The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  “Not enough,” he said. “But Hank told me the Farmer’s Almanac predicts the next several days should be nice and dry, so I need to finish the porch and get to the painting ASAP.”

  “Sounds like you need my help,” Trina said. Proving to her dad that he needed her help would be a perfect way to get out of going to school.

  “I sure do. If I don’t finish the outside work by the time it freezes, I’ll never meet the deadline. Pretty soon I’m going to wish they gave us two years to finish this project.” Then he caught himself. “Not so fast,” he said. “What about school?”

  School. She had to come up with something. “It’s almost the weekend, Poppo. And then it’s Labor Day. We don’t have school for days and days.”

  Her dad’s eyes narrowed, reminding Trina of Miss Kitty’s laser-beam glare when she wondered if they were telling the truth about living at Goldenrod. He pulled out his little notepad and flipped to the calendar. Trina crossed her fingers. “Hm,” he said. “I guess I’m in luck. You’re hired.”

  Trina turned away from her dad to hide her grin as she picked a big batch of goldenrod. Now she’d just have to figure out what to do to avoid going back after Labor Day.

  Her dad followed her into the kitchen. He got a glass of water as Trina plucked the tiny flowers from their stems and dropped a handful of them into the boiling water. She stirred the tea with a spoon, poking the flowers under the water as fragrant steam filled the air.

  “What are you making?” he asked. “It smells like licorice.”

  “Goldenrod tea,” she said.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched her dad pick up the tiny teapot, squinting as if it were covered in fine print he couldn’t read. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play like this before,” he said.

  “Poppo, I’m not playing,” she said, insulted that he made her sound like a little girl and worried he might think she was. “I’m trying to make the dollhouse as authentic as it can be.” She opened their one and only cupboard of kitchen supplies, pulled out one of her dad’s gas station coffee mugs, and frowned. “Do we have a strainer?”

  He seemed to give the question serious consideration. “I think I have just what you need,” he said and hurried outside.

  First, she filled the tiny sugar bowl with sugar. Then she filled the creamer with milk. She was placing the little pitcher back on the tray when her dad came in with a piece of window screen. “Hold this over the mug,” he said, handing the screen to Trina. Then he picked up the pan and carefully filled the mug with goldenrod tea as the wet flowers collected on top of the screen.

  Trina dipped the spoon in the mug and filled the tiny teapot drop by drop until it was full. She pushed the mug toward her dad and picked up the tea set. “Thanks, Poppo. You can have the rest.”

  “Yum,” he said. “I’ll sip it on my way into town. I have to order the paint and pick up about a hundred pounds of nails. And a couple other things I forgot.”

  As the kitchen door swung shut behind her, he hollered, “See you in an hour or so. And don’t forget your tool belt.”

  “Okay,” she called back.

  Upstairs, Trina set the tray on a little side table in Augustine’s dining room. She poured a tiny stream of tea into the mother doll’s teacup as Augustine gave her mother a furtive glance and lowered her voice. “Citrine, my mother wonders if you know anything about my father.”

  “No, I don’t,” Trina said, filling Augustine’s cup with tea and finally her own. “But tell her I won’t give up hope.”

  “Hope? What is hope?” the doll asked.

  Trina sat down on the floor and pondered the question, wondering how she could explain the wishful feeling of hope in a way Augustine would understand. “Hope is like waiting for the happy ending to a story,” she finally said, sprinkling a few crystals of sugar into each cup followed by one drop of milk.

  Augustine sighed wistfully. “You have many words for things in your world I cannot see or touch. But I like this word hope. My mother and I will spend our day hoping. Would you like to join us?”

  “I wish I could,” Trina said truthfully, “but I have to help my father today.” She took a minuscule sip of tea, a mere drop on her lips, while Augustine held her cup in both hands like a big soup bowl. The tea tasted good. “This is delicious,” Trina said, making small talk.

  Just when Trina thought she might sneak away, Augustine said, “Can you please tell me of the weather?”

