by Grace Greene
The cabinets and appliances were old and stained and awkwardly spaced. The lack of balance, the stains, and the questionable cleanliness had bugged me from the first.
Nicole didn’t move from beside the table. “Try to remember that construction projects, including renovations, always take longer than you think they will.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. “No rush. I’m looking forward to redoing this kitchen more than anything else. New appliances, new plaster, and fresh paint. I’m going with a light yellow and lots of white with splashes of melon. I want it to look new and crisp.”
I was about to add that I thought kitchen appearances were particularly important for guests but caught that downcast look on her face again. In that moment I also noticed the slight lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. It almost stole my breath.
She said, “I’ve wanted to ask you . . . have you decided what to do with Henry’s ashes?”
My response was instinctive and harsh sounding. “What do you mean?”
Nicole said, “Sorry if I hit a tender spot, but it’s been a month now.”
Take a mental step back, I reminded myself. It was okay, even natural, that Nicole would ask. Emotions were so treacherous. I needed to put mine aside or rise above them.
“I’m sorry, Nicole. I’m not ready to discuss it yet.”
“If you need a friendly ear or a sounding board, I’m available.” She turned her back and started digging through the sample box again, this time as if it mattered. She cleared her throat and asked, “Is it working out with Moore Blackwell? I didn’t see any progress with removing the wallpaper.”
“He and I are going to review the plan. Dad wanted to strip all the paper, but I want Mr. Blackwell’s assessment on whether we can rehab some of it instead.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“Some of it, especially the dining room paper, is in pretty good shape, unlike the parlor paper.”
She looked doubtful. “I recommend getting it done all at once.”
“Instinct,” I said.
Nicole frowned, then sighed. “I don’t understand.”
“Dad viewed this as a renovation. He planned to live here and enjoy the project and pursue new hobbies.” I laughed, but wryly. “Take on hobbies like gardening and such, even though he’d never engaged in those activities before. But that doesn’t matter. It was his plan. A creative retreat is different. The surroundings, inside and out, should add to the customer experience. A certain ambience—a sense of history, but with modern conveniences and a little luxury—can be a marketable draw. If I’m wrong about the wallpaper, I can always have it removed later. What will I have lost? A little time? Some rework?”
“What about upstairs?”
“Only a couple of rooms are papered up there. I’m still deciding about those.”
“It’s your choice,” she said, with a sigh of resignation. “As you say, you can always remove it later.”
“Nicole, I don’t pretend to have experience or finesse with the finer points of decor, but it feels wrong to rip the paper down just because we can. It’s difficult or impossible to re-create ‘old,’ yet at the same time I don’t want to keep ‘old’ for the wrong reasons. I’ll rely on Mr. Blackwell’s experience and my own instinct.” I shuddered when I said that. Those were brave words for someone lacking in confidence and commitment. But the words had been said, and I wouldn’t back off and sound foolish.
Nicole nodded. “Okay. It’s good to listen to the experts.” She walked toward the back door. The exterior door was open, and she stopped in front of the latched screen door. She stared out at the backyard.
I knew what she was looking at. I felt it. She was viewing a memory, as if it were a solid thing, and the knowing of it prickled along my flesh and made my eyes sting. Nicole was seeing the field of wildflowers, the break in their colorful ranks where the riding mower had cut a swath into them, and the spot where my father had died. But he wasn’t there—nor were the flowers. As Nicole had reminded me, all of that had happened a month ago.
“I’m going to check on Maddie,” I said, my voice cracking.
Nicole ignored me and stayed at the door.
The day was still stuck on this side of noon, I was exhausted, and it was Nicole’s fault. I leaned against the front doorframe, feeling burdened with things I didn’t want to think about and couldn’t control. The breeze through the open door brushed my face. I pushed the screen door open a few inches and peeked out. Maddie looked up from her coloring book. We shared a smile.
“Are you doing okay out here, sweetie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It won’t be much longer, I think.”
She nodded and went back to coloring.
In the kitchen, Nicole was still standing as I’d left her, facing that thin piece of screening and the backyard. She heard me return and asked, “What about outdoors? What are you working on out there?”
“Dad already arranged with Jim Mitchell of Mitchell’s Lawn and Landscaping for the grounds work. He’s sending one of his best people, Will Mercer, with a small crew. I’m going to ask them to tackle the overgrowth on the sides of the house first and then free the carriage house.”
“Free the carriage house? That sounds odd.” She pressed down on the door handle as if about to exit. She asked, “What about the wildflower field?”
Out of patience, I nearly shouted at her, What about it? But I didn’t. The flowers that had grown there a short time ago were a large part of my reason for being here with Dad. When I’d first seen the wildflowers, their colors and scents had drawn me into their midst like the bees and butterflies that flitted in and among them. Dad had died here on the day he’d tried to cut them down. A fatal stroke had interrupted his plans, but Mother Nature had finished the job for him—with hail. The field and flowers had ended in a stinking, green, mushy mash. Now the mud had dried, and the whole area was a wreck with only the grass around the perimeter standing tall. Too tall.
