The House at Rose Creek

by Proctor, Jenny

  “Do you have a family?”

  “No,” Kate said. “It’s just me.”

  “My mommy always says you’re too busy to visit, so I thought you must have lots of kids or something. If you don’t have a family, what do you have?”

  “Emily,” Leslie interjected. “Aunt Linny’s waiting for you. Hurry to the car now.”

  Emily nodded to her mother but turned back to Kate, waiting for her answer.

  Kate found herself feeling defensive. “I have a job,” she said.

  “Is it important?”

  Suddenly, Kate wasn’t sure. She shook off her doubt. “Yes. It is important.”

  “Okay.” Emily smiled and patted Kate’s hand.

  The little girl disappeared out the door and left the two women in the living room alone.

  “She’s beautiful,” Kate said, watching from the window as Emily danced her way down the front stairs and into Linny’s station wagon. “She’s grown so much.”

  “Of course she’s grown. It’s been three years, Kate. You haven’t been here since before Tommy was born.” Leslie’s words, while laced with bitterness, were still heavy with the exhaustion and pain of the past twenty-four hours.

  Kate’s eyes welled with tears as she looked at her cousin. She had always been the classic beauty—blonde hair, large blue eyes, and a perfect heart-shaped mouth. In stark contrast to Leslie’s fair complexion, Kate’s dark hair and mysterious eyes did little to establish a likeness between the two. While Leslie favored her mother’s side of the family, Kate looked like her father. As a little girl, she loved it when people would stop and comment on the similarities—a shared nose, high cheekbones, and the same engaging smile. Kate would laugh and smile and climb into her father’s lap, rubbing the rough whiskers on his cheeks.

  “How can we look alike when you’re so hairy?” she would ask.

  After her parents died, she would sit in front of the mirror for hours, searching for her father’s face in her own reflection.

  The last ten years had aged Leslie little. She barely looked old enough to have three children and most certainly didn’t seem old enough to have lost a mother, father, and husband. As Leslie sank into the soft, overstuffed chair and leaned her head back on the cushions, only the dark circles under her eyes and the worry lines creased across her forehead bore witness to her age. When Kate looked at her, she still saw the doe-eyed sophomore pointing at Tom Greenwood across the gym during a homecoming dance and saying, “That’s the man I’m going to marry.” Kate had laughed and rolled her eyes, but Leslie never had a doubt in her mind. She and Tom had danced together four times that night and never dated anyone else but each other. Kate was still in college when, just a year after their wedding, Nicholas was born.

  Ten years later, parenthood was still a foreign concept to Kate. It made her head spin just thinking about that sort of responsibility. But it was exactly what Leslie had always wanted.

  Kate wiped her tears away and moved over to the couch and sat directly across from Leslie.

  “Leslie,” she began. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about your mom, and I’m so sorry about Tom, and I’m just . . . I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Words can’t undo what’s been done,” Leslie replied coolly, her eyes closed. “They won’t bring Mother back, and they most certainly won’t bring Tom back. I don’t know your reasons for staying away”—she finally looked up to meet her cousin’s eyes—“but we’ve all been through a lot around here—me, the children, Sam and Bryan, and Mother too. Not to mention Linny. That poor woman has worked harder than anybody to keep this family from falling apart. And we did it all, Kate, we did it all without you around. I’m glad you’re here. Mother deserves that much after all she’s done for you and how much she cared about you. But just know we’re not expecting anything else. Stay for the funeral and then go back to your job, to your life in the city.”

  Kate sat silently as the weight of her cousin’s words settled upon her. It seemed simple, really. Stay for the next two days and finish out the funeral services then drive back to Atlanta in time for work on Monday morning. But it wasn’t simple. Work would call her back eventually, but she could not leave without making an effort to pick up the scattered pieces of the relationships around her and painstakingly put them back together.

