Return to Cedar Hill

by Jacie Middlemann

  

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next day Mary followed along as Grace wandered from room to room. It was obvious to anyone there was still a tremendous amount to be done but Mary valued Grace's opinion on what had been completed so far especially considering all that she had accomplished on her own at the store.

  She had done some frantic cleaning the night before. While the house had been fine for her she had a different view of how it should be for company. At some point along the way as midnight approached she had finally sat back and decided that friends would be able to see past splotches of dust and the occasional speck of wayward paint.

  "Good grief." Grace's sudden exclamation had Mary checking closer into the closet with her. "It smells just like my grandmother's closet did."

  Mary stepped back, a small smile hovering as she remembered her own thoughts when she’d first looked into the bedroom closet. First inhaled that treasured and easily recognizable smell that took her back to her childhood. To her grandmother.

  "You know it's funny," she glanced at Grace as she spoke. "I'm certain that more people than I can count, or care to count have rented this place since my grandmother died. There's is no telling what's been in and out of this closet, but the first time I opened the door, the day I looked at the house for the first time after all these years...decades, it smelled just like it did all those years ago. Whatever came in between, it still smelled the same." She stared into the closet in some ways grateful it wasn't just her. Yet at the same time disappointed it wasn't just her who could breathe in that scent so reminiscent of her grandmother.

  Grace started to say something. She had her own thoughts on such things, unconventional as they were for some, but decided this wasn't the time or the place. Instead, she pointed out something else she’d noticed "You're combining the old with the new. I can see how you've brought in your own style and at the same time blending in a lot of how it may have looked twenty or more years ago."

  "More," Mary said dryly as to how long it had been. "And you're right, though I didn't really see it that way until just now when you pointed it out."

  "That's because you're in the middle of it and if you're anything like me there probably wasn't even a conscious plan to it. Sometimes it just happens that way." She ran her hand over the smooth and cold marble top of the dressing table on the wall opposite the closet. "Is this your grandmother's?"

  "No. I found it at a wonderful shop downtown." She'd seen it and had to have it and because of that paid far more than she normally would have. Way more than it was actually worth. "But it looks almost exactly like the one she had."

  Grace looked up at the softly spoken response. She saw the same sadness she often felt deep within herself at a memory that brought a sense of joy yet also brought with it an overwhelming sense of loss. "I bet it sat right here."

  "Yes." Mary let the emotions flow through her. "It did."

  "Sometimes I wonder if I made so much of an effort to get Grandpa's store back to the way I remembered it so that in some odd way I could keep him close." She laughed, a sad sound that echoed Mary's quiet thoughts. "There are times I could swear I hear him laugh, that huge laugh that filled the room." She sighed remembering, "Sometimes it's so close, right by my ear, that I turn looking for him but even as I do I know he won't be there." She turned to Mary, trust didn't come easy to her, but sometimes you had to start somewhere to find out if you were going anywhere. "My family thinks I'm nuts, coming back here, building the store back up, but I love it. I've loved every moment of it." Hands up, palms up, putting it all on the line, "I don't have to go to the cemetery to know he's gone, but there's not a day that goes by I don't miss him. Not a day I don't remember everything he was to me. I cherish those moments when it feels he's there, that he's by my side even if he's not in my sight, and my family can make of it as they please."

  Mary listened quietly. She understood the deep pain family conflicts could bring. Knew too there was often little that could be said to ease it. She gently placed her hand on the one now tightly fisted against the cold marble. "Let's get something to drink and sit at my new kitchen table," she suggested. She led the way back into the kitchen where she started a fresh pot of coffee then put the bakery fresh coffee cake into the microwave to heat up before sitting down at her newly purchased vintage coffee shop style table with its matching cherry red cushion chairs and cherry covered tablecloth.

