by Tena Frank
“I bet you have a lot of favorite places, don’t you?”
“Not all that many, really. I mostly cook for myself, but occasionally I go out for brunch with friends. I like AnnTony’s as you know. And Over Easy. Wait! You’ve already been to most of my favorites with me!” Tate hoped offering these superficial details of her life would satisfy Cally’s curiosity.
“Then I guess we’ll have to find some new favorites together.” Cally seemed completely unselfconscious as she said this.
“Uh, well . . . yeah, we’ll have to try some new places.” She’s not going to give up. Tate tried to cover her discomfort with a weak smile and another sip of her wine.
Cally paused and studied Tate closely before responding. “Yes, we’ll try a bunch of new places, and maybe we’ll both find some favorites.”
Tate thought Cally’s response could mean more than just favorite restaurants, but she decided to let the innuendo pass without comment. Over dessert and coffee, each shared details about her life, but Tate continued to shy away from anything remotely romantic when Cally headed in that direction. Eventually, Tate won out. Cally’s demeanor shifted slightly, her intimate tone receding even though she remained upbeat and friendly. Tate recognized that Cally’s disappointment counterbalanced her own sense of relief.
They used the drive back to Cally’s hotel to firm up their plans for visiting Leland the next day.
“It was so good to see him, but I’m still nervous about going back,” Cally offered.
“What worries you? The visit yesterday seemed to go really well.”
“I know. It did go well. But it was stressful, and I just hope it wasn’t too much for him. And, there are so many things I want to know. What happened to Gamma? Where has he been all these years? Why didn’t he contact me? Those are hard questions, and maybe I won’t like the answers I get, assuming he will—or even can—answer them.”
“You can drive yourself crazy with the worrying” Tate said, “or you can just let things unfold as they will.” Cally stiffened a bit and Tate realized after the fact her comment sounded a bit harsh.
“Oops! Sorry for being so abrupt. Let me rephrase that. In my experience, we can make things worse than they really are by dwelling on everything that might not work out the way we want.”
“Of course, you’re right, Tate. I’m just so eager to know these things, and . . . but I’ll be patient, I promise. At least I’ll try to be patient.”
“Well, if anyone knows about patience, I think its Leland. His work is so detailed. I mean he’s in his nineties, and he still sits all day and makes those delicate ornaments and sweet little boxes of beautiful wood. You didn’t get to see them yet. Some of them have hidden compartments in them—”
“You mentioned that the other night—hidden places—and it seems so familiar . . . I wish I could remember . . .” Cally closed her eyes and concentrated intently.
Tate gasped as an idea flashed into her mind. “Oh, Cally! I just realized something! Have you seen the fireplace at the Princess, the one in the sitting room just off the lobby?”
“Sure, it’s beautiful. Why?”
“I’ll show you why as soon as we get inside. You’re going to love this!”
Tate had just pulled up to the entrance of the Princess. Instead of dropping Cally off as planned, she quickly parked the truck at the side of the drive. They went inside, and Tate steered Cally directly to the fireplace and gestured to the mantel.
“Does this look familiar?”
“No, why?” Cally seemed puzzled.
“This mantel is Leland’s work, Cally.”
Cally stared at Tate wide-eyed. “No!”
“Yes! Leland made this mantel. I was here last week, and Mr. Wright, the owner, showed it to me. It’s very special.”
“Yes, it’s quite beautiful . . .”
“I mean special, really special, Cally. Look . . .” Tate hoped she would be able to find the trigger mechanism. She carefully moved her finger across the notched lower edge of the mantel as Warren Wright had done. Her first pass yielded nothing, so she tried again, slowing her movement, closing her eyes, tuning out the background conversation, even holding her breath so she could focus totally on finding the right spot. Then, a faint click and the hidden drawer dropped open.
“Oh! That’s just like the one at Gamma’s house!” Cally burst into tears and laughter simultaneously as Tate bowed formally and offered her an after-dinner chocolate. Cally threw her arms around Tate’s neck and began sobbing.
