Finders Keepers

by Catherine Palmer

  His own office on the second floor was to look out over the park—an expanse of oak and maple trees, well-mown lawn, and winding trails. Already most of the other offices in the complex had been spoken for. Acquaintances and business colleagues in Jefferson City had put their names down to rent space in Ambleside. It would be a short drive from the capital, a quiet environment in which to work, and a quaint atmosphere in which to entertain clients.

  He had labored for years on this plan, Zachary thought as he turned to the sketch of the front view of his office. At first, he’d planned it only in his mind—a vague, hoped-for dream. And then his aunt had died and left him Chalmers House.

  As he listened to the rain hitting the sidewalks below, Zachary doodled a Victorian curlicue on the post that supported the new office complex’s small entry porch. Then he curved the top of each window into an arch and gave it a narrow edging of stained glass. A few more pen strokes transformed the single front door into a pair of tall, narrow doors inset with glass ovals.

  He leaned back in his chair and squinted at the modified drawing. Ridiculous! Throwing down his pen, he pushed back from the table and stood. He couldn’t transform his new office into a piece of Victorian gingerbread. It would look anachronistic and awkward. People would laugh, and rightly so.

  Grabbing his sketchpad and umbrella, he strode toward the door. He couldn’t spare the mansion. It would have to come down. The night of the church picnic, he’d gone over to the old building and wandered around inside for nearly two hours. It had been too dark to see details, but the place was clearly mildew ridden, termite eaten, and rotting. The floors squeaked, the windows rattled, doorknobs came off in his hand, the kitchen was cavernous and inefficient. The heater in the basement looked like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.

  But how could he tear it down? Zachary descended the narrow steps two at a time. Chalmers House had been built by his namesake. The founder of Ambleside had erected that mansion as a statement to the town he had established, and only people bearing the name Chalmers had lived in it. Would a Chalmers now demolish it?

  In the pouring, late-afternoon rain, Zachary darted across River Street and splashed down the sidewalk past the cannon. He skirted the pavilion, crossed Walnut Street in front of Finders Keepers, and stopped to stare at his great-grandfather’s legacy. As water trickled down the spines of his umbrella, he gazed at the old house, wondering if he could find answers to unspoken questions. Had the first Zachary Chalmers designed the house himself? Had he poured his dreams into its planning the way his great-grandson had planned the mansion’s replacement?

  Instead of searching for faults this time, Zachary had made up his mind to look for the stamp of his family. He would try to discover his great-grandfather’s vision and his grandfather’s hopes. Perhaps even a clue to his father’s disillusionment. If the auction hadn’t completely decimated the place, he might even find his aunt’s red coat.

  “Hello, Zachary!” Nick Hayes called from the front porch of his mother’s shop. “We don’t have school today. We get to stay home and play. Do you want to play with me? It’s raining.”

  “I noticed that,” Zachary said through the hollow roar of rainwater on his umbrella. “Where’s Montgomery?”

  “Her daddy came to get her in the middle of the night. They’re flying on an airplane back to Texas. Magunnery’s mommy might die soon. She doesn’t have any hair, but Magunnery is not going to be scared to see her. Magunnery says her mommy is the same even without hair.”

  Zachary gripped the umbrella in his hand and approached the porch. “Are you sure about Montgomery’s mother?”

  “I’m sure. They shaved it all off.”

  “I mean … about her dying.”

  “Oh, yes.” The boy nodded solemnly. “My mommy has been crying all day. She cried into the potato salad.”

  “Where’s your mom now?”

  “Inside. We’re going to visit Boompah after the store closes. You want to come with us?”

  Zachary deferred his plan for the moment as he moved into the shelter of the antiques shop’s deep front porch. “Let’s see if your mom will let you come over to Grace’s house with me. Would you like that?”

  Nick hopped off the wooden rocking chair. “Is Grace there?”

  “Uhh … don’t you remember about Grace?”

  The green eyes saddened. “I remember. But I thought maybe she had come back.”

