by Grace Greene
I nodded. Yes, perhaps I was.
“Most renovations I work these days pretty much gut out all the old stuff. It’s quicker and better for resale.”
“Actually, I’m planning to open a creative retreat here.”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, a place for classes, day events, and even for groups to stay over.”
He scratched his cheek. “Like a bed-and-breakfast?”
“Close enough.”
“Whatever work you have in mind, I’m happy to oblige.”
“Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I’d like to begin with cleaning the dining room paper and stripping the parlor paper. When can you start?”
“I’m free now.”
“Wonderful. I also have work about to begin in the kitchen. I hope you can manage around each other.”
“No worries there.”
“Excellent.” I held out my hand to shake. “Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I’m sorry for the delay, and I appreciate your patience.”
“Couldn’t be helped.” He shook my hand and then sniffed the air. “Something on the stove, ma’am?”
“Boiling water. Or was. I left it too long.”
“Happens, Ms. Hart.”
“You’re right about that, Mr. Blackwell. Things do happen.”
I couldn’t wield a chain saw, and I wasn’t about to try removing wallpaper, but I could do something. It might be a mindless task, but I could do it with my own hands. I wanted to be part of the physical progress.
Before he’d left for the day, Will had confirmed that the porch floor was sound enough, but he’d warned me to be mindful of splinters. After the last of their vehicles had departed, I threw clean rags over my shoulder; filled a bucket with warm, soapy water; and toted it out to the side porch. I filled a second bucket with clean water for rinsing and carried it out too. The long summer day was still plenty bright, and heat hung over everything, but the side porch was in the shade. I didn’t mind working up a sweat as long as I didn’t have an audience.
Kind of like Will Mercer that morning? I laughed a little as perspiration prickled at my scalp and beaded along my spine. My T-shirt was soon spotted with wet. I laughed more and wrung the cleaning rag out over the bucket, feeling better than I had in a long while. As I scrubbed the window glass, sweat bloomed through the fabric of my shirt and my shorts. I scrubbed all the harder. I felt the stirring of ownership.
As I soaped and twisted the rag and then wet it again, I was doing more than cleaning and putting my mark on the house. I was hoping to sweat out some of my negativity, my doubt, while I was at it. Now that I didn’t have anyone near—not Dad, not Niles, and not even Victoria—to distract me, I saw it clearly.
Out with resentment. Away with tiptoeing through life, not wanting to give offense or to disappoint people. No more holding it all in until I blew up over nothing.
I scrubbed at the side windows with a will. I drank a ton of fruit water to stay hydrated, and I was covered from head to toe in grimy, gritty sweat. It felt disgusting but also really good. I would sleep well tonight without extra help, except perhaps treating myself to a long soak in the tub with a lavender bath bomb.
I took that sweetly scented bath and spoiled myself, complete with candles, and when I fell into bed, every muscle knew my rest was well earned. And I slept. Until three a.m.
Suddenly I was awake, and for no reason that I could discern, unless it was because I hadn’t taken a pill. I lay there for a while listening and heard nothing special, so I stayed in bed to see if I might drift back off. No luck. Finally I went to get a drink of water, then took a stroll through the house.
I liked how Wildflower House looked in the dark with the moonlight filtering in through the windows. It gave me a feeling of peace, spoke of permanence and infinity. Cave dwellers had seen that moonlight. Those yet to come would see the same. I kept wanting to turn to someone, to touch their arm and tell them, Look at that moon . . . see those stars . . . the hallway and stairs bathed in starlight look so magical . . . But there was no one to tell.
I returned to my bed, smoothed the covers, climbed in, and lay there awake.
Empty never felt as empty as it did at three a.m. It was the loneliest feeling on earth.
At four a.m. I gave in and took a blue pill. When he’d prescribed it, the doctor had said it was a mild sedative, nothing heavy duty. But it had the power to help me over that threshold into sleep, and that was enough for tonight.
