The House at Rose Creek

by Proctor, Jenny

  Kate looked up as she heard the sound of an approaching car. She smiled as she watched Linny’s old blue station wagon wind its way down the gravel drive. Kate was glad to see her. Linny had a way of making any situation seem, at the very least, optimistically tolerable. She stood and walked down to greet Linny.

  “Hello, dear,” Linny said gently. She reached up and pulled Kate into a warm embrace. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Linny,” Kate responded. “A little overwhelmed, but I think I’ll be okay.”

  The two women crossed the driveway and climbed the steps to the rocking chairs, where Kate had been sitting on the far side of the porch.

  “Let’s sit a spell,” Linny said as she relaxed into the nearest chair.

  Kate had loved these chairs as a little girl, and she still loved them. They were made of a simple oak and had extra curves to make them more comfortable.

  “You talked to Leslie, then?” Kate asked.

  “Leslie?” Linny responded. “No. I talked to Sam. He called me from his cell phone just after he and Teresa left town . . . told me everything.” She looked at Kate, and Kate saw the sincerity in her eyes. “It’s a good thing, Katie. I can only imagine how furious this has made Leslie, but she’ll see in time. It is a good thing.”

  “Did you know about this, Linny? That Mary had changed her will?”

  “I didn’t know about it, but I can’t say that I’m really surprised,” Linny answered.

  “I don’t understand,” Kate said.

  “Katie, Mary cared about you. It killed her to see you and Leslie at such odds with each other. She worried every day about you never coming back. Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Linny said emphatically.

  “But it doesn’t make sense, Linny,” Kate said, finally voicing the struggles she’d been volleying around in her mind. “I don’t live here. I don’t have a family to fill this big house. I don’t know how to take care of a house like this! I have a job in the city—a job I’m supposed to return to in a couple of days.” Once she began, the words of uncertainty and doubt tumbled out in a heap. “What am I supposed to do with this house? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, why don’t you just give the house to Leslie?” Linny fired back. “I’m sure she’d take it in a heartbeat. Just be rid of it and go back to your life, your job in the city. It need not be complicated, that’s for sure.”

  Kate sighed and looked at Linny. “She already asked for it . . . for the house. I know she wants it,” she said dejectedly.

  “Well, there you go.” Linny leaned back. “Problem solved.”

  “But it isn’t solved! In my head, all that logic makes sense. Leslie is here. Leslie wants the house. But I can’t. My heart can’t do it. I don’t know why Aunt Mary did this. Surely she knew the trouble it would cause. But she did anyway, and I just can’t help but feel there’s a purpose to it all.”

  “I thought that’s how you felt.” Linny reached over and patted Kate on the knee. “You did the right thing, Katie, and it will all work out. Why don’t you take some time off from that job of yours? Stay in the house for a week or two, think things through, and make some plans. A little time in the country never hurt anybody, did it?”

  Kate almost immediately shook her head. “No, I really couldn’t. There’s so much to do back at the office.”

  But Linny wasn’t convinced, and if Kate was honest with herself, neither was she. It made her feel good to think that her presence was mandatory in order for Blanton Advertising to function, but it wasn’t necessarily true. There were others who could cover her workload, and since she’d never used her vacation days before, she had at least three weeks’ worth saved up and ready for the taking. She was surprised at how quickly she took to the idea. In fact, she thought perhaps it was exactly what she needed. She leaned back in the old rocking chair, one leg pulled up under her as she silently made her plans.

  “Did you know anything about the highway project?” she asked Linny after a few minutes.

  Linny barely flinched. “Everybody in Rose Creek knows about that blasted highway. They’ve been stomping around, threatening people’s property, for years. Word is they’re set to start construction this summer.”

  “But the farmhouse, it isn’t in danger, is it?”

  Sam had assured Kate time and time again at lunch that he was sure the house was fine, that his mother would have said something had there been a change of plans, but Kate still felt uneasy.