  “No, Nick. She’s not back.” Zachary pushed open the door to Finders Keepers. Death was hard enough for most people to comprehend, but Nick seemed to be having an especially difficult time making sense of it.

  “Elizabeth, it’s Zachary Chalmers,” he called into the large room. “You here?”

  She appeared from behind a wardrobe, a tissue pressed against her cheek. “Oh, hey, Zachary. Did you come to talk about the charter?”

  “What charter?”

  “Didn’t Phil tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Oh, great.” She turned and stared out the window at the rain for a moment. Then she shook her head and shrugged. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m going over to the mansion for a few minutes. OK if I take Nick along?”

  “I guess so. I need him back by five-thirty.”

  “He told me you’re going to visit Boompah.” Zachary stepped into the shop. “Elizabeth, I’m sorry to hear about Montgomery’s mom. Nick told me.”

  She nodded, moving the tissue to the corner of her eye. “Ellie’s a committed Christian. She’ll be OK. It’s Luke and Montgomery I’m really worried about.”

  “Is there anything I can do? I mean, for you?”

  A hollow look came across her face. “Are you sure Phil hasn’t talked to you yet? He was going to tell you about the charter.”

  “I haven’t seen Phil since the church picnic the other day. He tried to pin me down in support of his parking lot on the square, but I wouldn’t go for it. An L is not a square, no matter what Phil says.”

  “But didn’t he tell you he’d found a mention of Chalmers Mansion in the town charter?”

  “What town charter?”

  “Your great-grandfather wrote it. He put in a statement that requires the mansion to remain standing.”

  “OK, I’m ready to go,” Nick said, taking Zachary’s hand and giving it a firm tug. He had donned a yellow plastic raincoat. “I want to see Grace’s house. I want to look at what’s in the blue vase on the hall table. She always puts flowers in there.”

  Zachary stiffened. “Remain standing? Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Nick said. “In the spring she puts in dogwood branches and those yellow flowers. Daffydolls. And in the summer—”

  “Elizabeth, do you mean to tell me that Phil is going to try to use this charter thing to block my inheritance of the mansion?”

  “Not your inheritance,” Elizabeth said. “Just the demolition.”

  “Then you’re with him on it, aren’t you?”

  She glanced at the window again. “Yes,” she said softly.

  Biting off the harsh words that rose inside him, he slammed his hand down on the glass-topped counter. “First the letter in the Bible and now some old town charter. You’re determined to keep me from my dreams, aren’t you?”

  “Grace had dreams long before you. Your great-grandfather had dreams when he founded this town.”

  “They’re both dead, Elizabeth!”

  “And Montgomery’s mommy, too!” Nick cried out. He let out a howl that sent shivers down Zachary’s spine. “Everybody’s dying!”

  “No, no, sweetheart.” Elizabeth came across the room, arms outstretched as Zachary knelt beside the little boy.

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” he began. “I just—”

  “But I don’t want Grace to die!” Nick wailed. “I don’t want Boompah to die! I don’t want Ellie to die!”

  “Boompah’s going to be all right,” Elizabeth said, taking her son into her arm
s. He stood as stiff as a board, his arms straight at his sides and his fingers splayed. “Nick, please try to understand, honey. Mommy and Zachary are talking about—”

  “About that Bible!” Nick took a swing and knocked the black book from the counter to the floor. “That Bible makes you yell at each other. It makes you hate each other!”

  “No, no, Nick, it’s not the Bible. Sweetie, listen to me …”

  “Hey, Nick,” Zachary spoke up. “How about you and I head down to Boompah’s store and pick out a new vase for Grace’s front hall? We’ll get some flowers to put in it, too. I noticed some pink ones growing in the mansion’s front yard.”

  “Dianthus,” Elizabeth said. “Grace loved them.”

  “How about it, Nick? I’ve got the key to the Corner Market right here in my pocket.”

  The child’s shoulders sagged, and he rubbed his fist hard into one eye. “But don’t fight with my mommy anymore, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “You promise?”

  Zachary let out a breath, remembering the huge stumbling block that had just been rolled across his path. “I’ll do my best, Nick.”