Because I’d taken the pill so late—or early, depending on one’s perspective—I wasn’t surprised that I slept later than usual. It hardly mattered since I was the only one here to notice. I woke at my own pace, feeling the sunshine streaming in through the window and tempting my eyes to open. I pushed aside my personal morning fog and envisioned my day and my plans. Finally I stretched my arms and legs, easing the stiffness from my old injuries, before sitting up and standing gingerly.
Was I ninety years old? Some mornings . . .
Coffee next, I thought, as I moved slowly across the bedroom.
On my way to the stairs, I saw a twig—a single brown twig—lying in the hallway. I picked it up and examined it. How had it gotten here? I’d walked downstairs during the night, but I hadn’t gone outside.
I must’ve tracked it in earlier in the day and reencountered it during my nighttime travels, and it had hitchhiked up with me.
There was no other explanation.
Holding the twig, twirling it between my fingers, I told myself not to make more of it than there was. I had work to do and a business to craft.
CHAPTER FOUR
I started my day in the middle room. The project room. One day it might serve as my permanent office or maybe a guest room for people who had trouble managing stairs. I added a bullet to my draft business plan about offering the middle room as a first floor guest room.
The plan was messy, but it was growing, and that was good because you couldn’t fix what didn’t exist.
Late morning, I stopped for a break. Will and his helpers were on the grounds somewhere, but I hadn’t heard or seen anyone. I stepped out to the back porch.
The backyard sloped down to Cub Creek. Except for in the open expanse of yard where the wildflowers had grown, there were trees and more trees, many and varied, all around, including on the far side of the creek.
Mother Nature had not only dropped hail on my beautiful wildflowers, but she’d also assaulted the roof and my car. The insurance company had covered the roof damage, which had been surprisingly minimal. With Nicole’s help, I’d hired skilled roofers, and the damage had been repaired promptly. My car had been totaled and replaced. But the flowers? No one could fix those.
I leaned against the porch railing and brushed at my stinging eyes, my vision suddenly blurry.
Was I crying again? Really? Over dead flowers now? Or was I still crying for my father? Maybe these tears were about my husband and my mother. Or myself. I’d created a mountain of soggy tissues over the past month.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
I jumped, surprised, and hastily wiped the evidence of my pity party from my eyes and cheeks. I managed to smile before I faced him.
“Will. Hi.”
He asked, “Want to take a look at the carriage house?”
From the porch and from this angle, the red-tiled roof of the carriage house was just visible. The building was actually set back in the woods, and the old footpath between here and there was wildly overgrown. In the past, carriages or other vehicles had reached it by way of a rutted track that led off the current driveway, nearer the main road.
The whole aspect of it with its peaked, tiled roof seemed even more uninviting and inaccessible from this vantage point than it had when I’d braved the jungle of thorns and mystery plants to get a close-up look. I’d come away from that adventure without poison ivy or poison oak blisters or snakebites, so I counted that a win. I hadn’t been tempted to go back.
But here was Will, and he was waiting.
He nodded.
When I returned, we walked toward the carriage house. There were still sticker bushes and such to avoid along the way, but Will’s crews had cleared a lot of the scrubby growth and created more of a path.
He said, “Fair warning. You’ll be able to go inside the building now, but there’s lots yet to do, so watch where you put your feet.”
I stopped. “What?”
“Snakes. Spiders, maybe. Haven’t seen any troublesome ones, but it’s good to keep an eye out.”
“Of course.” Troublesome ones? He didn’t say that he hadn’t seen any . . .
The first set of doors was open, but the interior was very dim.
“Wow. I thought the doors were locked.”
“Just choked by weeds.”
A lanky man came out of the shadowed interior in the main area of the carriage house. His jeans and T-shirt were soiled and baggy. He appeared to be raking cobwebs out of his hair with his fingers. I shuddered, but not at the dirt.
“Ma’am,” he said, nodding.
Will said, “This is Lon. He was checking for snakes and other cautions.”
Cautions. The phrasing was odd, but I knew what he meant.
