Synopsis

After losing her husband Wyatt to a sudden accident, interior designer SJ believes she is alone with her crushing grief. Meanwhile, Wyatt, trapped in a liminal state, must watch in silence as the woman he loves mourns all that remained unresolved in their marriage – the children they never had, the depression that stalked him. Over the following months, with the company of Wyatt’s dog, Hawk, SJ takes on a restoration job for the historic Osprey House in her hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina. There, she reconnects with family and finds new friends – a community determined to see her reclaim her life. Even signs from the natural world urge her forward. But not everyone wishes her well. Though trouble looms ahead, ever-watchful Wyatt is determined to see SJ happy once more.

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Excerpt

I remember what came before. I study it like one of these conch shells I’ve kept through the years in a blue china bowl on my dresser. I hold it up, my eyes set on the curve, its inward spiral, the vanishing point where this life rounds beyond the visible and then falls out of sight, forever.

There had been two days of hard rain, scrubbing the Hudson Valley clean, driving out any remnants of summer, leaving clarity and sweetness in the chill autumn air. Feeling almost celebratory about the change in season, I pulled out my favorite vinyl and lowered the needle on my dad’s old record player. The raspy timbre of Louis Armstrong filled our house: Stars fading, but I linger on, dear . . . Still craving your kiss . . . Picking up my husband’s plate from the kitchen table, I swooshed Wyatt’s remaining pancake through the lake of syrup and savored the final bite he’d left behind.

In our moments alone together, we held the outside world at bay, lingering over breakfast, reading the newspaper and talking. I was preparing for my next design job in Beaufort, South Carolina, my hometown. The Osprey House, the old relic was mine to save, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I would leave on Monday and be gone for several weeks as I got the project underway, but this weekend—this weekend was ours. Taking his last sip of coffee, Wyatt suggested catching a documentary at our town’s movie theater that Saturday. I was lobbying for a romantic comedy when he gave me a kiss and headed out the door. Ordinary. All ordinary, but wonderful, in its way.

I had no appointments or urgent calls, no claims on my attention besides packing for my trip. Once I had the kitchen to rights, I decided to build the first fire of the season. I put on Wyatt’s barn coat, which hung on a peg near the door beside his work pants, heavy-duty Carhartt’s for days spent outside, above his collection of steel-toed boots.

Outside, tree limbs lay on the ground. The maple’s red leaves were strewn across our lawn. It was on the side porch, near the stacks of firewood, that I saw it—nosing around, lifting its pointed head, and flicking its tongue. A rat snake, I guessed—a longish, black thing with a lump close to its middle. A mouse or maybe a chipmunk was stuck, waiting to be digested. Poor thing, I thought. I felt for small animals. I wondered if the scent of fear led a snake to its prey like breadcrumbs through a forest. I’d heard Wyatt talk about encountering snakes on the job and moving them to safe ground, away from the jaws of his landscaping equipment. But Wyatt was reverential of all living things.

Intimations of music filtered past the single-pane windows of our old farmhouse. When I opened the side door and called for the dog, Armstrong’s voice spilled out into the open air: But in your dreams, whatever they be, dream a little dream of me . . .

Toenails scrabbling along the hardwood floor, his tail a flag as he ran past me onto the porch, Hawk was eager, running in circles around me, happy to be outdoors among all the fresh smells. I grabbed his collar and led him as close as I dared to the snake. It was not in me to kill it, but my dog might do the deed for me. Its slow movement caught Hawk’s eye and had him barking brightly several times—not a low growl, as I’d hoped, but as if I’d just introduced him to a new playmate. I tried to coax Hawk along, telling him, “Attack! Get him!” But instead, he looked up at me, pleased, as if I were also getting in on the fun.

This dog was impossible, and despite my annoyance, I couldn’t help but notice what a gorgeous boy he was, my husband’s beloved Irish setter. His rump waggled, tail sailing back and forth, feathered ears raised. And though Hawk was enamored, the snake was not. After pulling into a tangled coil and waiting for Hawk to pounce, the snake grew bored and headed off into the tall grasses, away from the house. Hawk stayed with it, barking, encouraged by the snake’s movement. Finally, deflated by my dog’s lackluster performance, I stepped back into the laundry room off the side porch, grabbed Hawk’s leash, and jangled it in the air, calling his name. This captured his attention, and the snake was forgotten.

Wyatt died that afternoon while on the job, trimming back a limb on a large black walnut tree. Cut free, the thick limb swung back like a pendulum into Wyatt, pinning him against the tree trunk and crushing his jaw, his torso, and his pelvis. Wyatt didn’t even know what hit him, it happened so fast. At least, that’s what his crew told me, each man in his own bumbling way, when they arrived at my house that evening. I realized, after three or four reiterations of this, that I was supposed to be comforted by the fact that his death was instantaneous.

Here, then gone—that was how his best friend, Mike, his spotter, told it as he stood in my doorway. But he couldn’t tell me how the harnesses and the knotted ropes had failed. Instead, he shook his head, buried his face in his large paw of a hand, and wept.

I pulled his hand away from his face and asked, “Were you drunk, Mike?”

His head fell low as his bear of a body shook with grief. He didn’t answer but turned away and trudged slowly back to his truck.

About the Author

Tara Badstubner lives in Pennsylvania and is busy creating her next novel surrounded by her husband, children, grandbabies, and several silly dogs. “Every Room Remembers” is her debut novel, releasing September 2026 from Sibylline Press. She is also a former Artist-In-Residence for Bookgardan.

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