  Grace spent the time taking a closer look around the freshly painted kitchen. She could still smell the lingering scent of fresh paint in the room. While she wasn't personally fond of white as the center theme in any room she had to admit it worked in here along with the many colorful accents that were scattered throughout the kitchen. It was homey, perfect for sitting around the table and enjoying the peaceful feel of the room or the company it seemed to invite. It was cluttered without having a cluttered feel to it.

  The room, just like the woman wasn't at all what she'd expected. After their talk yesterday and having recognized her name if not the face, she'd done a quick search on the internet on her. She had turned out to be an even bigger name than she had realized and not just for her success in writing. The woman and her husband, who was successful in his own right, gave away money in gobs. Enough so that it was noticeable to even the most cynical of cynics. Yet despite her success, she was fixing coffee and heating up coffee cake in a kitchen smaller than some people's bathrooms.

  "I looked you up on the internet," she admitted. She would later wonder at her honesty and at the small smile that lingered on the subject of her snooping. "I can't imagine writing one book and finishing it let alone over fifty."

  "I had a lot of time on my hands." Mary sat down across from her guest. She felt a sense of kinship with this woman she couldn't explain, a bond of friendship that had been missing from her life for a long, long time.

  "You used it wisely." Grace allowed. "Did you check me out?" She couldn't help asking. It would be tit-for-tat in her mind, an accepted concept in that part of her life for too many years. One that she had never been wholly comfortable with but had accepted as part of the game they all played. A life she was glad to have walked away from. One she had no plans to ever return to.

  This time Mary let the smile that had continued to linger bloom. "No, considering there's no internet service in the house." She laughed at the absolute astonishment the woman across from her didn't even attempt to hide. "No cable either," she added. "Though I have thought about getting a small TV. I do enjoy a good movie once in a while."

  "Is it a religious thing or something?" Grace asked only half teasing. She couldn't for the life of her imagine an existence without the internet, her iphone, and anything else that kept her connected.

  Mary thought about it. "No," she said in a slow considering way, "though I can't help but think He wouldn't see it as a good idea."

  "Okay..." Grace searched for the right words, too much of her old life still clung like lint including caution. "You're huge, everybody knows your name, so...." She played with her cake, pushing it around the plate. "What are you doing here?" Before Mary could answer, Grace elaborated. "I don't mean this house, I understand that, but just here, in this town, with no internet, no TV," she looked around, "and no computer?"

  Mary struggled to hold back the laughter that continued to fight for escape and was just barely able to contain it. After years of mothering she knew well that laughter, even joyous, sharing laughter could sometimes be interpreted the wrong way...could hurt without intending to. She set another slice of the warm crumb cake on Grace's plate and pushed it back across the table to her, tapping it much the same way she would with one of her children that said "eat" without words and all the while considering how to explain, how much to explain. Because she saw some of herself in the woman across from her she decided to see if Grace could see it as well.

  "How about you tell me what I might have found if I had the internet and done a search on you?"

  Grace to
ok the question in stride but as she did lifted her gaze to stare at the pretty dishes covered in cherries and apples sitting in perfect order in a cupboard with glass doors. Tit-for-tat she thought wryly. But maybe it was more than that, more important than that. Maybe it was a matter of trust. You couldn't ask for it, she knew, unless you were willing to give it in return. Not everything could be kept forever behind closed doors.

  With her gaze still on the fruit covered dishes that were beginning to grow on her she began the story she simply couldn't seem to get away from. "I spent ten years supporting various political figures in their varied lofty endeavors." She sighed deeply then took a gulp of her hot coffee, immediately regretting it as the hot liquid scorched its way down her throat. Sighing, she took it in stride. She'd suffered worst.

  "I finished college with every intention of becoming a big name museum director. My first job was as the Curator for a small county museum in a wonderful one-hundred-year-old historic building." Could she have ever been that young, she wondered. That naive. "I didn't make diddly but I loved it." She idly ran her fingers around the rim of her coffee cup. "One of the Directors on the museum's Board was running for the State Senate and asked me to help out. Being young and ambitious I did pretty much whatever was asked." She heard the bitterness and the regret. And wondered if it would always be there.

