Melanie Duncan could only gawk in horrified amazement. Holy cannoli—Amelia Rinehart had apparently kept every glass jar and plastic container she’d ever touched.

      Along with—shuddering, Mel thunked shut the grimy, mustard-yellow cabinet door—decades’ worth of magazines, newspapers and junk mail stacked in teetering piles throughout the eight-freaking-bedroom house. And just think, she thought sourly, shoving up the nasty water faucet with her wrist and waiting for-ev-er for the hot water to meander up from the basement, it was all hers. Hers and April’s and Blythe’s, that is.

      With that, her gaze also meandered, out the dirt-fogged window and beyond the weed-infested backyard sloping down to the inlet beyond, to the slate blue water glittering in the late September sunshine … and she could almost see those three girls sunbathing on the pier, stretched out on Walmart-issue beach towels as Green Day blared from somebody’s old boom box. Blythe’s, most likely.

      The water suddenly went blistering hot, making Mel yelp. Cursing, she adjusted the handle, thinking maybe she was still in shock. Not so much about her grandmother’s passing—she had been nearly ninety, after all, even if Death probably had to hog-tie her and drag her away kicking and screaming. But, yeah, inheriting the Eastern Shore property, especially since her grandmother and she hadn’t spoken in more than ten years? That was strange. Far more strange than that, however, was finding herself in the last place she’d ever expected to set foot again.

      Or wanted to.

      Anxiety prickling her chilled skin—the thermostat didn’t appear to be working—Mel scrubbed her hands with the dish soap still sitting on the back of the pock-marked sink and turned, only to grimace at the M. C. Escher-like towers of long-since-expired bottles of herbal supplements smothering the chipped Formica counters … the jungle of dead plants at the base of the patio doors leading to the disintegrating back porch … what appeared to be hundreds of paper bags, undoubtedly loaded with mouse droppings, wadded between the fridge and the cabinets. Disgusting, as her daughter would say. Thank God the washing machine was working—go, Maytag—because no way in hell was she letting her child sleep on any of the musty sheets she’d found all jumbled up in the linen closet.

      Had her grandmother always been that much of a pack-rat? Or had the three of them turned blind eyes to the clutter during those long, lazy summers when the world as they all knew it simply didn’t exist?

      Shaking her head, Mel tromped to the dining room and yelled for her daughter, who, being made of sterner stuff than Mel, had gasped in utter delight the moment they’d set foot inside, then immediately taken off to explore.

      “Quinn! Where are you?” she bellowed again, fighting images of the child fending off a posse of rats, breathing a sigh of relief at Quinn’s faint, but strong, “Coming!” in reply.

      She glowered at the behemoth of a buffet across the room, the blotchy mirror behind it nearly obliterated by more … stuff. Doodads and knickknacks and tchotchkes galore. And in every corner, packages of all shapes and sizes—some unopened, even—from every purveyor of useless crap on the planet.

      So much for a quick in-and-out. What had clearly taken years to accumulate wasn’t going to simply go poof in a couple of days. And then what? What the hell were the three of them supposed to do with the place? Yes, St. Mary’s СКАЧАТЬ