  “The weather?” Surprised by the question, Trina said the first thing that popped into her mind. “The Farmer’s Almanac says we’re due for a dry spell.”

  “A dry spell, is that so?” Augustine pursed her lips, looked to her mother, and shook her head in dismay. “I imagine the flowers shall not fare well.”

  Trina almost laughed out loud. Augustine didn’t sound like herself. She was playing make-believe. “Possibly,” Trina said.

  They chatted more about the weather and flowers until Trina heard her dad’s truck coming through the cornfield. With the tip of her pinky, Trina wiped clean her teacup and then she dabbed the little napkin at the corner of her lip. “I’m afraid I have to run along now. Thank you very much for the hospitality,” she said and stood up.

  “But Citrine, you cannot leave.”

  Trina stopped. “What is it?”

  “Annie always drank our tea for us,” Augustine said matter-of-factly.

  “Of course. What was I thinking?” Trina sat right back down and sipped first from the mother doll’s cup and then from Augustine’s. “I must be going now,” Trina said, aware she was sounding like Augustine. She stood up and grabbed her tool belt and her Minnesota Twins baseball cap, and just as she was leaving, Augustine stopped her.

  “Citrine?” The doll was holding her teacup in the air. “We would very much like to have more.”

  “More?” Trina said, amused because Augustine and her mother didn’t drink the tea in the first place, and a bit frustrated because she was in a hurry. She refilled their cups and ducked out of her room before Augustine could say another word, leaving the two dolls alone to enjoy their first tea party together in a hundred years.

  Trina met her dad’s truck as he came through the gate. “I’ve got two surprises for you,” he said. He parked and hopped out of the cab. “Come see.”

  She followed him to the cargo bed where something large was covered with a canvas tarp. He peeled back a corner of the tarp, uncovering a box of blue dishes. “First, real dishes.”

  Dishes! Trina was amazed. Poppo had actually listened to her.

  And then, like a magician, he pulled back the rest of the tarp to reveal an antique porch swing. It was all beat up and the chains were rusty. “Al from the antique store stopped me on the street. Said a swing had mysteriously shown up outside his shop door with this note taped to it.” Trina leaned in to read the note. “BELONGS TO GOLDENROD,” it said.

  Trina grinned. Goldenrod was working her magic, drawing her things back to her like a magnet.

  “We’ll hang it right there,” her dad said, pointing at the nook by the bay window. “Right where it used to be. We just have to build the porch first. Ready to get to work?”

  Trina nodded. She buckled her tool belt around her waist, and her dad filled the loops with a hammer and a pair of needle-nose pliers and the biggest of the pouches with a handful of nails. “We’re going to finish the decking, which means I’ll cut the boards and you can nail them in place.” He handed her goggles and a pair of gloves, and the first thing they did was measure and cut a cedar board. Then he laid it across the support beams and showed her where to place the nails. “Pinch it like this, tap it gently to get it started, and then give it three solid whacks. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Trina said, suddenly realizing how many boards it would take to cover the whole floor. But she didn’t want to give up before she got started. If Poppo trusted her to help him, she wouldn’t let him down. She set the next nail, tapped it gently, and whacked the floor of
the porch with a loud crack as she missed. She looked up at her dad, knowing her cheeks were bright pink.

  “Just take your time,” he said. “I’ll cut more planks.”

  It was hard for Trina to keep up with her dad, and the boards started piling up. The work gloves made her hands feel clumsy, so she pulled them off. About the time Trina was ready to quit, her dad started nailing the planks too and they worked side by side. “We make a good team,” he said, which gave Trina the encouragement she needed to keep going.

  When they finished the section by the library, they broke for a late picnic lunch on the new porch—peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate milk—and watched the combines rolling through the amber-topped fields. “I like this time of year,” her dad said, leaning back on his elbows. “Some people get sad because summer is coming to an end. I like to think the world is resting up for a new beginning.”