  “Zachary.” Elizabeth laid her hand on his arm as he stood. “Please try to understand about the charter. Phil’s only doing what he thinks is right for the town.”

  “Phil wants to freeze me out.” He took Nick’s hand and headed for the door. “The two of you may manage to put my plans on ice. But I’m not the kind of man who can be kept down for long, Elizabeth. No one’s ever made me surrender—and no one ever will.”

  As he and Nick walked out of the antiques shop, Zachary pushed up the umbrella until it clicked open. The little boy turned and waved at his mother through the window. His small face was still pale, his green eyes luminous.

  “Surrender is like ‘All to Jesus I Surrender,’” Nick said. “We sing that song in church, and I think if you don’t ever surrender, you’re going to make God very sad, Zachary. He wants to give you the presents, but he can’t if you don’t surrender to him.”

  “Presents?” Zachary focused on the sidewalk, his heart heavy. “What presents are you talking about, Nick?”

  “‘All to Jesus I surrender,’” Nick sang, “‘all to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him, in his presents daily live.’ If you surrender, you get the presents, see? You get Jesus to live in your heart every day. Also, you get food to eat, a bed to sleep in, a mommy to love you, and maybe you could even get me to be your very own son. Don’t you think you should surrender, Zachary? I think it would be a good idea.”

  Zachary nodded. Yes, it might be a good idea. It just might.

  “Boompah! You’re here!” Nick pushed through the front door of the Corner Market and raced across the gray linoleum floor. “You came back! You didn’t die!”

  Zachary shook the raindrops off his umbrella as Nick threw his arms around the old man, who was seated on a wooden chair behind his cash register. “We came here to get a flower vase, Zachary and me,” the boy continued breathlessly. “Zachary has the key in his pocket, and we thought you still would be sick in your bed, but you’re not. Are you well? Is your back better?”

  “Better, ja.” Boompah gave Nick’s hair a rub. “And you, my little one? How is Nikolai?”

  “It’s raining, and we didn’t have school today.”

  “Now they call off the school for rain?” Zachary smiled as Boompah shook his head. He didn’t feel like tackling the concept of Memorial Day with the irrepressible child. “These days, they are such weaklings, these modern people,” Boompah continued. “I used to ride a horse five miles to school, do you know? And sometimes the snow is up to the horse’s stomach. Rain? Bah!”

  “I threw up at school one time,” Nick confided. “My stomach hurt a lot.”

  “Nick, why don’t you pick out a vase?” Zachary asked, diverting the trend of the conversation as he had seen Elizabeth do so many times. “They’re right over there by the school supplies.”

  “You know my store well now, my friend! Come sit, sit!” Boompah took Zachary’s hand in both of his and urged him onto the neighboring chair. “I thank you for stepping into my shoes when I was sick. Now I think I am much better. The doctor says maybe was a little problem with my kidneys. Still is hard to stand up long times, but I need to work. Is my only way to make money, you know? And Ruby McCann needs her milk. Soft bones.”

  “Osteoporosis.”

  “She’s terrified of it. Ach, getting old is no ball of wax, my son. But you? You’re still young and handsome and smart. You have your whole life ahead. How does your business go? How do you and Elizabeth get along these days? And what are you going to do with all this life God has given you?”

  “Business is good. Elizabeth … I don’t know.” Zachary linked his fingers together loosely and studied a crack in the linoleum. “I’m going to spend my life fighting, I guess. Fighting for what I want—the way I always have.” Then he recalled the words of Nick’s song. “Or I could surrender. I could give up the battle and let God take over. Surrender my dreams. Surrender my whole future.”

  “Surrender is defeat?”

  “Seems that way.”

  “You think so? Did Jesus not say the first shall be last, and the last shall be first?”

  “I never understood what that meant.”

  “Means if you surrender, you win the battle.” Boompah took a cherry-flavored sucker from his shirt pocket and passed it to Zachary. He unwrapped a lemon sucker and popped it into his mouth. “Let me ask you this question, my boy. In this battle you are fighting, is it better to try to be the general yourself—or to give the leadership to someone who is smarter, more powerful, and braver than you? Which way are you more sure to win?”