  “Sam and Bryan should be here any minute,” Leslie said wearily, interrupting Kate’s pondering. “I expect they’ll be staying here at the house, but they won’t need our old room. You can stay there if you like. We’ve got to be at the funeral home early tomorrow to make all the arrangements—the viewing tomorrow night, I guess, and then the funeral Sunday afternoon. There’s no reason for you to bother with going in the morning though. We’ll be able to manage just fine without you.” Leslie rose at the sound of gravel crunching outside. “I bet that’s one of the boys,” she said, moving to the door.

  Kate felt like a stranger as she sat and listened to her cousins’ heartfelt greetings in the driveway. When the voices moved toward the house, she rose and snuck into the kitchen. Noisily, she busied herself with making a pot of coffee to justify her disappearance. She pulled a serving tray down off the top shelf of the pantry and filled it, just as she had seen her aunt Mary do so many times before with the coffee pot and cups. The old blue coffee cups of Kate’s childhood had been replaced, she noticed, with four shiny new ones, each one decorated with a smiling photo of each of Mary’s four grandchildren. Kate looked at each of the smiling faces: Leslie’s three children and then Sam’s daughter, Kenzie.

  Sam was Mary and Grey’s oldest son—a physician living in Asheville, an hour east of Rose Creek. His wife, Teresa, was also a doctor. Just a few months before Tom found out about his cancer, Sam and Teresa had been in Atlanta for a medical conference. Kate met them for a quick lunch but hadn’t been able to stay long. She had a client waiting for her at the office, she’d told them. She hadn’t seen Sam since and had spoken to him only a handful of times. After Kate skipped Tom’s funeral, she hadn’t heard much from anyone in the family. Anyone, that is, except Mary. Mary had always called.

  Kate picked up the small dish of sugar from its customary home on the kitchen table and added it, with the cream from the refrigerator, to the tray. She lifted the tray and walked toward the living room, pausing when she heard Sam’s voice through the door.

  “Who’s in the kitchen?” he asked his little sister. “Is Bryan here already?”

  “No,” Leslie responded. “That’s Kate.”

  “Really? Kate is here?”

  Sam sounded incredulous, and Kate half expected him to stick his head into the kitchen just to verify Leslie’s claim. She backed through the doorway carrying the coffee and greeted her older cousin.

  “Hello, Sam,” she said. “It’s nice to see you.” Kate set the tray down on the coffee table and crossed over to where Sam and Teresa stood. “Hello, Teresa.”

  Sam exchanged glances with his wife and sister before greeting Kate, surprising her with a big hug. “Hi, Katie.” He took Kate by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “It really is good to see you. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Kate was touched by his sincerity. “Thanks. It’s good to see you too. I made some coffee,” she quickly added. “I thought you might need some after the drive over.”

  “I’d love some,” Teresa finally spoke. “But I’m going to put this little girl down first.” She hoisted the sleeping child higher in her arms and headed upstairs.

  “How old is she now, Sam?” Kate asked.

  “She’ll be two next month. Growing like a weed, that little girl.” He smiled and accepted the coffee his cousin offered him.

  Bryan arrived not long after Sam. Bryan was Mary’s second son and youngest child. A bit of a wild hair, Bryan had often tested his parents’ patience and faith as he’d chased his dreams from one corner of the earth to the other. And yet, he managed with such optimism and spirit that one could hardly argue the path he’d chosen wasn’t perfec
tly suited for him. He’d backpacked across Europe, spent six months on the Appalachian Trail, and even spent a season working as a fisherman off the coast of Alaska. Until recently, when he settled down just a few towns over from Rose Creek, no one could remember the last time he’d had a permanent address. Kate admired his ability to live so freely without managing to upset anyone in the family. It seemed her efforts at self-discovery had never been quite as successful.

  Bryan greeted Kate with a big hug, acting as if her extended absence from family gatherings was nothing more than mere circumstance. Kate was happy not to feel on the defensive, but she couldn’t help but wonder how the men really felt about her past actions.

