by Grace Greene
Stay for a visit? Not a chance.
Belinda, indeed. Dark eyes. Dark hair. It angered me, as if Mamie Cheatham was trying to assert some kind of claim based on hair color . . . My reaction was crazy. I was crazy. Not crazy, but I was guilty. I took a deep breath, trying to rein in my madness before I lost it on this poor woman. She looked so hopeful that I smiled, but regretfully, hoping my true feelings weren’t obvious.
“We need to be getting back home. Ellen wanted to climb the ridge, but the afternoon is moving on, and, of course, Ellen has school tomorrow.”
“I understand. Do come by sometime. I’m usually here.”
Ms. Cheatham walked back between the fields to the house where her car was parked. Ellen and I moved back into the shade of the trees, but Ellen touched my arm, and I stopped.
“What?”
She had a funny, mischievous look on her face. I couldn’t help myself. I responded with my own smile, curious.
The sounds of the car diminished.
“I want to see,” she said.
“See?”
“The house.”
My smile vanished. “I don’t understand.” I bit my lip rather than continue and perhaps drive the wrong questions.
“I want to see. Not do any harm. I heard about the Bridger house growing up. We’re here now. Why not?”
“A quick look outside. I don’t want to risk her coming back or someone else at the house seeing us and being embarrassed.”
“Us or them being embarrassed?”
“Both or either.”
“Just a quick look. I promise. I remember hearing about the stained glass window. One of the kids at school . . .”
Her voice trailed off as I followed her, trying to keep up. She wasn’t running, but my legs felt especially heavy, and my feet dragged.
She stopped at the end of the field. The driveway was maybe twenty feet away, and beyond that was the house. My knees felt weak. It looked much the same, and yet different—better. Clearly Mamie had taken her caretaker responsibilities seriously.
The porch had been reinforced and hardly sagged at all. Instead of cartons and junk, there was a nice bench, chair, and table where George Bridger used to idle while he drank and spit. I imagined Mamie was more genteel in her porch-sitting habits.
“Look at it, Mom.” Ellen was staring upward.
I observed her as she looked at the house and the window. Uneasiness stirred in me. If she’d ever seen the house from this view, she’d surely been too young to remember. But from the inside? That was more likely. She seemed fascinated.
The stained glass window was beautiful and perfect. When I’d seen it years ago, it must have been covered with a film of dirt that had diminished its quality—plus I’d had other things on my mind at the time. I moved forward and stood beside my daughter.
“Butterflies,” she whispered. “Everywhere I go, I seem to run into butterflies. Are those monarchs?”
“I imagine so. Those are pretty common, right? And orange. Ms. Cheatham mentioned the bushes that attract butterflies. I guess the original Bridger who built the house commissioned the window. Belinda carried that further and planted the bushes. She must’ve been a real butterfly fan.”
“It looks familiar.”
My heart jumped. “Maybe you saw a picture or something.”
“Did you bring me here? Maybe when I was very little?” She frowned slightly.
“Here? I don’t think so.”
Her frown changed swiftly to a smile. “I’d love to see it from inside.”
“We’ll come back one day and ask.” The words seemed safe enough to say, since she’d be leaving for college in a few months. The passions and interests of teenagers could come and go in a flash. She’d forget.
“It’s time to go home.”
She put her arm through mine, and we walked to the ridge. There, we stopped. Or rather, she stopped, and I stopped with her.
“What’s wrong now?”
She shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong. It hit me that standing here, looking down the hillside and at the land below, at the tops of the trees . . .” She looked at me. “That’s Cooper land. Cooper’s Hollow—where we come from.” She surveyed the slope and nodded. “I wasn’t sure before, about you moving back out here to the woods. I didn’t understand. Now I’m thinking it’s a good thing. I don’t know why, but it feels right. Like it was bound to happen.”
“Like fate?”
“Or maybe destiny?”
“What do you know about destiny?” I teased.
“Only that we’re supposedly shaping ours by studying hard and getting good grades and making good choices. That’s what my English teacher says.” Ellen laughed and began the descent.
“Watch your step,” I reminded her.
Ellen chattered about butterflies as we negotiated our way back down the path to the Hollow. She walked with the grace of youth. I watched my own footing more carefully.
I loved the sound of her voice, its rise and fall, as much as I loved her smile and the brightness in her eyes when she was excited about something—even the down times, I loved them, too—and the sparkle of tears on her lashes when something moved her to compassion, though seeing her cry wrenched my heart.
After we were back home and Ellen was in her room working on her school paper, I sat on the back deck watching the night bugs trying to become one with the outdoor light and the fireflies played hide-and-seek among the branches of the fir trees.
Fate versus destiny. I wasn’t a philosopher and hadn’t studied those things. What I knew or felt was a sum of what I’d lived and learned and what Grand and Gran had taught me.
We reaped our fate by what we sowed. I had an idea that fate was predestined but that a thin line divided fate and destiny. Destiny was the result—hopefully the gift, sometimes the curse—that we might yet reap due to actions, or the lack thereof, that altered fate.