Nicole said, “The grass needs cutting.”
I snagged my lower lip between my teeth to keep my initial response in check. In the silence a small sound, a tentative plinking of piano keys as if little fingers were testing them, drifted along the hallway on the breeze. Nicole pressed her lips together and looked sternly toward the kitchen doorway.
“Let her be,” I said. “She isn’t hurting anything. She’s been far more patient than I’d expect a four-year-old to be, especially one left alone on a porch.”
I watched Nicole’s face and saw her expression change when she decided to drop the subject. She shook her head and said, “Maddie Lyn and I should be on our way. Do you have a finish date you’re working toward? I’ll plan out a timeline for who to contact when.”
Suddenly my breath felt short. I put my hand to my throat. “No,” I said.
“You aren’t considering backing out, are you? You forget I sell houses and I’m good at it. I know what a client looks like when they’re coming down with a bad case of buyer’s remorse.”
There might be truth in what she was saying, but it annoyed me that she’d seen it and felt so very free to say it out loud to my face. I stood taller.
“As you yourself said, I’ll take the advice of others into consideration, but I’ll reserve the right to decide my own future, including the future of this project. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to make those contacts.”
She pressed her lips together again.
I moved toward the hallway, and this time Nicole followed. I continued walking, saying, “I appreciate your help. I need your help, Nicole. I wouldn’t dare undertake this project without your help. But sometimes it would be more helpful if you’d chat more and push less.”
Nicole didn’t take offense. She never did. Or at least she never showed it.
She nodded. “I understand. The choice to stop or move forward is yours. Always and only yours. This whole concept of a creative retreat and event space is an amazing idea with lots
of potential, but you’ll enjoy this venture more if you fully commit to it. And that, too, is your choice, Kara.” After a pause, she said, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take a look at the carriage house with you? I haven’t been inside it yet, but I could offer advice.”
“No, we need to clear the vegetation away first. Right now it’s a jungle, hard to even get close to, and this is your day with Maddie.”
“Okay. Call me if you need me, or if you want to talk about any of this.”
“I will.”
In the foyer, both of us paused beside the piano bench. The seat was unoccupied, but the hinged piano key cover was still raised. The screen door gave a slight shiver as if it had just closed.
We smiled at each other.
I said to her softly, “I’m committed, Nicole. Mostly.”
She gave me a long look and responded, “You’ll do fine, Kara.”
I walked her to the door with great relief. That moment in the kitchen when I’d panicked—when Nicole asked about a completion date—had scared me. Before we began discussing this project with local artisans and authors, before we started promoting the place and got anywhere close to accepting reservations, I needed to be absolutely sure and comfortable with the progress. It was so early in the project. Doubts were normal, weren’t they?
Nicole helped Maddie gather her crayons, coloring book, cup, and so on. She looked at me, saying, “You’re welcome to join us.”
I was touched, but I said no. “I’m going to empty the kitchen cabinets today. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“Do you need help?”
“No. I’ll do it at my own pace, but thanks.”
Maddie waved from the back seat as they drove away. I turned to go into the house. As I stepped through the open doorway, a gust of wind blew a sheet of music from the piano. The paper sailed upward and then floated down gracefully to the floor. I picked it up. “Simple Gifts.”
Seriously? Victoria—my used-to-be best friend—had played this music. She’d been staying here with me after Dad died—until I’d kicked her out. After she left, I put the sheet back in the bench, and it had been tucked away there, untouched, since.
Of course. Maddie. I laughed at myself. Maddie had opened the bench lid and had taken the sheet of music that was on top. She’d probably been pretending to play it while Nicole and I were in the kitchen.
The description on the page noted that it was a Shaker hymn. Yes, I’d known that. And it had been used by Copland in his Appalachian Spring composition. I’d known that too.
I squinted at the fine print. Music and Lyrics by Elder Joseph Brackett. 1848. Almost a hundred years later, it had formed part of Appalachian Spring. And many decades after that, I’d heard that music play in my head when I’d first arrived at this house and seen the wildflower field in the bright sunlight.
I didn’t try to sing the tune but read the words aloud:
’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down to where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.
The greatest problem was that what should be simple, like finding a little happiness and contentment, was usually the most elusive or difficult to achieve . . . and keep.
. . . place just right . . . love and delight . . . I would welcome such gifts.
It all sounded good, but specific instructions would be much more useful than colonial dance steps.
What I did know—and had learned the hard way—was that you couldn’t count on people staying or on happiness being regular fare. My mom had left Dad and me when I was fourteen. She’d had emotional problems for a long time before that. Two years after she left us, she was found dead of an overdose several states away, near where she’d been raised. My grandmother hadn’t invited us to the funeral or memorial service. In fact, she’d asked us to stay away.