  Leslie spent much of the evening avoiding Kate’s gaze, focusing on her brothers instead. Kate worried that her presence was perhaps making things worse for her cousin, adding awkwardness to the already difficult process of grieving. She reminded herself, though, that she was also grieving. Aunt Mary, for the largest part of her childhood, was just as much a mother to her as she had been to her own children.

  She was my family too, she thought.

  The stories came one after another. Some were sad and tinged with regret, while others were of a happier, reflective sort, looking back on memories created by a happy childhood and a pleasant home. Kate made a few meager contributions to the conversation but was drawn more and more into her own thoughts. She found herself wishing she had an entire evening’s worth of conversation with which to remember her own mother. The space in her mind where she cherished the bits and pieces of her parents seemed but a small and dusty corner.

  Much of what Kate did remember came in broken chunks: tiny pieces of indistinguishable moments, slivers of memories too fragmented to combine into one singular event. There were a few tangible moments Kate could recall—a trip to the zoo when she spent the entire afternoon sitting on her dad’s shoulders and dinner the night before her parents died. They’d gone to Pizza Hut, and Kate’s mother had let her order an entire pizza with pineapple on it just for her—no one liked pineapple pizza but Kate. As she watched the matching eyes of her cousins look to one another for solace, seeking and finding comfort in knowing that they shared their suffering and endured together, she longed for a sibling—for someone else who knew what it was to have your heart ripped from your child-sized chest, to have nurses tell you your parents were gone, that family was on the way to get you, to take care of you. Pain washed over her anew as she thought of that miserable night.

  Bryan noticed her distress and reached across the couch, placing his hand gently on her back. “Losing people we love is never easy,” he said. He looked up and watched as Leslie and Teresa stood and carried the empty coffee cups into the kitchen.

  “It hasn’t really hit her yet, has it?” Bryan asked, speaking of Leslie.

  “Of course it has,” Sam responded. “But she’s a mother. She’s keeping it together because she knows she has to.”

  “She always has been a fighter,” Bryan said. “If this doesn’t knock her down, nothing will.”

  Chapter 4

  Leslie avoided Kate all weekend, effectively dodging all unnecessary conversation. The lack of communication was frustrating, but Kate reasoned it could have been much worse. Rose Creek was a small town. People knew she hadn’t been home in years and remembered her notable absence during the months of Tom’s illness and death. Her mere presence was enough to get people talking, reigniting discussion about her and Leslie’s feud all over town. Through it all, Leslie was polite and respectful, responding to questions and comments about Kate with grace and charm. Any ill will Leslie harbored, she did so secretly. Still, the constant scrutiny made Kate uncomfortable, and she found herself itching to get back to her home and life in the city. All the reasons Kate had stayed away from Rose Creek—from Leslie—came flooding back.

  It hadn’t always been that way. At first, it was only physical distance that separated them. But as life progressed, it became more and more difficult for the two women to relate. While Leslie was making cupcakes for Nicholas’s preschool class and hosting playdates, Kate was getting an apartment in downtown Atlanta and starting her first job as a junior marketing specialist for an advertising group. Leslie went to PTA meetings and well-child checkups while Kate attended gallery openings and wine tastings. When a second child and then a third joined Leslie’s family, it felt as if Kate were on a completely different wavelength from Leslie.

  Kate was happy with the decisions she had made in her life and didn’t judge Leslie for the path she had chosen, but Kate felt judged. She found it difficult not to feel like her small-town friends and family were all waiting for her “real” life to start. They assumed Kate’s job in the city was simply something to pass the time until she got married and moved back to Rose Creek to start a family. On the rare occasions when Kate returned home for weekend gatherings or holiday events, everyone would touch her gently on the arm and say, “It’s all right, Katie, you’ll meet someone soon, and then you’ll have a family just like Leslie.”

  The trouble was that Kate didn’t want what Leslie had. But to explain as much made her come across as jealous and bitter. So she stopped explaining. And then she simply stopped going home. Work was often to blame, but more times than not, Kate didn’t have a reason beyond her own discomfort to stay away.

