Happiness Key
Meet four women who think they share nothing but a spit of land called Happiness Key.With her husband in prison, pampered Tracy Deloche is left with five ramshackle beach houses and no idea how to start over.Janya Kapur left her close-knit Indian family for an arranged marriage to a man she barely knows.Wanda Gray takes a job guaranteed to destroy her already failing marriage–if her husband cares enough to notice.Widow Alice Brooks has grown forgetful and confused. Her family comes to stay with her, but Alice isn't sure she's grateful.When the only other resident of Happiness Key dies alone in his cottage, the four women warily join forces to find his family. Together they discover difficult truths about their own lives and the men they love–and uncover the treasure of an unlikely friendship.
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Praise for the novels of
EMILIE RICHARDS
âThis special book is one of the best womenâs contemporary novels you might read this year, and one that you will recommend to all of your friends.â
âFresh Fiction on Sisterâs Choice
âRichards subtly stitches together old and new characters, nimbly embroidering their tales with an artful balance of empathy and emotion.â
âBooklist on Sisterâs Choice
â[Richards] draws these women of different generations together. Richards shouldâve included a special pull-out hanky insert, but readers looking for positive resolutions wonât be disappointed.â
âPublishers Weekly on Sisterâs Choice
âMagically interpreting the emotional resonance of love and loss, betrayal and redemption through luminously drawn charactersâ¦glows with transcendent warmth, wisdom, grace, and compassion.â
âBooklist on Touching Stars
â[A] heartwarming, richly layered story.â
âLibrary Journal, starred review of Endless Chain
âRichardsâs ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.â
âPublishers Weekly on Fox River
Emilie Richards
Happiness Key
With love and thanks to my aunt, Laura Coleman,
for many happy childhood days on Pass-A-Grille and Treasure Island.
Contents
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
epilogue
chapter one
The old man still wasnât answering.
Tracy Deloche made a fist and banged the border of Herb Krauseâs screen door, wincing when a splinter won the round.
Flipping her fist, she dug out the offending sliver with nails that were seriously in need of the attentions of her favorite manicurist. Unfortunately, sweet-natured Hong Hanh was more than two thousand miles away, filing and polishing for outrageous tips at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, while Tracy banged and shouted and tried to collect Herbert Krauseâs measly rent payment so she could put something in her refrigerator and gas tank.
âMr. Krause, are you there?â she shouted.
âWell, whatâs up with that?â she muttered when nobody answered. She could see his ancient Dodge sedan parked behind the house. Sheâd been sure her timing was perfect. Apparently she was as good at collecting money as she was at everything else these days.
Tracy flopped down on a wooden bench beside three carefully arranged orchids in clay pots. Something green and slimy flashed past her and vanished in the Spanish moss mulch. Florida was like that, teeming with things that darted at you day and night, some with more scrawny legs than a bucket of fast-food chicken.
Happiness Key. She almost laughed.
CJ, her ex-husband, was responsible for the name of the âdevelopmentâ where Herbâs cottage and four others stood. In a rare stab at poetry, CJ had called this hole the yin and yang of Florida. On one side, white sand beaches with tall palms swaying in a gentle tropical breeze; on the other, Floridaâs wildest natural beauty. Mangroves and alligators, exotic migratory birds, and marshes alive with Mother Natureâs sweetest music. Who couldnât find happiness here? Particularly CJ, who had expected to expand his considerable fortune wiping out most of that music when he developed the land into a marina and upscale condo complex for Floridaâs snowbirds.
From the side of Herbâs cottage, Tracy heard an air conditioner grinding, and the sound made her teeth hurt. Visiting him was like summering in Antarctica. How long before the ancient window unit ended up in the Sun County landfill, and she was down hundreds of dollars for a replacement? Herb was older than the mangroves that blocked access to the bay, older than the burial mounds at the far end of Palmetto Grove Key, where Floridaâs first residents had dumped their dead. No surprise his internal temperature control was out of whack. Tracy was just glad the old man paid his own electric bill. Evicting one of the stateâs senior citizens to save a few bucks would get her just the kind of publicity she didnât need.
Sheâd already had enough of that in California.
Leaning back against the concrete block wall of the cottage, she folded her arms and closed her eyes. Since rolling out of bed that morning, she hadnât looked at a clock, but she supposed it was almost nine.
The air was beginning to sizzle. May on Floridaâs Gulf Coast might as well be full summer. Of course, she hadnât yet lived here in full summer, so maybe June was going to be that much worse; maybe June was going to be unbearable. But considering how unbearable her whole life had become since her divorce from CJ, what were a few degrees here and there? Let the humidity condense into something thick enough to eat with a spoon. What did she care? She would take it and make something of it.