I’d grown up in a life where bad news was experienced and then dismissed into a black hole of sorts, never to be revisited. My dad had always lived in the present. The past was the past. But Mom . . . maybe she’d never been able to escape her yesterdays or whatever it was that had haunted her.
I put the sheet music back in the bench.
In the kitchen I picked up the mail from the counter. As I thumbed through the stack, it was clear I’d been right—offers of insurance and ads for products I’d never use. But in the middle of the junk mail was a hand-addressed envelope. I recognized the careful writing with its wide-open, almost childish loops and a strong flourish at the end of the a. I didn’t need to see the return address, much less open the unwanted note inside, to know that it was from Victoria.
She was still intruding, trying to worm her way back into where she wasn’t wanted. I felt all the more justified in my opinion of her.
I poured a glass of water and sipped it slowly to calm the sudden turmoil in my stomach, the slight burning in my gut.
Until three weeks ago, I’d trusted Victoria. She and Niles and I had been friends since meeting in college. Niles and I married after graduation and moved to Northern Virginia to start our careers. Victoria had followed, finding work and an apartment nearby. We’d continued our friendship through the six years there.
I saw it laid out like a trail we’d left behind us. College, marriage, jobs . . . until the night when Niles told me he wanted out, that he’d been seeing someone. We’d argued on that rainy night, and the car accident had happened. That memory was a big, gaping hole in my trail of life events. I remembered little except darkness and pain, interlaced with blinding light and shrieks of metal tearing. And on the other side of it, there was no Niles. No husband. No marriage. Not even my pregnancy had made it through.
Dad had been there to help me. He’d seen me through more than a year and a half of recovery. When Dad died a month ago, Victoria had come to support me. Until, that was, I discovered she’d interfered between me and my husband just before our marriage had blown up. I’d seen the photos on her phone. She and Niles had been hugging and laughing and snagging selfies only days before the accident. Without me there or even aware.
Victoria had insisted her actions had been well meaning. That she hadn’t done anything wrong. But whatever she had or hadn’t done, there was no doubt that she’d been a more loyal friend to my cheating husband than to me.
Shame on her. Yes, the shame was hers, but I hadn’t liked the ugliness of our final encounter, so I’d sent a note wishing her well but making it very clear that I didn’t want to hear back from her. Ever. I should’ve known better than to try to end things in a civil manner.
Victoria saw things only as she wished to see them—and that view was usually slanted to her advantage.
I held her letter suspended over the trash can for a moment. Should I open it? Just in case? No.
I released it, as I’d released my former feelings of friendship for her, and let it fall into the remains of breakfast to join the rest of the garbage.
CHAPTER TWO
The crew from Mitchell’s Lawn and Landscaping was due to arrive at eight a.m. I’d set my phone alarm to sing at seven fifteen to be sure I was up and functional before that.
Mornings were a struggle for me these days. Since Dad died, I’d had difficulty falling asleep at night. This was merely an adjustment period. I saw no need to get involved with sleeping pills when the leftover meds from my auto accident were handy and did the job well enough. That accident, almost two years ago, had left me with serious injuries and scars to my arm and thigh, plus a scar near my temple at the hairline, along with an extreme sensitivity to bright light and sound that usually preceded the onset of severe headaches. The injuries were mostly healed and rarely troubled me
now. In fact, I was so much better since the move to Wildflower House that at some point in the last three weeks I’d lost my cane and hadn’t bothered to go looking for it.
The white pills had been prescribed for pain. The blue ones were mild sedatives to help me relax. Most nights they eased me nicely over the threshold into sleep. In the mornings, though, my brain was often foggy, and my body felt a little disconnected.
I wasn’t hooked or anything like that. In fact, I was grateful to have the help and thankful I hadn’t disposed of them. The days at Wildflower House were good, but the nights . . . some nights my brain was busy with worries and what-ifs. Other nights I simply lay there awake with a feeling I couldn’t quite decipher. A sense of waiting, maybe?
I suspected those dark, lonely nights would’ve bothered me anywhere I lived, but I might have handled them better in the city, where I would’ve had a job and close neighbors and more distractions.
Yet I stayed here.
This past March, almost four months ago, I’d seen Wildflower House and the field of flowers for the first time. Dad had only just told me he was retiring and moving. I’d been stunned and concerned, and I’d come alone to see the house.
I’d fought through the tangled jungle in the side yard and emerged into a mass of vivid color and varied petals, all kissed by sunshine. Instead of the painful sensations I’d experienced since the accident, this field of flowers had been nearly blinding in its wonder and had seemed to reset something in my brain. That was when I decided to move here with Dad. I told myself I would stay here until the end of wildflower season. But everything changed when he died.
Dad was gone. The flowers were gone. And this morning I was standing at the kitchen window, drinking my second cup of coffee and discovering that getting up early hadn’t been early enough.
On the bench down by the creek—too distant from the kitchen window for me to make out details—someone was sitting. A man. I glanced at the wall clock over the fridge. Seven thirty a.m.
