Kate looks up from the book she’s been immersed in to behold the sight of Homer wearing one of Paul’s game jerseys. The dog’s ears stick out of the two holes Paul has cut in one of his caps. White stockings with black stirrups encase his legs.
“You’re not seriously taking that dog out into the neighborhood looking like that.”
“It’s Halloween. He shouldn’t be deprived just ’cause he’s a dog.”
“Uh-huh.” Kate looks into her husband’s smiling eyes. “Was this your idea, or did you lose a bet to Mike again?”
“Actually, Homer heard a rumor that the Craigs were giving out Reese’s cups this year.”
At the sound of two of his favorite words—“Reese’s cups”—Homer’s tail begins sweeping the floor.
“Okay, but you make it understood that I had nothing to do with this.”
Paul Armstrong leaves Homer’s side. He bends down, cupping Kate’s chin in his hand, and tilts her face until his lips meet hers.
“No way. The first words out of my mouth at every house are going to be, ‘Katie made me do this.’ ”
“And who’s going to believe that?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
He winks and turns to Homer. “C’mon boy. Let’s go find a bag for all your goodies.”
As they leave the den, she calls after him, “And he’d better not be wearing your cup!”
Later that evening, when the last of the neighborhood children have rung the doorbell, a knock on the front door surprises her. Turning the porch light back on, she finds Paul leaning against the railing. He lets go of the dog’s leash, and Homer gallops past her and into the house.
“Hey, lady,” he says, sleepy-voiced. His eyes insolently sweep down her body. “Trick or treat?”
Her legs felt weak remembering, and she clutched the sill of the window that she had been staring out of with unseeing eyes. Homer sat by her side, and when she let her hand drop, he nuzzled it. She didn’t notice Mike Fitzgerald looking up at the house from his yard. Never saw him wave.
Time had a way of passing for Kate Armstrong that few others would understand. The rhythms of the year contrarily refused to conform. As soon as the last leaf was off the enormous beech tree that grew in her backyard, Kate began to feel as though she could breathe again. While spring—well … spring, with its promise of life, began the cycle of suffocation all over again. But the falling leaves, crisp days, and the smell of woodsmoke that drifted through the Shenandoah Valley weren’t working their magic this year.
Stuck in a house she didn’t want, with a dog who didn’t want her, Kate neglected them both. Her parents were in Tempe, three thousand miles away. Paul’s mother had moved over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Charlottesville, to live with her sister when Paul’s father had died. Paul’s sister had left Staunton, too. Patricia’s misplaced values made her believe that Charlottesville, with its university and horse farms and aura of Thomas Jefferson, somehow rubbed off on her socially. She had married one of the ubiquitous lawyers that the University of Virginia churned out and couldn’t be bothered with a run-down Victorian house in a town like Staunton. The house was left to Paul, and because it was the home he grew up in, Kate couldn’t bring herself to leave it. But she couldn’t bring herself to love it, either.
Paul Armstrong had died two and a half years ago, and the only thing Kate had shown any interest in since then was his grave. She could be found there once a month, pulling up weeds, placing fresh flowers in the two cement urns that flanked the large stone. Sometimes she would sit under the beech tree that protected the family’s plot and read. Other times, if it had been a particularly bad month for her, she would talk to him. The taking of his life had taken hers. This wasn’t something she consciously understood. Friends stopped calling. They’d heard “No thanks, I just don’t feel like it” one too many times.
The girl who had loved life became the woman who suffered through it. She had been alone too long, but didn’t realize that loneliness had made heavy inroads to her soul.
Kate now sat at the top of the stairs, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands.
“God, I’m bored.” She was talking to the dog again. Not a good habit. “And it’s only eleven o’clock, Homer. What are we going to do the rest of the day?”
Kate looked at the list she’d been holding when Homer had sneaked upstairs. There were at least twelve items written in her shorthand. Of the twelve—some of which were: dust dwnstrs, rake lawn, p-u dry cl, and swp kitch flr—the only one that had been crossed off was chg bulb over stv. She’d made the list two weeks ago and looked at it daily, and once again, it overwhelmed her. She stuffed it in the pocket of her shirt.
Footsteps sounded on the front porch, and Kate groaned as Homer shot past her and rocketed down the stairs, barking hysterically.
“Homer! For God’s sake!”