  When she was feeling most sorry for herself, she was convinced that things would be different if her own parents were still alive. They would accept her and love her for who she was and the choices she made. It was just too hard, she decided, too hard in the Walker household to forget that she wasn’t a daughter or sister. She was only a cousin.

  Only a cousin, Kate thought, and a poor one at that.

  But not this time. She would not run away from Leslie again. There was still far too much that needed to be said.

  When Sam came to her Sunday evening after the services and asked if she could stay in town for one more day, Kate was happy to do so. Though it wasn’t Sam’s reason for asking, Kate hoped it might give her another opportunity to talk to Leslie.

  “We’ve got an appointment to meet with the attorney on Monday morning,” Sam said. “He’ll read the official version of Mother’s will. We all need to be there for that.”

  Kate called her office and easily secured a few more days off. Blanton had even encouraged her to take the week if need be, though she had no intention of staying away from the office that long.

  Early Monday morning before the rest of the house stirred, Kate rose and put on her workout clothes and running shoes. They’d been a last-minute addition to her packing. She’d thought at first that exercising would be last on her list of priorities the weekend of a funeral, but running was a great way to relieve stress and was, on that morning, exactly what she needed. She sat down on the front porch steps to tighten her laces and pull her hair up into a ponytail, then started off down the gravel drive. The sun was just beginning to peek over the mountains, which were light green with early spring. The air was clean and crisp, still lacking the heavy humidity that would soon fill the summer months. It was invigorating to Kate as she headed onto the main road. There were no sidewalks, so Kate hugged the shoulder and watched for oncoming traffic. But this was Rose Creek, she remembered. Even at the busiest time of day, these roads would see only a handful of cars.

  A half mile into her run, Kate turned left to jog one of her favorite stretches of road. On one side, a steep, hilly pasture stretched upward, full of grazing cows that studied Kate quizzically as she passed by. On the other side, acres and acres of freshly planted tomato fields filled the valley. Beyond the fields, rolling pastures climbed the hillsides, reaching toward the mountains that rose majestically into the pale blue of the early-morning sky. Kate watched as a small army of workers maneuvered their way through the dewy plants. The scene was timeless. Replace the brightly colored baseball caps and the soft cotton T-shirts of the workers with rough homespun and straw hats and Kate could be back in time two hundred
years. It was one of the things she loved most about Rose Creek.

  Kate’s thoughts turned to her cousin, home with her kids, probably just waking up and starting breakfast. She wondered what it would be like to be a familiar part of the children’s lives. She imagined them welcoming her as she stopped by on her morning run, grabbing a water bottle from the refrigerator, and stealing a bite of pancake off of Emily’s plate. For a moment, it almost seemed possible. As she ran the streets of her old home and imagined the happy scene among her niece and nephews, she surprised herself by thinking maybe there was a life for her in Rose Creek. Of course, you couldn’t have a table full of happy children without someone there to make the pancakes. Leslie’s presence in the kitchen quickly dashed Kate’s daydream right into the pavement beneath her feet.

  Glancing at her watch, Kate turned again and ran toward the elementary school, another mile down the road. The running was physically therapeutic, loosening the tightness in her muscles accumulated through the tense and anxious weekend, but it did little to slow the circuitous spinning in Kate’s mind. Her thoughts jumped from Leslie’s kitchen to Mary to her mother and father to Linny and then back to Leslie. When she tried to push Rose Creek from her frame of consciousness, her brain jumped to Atlanta and involuntarily focused on Steve. Just before setting out that morning, she’d checked her voice mail and had three separate messages from him. It almost made her ashamed to realize how little she’d thought of him the past few days.

  That can’t be a good sign, she thought to herself. Except, maybe it was a good sign. Kate realized she would never feel for Steve what he felt for her. She was weary of his mind games and his constant pressuring. It wasn’t fun anymore. She would have to talk to him, though Kate dreaded the mental energy that conversation would require. Turning up the volume on her iPod, she sped up, trying to outpace the arduous weight of her own thoughts.