I understood now why I was anxious about Roger’s people going out and hauling away the literal ashes of our history. The past was being erased, along with my ability to correct my lies and omissions—an opportunity I’d never considered an option.
I didn’t think differently now. Was it my conscience that had hoped for a course correction? A restoration of truth?
That proved for a fact that a person’s conscience didn’t reside in his or her heart. I had lost the ability, the free will, to tell anyone the truth of the day that child had looked at me and said her name was Sweet Ellen. External circumstances might have prevailed—a parent might have shown up, Mr. Bridger might have returned home, Gran might have come to her senses and realized her error—and the truth could’ve been recovered with explanations, apologies, and little injury to anyone. But not voluntarily—not on my part. Not then and not now.
Some things were simply what they were. Some gifts must simply be accepted. With luck, or a favorable destiny, the payment could be avoided. If, in the end, fate ruled and the payment must be made, then the balance would be whether the happy interlude was worth the punishment. From my perspective, it was. Ellen might view it differently. I hoped I’d never have to find out.
The driveway had been successfully widened. The spot where we’d huddled during the fire already looked different, and the old lurch in my chest was so faint I could see the time coming when I wouldn’t feel it at all but experience it only as a memory arising occasionally.
Bittersweet but encouraging words.
The road improvements were wonderful. As I rounded the last curve, I saw vehicles in the new parking area.
A large metal container was now in front of the old, burned house. The container had metal doors midway along the side. It wasn’t what I considered a dumpster, though there was one of those, too, and it was nearer the drive. Easy access for the yellow heavy equipment, I presumed.
A dump truck was backed up to the house, and a backhoe was parked nearby. I pulled over to the parking area, parked, and got out of my car. As I walked toward the
house and the dump truck no longer blocked my view, I was able to see Roger standing with a group of men on the far side near the pottery cabin.
He saw me approaching. He lifted his arm and waved me over. The other men moved away, apparently returning to work.
I’d dressed in jeans and old sneakers and an old button-down shirt over my T-shirt—to show I was prepared to get dirty. I eyed the blackened pile of boards and rubble as I walked around it to reach him.
This is the last time, I thought. From here on, the new begins.
I pointed at the metal container with doors. “What’s that?”
“For what comes out of the toolshed. I’ve seen amazing things come out of old sheds out here in the country. You might have antique tools or objects you’ll want to spruce up for decoration in the house or yard.”
I was touched. “What a great idea, Roger. Thank you for thinking of it.”
“Yes, ma’am. I aim to please.”
Roger went on to show me how they’d erected the silt fences to protect the creek. “I have a man who’s experienced with restoring old country buildings like the cabin and springhouse,” he said. “They call that barnwood, by the way, in case you’ve seen those TV shows. He isn’t here today, but soon. He’s also a wood carver. I have something special in mind.”
“What?”
He smiled. “Wait and see.” He touched my arm and directed me away from the work area to a lawn chair in the shade. He pointed and said, “You sit here.”
Frowning, I asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t be wandering and getting underfoot. It isn’t safe for you or for the workers.” He pressed the chair firmly down. The feet dug into the dirt. “So you sit and oversee from here. Please.”
I sat, but I must’ve looked annoyed because Roger added, “I’ve instructed them to watch out for anything that looks interesting or salvageable.” He glanced over at the pile, looked down at the ground, and shook his head. “We’ll do our level best for you, Hannah, I promise.”
As with many burned houses, the chimney remained mostly intact. Even the hearth had withstood the fire. The hearthstones had been blackened from use, permanently, I suspected, before they’d put a woodstove there.
The woodstove—I’d burned those news articles about my father in there. I’d flipped open the little door and tossed them in. Gran had watched me. I’m sure she had been wondering what I might say about the decisions she and Grand had made to keep the information from me and doubtless was prepared for the worst—as if I could deliberately hurt her, even in anger. But Gran hadn’t been the only watcher. A pair of big brown eyes had watched, and her sweet voice had asked what Mommy was burning. I had dismissed the folder of clippings as trash I didn’t need or want. She might’ve noted the bright-orange flames through the small window in the stove door, flaring up as they consumed the paper.
Who could know what might catch the attention of a child and percolate in a young brain? The night of the house fire, after Ellen had crawled back into bed, I awoke again sometime later, startled from sleep, knowing something was wrong. I’d run into the living room and seen the stove door open. Loose papers—they looked like pages from Ellen’s coloring book—were on the floor near the woodstove, and the fire, somehow reignited, was skimming up the curtains and taking hold of a stuffed chair.
It was summer, but the day had been unusually cool and rainy, and I’d lit the fire briefly that evening to dispel the chill before bedtime. At most, only hot embers would’ve been in the belly of the stove, and likely, that’s why Ellen hadn’t caught herself or her nightie on fire when she opened the stove door. She’d been lucky.
I shivered even now, thinking of it. The pages she’d pushed onto those dying embers must’ve reignited the fire—if that’s what had happened. A paper aflame, with the stove door open, could’ve cast off burning bits that lit the chair and wherever else they landed.