Lon exited the carriage house, moving with a loose, almost disjointed gait, and joined us. “Yes, ma’am. All clear as far as I can see.”
Now that the stone walls of the carriage house weren’t half-covered by vegetation, I saw they had a decidedly gray-blue cast. I wanted to touch the stone. I walked past Will and Lon and did exactly that, pressing my hands against the hard, rough face of the rock.
Despite the July air that had heated up the day, these stones were cool. The surfaces were lumpy, chiseled looking, but smoothed with age.
Before, all I’d really seen were the weeds and vines and sticker bushes. I’d seen the wrong things. A few hours of manual labor had changed the picture and my perception entirely—like an optical illusion in which the negative image unexpectedly flipped back to the reverse, positive image.
I blinked. I couldn’t help myself.
“Are you okay?” Will asked. His voice was low, wary, as if I might be one of those cautions.
“I’m fine. I hadn’t seen the stone properly before. It’s beautiful.”
He waved toward the walls and ceiling. “Inside is dry and tight. You’re planning to use this place as part of your retreat?”
I nodded. “I thought it might work for an art studio, like for painting or pottery.”
“With a little work, it’ll be great for that.” He added, “You’ll need better lighting and upgraded power.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly the kind of information I need.”
“Lon can clean it up some inside. Sweeping and such, if you want.”
Will gave me a half grin. Despite the dirt on his cheek and the grimy, sweat-soaked T-shirt, I noticed that his eyes weren’t just blue. In this light they were a perilous blue, a blue somewhere between the deeper shade of Hannah Cooper’s blue vase and the lighter delphiniums in that needlework piece displayed over the mantel.
I caught my breath.
Perilous blue? Nonsense. That wasn’t even a color. It was merely the contrast of his unusual eyes with his black hair and his rough appearance that made me look twice.
“Would you like to look inside? Lon made sure there’s no—”
“Cautions?”
He grinned a little and shrugged.
“I’d love to look inside.” I walked into the carriage house ahead of him, then stopped abruptly. It was dark.
A flashlight beam suddenly played around the room as Will said, “There was electric out here in the past, but it doesn’t work. Anything could’ve happened. Mice. Roots. Moisture. Whatever.” He moved the light around the ceiling until it lit on a dangling bulb. “See? That line will have to be rerun.”
The building smelled very musty. I put my hand to my nose, but discreetly, and coughed a tiny cough.
“It’ll air out.”
“I’m sure.” My eyes were adjusting. “What’s that?”
“Stairs to above.”
“Have you been up there?”
“Lon checked it out. Didn’t want anyone to be surprised by raccoons or possums or rotten boards. Seems sound enough.”
What did that mean? “Are you saying it’s safe?” I pointed at a door in the wall below where the stairs climbed to “above.” “What’s that?”
“A small office in the old days, I’d guess.”
The door opened easily, but it only added to the mustiness. It smelled to me like another age, like maybe when people shod and harnessed horses and hitched them to wagons for trips into town. The accumulated dust of decades was overwhelming. I coughed again, harder this time. I gestured toward the door and walked back outside.
Will followed. “That dust will clear once the building’s aired out and it’s in use again.”
“I’m sure you’re right. And it’s quite roomy. Will it be difficult to upgrade the electric?”
“No, but you’ll want an electrician. And the roof is bad.”
I looked up. I saw a few cracked tiles and mossy areas. “Does it need to be retiled or totally replaced?”
“It’s been failing for a while, so replaced. Luckily, no major damage inside that I can see, and the rafters are sound. You’ll need a roofer—someone skilled in roof tiles.”
“I’ll talk to Nicole. Do you know her? I’m sure she’ll recommend someone. In fact, she can probably make recommendations for the other work, too, like the electrician. I’ll check with her.”
As we approached the house, Will said, “Was that you who cleaned those side windows? They look great. Nice work.”
“Thanks. It felt good to be doing something—a real, actual something toward making this house happy again.”