  A new beginning. Trina leaned back on her elbows too. If she could spend her days working with her dad like this and having adventures with Augustine, she wouldn’t mind this new beginning. Especially since Goldenrod seemed to be behaving herself. But she knew she’d have to go back to school at some point. And then what?

  Her dad hopped up and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get working.” He picked up her tool belt and handed it to her.

  The day was another hot one. She had a blister forming where her hand rubbed against the hammer, and her back hurt, but she didn’t let on. If she could prove to her dad how big a help she could be, maybe she wouldn’t ever have to go back to school.

  They were rounding the corner by the bay window when her dad said, “I think we should call it a day.” She had been working in the shade of the oak tree and had no clue so many hours had passed—except for the giant blister on the palm of her hand.

  “One more,” she announced. She hauled back her hammer to give the last nail a whack. The hammer missed and smacked her thumb. Pain instantly seized her. She dropped the hammer and jumped up and down, clutching her thumb and yelling, “It hurts! It really hurts!” She tried not to cry as her dad ran toward her.

  He put his arm around her and gently bent her throbbing thumb. “It’s not broken,” he assured her. “Let’s get some ice; that’ll make it feel better,” and they went inside.

  Her thumb hurt like crazy, and so did the stupid blister, but she also felt embarrassed. And afraid. What if Poppo changed his mind and decided she was too young to help him with the real work? What if he sent her back to school?

  He placed a bag of ice next to her thumb, wrapped her hand in a dish towel, and sat her down in the rocking chair. Then he made pancakes for dinner, just like he’d done when she was little. At bedtime, she let him tuck her into bed, even though she hadn’t let him do that in almost a year. She closed her eyes, miserable that the day, which had started with such hope, had ended so badly.

  The next morning, when her dad knocked on her door, Trina bolted up in bed, worried that Augustine might step out of her house or start singing.

  “Can I see your thumb, Princess?” he asked.

  Trina glanced first at Augustine, who smiled as she put one finger to her lips and sat as still as could be, and then at her thumb, which still throbbed inside the now soaking-wet towel. She opened the door, held out her bandaged hand, and let her dad unwrap it. Her thumb was a deep purple and almost twice its normal size. “Bruised but whole. Still up for helping me?”

  Trina nodded, relieved. Glad her dad still wanted her to help.

  “I’ll be down soon, Poppo.” As he shut the door behind him, she turned back to the dollhouse. Augustine gave her a little wink.

  Trina hurried to get dressed. Before she left the room, it occurred to her she’d be leaving Augustine alone for another whole day. “Augustine, I wish I could stay and play with you today, but I have to work again. Would you like to come outside with me? Maybe you could look for your prince while I help my father. Just don’t wander away.”

  Augustine shook her head. “I appreciate the invitation, but I believe I will keep my mother company today. However, if you please, we would like to sit together in your window and watch the great outdoors.”

  Trina set the mother doll and Augustine side by side in the window overlooking the front yard so they could watch the farmers harvesting the corn. “Fare thee well, Citrine,” Augustine said, waving good-bye as if Trina were leaving to travel the world and not just heading outside to work.

  Trina waved back, and in that moment she swore she saw lace curtains in her window billow in the late summer breeze and brush lightly against the dolls. But there were no curtains, which meant the memory wasn’t her own. Somehow the memory belonged to the house. “Fare thee well, Augustine,” she said.

  Trina spent day two helping her dad finish the porch floor and building what he called a balustrade —the fancy railing that would edge the entire porch. Trina set the spindles in place and her dad followed her with the nail gun. By the end of the day, the balustrade was beginning to look like a lace ribbon running across the front of the house, but there were at least another hundred spindles to go.

  After they finished the balustrade, Poppo seemed to forget all about school. Each day they worked on something new—the porch roof, the ceiling, the steps and the latticework. Trina was exhausted, but she could feel herself growing stronger and she loved how her dad treated her as an equal. Every morning started with oatmeal, and every hard day’s work ended with dinner in the dining room, eating off the blue china plates. Even Trina lost track of the days.