  “Well, I certainly don’t think so,” Linny responded. “It was a question for quite some time . . . which way the highway would run, this way or that. I think those old highway people just got so tired of hearing your aunt make such a stink about things, they changed their original plan so they wouldn’t have to listen to her anymore.” Linny chuckled at the memory.

  Kate smiled. “I’m sure you’re probably right. It just worried me what the attorney said.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that silly road,” Linny said lightly. “I’ll come chain myself to the front porch if that’s what it takes.”

  Linny continued to rock, head leaning back, eyes gently closed.

  “Stay around and see it through, Katie,” she said. “Things will work out with the house, and Leslie won’t stay mad forever. Things will work out. You’ll see soon enough.”

  She spoke her reassurance with such quiet fortitude Kate couldn’t help but feel hopeful. After a few more minutes of quiet rocking, Linny spoke again.

  “The boys don’t seem to be struggling with your having the house. That must be encouraging,” she said.

  “They’ve been very sweet,” Kate agreed. “They never spent as much time here as Leslie. It probably doesn’t change much for them.”

  “True, their lives aren’t quite so enmeshed with the house as Leslie’s was. Those children of hers were over here almost every day. You know, I think Teresa’s pregnant again.” she said, changing the subject. “She’s been looking a bit fuller in the face, if you know what I mean, hair all shiny and thick looking. I’d bet money on another baby coming.”

  Kate smiled. “I’ll remember you said that. What about Bryan? Do you think he’ll stay in Maggie Valley?”

  “Your aunt Mary thought it might be a woman that’s keeping him there. He hasn’t said anything one way or the other, but I reckon she could be right.”

  “I hope so,” Kate said. “Bryan deserves to be happy.”

  “What about you, Katie? Is there anyone special in your life? You deserve to be happy too.”

  Kate looked at Linny. “I’ve been seeing someone, someone I work with, but I don’t know. I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

  “Hmm,” Linny said. “Working and loving mix about as well as oil and water, if you ask me.”

  “It’s not that. I just . . . I don’t feel much of a connection, you know? He’s nice, attractive, successful. But I shouldn’t have to convince myself that he’s right for me, should I? It should just feel right.”

  Linny leaned her head back and smiled. “When I met Charles,” she said, “you couldn’t have convinced me with a shotgun to give him up.”

  Chapter 7

  Aunt Mary and Uncle Grey inherited the old farmhouse from Mary’s parents, George and Jeanette Wylie. Kate remembered doing a report about the Wylie family heritage when she was in the third grade. She’d drawn a family tree with her own name on the trunk of the tree and then her parents’ names above hers, followed by the names of her grandparents on each side of the family. Around the tree, Kate had drawn elements of each family’s country of origin—Scotland for the Wylies and England for the Sinclairs on her father’s side. Big Ben and the British flag had been easy, but Kate still remembered how hard she’d tried to draw a man in a kilt, playing the bagpipes. No matter her effort, the picture never really looked quite right. When Leslie came and looked over her shoulder, she asked Kate why the woman in the picture was holding an angry goose.

 
Aunt Mary and Kate’s mother, Jenny, were George and Jeannette Wylie’s only children. Mary always said her mother would have filled every room of the house with children had she been able, but only the two daughters came—Mary, the oldest, and then Jenny, younger by four years. When Mary married Grey, there was little question as to whether she would want to keep the old house. By that time, it had been in the family for close to a century. When Grey casually suggested they build a newer, more modern house in an upstart neighborhood across town, Mary nearly left him. Instead, they poured their heart and soul into the upkeep of the old house. They renovated and restored and modernized all they could without removing the charm and simplicity that gave the house so much character.

  And it did have character.