He gave me an odd look.
“I guess that sounds a little strange. Making the house . . . well, happy. Slightly crazy.”
“Not at all,” he said. “It sounds about right to me.” He grinned and wiped a handkerchief across his face. “Maybe that just means we’re both crazy.”
It was a friendly, cozy moment as Will and I laughed together. We walked on but hadn’t gone far when I noticed a person—no, two people, but one was much smaller than the other—coming up the slope toward the house.
Without thought and reacting only to the call of my eager heart, I waved at the oncoming people, calling out, “Seth! Here!”
I gave Will a quick look of apology and said, “Please excuse me. It’s Seth.” I took off, but not full-out running because I didn’t trust my thigh not to seize up and dump me on the ground in a face-plant.
Seth wasn’t moving all that fast himself because Maddie was clinging to him. As I neared, he freed his hand and threw his arms around me, lifting me off my feet. However brief, it was still a great hug. My parents had been distant emotionally, and hugs had been rare in my life. I wanted to stay securely in his arms, but instead I disengaged because Maddie was there. I knelt in front of her. She was grabbing for her uncle’s hand, trying to reclaim his attention. I didn’t want to be the person she associated with coming between her and Seth.
“Uncle Seth is home, Maddie Lyn. What do you think about that?”
She moved closer to his leg and held his hand all the tighter.
“Your shirt is so cute.” It was white with appliquéd bumblebees flying across it. She didn’t smile, but she gave me a longer look and fingered the edges of the appliqués with her free hand. Some of the anxious look left her face. “Thank you for coming over with your uncle to visit me.”
I stood again, touching Seth’s shirt. It was blue and felt soft like silky cotton beneath my hand. I wanted nothing more than to find my way back into his arms.
“Seth. It’s so good to see you and such a surprise.”
He glanced down at the top of Maddie’s head and then winked at me. With playful fo
rmality, he announced, “Maddie Lyn and I have come to invite you to a birthday party.”
“A birthday?” I asked, adding in a little extra delight for Maddie’s benefit.
She smiled and hid her face behind their tightly clasped hands.
“Whose birthday? When is the party?” I asked, including them both in my question.
“Now,” Seth said.
I was shocked for real. “Now? As in right now?”
“Sorry, Kara. There was no time to plan ahead. Never thought I’d be able to get home for her birthday, but it worked out at the last minute.”
“Maddie’s birthday? I didn’t know.” How could I, since no one had mentioned it to me before this moment? That bothered me. “You flew in last minute? Wasn’t that expensive?”
“My employer is covering the cost as long as I return right away.” He squeezed Maddie’s hand. “I wasn’t about to miss my Maddie’s birthday.”
I was wordless, stunned by the reminder that I didn’t belong . . . not really. Just some kind of add-on.
Seth added, “I apologize for no notice. I wanted to surprise everyone. Didn’t want Mom going to a lot of extra effort for such a short visit, but”—he shrugged—“she did anyway. As for the party, no worries about a present for the birthday girl. Right, Maddie?” She nodded. Seth said, “Mom is icing the cake as we speak. I found out what she was planning as I was driving here from the airport. I called you right away, but you didn’t answer. So when I got to the house, Maddie Lyn and I put on our superfast sneakers and dashed over to find you.”
Still feeling odd about the last-minute timing, I forced a smile. “Perhaps Maddie will accept a belated gift?”
“No doubt about it.” He touched my arm. “Are you free to join us?”
“Sure. I’ll go grab my phone.” I paused. “Do I need to dress up?”
“Nope. It’s a family thing. No one’s fancy . . . except maybe Nicole.” He nodded toward the house. “You go ahead. We’ll wait here.”
“It’s a family thing,” he’d said. And I was invited, last minute or not. As for Seth specifically, I told myself not to feel hurt that he hadn’t told me he was coming—I wasn’t the almost five-year-old here. Seth had wanted to surprise me. He’d said so. That was pretty special.
