Tiny House on the Hill

by Celia Bonaduce

  “Can I poke around?” Mindy asked.

  Bale and Summer parted, Summer going toward the dining area and Bale into the square that was the living area.

  “It’s really small,” Mindy said. “I mean, wow-small.”

  “It takes a certain discipline,” Summer said, proud to be an authority.

  “This walk-in closet is amazing,” Mindy said, making her way inside. “I could really use something like this.”

  Bale gave Summer a thumbs up.

  “I have a dog,” Mindy said, jerking her thumb toward the staircase. “I’m not sure he could navigate those stairs.”

  They all looked at Shortie, who, on cue, ran up the stairs, looked down on everyone, and ran back down.

  “Oh!” Mindy said. “Well, if that little wiener dog can do it, my schnauzer could do it.”

  “When did he learn to do that?” Summer whispered to Bale as Mindy climbed the stairs.

  “Who knows?” Bale said. “Maybe following Andre? In any case, I’d like to hire him to be a Tiny Dreams salesperson, if you don’t mind.”

  “I get a finder’s fee,” Summer said.

  They found themselves drawn to each other like magnets, but Mindy came down the stairs and they moved apart.

  Mindy was noisily chewing as she came back from inspecting the bathroom.

  “This place might just be a little too weird for me,” Mindy said. “I think I’ll check out something that looks more like a house.”

  “Be my guest,” Bale said cheerfully.

  Summer tried not to look resentful.

  Mindy rummaged in her bag and pulled out a white bag with the Dough Z Dough logo. Summer and Bale exchanged a look of surprise. Mindy opened the bag and offered it to Summer.

  “Want one?” Mindy asked. “They are from a destination bakery in Cat’s Paw.”

  “Destination bakery?” Bale said teasingly, sounding very impressed.

  Summer blushed.

  “Yes, they’re amazing,” Mindy said. “I found out I had to be gluten-free about a year ago, and I stopped going for a while. I didn’t even want to be around baked goods. Then one day I was walking by Dough Z Dough and I thought, I’m just going to check it out and see if there’s anything I can eat. I really missed the place.”

  “So they had these meringues,” Mindy said. “They’re GF and perfect. I’m a regular customer again.”

  Summer grabbed the bag and stared into it as if she’d never seen chocolate meringues before, let alone made this very batch.

  “My God,” Summer said.

  She looked up. Mindy and Bale were both staring at her.

  “I have to go,” Summer said. “I’m so sorry, but I have to get back to the farm.”

  “So go,” Mindy said, gingerly retrieving her bag.

  “Is everything alright?” Bale asked.

  “Yes,” Summer said. “No. I don’t know.”

  Mindy tiptoed out of the caboose.

  “I have to go check on something,” Summer said as she kissed Bale on the cheek. “But I’ll be back.”

  “Will you?” Bale asked as she scooped up Shortie and ran toward the front door. “Will you be back, I mean?”

  “Of course,” she said, trying to make light of it. “You’ve got my house.”

  “It’s a start,” Bale said.

  Chapter 27

  Summer hurried up the highway toward Cat’s Paw, her head spinning. Thoughts of Keefe and Bale seemed almost like a luxury. She was completely focused on Queenie. Like dominos, everything started to fall at a dizzying pace.

  Summer was sure Queenie had been diagnosed with celiac disease. So many of the pieces fit. Refusing to go work at the bakery, eating none of the goodies except the chocolate meringues, trying out cookie recipes and failing, adjusting family recipes that called for pasta, never having beer. The only problem with Summer’s theory was it didn’t make any sense to keep it such a deep secret. It wasn’t as if society would shun her for being gluten-free.

  Summer drove through Cat’s Paw. She spotted Keefe’s motorcycle, but did not even glance at the bakery, which still had an hour until closing. She could only stand one drama at a time.

