Final Rights

by Tena Frank

So many things had changed in Tate’s life since she left the City. She now owned two properties, both upstairs-downstairs duplexes sitting next to each other on a quiet urban street. She occupied the top space in one of the units, and the upstairs apartment of the building next door sat vacant in the early stages of a major upgrade.

  She hoped the carpenter doing the work would be on site when she returned, so seeing his truck sitting at the curb as she rounded the corner made her happy. She popped into the apartment instead of heading directly home.

  “Hey, Dave, how’s it going?”

  “Mornin’, Tate. Okay, I guess. Quite a mess they left in front of your house. Any damage?”

  “Nothing a trip to the car wash won’t fix. I can scrape egg off my windshield, but now I’ll have to actually get the truck washed. Been putting that off for weeks.” The walk—and the discovery of the old house—had done exactly what Tate hoped. Her anger about the egging had disappeared. “How’s the work coming along?”

  “Hard to tell at this stage just what you’re going to find.” Dave’s gesture swept the empty room.

  Tate looked around. The apartment had been gutted, and the salvage and trash covered the front yard in piles. The floors had been stripped of all covering, revealing an unidentified hardwood coated with grime and aged to a dull gray.

  “I think you’ve got heart pine here,” Dave said, indicating the floor.

  “Really? Do you think we can save it?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but it looks pretty good.” Dave surveyed the floors, running his hands lovingly over the old wood as if he could feel its soul.

  “The wood is solid, not spongy anywhere. It’s been cut up pretty bad in some places, but I think we may be able to save it here in this room. This interior has been changed a lot. The doorway to the back used to be over there, I think.” He pointed to the now barren kitchen wall. “And it had a fireplace right here at one time.” He tapped the floor in front of the hallway entrance with his toe.

  Tate examined the room. It ran the full length of the front of the house, over two hundred square feet of open space with natural light streaming in from sunrise to sunset through tall windows positioned midway between the floor and ceiling in groups of three.

  New windows would eventually grace the east side of the room, but at this point Dave had progressed no further than removing the inside trim on the old ones. Tate hated to give up that set of original windows but decided to replace them with shorter units in order to create a second wall that could accommodate a countertop and cabinets. By expanding the counter space, she had made room for a dishwasher—one of the modern conveniences she considered essential but still lacked in her own living space.

  “I often wonder how old this house really is, Dave. Any ideas on that?”

  Dave focused on the room, feet planted firmly, shoulder-width apart, hands on his hips, fingers resting gently on his tool belt. He was a good-looking guy with a gentle, country way about him. His brown hair hung in short, loose curls over his ears, his mouth always arched in a small, permanent grin, his blue eyes smiling as if what he saw always made him happy.

  Tate liked working with Dave. She liked being around him, and that always surprised her a little. In fact, Tate had spent most of her life being surprised when she met men she actually liked. She didn’t think of men in general as bad people, she just didn’t have any particular use for most of them, and she had little interest in getting to know them—except for her clients, of course, back in her social worker days.

  She glanced at Dave now, happy to be working with him and aware she trusted him. She welcomed feeling that way about a straight man.

  “I’d guess the 1930s, maybe early ’40s,” Dave said. “It’s got these heart pine floors, and the German siding on the porch was very common back then. It was cheap and popular.”

  “Yeah, I love that wooden porch. It would be nice to have the whole place like that.”

  “It probably is under the vinyl siding.”

  “Why do you think they covered the wood up?” Tate asked.

  “Vinyl siding was all the rage in the ’60s. Everyone wanted it because it was so easy to take care of. You never had to paint again if you put it on your house.”

  “But it’s so ugly,” Tate lamented. They had walked outside as they talked, and she looked around the house, trying to imagine what it had looked like when originally built.

  “Yeah, it’s ugly,” Dave agreed.

  “Well, maybe next time around I’ll try to do something about that. I wish I could afford to have it all removed and give this place a coat of yellow paint.”

  “Yellow would be nice . . . I guess.” Dave seemed skeptical.

  “You know, Dave, I was walking over in Montford just before I got here and I saw an old house with a door much like this one. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  Tate and Dave studied the massive front door which stood at least eight feet high. The wood had never been painted, only sealed, so it retained its beautiful natural color. The bottom of the door sported a solid wood panel framed by delicate, scrolled molding. A similar panel in the top held six panes of old glass mottled with the small imperfections Tate loved. The original lock mounted to the outside of the door needed a skeleton key, which had been lost long ago. A cheap silver deadbolt had been added to provide security. The metal hinges also sat on the outside of the door and matched the old lock, all of them adorned by intricate carvings.

  “Yep. It’s a bit odd on this little house, but it’s beautifully crafted and in great shape.”

  “Any idea how I can find out who made this door?”

  “Why would you wanna do that?”

  “I just wonder why this house has such a fancy door. It seems out of place.”

  Dave watched Tate as she surveyed the house. He’d seen the same look on her face many times. Obviously a dreamer. She had a vision for this place as crystal clear to her as raindrops glistening in the sun after an afternoon thunderstorm. Practical, too, and he appreciated that about her.