“Whoa! I didn’t mean to make you cry, Cally.”
“It’s okay,” Cally choked between sobs. “Okay . . . so happy . . . miss Gamma . . .” The other hotel guests excused themselves, leaving Cally and Tate alone as they sank onto a comfortable couch beside the fireplace. Tate waited until Cally quieted.
“Wow, you must think I’m a real cry baby! Honestly, I think I’ve cried more in the last few days than I have since the night Mom took me away from Asheville.”
“It’s all right, Cally. You’ve been through a lot, and crying is a good thing, really . . . though I must admit I rarely do it myself.”
“It’s just like at Gamma’s . . .” Cally once again seemed to struggle with a buried memory.
“What do you mean, Cally?”
“That’s what I kept trying to remember. The secret place. ‘This is our secret place.’ That’s what Gamma told me when she showed it to me. I was real little, maybe 5 or 6 . . .”
“Ellie showed you a compartment like this one?”
“Yes! In her house. In the mantel Gampa made for their house. The one I carved my initials in. Remember? We were talking about it with Sally . . .”
“Wait. You mean the house I own now? The one I’m renovating?”
“Well, yeah, if that is, in fact, the house Gampa and Gamma lived in over on Cumberland.”
“Now it’s my turn to be shocked and surprised. So you’re saying . . . wait. I was talking to Dave about the house—he’s the one doing the work for me. I remember him saying something about a fireplace. He has to patch the floor where it used to be in the living room . . .”
“Oh, I wish it were still there, Tate. I’d love to see it again. Gamma only showed it to me one time, but it was magical. There were things in there she was saving for me.”
“What things?” Tate had trouble staying focused as her mind raced between trying to attend to Cally, then to questions about the missing fireplace, on to her own grief about precious things once meant for her which were taken by others, and then back to the present conversation with Cally.
“. . . and a comb . . .”
“I’m sorry, Cally. My mind wandered for a minute. I have so many questions. Tell me again, please.”
Cally seemed unperturbed and started over. “One day I was with Gamma, and Gampa was in the workshop out back. She told me she had something special to show me. Then she went to the mantel and opened the secret drawer. I remember being so happy. I jumped up and down and danced all around.”
“It must’ve been wonderful, especially for a child.”
“Oh, it was! She showed me everything, but only after she made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. I realize now how big a promise that was to ask of a child, but somehow even then I knew it was truly something between her and me, and I never told anyone.”
“What was in it, Cally?”
“There was a comb—a beautiful tortoise-shell hair comb. She told me who it had belonged to, but I don’t remember. It must have been passed down through her family for generations, though. And a diamond ring. A few other things. There was a little book of some kind. I don’t remember much more than that.”
“And she said it was your secret place? Just yours and hers?”
“Yes, that’s what she told me. She was keeping those things for me. I wonder what happened to them. I never saw them again.”
Tate’s own memories grabbed her full attention, and she remembered sitting with her great grandmothe
r as they looked through a trunk of clothes in the upstairs bedroom of the old farmhouse. The musty smell of the room with peeling and stained wallpaper on the slanted walls and threadbare rugs covering creaky wooden floors filled her nostrils. She saw where her own father had punched a hole in the wall just above the feather bed, and the huge Christmas cactus in its pot in front of the east-facing window with the cracked pane. She felt the soft brush against her cheek of the woolen fabric in the long skirt and matching, fitted jacket with whale-bone stays that her grandmother promised would one day be hers—a broken promise that still caused her pain a lifetime later. She squeezed Cally’s hand and willed herself back to the present moment.
“Are you okay, Tate?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, I’m okay. I just got hijacked by my own memories for a moment. You said you never saw those things again . . .”
“No, only that one time. I don’t know what ever happened to them. I wish . . .” Suddenly, Cally gulped and turned pale. The color left her face, and Tate thought for a moment she may pass out.