  She pulled into Flat Top Farm. Andre came rushing out the kitchen door to meet his best friend, Shortie, who was just getting paws on the ground. The dogs tore back into the kitchen. Summer, charged as she was with her suspicions, was losing her nerve with every step. Confronting Henry VIII would have taken less finesse.

  It didn’t matter if Summer was right or wrong. It was time to have it out with her grandmother. She took a deep breath and forced herself to step into the kitchen. Queenie and Lynnie were at the kitchen table. A loaf of bread, several varieties of cookies and some sort of lopsided confection Summer could not identify sat on the table between them. Lynnie looked guilty and Queenie looked annoyed. No one spoke. Finally, Queenie broke the silence.

  “You used an automatic bread maker, Clarisse?”

  Chapter 28

  Summer looked accusingly at Lynnie, who shrugged helplessly.

  “I don’t think that’s the point, Queenie,” Summer said, regaining her footing.

  “And what is the point?” Queenie asked.

  Summer gripped the counter. She could not back down. She needed to be firm.

  “The point is, you’ve been hiding the fact that you’re gluten-free and that’s just infantile.”

  Summer never used words like infantile, but Queenie did. Summer had to play on Queenie’s level if she was going to stay in the game. They’d escalated from Dominos to Wrecking Ball in less than a minute.

  “Really?” Queenie said icily, arching an eyebrow. “And what would you suggest? That the only living artisan of Dough Z Dough should announce to the world that she suddenly can have nothing to do with flour?”

  “Would that really be such a big deal?” Summer asked.

  “Ask Paula Deen!” Queenie said.

  “Paula Deen?” Summer said.

  “Yes. Paula. Deen.” Queenie enunciated every word. “Even if you didn’t have any interest in the food world at the time…”

  “Guilting me isn’t going to work,” Summer countered at her grandmother’s dig at Summer’s long absence.

  “As I was saying,” Queenie went on, “Paula Deen hid her diabetes from fans for three years.”

  “So what?” Summer asked.

  “So, she was right,” Queenie said. “You’ve heard nothing about her since she gave up the fried chicken and her bacon-wrapped macaroni and cheese.”

  “I don’t think that’s the reason Paula Deen is out of favor,” Summer said.

  “Just an unfortunate coincidence?” Queenie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Lynnie shook her head in agreement with the conspiracy theory.

  “Besides, since when has Paula Deen been your role model?” Summer, ignoring Lynnie, asked Queenie.

  “I happen to have thought the hamburger patty and fried egg between two glazed donuts was genius,” Queenie sniffed.

  “Oh, that was a good one,” Lynnie said. “I loved those until I had to be…”

  Lynnie had the good sense to trail off.

  “I think I’ll go take a nap,” Lynnie said, pushing back from the table.

  Summer couldn’t believe Lynnie had the discipline to remove herself from such a trove of potential gossip.

  “No need,” Queenie said. “Summer and I were just going for a walk.”

  Going for a walk with Queenie was never good. But Summer was powerless to resist. Queenie grabbed her jacket and took Summer by the arm. They were out the door before the dogs even had a chance to join them. Summer knew the drill. They would walk in silence until Queenie lulled her victim into complacency. Then, and only then, would she speak. Summer tried to convince herself that she could open the convers
ation herself, but years of training held her tongue.

  Summer could not look at her phone, but they must have been walking for a half hour in silence. Summer’s mind drifted to Bale. She’d left him with no word about when she would be back. The sky was darkening quickly and she was exhausted. She probably would spend the night in her old room and go back in the morning. Her mind wandered to Keefe and Evie, but she resisted the thought. She had enough problems.

  “Here we are,” Queenie said, invading Summer’s thoughts at last.

  Summer hadn’t really been paying attention to their route and was startled to find themselves, at sundown, in front of the cemetery.

  Summer had been terrified of the cemetery when she was little. As she grew, she found herself drawn to the serenity of the place, often going and sitting under the large saucer magnolia and reading for hours, at first dreaming of Keefe and later, bringing him with her. Intimate memories of her days with Keefe made her shy in her grandmother’s presence.