  When he first began this job, he wondered what to make of her. On one hand, she could be a bit overwhelming, on the other quite forgiving. Though overweight and strongly built, she made no attempt to appear small by hiding her even bigger personality. He quickly understood that Tate rarely displayed self-consciousness. When she stood near him, it always came as a surprise to realize the difference in their heights. She just acted like a taller woman, if that made any sense, which it didn’t when he tried to think about it. But still, he could not deny the truth of it.

  Dave knew Tate had a temper. He had seen it brewing on a few occasions over the course of their work together. He also knew she never came close to venting her frustration at him. He found this curious. He had let her down in different ways on several occasions, and this job in particular had been a problem. He had too many things going on to give it the attention it needed. He had done his best to squeeze in a couple of hours here, a morning there, to work on the renovation. But everything remained way behind schedule, and he would soon run out of excuses for the many delays.

  “So what’s on the agenda for today?” Tate asked.

  “Well, I’m hoping to get that wall in the bathroom torn out so things are ready for the plumber. It should only take me a couple more hours.”

  “That sounds good. Can we be ready for the carpet to be installed in the bedrooms next Thursday? That’s when the guys are scheduled to come.”

  “We should make it by then. It depends on the plumber more than me. He has to rough in the half-bath and get it inspected before I can get the sub-flooring down.” Dave braced himself for her response.

  “You know I’m concerned about getting this place done, Dave. I was hoping to have it ready for occupancy by the first of next month. Any chance that can still happen?”

  “It’s possible. We’ll have to push it some.”

  “Okay, Dave. We’ll figure it out. I’ll need enough time after you’re done to pa
int before getting the carpet installed.”

  The only hint of Tate’s frustration was the veiled comment about painting near new carpeting. Even though he knew he had let her down again, Tate didn’t give him a hard time about it. He wondered if she had always been this way and if not, how long her flexibility would last.

  Tate left the apartment feeling good about how she had handled things with Dave. Controlling her anger became easier each time she practiced it. Ever since she had escaped from New York and her job working with mentally ill and substance abusing homeless people on the city streets, Tate had been mellowing. A slow process for sure, but now, three years later, she seemed like a different person.

  She felt enormously grateful that she had somehow managed to land in Asheville. The move had not been a conscious decision, nor the result of plenty of research and planning. Rather, she came for vacation with the intent of spending the fall riding her motorcycle along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and she simply never left.

  Everywhere she went, Tate met folks who had moved to Asheville for the same reasons she had. Nestled in a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it is a small town surrounded by natural beauty. With long, leisurely springs and falls, and short, mild summers and winters, the weather appealed to Tate greatly. Even today, as she had cleaned the dried egg off her windshield, she’d taken time to breathe in the crisp air of the chilly morning and feel it deeply in her lungs. She relished the simple act of being aware of her breathing. She had lived most of her life shutting out non-essentials such as feeling, enjoying and being present in the moment, and she liked the slow, steady change in how she lived her life.

  Tate spent the rest of the day cleaning house, reading and trying to push thoughts of the abandoned house in Montford out of her mind with little success. Wonder who owns the place. Why is it just sitting there vacant? Those questions and more populated her thoughts and dreams that night.

  FOUR

  2004

  Tate arose extremely early the next morning. At least 8:15 seemed extremely early to her. She forced herself to get out of bed and padded into the kitchen, turning up the thermostat on the wall furnace on the way. The faint click told her the place would be warm in a matter of minutes.

  She limped a bit on her sore heel and thought about putting shoes with arch supports on over her fluffy pink and orange ankle socks. She shivered in the morning chill and pulled the fleece robe around herself.

  Sunlight flooded in through the decrepit windows that lined two walls of her tiny kitchen, filling the space with a golden glow. The southeastern exposure of the kitchen delighted Tate, and she smiled as she put the coffee on to brew, thinking about how nice it would be to have a kitchen three times as large, with French doors leading to the triangular deck she imagined and glass filling every possible inch of wall space.

  She sat down with her coffee at the glass-topped round table she had found at Goodwill and looked around. But now instead of focusing on her vision of what the space could be like, she looked with a calculated eye at what really existed.

  “Pitiful,” she muttered. Pocket, her cat, opened one eye halfway and looked at her before returning to her nap on the wooden ledge between the table and living room.

  “Morning, Miss Kitty,” Tate cooed as she reached over and rubbed the old cat’s ears. Pocket leaned into her hand and began a soft purring. “How you doing this morning, Babycakes?” Tate continued her gentle strokes. Pocket had lived with Tate since she was seven weeks old, and over the course of their fifteen years together, Tate had given the sweet old cat countless nicknames. Pocket answered to none of them, choosing instead to grace Tate with her presence only when it suited her to do so.

  Tate’s little house in North Asheville had many redeeming qualities, but she inevitably focused on the multitude of problems it presented—the cramped rooms, decrepit old windows, tiny bathroom—all those things she dreamed about changing.