  Kate thought the house seemed wise and mysterious and full of secrets no one would ever know. If only walls could talk, she thought. Kate was sitting at the desk in the sunroom, a modern addition off the kitchen Mary and Grey had added when she and Leslie were in high school. It was a lovely room, windows on all sides, with pretty views of the vegetable garden and the mountains off in the distance. When the sun came up behind the mountains, the delicate rays of early-morning light hit this room first, filling it with a soft yellow glow and a comfortable warmth.

  The desk, thanks to Sam’s efforts, was well equipped with a computer, a flat screen monitor, and a high-speed Internet connection. Kate felt fairly certain Aunt Mary had little use for the Internet and assumed Sam’s efforts were more for his own convenience when he and Teresa visited his mother. Just the same, as Kate sat down to check her e-mail, she was grateful Sam had kept the house technologically up to speed. Earlier that morning, Kate had made the two-hour trip to her home in Atlanta. She had collected a few weeks’ worth of clothing, called the post office about forwarding her mail, and stopped by the office to see Mr. Blanton about her vacation time.

  When she arrived in the familiar lobby of Blanton Advertising, the routines of her work life seemed to beckon. The sights and smells of the city, the click of her shoes on the clean marble tiles of the floor—they were familiar, comfortable to Kate. And yet, they seemed to lack a certain luster. It wasn’t the city or the building that was different; it was Kate’s own life that appeared dull, suddenly mundane and meaningless.

  She spent a few minutes in her office, sorting through her messages and mail, but found herself anxious, ready to drive back to the mountains and escape from the near-suffocating busyness that swarmed around her. It was disconcerting when, just a few days before, she’d felt the opposite: anxious to get back to work and itching to escape Rose Creek. Kate didn’t understand the change.

  Veronica, well-intentioned, followed her around the office, filling her in on every detail she had missed in the few days she’d been gone. Though Kate would have been interested in the news and gossip of her coworkers a week ago, she now found it inconsequential and tiresome.

  Mr. Blanton himself was more than accommodating, even encouraging Kate to take as much time as she needed. He even went so far as to scold her when she offered to continue fielding her own e-mails and phone calls and handling what she could from North Carolina.

  “Vacation is not vacation if you are still working, Kate,” Mr. Blanton said.

  In the end, Kate at least convinced Veronica to send daily e-mail updates so she could stay informed, even if she wasn’t allowed to actually do any work. Veronica promised to call if anything hugely significant (Steve moving into her office, for example) deserved Kate’s immediate attention.

  Ah, Steve, Kate thought. She made it through the office without running into him and thought she’d be home free, but he ran after her, catching up to her just as she reached her car in the parking garage. He pulled her into a tight embrace, totally oblivious to Kate’s less-than-welcoming body language.

  She sighed. “Hi, Steve,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Better now that you’re here.” He grinned. “How was your weekend?”

  “It was a funeral, Steve. Not really all that great,” she answered. “I’m actually going back. I’m taking a little bit of vacation time. I think it will be good for me.”

  “Vacation?” Steve asked. “In Rose Creek? What is there to do there?”

  “It’s not that sort of a vacation,” Kate told him, already a bit exasperated. “I just want to spend some time with my family.”

  “What if I come see you this weekend?” he asked.

  Kate bit her bottom lip, not really wanting to hurt him but certain he did not need to make an effort to come see her—not in Rose Creek and not anywhere else.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He didn’t catch on. “Oh. Well, how about next weekend?”

  “No, Steve,” Kate said. “Not any weekend. You’re a nice guy, and I do care about you. But not like you care about me. I have to be honest with myself, and I thought a lot about life and, I don’t know, just everything, over the weekend. It’s not going to work out between us. It just isn’t right for me.”

  Steve stood still, hands on his hips, jaw set. “Have you met someone else?” he asked, obviously incredulous that someone would just decide independently that they didn’t want to be with him anymore.

  “Seriously?” Kate asked. “I went home for a funeral. Do you think I was out bar hopping right afterward?”

  He couldn’t have seen the momentary flash of truth in her eyes as he asked the question. Kate hardly thought conversing with a stranger for five minutes in the middle of her workout constituted meeting someone.