  “W…w…what are we doing here?” Summer stammered.

  “I realized you haven’t had a chance to visit your grandfather yet,” Queenie said.

  If guilt-tripping me didn’t work, maybe unnerving me will?

  They stopped in front of a gravesite. The headstone, simple and elegant, read:

  Zachary George Murray

  1932–2007

  Beloved Husband, Father, and Grandfather

  Tears pricked at Summer’s eyes. That was the perfect word to describe him—he was beloved.

  Man, it was hard staying angry at him up here.

  Queenie led Summer to a bench opposite Grandpa Zach’s grave, which had flowers on it. Summer looked at her grandmother.

  “Times are tough,” Queenie said with a small smile. “I’ve gotten in the habit of coming here and just…sharing my thoughts.”

  “You can share your thoughts with me now,” Summer said softly.

  “When I was deciding to ask you to come back up here to Flat Top,” Queenie said, ignoring Summer’s overture, “I came up here every day, hoping for an answer.”

  “Did you get one?”

  “I’m not crazy,” Queenie said as she shook her head. “I knew your grandfather wasn’t going to hand me a cell phone and tell me what to say….”

  “He didn’t do that when he was alive,” Summer smiled.

  “But I sometimes think I was to blame for the fact that you went away,” Queenie said. “And I just wanted to get a….a sense…of whether I should try to explain.”

  If Queenie was trying to get Summer off the gluten-free thing, she was doing fine.

  “That’s not true,” Summer said emphatically. “You had nothing to do with me staying away, I promise.”

  “I heard rumors, of course,” Queenie said.

  “You of all people know you shouldn’t listen to rumors!”

  “Why don’t you tell me why you left,” Queenie said.

  “I left to go to college!”

  “All right, if you insist,” Queenie said patiently. “Then why didn’t you ever come back?”

  It was a simple request. Or it would have been from anyone else. Nothing was simple coming from Queenie. This was a command, no matter how politely couched. Summer sighed. She would have been the worst in an inquisition.

  “I overheard Grandpa Zach and Keefe talking about me.”

  “Never good.”

  “No,” Summer said. “Grandpa was trying to talk Keefe into…well…into making sure I didn’t stay at Flat Top. He thought I needed to see the world or something. And he lied to Keefe to make his point.”

  “Do you remember exactly what Grandpa said?”

  Summer snuck a look at the grave. She hadn’t seen Grandpa Zach in a decade and she found it unsettling bagging on him at his grave.

  “Of course I remember,” Summer said with more vehemence then she intended. “He acted like he talked to me about it. I heard Grandpa say, ‘She said getting stuck on a farm can destroy a girl’s dreams,’ and I never said that! I never even thought it!”

  Queenie sighed. It took her a few moments before she spoke.

  “That’s the unfortunate thing about pronouns, isn’t it?”

  “Pardon me?” Summer said. From gluten to a graveside chat about the past to grammar? Summer’s head was spinning. “What do pronouns have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,” Queenie said. “Just…everything.”

  Summer looked at her grandmother. Was Queenie wiping away a tear?

  “I don’t understand,” Summer said.

  “The she Grandpa was quoting was me, not you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Summer said. “You love the farm. And the bakery. And the town.”

  Queenie gave her a bitter smile. “That’s a lot of love you’re subscribing to me.”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Queenie said. “But I grew to love it. That was after years of hating it. I resented the fact that I didn’t have any choice about my life. I got married and I did what your grandfather wanted me to do, which was to become part of the farm and part of the third-generation bakery. That’s what women did in those days. I just wanted you to have choices I didn’t have. I didn’t want you to make a mistake.”

  “I need a minute,” Summer said as she sprang off the bench.