“What? What is it, Cally?”
“Tate, they’re still there. She left them for me, and they’re still in there!”
“How do you know that, Cally? How could they be? I mean that was decades ago and . . .”
“. . . because she told me so!” Cally exclaimed as she began a frantic search through her handbag. She fished for the leather pouch, pulled out the old library card that she’d slipped back into its place after her visit to the library, and from behind it she retrieved the yellowed, penciled note written in Ellie’s hand. “Look!”
Cally handed the note to Tate, who unfolded it carefully and then read the words:
There is always something waiting for you
where the home fire burns.
I love you dearly and forever.
Gamma
Tate suddenly felt chilled as goose bumps popped up over her entire body, and for a fleeting moment, she had the sense they were not alone in the room after all. She looked into Cally’s face and found a combination of excitement and grief.
“What is this, Cally?”
“I didn’t know until this instant, Tate. I found it in a box of keepsakes when I cleaned out Mom’s apartment. She had it hidden away. She never told me about it.” Cally paused as if trying to get the courage to say the words aloud that pounded inside her head. “I think Gamma wrote this note for me just before she died,” she whispered.
“Really? Why do you think she did it then . . . I mean why not some other time?”
“Why write it at all, unless she thought she wouldn’t have a chance to tell me herself? And why so cryptic? ‘Where the home fire burns.’ Why not say ‘there’s something for you in the secret place?’ Or, ‘look in the mantel and you’ll find your things?’ No, I’m sure of it, Tate. She wanted to give me this message, but she also wanted to make sure only I would understand it. And now I do.”
“That all makes sense, Cally, but still, it’s speculation, don’t you think? And in any case, the fireplace is gone.”
Desolation quickly replaced the excitement on Cally’s face. She began weeping again. “Of course . . . of course. It’s all gone. You’re right, Tate. How silly of me to think . . .”
“No, Cally, not silly. Not silly at all. You may not have the things, but you have the memory. You know she loved you, and nothing can erase that truth.”
“I know . . . but it would have been nice . . . it was nice for a moment to think . . .”
“She loved you, Cally.”
“Yes . . . and it would be nice to have something to touch, something she cherished and passed on to me. It’s one of the things that’s always been missing in my life. You know, the feeling of connection you get when you can hold something close to your heart. Memories are wonderful, but to have something physical, that would be . . .” Cally sighed deeply and squeezed Tate’s hand. “I’m exhausted, Tate. I’m gonna call it a night. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not. Do you think you still want to visit Leland tomorrow? We could do it another time.”
“Tomorrow, yes! I’m going to let myself sleep as long as I want, but I’ll call you in the morning, and we’ll decide what time then, if that’s okay with you.”
“That’s fine, Cally. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tate gave Cally a big hug and bid her goodnight, then headed home. She realized she was exhausted, too, more from the emotional seesaw she had been on for most of the day than from the fact she had been on the go for more than twelve hours straight.
She crawled into bed at a much earlier hour than usual and spent the night rummaging endlessly through debris scattered across her dreamscape in search of precious items lost long ago. Just when she thought she had found what she was looking for—she wasn’t quite sure just what it was—it would slip away, and she would find herself back at the beginning determined to continue the search. I’ll find it. If I just keep looking, I’ll find it.
FORTY-ONE
2004
Tate woke to the ringing of the phone the following morning and jumped out of bed, heart racing, to answer it.
“Hello?” Groggy, pressured, demanding an answer.
“Tate! It’s Cally. Are you okay? You sound weird. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“Uh, yeah . . . hey, Cally. I thought you were sleeping in.”
“I did. It’s 8:30 already.”
“You call that sleeping in?” Tate exhaled and tried to ease the tension in her voice. Being awakened by a ringing phone always triggered panic for her—a the-sky-is-falling response she couldn’t control. “You sound cheerful.”