  “Why did I ever buy this place, Pocket? I could have used the money for something already remodeled, or a new place even.” A drawn out yawn served as the old cat’s only response before she sauntered away.

  Pocket’s lack of input didn’t matter because Tate knew she was not likely to do what others would do given the same circumstances. As much as she believed she wanted an easy life free of complications, she knew in her heart she naturally gravitated toward something much different.

  Tate decided to clean up the mess of paperwork on her kitchen table. But try as she might, she could not focus on writing checks and sorting through stacks of junk mail. The house on Chestnut Street kept intruding into her thoughts. She needed help tracking down its history. Immediately she thought of Holly.

  Holly had quickly become Tate’s first friend after she arrived in Asheville. Tate found her in the local gay newsletter when she started searching for a realtor. Their first meeting on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October had lasted more than three hours, even though Tate made it clear from the beginning she had no intention of buying property. She just wanted to learn about Asheville and what kind of housing it offered, research in case she decided to settle down at some point.

  From the beginning, Tate recognized Holly as a knowledgeable professional who also happened to be gay, friendly and welcoming. Not all realtors met those standards, by any means, so Tate felt grateful to have found her.

  After that initial meeting, Tate had become quite curious about housing in Asheville, and she found the low price of real estate very appealing. She heard many people complain about how expensive property had become in Asheville, and she understood that could be true for people who had lived here all their lives. But for Tate, who had become accustomed to the exorbitant cost of housing in New York City, the prices in Asheville seemed amazingly low.

  Tate enthusiastically dug into the stack of forms from Holly, plotting out locations of the various listings on her map. She headed out to explore the town. After looking at dozens of properties, she bought the first house she saw.

  Not that Tate grabbed the first thing that came along. She did her research, but after three days of going from one place to another, into all of Asheville’s many corners, she kept coming back to the little house on Maplewood, actually a duplex with one unit upstairs, where she could live, and another downstairs for a great rental unit. So she bought it, and she also bought the second duplex right next door. While some people might consider her behavior to be rash, Tate knew she had been drawn to Asheville and to these properties by something beyond logical thought, by some mysterious yet driving force that had guided her safely for her entire life. And she knew buying them was exactly the right thing to do.

  Even though she expected no answer at this early hour, Tate dialed Holly’s cell phone. Holly picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey, Tate, how’s it going?” she asked, chipper and wide awake. Holly’s sweet and mellow voice made Tate smile, as it usually did.

  “Okay, but I need your help. There’s this house at 305 Chestnut Street. It’s not for sale, but I want to know whatever you can find out about it for me. When was it built? Who owns it? Why is it so run down . . .” Tate rattled on at the fast clip so common for her when she became excited about something. Tate loved puzzles and she was already fully engaged in the challenge of unraveling the mystery of the house on Chestnut Street.

  “Yeah, I can check that all out for you. I’m headed into the office now. Give me a couple hours, and I’ll look at the tax records, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks, Holly.” Tate hung up and left Holly dangling on the other end of the line.

  FIVE

  2004

  Long before the advent of Head Start programs, Tate Marlowe had Lee Lou. The oldest by two and a half years, Lee Lou started kindergarten about the same time Tate began to run without falling down. Up until that time, the two had been inseparable, spending their days playing with dolls, making up games to keep themselves entertained and roaming about their thinly populated neighborhood looking for pretty ro
cks and shiny objects.

  Lee Lou adhered closely to the rules set out by their mother. No exploring in the woods behind the tiny house where they lived; no crossing of streets, though the only street they knew about was the narrow one bordering their front yard and it carried very little traffic; no playing with the cooking stove or leaving the refrigerator door open; no taking food without permission; no noise when Mommy is sleeping; no bothering Daddy when he comes home from work . . .

  Keeping track of all the rules fell to Lee Lou and breaking them fell to Tate. This proved to be a full-time job for both of them.

  “Stop that, Tate!”

  Tate sat on the floor in front of the cabinet in the cramped living room, methodically removing all the contents and surrounding herself with them. “No!”

  “I’ll get in trouble!” Lee Lou began picking up the folded doilies and table scarves her mother had ironed and put away the previous day.

  Tate grabbed a crocheted doily and placed it on her head. “Me pretty!”

  “You’re bad!” Lee Lou shook her finger in Tate’s face.

  “Me not bad. Me pretty!” Tears started rolling down Tate’s cheeks and just before she began wailing, Lee Lou clamped her hand over Tate’s mouth.

  “Mommy’s sleeping. Be quiet!” Lee Lou hissed the command and physically dragged Tate out of the house and down the front steps across the yard to the edge of the lawn where she made Tate sit.

  Once there, Lee Lou let go and Tate sat sobbing on the sidewalk. “You can’t wake Mommy up! You know that.”

  “I want Mommy!”

  “You got me.” Lee Lou plopped herself down on the bottom step, folded her arms over her knees and rested her head on them.

  Tate’s sobbing quickly subsided to sniffling when she realized she no longer sat in the center of Lee Lou’s attention. She closed her hand into a tiny fist and began sucking on her knuckle, tears still streaming down her face. Lee Lou did not respond.