  One morning, when Trina woke up to Augustine’s singing, she was filled with pangs of guilt. Except for an afternoon tea party when her dad went into town for more lumber, she hadn’t been paying much attention to the doll. She got out of bed and immediately went over to the dollhouse. Augustine was busy sweeping her kitchen floor with a broom the size of a birthday candle. “Good morning, Augustine,” she said.

  “Good morning, Citrine.”

  Trina watched sleepily as Augustine swept bits of dust out her kitchen door and onto Trina’s bedroom floor. She set the broom next to her stove and brushed off her hands. “That is quite enough work for now.” And then Augustine looked up at Trina. “Are you off to work with your father again today?”

  Trina nodded and started getting dressed.

  “All you do is work, Citrine. Are there no good fairies or elves to help you?”

  “Augustine, in my world we must do everything ourselves. Even if we don’t want to.”

  “Very well, then. Perhaps when you return, you could bring with you a book from the library. My mother and I would very much enjoy a story.”

  Trina felt guiltier yet. She could barely remember the last time she read to Augustine. She thought about telling her dad she wanted to take the day off, but he had promised her a reward for all her hard work. A surprise just for her, he had said.

  “How about I read to you this evening, Augustine?”

  “I will look forward to it, Citrine,” said the little doll earnestly. Augustine sounded so serious, Trina was about to get a book right then and start reading, but her dad called from downstairs and she dashed out of the room.

  He had a long list of chores for her, from filling nail holes to sanding the railing. She worked all day and she wasn’t even half done. In the late afternoon, he sent her to the grove of trees to see how the apples were coming along. When she returned, carrying one small green apple, he was standing on the back stoop outside the French doors. She held up the sad-looking apple. “They’re not ready yet.”

  “Close your eyes,” he said with a wink as she neared the door, and Trina knew checking on the apples was a trick and it was time for her surprise. He took her hand and led her through the dining room, across the parlor, and back outside again through the front doors and along the new porch, all the way to the bay window, as close as Trina could tell. “Now you can open them,” he said.

  Trina opened her eyes and there was the porch swing—a perfect
porch swing hanging from shiny new chains. Somehow, secretly, her dad had sanded it and painted it white. “It’s beautiful,” she said, and it really, truly was. Given everything she had learned from building the porch, she knew how hard her dad had worked, probably long after she had gone to bed, to make the swing perfect just for her. It was the best reward she could think of.

  Standing there, worn out from working all day, they both had the same idea at the same time and practically fell into the porch swing, laughing. “Thank you, Poppo,” she said, and she meant it with all her heart.

  The evening sky was pink and the air had a tinge of fall to it. A yellow leaf fell from the big oak, twirled across the brand-new balustrade, and landed in Trina’s lap.

  “Red sky at night,” her dad began.

  “Sailor’s delight,” Trina finished, twirling the leaf in her fingers.

  They sat there, swinging quietly until her dad crossed his arms and made a funny face. “Oh, I almost forgot. I picked this up the last time I was in town.” He pulled a postcard from his pocket—a picture of a baby penguin tucked against its mother on an ice shelf.

  “Dear Citrine, Antarctica . . .” was as far as Trina got when she heard an engine purring and they both looked up. A small blue car was winding its way through the cornfield toward the house.

  “Maybe it’s another special delivery,” her dad said, his hand at his brow so he could see into the sun. “We could use some dining room chairs. Anyone you know?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Trina heard the car rumble through the gate. She heard the engine shut off and the car door slam, but she didn’t look up to see who the driver was. She was too busy reading the new postcard to herself for the third time.

  Dear Citrine,

  Antarctica reminds me of Wisconsin in the winter, except it’s warmer here. Wait ’til you try battery-operated mittens. Someday I’ll take you whale-watching in the snow.

  Love from the ends of the Earth, Mom

  Trina was looking at a picture of ice, but her heart was melting. There was something different about this postcard. First of all, it was a picture of a mother and a baby. And that part, Love from the ends of the Earth, sounded like her mother knew she was really far away. Like maybe she really missed her.