  "It turned out that I was apparently very good at speech writing. And when he was voted in I was offered a staff position. Later when he ran and won a seat in the U.S. Congress I followed him there and relocated to D.C." She looked for reaction in the face across from her and saw interest but nothing more, nothing less.

  "I was good at what I did," Grace continued almost as if she was reciting something she had repeated numerous times. Which she had. She shrugged almost absently, she had paid for all her bad decisions long before this.

  "The better I got the more I moved around within the party but mostly when someone was running for re-election and wanted to switch out speech writers. If the offer was good enough I'd take it." She carried her now empty cup over to the coffee pot and poured herself another cup before carrying the pot back over to the table with her to top off her listener's cup. She then sat the pot down on the table between them.

  "About three years ago I was dragged into a..." she paused looking for the right word, a kinder...gentler word for scandal, "...situation. A very sticky situation." She decided on then continued, "Despite the fact that I had no involvement at all other than being stupid and green enough to believe everything that I was told. I should have known better." By friends and foes alike, she remembered with a sadness that would never lessen. "After the worst of it blew over I decided I needed a change." She laughed roughly, not bothering to disguise the harsh ring to it. "Truth be told, up to that point every individual I'd worked for had been elected or reelected at least in part because of my efforts. I guess the egotistical part of me wanted to leave on my terms, undefeated, even if indirectly so, and at that point my goal was also to leave un-indicted." This time when she laughed in reaction to the outraged look on Mary's face, it was a carefree sound just barely tinged with sadness.

  "They needed a scapegoat," Grace explained as if to a young child, "they always need a scapegoat." And Lord had she been tired of constantly watching her back all those years to make sure she wasn't the most recent lamb led to slaughter. "I found out that power breeds kings, and kings demand loyalty without giving it in return." She sighed for all the years lost to a maze of idealism. "Friendship is as cheap as the booze at the local convenience store and often sold for little more." She looked straight into the eyes of a woman who she would bet her last dollar had never been exposed to corruption other than her kids swiping the change out of her purse. "I walked into my boss's office that last morning with a speech that was just what he needed to win him his next race, which it did," she added dryly. "I also gave him my letter of resignation which was effective immediately and a copy of the sealed letter I'd left with my lawyer to be opened in the event of my arrest, any form of bodily injury, or death." She stared clearly into the eyes that had widened even further with alarm. "Mine." And she'd never been more terrified in her life. "Let's just say he understood the benefits of my leaving on my terms and needless to say we don't and have never exchanged Christmas or birthday cards."

  "And then you came to Burlington and bought your Grandfather's store," Mary filled in. Her voice and heart filled with understanding and sympathy neither of which she expressed any further knowing neither would be appreciated or easily accepted.

  "Eventually, yes." Grace thought back to those weeks and months of indecision. All that had mattered in the end though were the results. "I needed sane." Sighing, she tried to explain. "It's not any great secret that my family thought I bordered on some kind of psychotic event, a nervous breakdown, something." She topped off her coffee that had again gone cold. "But after all those years of living in a world where pretty much anything and everything goes, and believe me that's putting it mildly, I needed normal and quite honestly even something bordering on the verge of boring looked good." She took another sip, "You just can't get much more normal than small town America. Thank God I had Burlington to come back to."

  Mary piddled with her cup as she thought about what Grace had shared with her. It was far more and far worse than she anticipated with her earlier question. Yet years of holding her privacy near and dear had become more than just habit, it was like a religion. And look where it had gotten her, she thought piously.

  "I always wanted to write," she began slowly wanting to give Grace something back in return for the trust she'd given her. "Stories ran around in my head like puppies penned up in a yard always looking for a way out. For as long as I can remember I put myself to sleep at night walking through my stories. They were as real to me as the life I walked though every waking hour of the day." She smiled at the memories, thinking of the journals she'd written, outlines she made, rough drafts she had never pursued. "But life happened, I went to college as expected, got married and had children," she waved her hand, "time just got away from me."