“I am! I slept like a rock and had wonderful dreams about Gamma. I miss her like crazy, but I realized when I woke up that I felt wrapped up in her love. I just can’t always remember that, especially when the pain of missing her takes over.”
Tate knew exactly what Cally meant, but she wasn’t about to say so. She also chose not to share with Cally her frustrating dream of the night before. “Glad you had a good night after all. You were pretty upset when I left you.”
“I hate crying like that, but it really helped. I think I cleared out a lot of emotional stuff I’ve had buried forever.”
“That’s good, Cally. Listen, I’m gonna need some coffee and breakfast before I’m fully functional. How ’bout you?”
“I’ll get something downstairs. They have a nice breakfast layout here, and I think I’ll read a bit. When will you be ready to head out to Forest Glen?”
“Give me a couple hours. I’ve got to check in next door before I leave.”
“No need to rush. Maybe it would be better if we get there just after lunch. What say you pick me up around 12:30?”
Tate breathed a sigh of relief. That would give her plenty of time to ease into the day rather than rushing. Tate knew most people did not consider it rushing to be out of the house before noon. She was not most people, though. Even after a lifetime of forcing herself to adhere to a schedule set by others, she showed no signs of ever becoming a perky morning person. “That sounds perfect, Cally. You promised Leland some brownies. I could pick some up on my way to you, if that’s okay.”
“Actually, I have a better idea. I’m going to ask the chef here to make a batch for me. If that doesn’t work, we’ll find some on the way.”
“Great idea, Cally. I’ll see you later, then.”
Tate turned the burner on under a saucepan of water, pulled the Melitta cone, coffee beans and a filter from the cupboard, then peered into the refrigerator looking for breakfast. She decided on eggs and toast for herself, put out some food for Pocket, then settled on the couch with her coffee and a pile of paperwork. She paid some bills, wrote out a to-do list of things to discuss with Dave and errands she could no longer put off, then bathed, dressed and headed next door.
She glanced at the clock on her way out. Only 10:20! Amazing—I feel ready to go! Cally’s early morning call had set the stage for a grumpy Tate, but instead she felt
energized, a curious reaction that puzzled her. As she contemplated her mood, she felt an unfamiliar stirring in her solar plexus. She realized the thought of seeing Cally made her happy, and that made her very uncomfortable. Don’t be foolish. There’s no future there, and even if there was, I’m not ready. The silent reprimand had little impact on the insistent excitement that pushed to the surface of Tate’s awareness.
Cally bounded out of the Princess Hotel lobby as soon as Tate pulled up to the entrance. The small package she carried filled the truck with the enticing aroma of warm chocolate and cinnamon.
“So, the chef came through, huh? Those smell yummy!”
“Yeah, she sure did. I love this place, you know? Everyone is friendly and helpful. Dawn, the chef, even let me help make these. She had a recipe from her mother, and we added some cinnamon like Gamma taught me to do. So they’re homemade after all. I hope Gampa likes them.”
“I’m sure he will, Cally. Are you ready for this?”
“More than ready. I love Gampa so much, and even if I don’t get answers to my questions, at least I have him again. He’s really old and I want to spend as much time as I can with him.”
They chatted amiably during the short drive and a few minutes later, Ruby greeted them as they entered Forest Glen.
“Oh, Mr. Leland will be very happy to see ya’ll again so soon!”
“Hi, Ms. Ruby. You look lovely today.” Cally seemed to have no problem with the Southern traditions.
“Ms. Ruby . . . nice to see you again.” Tate tipped her head slightly in Ruby’s direction. The greeting and gesture earned a big smile from the receptionist.
Cally interrupted: “Have they finished lunch? Is this a good time to see him? I brought him some brownies!” She spoke more rapidly than usual.
Ruby quickly reassured her. “It’s a good time, honey. They finished lunch half an hour ago. Dorothy’ll take ya back to him.”
Leland sat in his usual spot and appeared to be totally engrossed in his work on the ornaments for the Christmas Bazaar.