  Still, Andrew Porterfield’s face had immediately come to mind when Steve suggested such a notion. She shook Andrew out of her head. She would probably never see him again. Even if she did, it didn’t change the ridiculousness of Steve’s question.

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said. “That was uncalled for. I just don’t think I understand. This felt right to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I never meant to hurt you.” She wondered how many more classic breakup lines she could deliver in one conversation.

  It’s not you; it’s me.

  The timing just isn’t right . . .

  Or how about, You’re not really in love with me . . . just with the idea of me. Kate might actually believe that last one. She didn’t think Steve really was in love with her.

  “Well, that’s great, Kate,” Steve said. “Really great. All I’m saying . . . You’d better watch that client list of yours really close.”

  Kate rolled her eyes and added another breakup line to her list. I don’t think you love me, just my corner office. Getting into the car to head back to Rose Creek, she felt lighter than she had in months.

  When she got to the farmhouse, it was late afternoon. She scrolled through her inbox to see if anything caught her attention. She hesitated before reading a message from Steve.

  She sighed and opened the message.

  Kate . . . I miss you and hope things are okay. Are you coming home soon? Still waiting for your call . . . Steve.

  He must have sent that before we talked.

  As far as breakups went, she thought Steve had actually handled things pretty well. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy. If he learned he couldn’t get what he wanted from Kate, he would find someone else—probably sooner than later. And he would not have trouble doing so. Kate could think of three or four women from the office who would be thrilled to hear she and Steve were no longer dating. He’d bounce back quickly, Kate was sure, and would be dating by the end of next week at the latest.

  If only Kate could figure out what she wanted.

  Andrew Porterfield would be nice.

  Kate’s cheeks flushed at the unbidden thought that had surfaced for the second time that day. She quickly pushed the idea from her head.

  I’ll never see him again. It’s a waste of time to even consider it.

  After a few more mundane but necessary tasks—checking her bank statement, paying her power bill—Kate was ready to tac
kle the list in front of her. The night before, Kate had walked through the entire house with a pad of paper and a pen, writing down anything that needed repair. Her heart had swelled with emotion when she thought of Aunt Mary walking through the house just as she had, hiring Mr. Brumfield from down the street to come fix and mend and take care of the things she could no longer handle on her own. Mary’s efforts had left the house in remarkably good condition, and Kate’s list was much smaller than she had expected. Still, there were a few things that ought to be taken care of. Kate still wasn’t sure what she would do with the old house, but she felt good about busying herself with a few minor repairs and simple improvements.

  “The house needs paint,” she said aloud, reading the first item on her list. “Both inside and out,” she amended. “Bathroom sink drips, the front porch has three broken pickets, two steps need to be replaced, and the toilet in the downstairs bathroom doesn’t flush.” She decided to call a plumber for the issues in the bathroom and see if Mr. Brumfield could replace the pickets and fix the porch steps. But the painting she wanted to do herself. She wondered what paint supplies might be stashed away in some corner of the house somewhere. After a futile search in the storage room off the kitchen and in the garden shed outside, Kate climbed the stairs to the attic above her old bedroom to try her luck there.

  The attic had always been wonderfully mysterious and magical. Leslie had never enjoyed the cluttered, dusty space, so it had become a private refuge for Kate as a child. The low-ceilinged room was lined with boxes and crates and trunks as old as the house itself—so old, it seemed, they simply faded into the lines of the walls, hardly discernible from surrounding items on either side. The center of the room was newly cluttered with the recent deposits of the years since Kate’s childhood: broken strings of Christmas lights, discarded band instruments, and the horseback riding boots Kate had insisted on buying when she was determined to be a show jumper in the Olympics. A stack of Bryan’s old CDs and cassette tapes, as well as a stack of Mary’s old records, filled one box near the door, and a large basket of dress-up clothes overflowed in the small dormer space of the north window.