  "You must have found it again, all those books didn't write themselves." Grace teased, grateful there had been no probing, no questions, no judgment.

  "In a way they did." Mary consciously decided to skip past how she finally sat down that first day to begin that first book. "When I started writing, it all just flowed." She remembered those first weeks, "I finished the first book in just over a month. I would have finished it quicker but my writing didn't stop everything else in my life from going on as before, getting kids to school, fixing meals, all the things that make life normal." But it hadn't all been normal, she thought, not then, not for a long time. "By the end of that first year I'd completed eight books, but hadn't sent a single one anywhere...to anyone." She took in Grace's thoughtful and perceptive expression. "The thought of it terrified me."

  "If they ended up being rejected it would take away who you were." Grace understood. All too well she understood .

  "Yes!" Exactly, Mary thought, for the first time hearing in someone else's words what she had never been able to express herself. Not adequately. She grabbed Grace's hand and in that moment their friendship was sealed.

  Mary rose and dug through her purse for her wallet. Just as she had only moments before decided to skip past the worst of that year she just as quickly changed her mind. Flipping through the pictures encased in worn plastic, she fingered the precious face that had taught her courage, pushed her to write, and in the end had without a single word given her the guts to send her work to a publisher. "That's my son at his college graduation a couple of years ago."

  Grace looked at the photo of the handsome young man, playing for the camera and looking ready to take on the world. He bore a remarkable resemblance to his mother. "This is your son? Did you start having children before puberty?"

  Mary laughed, looked at the picture that she had felt so very grateful at the time to have been able
to take. Prayers did get answered. Hers had. "Not quite. Close but not quite. But that's another story." She ran her fingers over that beloved face. "One day when Dane was in kindergarten he forgot to bring in some picture...an assignment due that day. He asked his teacher what he should do. She, the teacher," Mary clarified and purposely calmed herself for what was to come, "not realizing completely what the situation was, just told him to go get it. So he did. Ran out of the room, out of the building, and though he had never walked home alone before then he did just what she asked him to. On the way home he was hit by a car going too fast and not paying attention for the little boy who’d run out into the street. Much the same way his teacher didn't pay attention to what he asked or where he went." Her voice was bitter with the remembered anguish of that day even after all these years. "She never noticed he was gone until the school was notified he'd been hurt."

  "Mary." Now it was Grace who reached across the table to take her hand, rubbed it gently to give comfort.

  "I heard the scream." She closed her eyes, for months she couldn't not hear that anguished scream that had come from her baby. "They told us he wouldn't make it through the night," and she had prayed through that night, made deals with her God, offered herself for her child. Offered Him everything she could think of for the life of her child. "Then they told us he would never be the same." She could still feel the strength that had flowed into her that moment, facing the doctors and their grim faces, their even grimmer prognosis, with her husband behind her, her mother's hand on her shoulder, all lending support in that darkest of times. "I told them basically they were full of it. They hadn't had a great track record up to that point and I would prove them wrong once again. And I did." She gently touched the picture between them. "By the time we were able to bring Dane home I had read everything I could find on head injuries, on brain trauma, everything I could get my hands on so I could help him...teach him," she waved her hand expansively. "He had to learn almost everything all over again...from scratch." When I wasn't working with him, sometimes just sitting with him, talking to him, I wrote. In those first months, almost a year really, he napped." She paused remembering all the times she would check on him as he slept. "He napped a lot," she clarified. "And whenever he slept, I wrote. There were nights I couldn't sleep, so I wrote, usually in his room so I could keep an eye on him. Daniel, my husband, set up a little area in the corner with a small light, just enough for me to see but not to where it would disturb or wake Dane." She squeezed the hand that still held hers then let it go and stood and walked over to open the refrigerator. When she sat back down she handed one of the glasses of orange juice across the table. "One of my goals is to cut back on caffeine." She said by way of explanation.