  Summer stood up and walked down the path. She needed to absorb all of this. Ultimately, did it matter that it was her grandmother or grandfather who put the idea in Keefe’s head that he should turn his back on her? Would it have been a mistake to stay? If she’d stayed, she and Keefe would have been happily married almost ten years by now.

  They might have had a family. It occurred to Summer now that this was the polar opposite of what would be termed a good risk in a risk-management exercise.

  Eighteen-year-olds think they are so smart.

  She and Keefe would have kept the bakery going. Life would have been simple and perfect.

  Or not.

  Perhaps Queenie was right. Perhaps Summer would have felt restless. But could anything good be obtained by going down this line of reasoning? Just as there was no predicting the future, there was no predicting the what-ifs of the past.

  Summer knew one thing: Her family needed to be more forthcoming. If her grandparents had talked to her instead of Keefe, maybe she would have seen their point and gone off to college anyway. The secrecy led to her estrangement with her grandfather, and that could never be repaired. She knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. But she was going to suck up this lesson. She would make Queenie come to terms with having celiac disease. No more secrets or misunderstandings. They would face this one as a family.

  Was Keefe family?

  She came back and sat with her grandmother, who looked pale and tired.

  “I know that wasn’t easy,” Summer said. “And I won’t lie, it’s going to take a while to process this.”

  “I know,” Queenie said. “But let’s put at least a few thing to rest.”

  “Like what?” Summer asked.

  “You and your grandfather loved each other,” Queenie said. “If I somehow came between you, I’m sorry.”

  Summer swallowed hard.

  “That’s now the past. Can we agree that we need to live in the present and work on the problems that are in front of us now?” Summer asked.

  Queenie nodded.

  Summer had never felt so grown-up. Maybe she’d made the right choices in life after all.

  “That’s fine with me. Although I will tell you one thing,” Queenie said, looking down at the gravestone. “I’m pretty sure your grandfather agrees with me about Paula Deen.”

  Chapter 29

  Summer was caught off-guard as she held the kitchen door open for Queenie. Keefe was inside with Lynnie. The table was set
for dinner, a large chicken salad at the center. Summer spent the walk back thinking about everything Queenie had told her. It was a surprise to return so abruptly to the present.

  Summer wasn’t hungry. All she wanted to do was have a moment alone with Keefe. No matter what the outcome, she needed to put the past to rest.

  But Lynnie was gunning for the spotlight. Nothing but gluten was going to have center stage tonight.

  “Since the secret is out,” Lynnie said. “I’ve filled Keefe in.”

  “Being gluten-free wasn’t a secret,” Queenie said. “I just hadn’t told anybody yet.”

  “I think that’s the definition of secret,” Keefe said with a teasing tone.

  Summer was surprised at Keefe’s reaction. She felt slighted that Queenie hadn’t told her, but Keefe seemed fine with the news.

  Maybe he was relieved it wasn’t something more urgent.

  “The chicken salad is gluten-free, Queenie,” Lynnie said, seating herself at what was now her place at the table.

  “I know that,” Queenie said. “I made it.”

  When everyone had been served and compliments given to the chef, Keefe finally addressed the issue.

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Keefe said to Queenie. “Why is everything you’re baking so bad?”

  “That’s right to the point,” Queenie said.

  “Learned from the best,” Keefe countered, toasting her with his beer.

  “I was wondering that myself,” Summer said, hoping to show some solidarity with Keefe. “I mean, you know the science of baking better than anyone. Lynnie made fine gluten-free cookies right away.”

  “How were the cookies?” Queenie said.

  Summer wondered if Queenie didn’t hear her.

  “They were fine,” Summer said again.

  “Exactly,” Queenie said in triumph.

  Summer and Keefe exchanged a concerned look.

  “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m known as one of the best, if not the best, pastry chefs in the entire northwest,” Queenie said. “What do you suppose would become of my reputation if I suddenly started making fine cookies as opposed to the best cookies? I was experimenting. I think they call it pushing the envelope.”