  Zachary shrugged. “You’re saying I should surrender the leadership but not give up the fight?” “Never give up the battle. Onward Christian soldiers, the hymn says. Ach, the battle is all around us, and the force of evil is very great. Myself, I would rather yield to the greatest leader of all creation than try to fight alone.”

  Zachary looked up as Nick approached, bearing a large glass vase. “This is not as pretty as the old blue one Grace had,” he said. “This one is new and ugly.”

  He set it on the counter and frowned. Zachary picked up the cheap vase and turned it around in his hands. “But what’s the battle?” he asked Boompah. “Is it a fight to keep the mansion for myself? Is it a war against the town of Ambleside? Is it a skirmish against Phil Fox and his loyal troops?”

  “Ach, the battle is much bigger than that. Those are small things—little grenades tossed by the enemy onto the field to distract you from the greater war all around. You know this war, Zachary Chalmers. You know it well.”

  “Are you talking about the nachos again, Boompah?” Nick asked.

  The old man took his sucker out of his mouth and gave the child a sticky kiss on the cheek. “I’m talking about the war of good against evil. The war of God against Satan. The war for the soul of every man. And that, my little Nikolai, is a battle much bigger than any battle ever fought against Hitler.”

  “OK, but I don’t want to put Grace’s flowers into that ugly vase,” Nick said solemnly. “It won’t look right in her front hall.”

  “You want we shall find a better vase for Grace’s flowers?” Boompah handed the child a wrapped sucker from his pocket. “Come then. I take you to the back rooms of my market, and I show you the treasures I brought all the way from the old country many years ago. There we find a vase for Grace’s flowers.”

  Zachary stood. “I was hoping to get over to the mansion this afternoon. I need to take a look around.”

  Boompah smiled around his sucker. “Ja, I know. You go, my son. I keep little Nikolai here with me. We will take a long journey to the land of our birth, he and I, and there we will see many treasures.”

  “Elizabeth wants Nick back at her shop by five-thirty.”

  “We do it, don’t worry. Go, go!”

  Zachary picked up h
is umbrella and pushed through the door into the driving rain. As he splashed across the street and down the sidewalk toward Chalmers House, he considered the offer Boompah had held out to him. Surrender the leadership of your life. But hadn’t he done that years ago as a child? He was a believer already. He was a Christian, wasn’t he?

  Elizabeth glanced up at the tall grandfather clock near the door. She rolled her eyes and switched off the last lamp in her shop. Leave it to Zachary Chalmers to mess things up. Now she’d have to tramp through the rain to the mansion to retrieve her son. The casserole she had made for Boompah was sitting in her oven, probably getting as dry as shoe leather. Every time she thought of the old man lying alone in that bed, her heart twisted. Was he growing better, as he claimed? Or was it possible his kidney infection might lead to something worse?

  She drew a long umbrella from a nineteenth-century stand and stepped outside, pulling the door shut with a jingle of brass bells. It had been a busy day, and with Nick out of school, a tiring one. The child’s questions never ended, and his drive to insert himself into every situation exhausted her.

  The gloomy weather didn’t help. Rain had increased from a mist in the morning to a drizzle by noon. Now it was an absolute torrent as it battered Elizabeth’s umbrella, gushed down gutters, and spilled into the streets. She leaped over a small gully that was carving a new path down Grace’s driveway. Under the protection of the deep front porch, she could see car lights guiding drivers home from work.

  Thanks, Father, that I live behind my store, she offered up as she pushed open the mansion’s front door and stepped into the gloom. Thanks for blessings great and small.

  She could see a light in the upper hallway, so she climbed the long staircase toward it. “Nick?” she called. “It’s almost six o’clock. We need to get over to Boompah’s house.”

  “Nick’s not here, Elizabeth.” Zachary’s voice sounded oddly emotionless. “He’s with Boompah at the market.”