Or perhaps I was wrong. Gran and I hadn’t kept things up properly after Grand died. I couldn’t recall when we’d last had the woodstove pipe or the chimney cleaned. Or maybe the latch on the woodstove door hadn’t caught properly the last time I’d closed it. Maybe. But those coloring book pages hadn’t been there when we’d gone to bed. And I’d never failed to latch the door properly before.
In minutes, flames had leveled the house that had withstood the passage of so many years.
There was no point in identifying fault. What was done was done.
What had Ellen wanted to burn? I’d never know, and I’d never ask. I wouldn’t risk planting the suggestion that she might be responsible for our loss. Moving to Mineral had been for the best. Sometimes our choices influenced our destiny. Sometimes fate stepped in and made those choices moot.
Back in the present, I watched the workmen move debris to allow access to the chimney. Among them was another expert—someone familiar with salvaging stone chimneys for later restoration. The expert numbered the stones as the chimney was dismantled and stacked out of harm’s way. He wouldn’t be able to access the hearth until more debris was cleared.
At first, the movement of the big yellow front-end loader’s scoop, maneuvering to pick up the larger pieces on top, physically pained me. I pressed my hands to my chest over my heart. I couldn’t help myself. The noise of it surprised me. The twanging and pulling, the sounds of forcible dismantling, rang in my head and tore at my heart. It forced me to my feet. Roger turned to look at me, grimaced, and then came over.
He put his arm around my back. “Are you upset?”
I nodded but bit my lip, holding back words.
He smiled reassuringly. “Lots of people feel this way. It will pass, I promise.”
I must’ve looked unconvinced because Roger tightened his arm around me.
“Hannah, my experience has been that people cling too hard to the past, or they ignore it, or they try to obliterate it for their own reasons. This was a real thing here in Cooper’s Hollow. Centuries of lives and living. For you, it also represents decades of memories. Yet, despite the fire, you managed to go on with your life and raise your daughter. You have earned this opportunity to blend the past and bring it into the future—not to leave it as ruins. You are taking something fire destroyed and turning it into a home with both a past and a future.”
I leaned into his arm and chest and impulsively kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
The last large piece of tin twanged and vibrated like thunder as the front-end loader wrenched it from the pile and then carried it, along with the lumber that refused to detach—it looked like part of a wall—and dumped it into the truck. Roger was distracted by another worker and left me standing there.
When the area had been cleared around the fireplace hearth, the stone expert moved in to disassemble it, much like undoing puzzle pieces, and he marked them as he’d done with the chimney stones.
One of the men called out to Roger, and I saw them standing around, curious. I left my chair and joined them. Their attention was focused on the hearth, but I couldn’t see what attracted their interest.
Roger motioned the front-end loader forward to push more debris out of the way, which cleared my viewing angle. They’d found a cavity beneath the stone blocks. One of the workmen reached into the debris as if to pull a board farther away and caused something to shift and send out a spray of ash.
“Move back,” Roger called out, and the workers stepped away, except for the stone expert, who didn’t blink. He leaned forward to stare into the dark space, then reached back to grab a small but high-powered flashlight from his tool belt. He shined it into the cavity.
“Hannah?” he called out. “Did you know there was a hiding place here?”
I shook my head. “No.” But as I said it, another memory was stirring. I let it come to the fore while we waited to see what the hole would yield.
The stone expert, his hands still in the cavity beneath the hearth, grunted. He received the instant attention of every man there. He moved somethi
ng in there, shifting it closer, so he could grasp it.
It was a small case. I was surprised it looked solid and intact. My heart thrummed. Suddenly my face felt warm. I supposed it was the thrill of adventure, of discovery, but it wasn’t all happy. There was no one I would rather have shared this with than my grandfather. There was no one else to whom it would have held such meaning. I imagined him saying, “I remember my daddy talking about the lost box, or the hidden box,” or some such thing. In a world where my Grand and Gran were still with us, one or the other would’ve known everything to be known about whatever was inside.
Roger carried the box over to my chair and then nodded toward the cabin. “Would you prefer to open it privately?”
Everyone was focused on that box and us. My initial response was to go ahead and open it, but now I hesitated.
The stone expert said, “Consider waiting and have an antique or archival expert open it. It’s in pretty good shape—excellent shape, considering.” He nodded at the box. “Could’ve been there for a century or more. You can see it’s wrapped in an oilcloth to protect it, but the folds don’t quite match up, so it could’ve been hidden but accessed at some time or other.”
“My grandfather might’ve disturbed it in recent years. He died about twenty years ago.”
“I don’t think it’s been disturbed for many, many years. Much longer than that.”
“Maybe it was moved from the old cabin when this house was built. Maybe it was originally there.”
“Old,” he said.
He was right. This was a task best entrusted to the hands of professional archivists. The box might turn out to be empty, but I preferred to be cautious. This was about my family’s history, the Coopers and Cooper’s Hollow.
“That’s a good idea. Could we put it in my car? It’s probably safest there.”
“I agree.”
I tugged at Roger’s sleeve. “There was another place. It was near the foot of Gran’s bed. Probably about fifteen feet from the hearth. Gran talked about it being a safe spot, a hiding place under the floorboards. I have no idea whether anything was actually stored there. I’d forgotten about it, but seeing what was under the hearth reminded me.”