She reached the bottom of the staircase in time to see the mail drop through the slot in the door, and the dog trample it in an attempt to shove his snout through the brass oval. Pushing him aside, she muttered, “Why do we have to do this every damn day?” and rescued the pile of catalogs and envelopes. She carried them into the kitchen and dropped them on the table. The obvious junk went directly into the trash, while a Neiman Marcus preholiday catalog was tossed into a basket. She’d look at it later. Jamming the bills from the gas and phone companies into an already-full napkin holder that served as her accounts payable file, she found two actual pieces of mail. One was what was left of the monthly pension check she received from the baseball commission after debts had been served. She hated those things, and despite needing the money, it sometimes took her months to deposit them in her account. Kate stuffed this one into a small drawer by the phone, then went back to the table and picked up the hand-addressed gold-colored envelope with the blue borders. She didn’t have to turn it over to know the flap would be embossed with her high school’s crest. And she didn’t want to open it, knowing it was the announcement for the dedication of the new gym in Paul’s name. Instead, she put it back on the table, not wanting to think about it, or the twenty years that had gone by at the speed of sound.
She rotated her head from left to right in an attempt to rid herself of the stress that suddenly had her neck muscles in knots.
Kate went to the phone and dialed.
“Sheryl? Hi. Think you can work me in today?”
CHAPTER
THREE
A small breeze stirred the branches of the maple he stood under and a few die-hard leaves that had held on slowly fluttered to the ground. Mike captured them in the tines of the rake and bent to the task of bagging what was left of fall.
An Indian summer day had brought him out to finish the last of the yard cleanup, and the Victorian house across the way had snared his attention, as it had for the past three years.
The house had stood its ground for over ninety years. Today, against the backdrop of a pale blue November sky, the thin sunlight exposed many of its flaws. The white paint curled away from the porch columns and the eaves, revealing a gray patch here, or another layer of white there. One of the drainpipes had detached itself from a corner, probably during a recent storm, and it leaned away from the house waiting for the next sharp gust of wind to finish the job. A storm window from the second floor had fallen out, landing on a boxwood hedge that had the scraggly look of a GI with a bad haircut. The hedge was probably as old as the house, and equally neglected.
Mike Fitzgerald leaned on his rake, turned his gaze upward, and flinched as his eye caught the final blow to his sensibilities. Several fish-scale shingles were missing from the cornice, giving the house a jack-o’-lantern grimace. He’d been out of town for only six days. Kate’s house was falling apart and winter was coming—both at an alarming rate. He could see all this, and more, from the back corner of his own lot.
He saw movement in the window of the small tower and thought she was watching him. He put his hand up in a tentative wave, a little embarrassed t
hat he’d been seen, then turned back to the pile of leaves.
Mike had just finished hauling the last Hefty bag full of leaves to the curb when Homer began his daily defense of Frazier Street against the dreaded mail carrier. Shaking his head, he made his way across the side lawn, picked up the rake and entered what passed for a garage in 1910. Too small to hold a car any larger than a VW bug, he used the gray stuccoed building at the corner of his lot as an oversized toolshed.
As he was closing the double doors he heard a car start, and then Kate Armstrong turned the corner in front of his house and drove off down the street. Without a second thought he went back inside the garage and retrieved his rake. The day was too nice to waste indoors, and he enjoyed helping her out when he could.
He started at the far corner of her small front yard and had already amassed three large piles of leaves when he heard a shout.
“Package for you, Mr. Fitz!”
Turning, he saw the mailman had finished the upper part of the street.
“Thanks, Ray. Be right there.”
They met in the middle of the road.
“Quite a bundle for you down at the post office,” the postman said, handing Mike a small box along with the regular mail. “Glad to have you back.”
“Good to be back, Ray.”
“Any more old buildings that need saving?”
Mike smiled. “Even if there are, I’m sticking around here for a while. I have an old building of my own that’s crying out for attention.”
“I hear that,” Ray Halpern chuckled. “With winter comin’ on, the missus has a long list of ‘honey-do’s’ for me.” He took Mike’s smile as an invitation to go on. “See you’re helpin’ out Mrs. Armstrong.” He paused, shaking his head slightly. “Sad thing.”
Uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking, Mike nodded in agreement. “Yeah, and I’d better get back to it. Thanks again, Ray.”
He turned the package over as he walked back to Kate’s yard. The return address was from the historical society in a small town in Oregon. Probably a gift. As a part-time advisor for the National Trust, he’d spent three days there on a consultation with the local preservationists back in July. Originally based in Richmond, his company now worked out of two large offices in the Historic Staunton Foundation. Between lectures and consults, Mike was seldom home, but when he did manage to alight, he was happy to let the folks at the foundation pick his brain at no charge. His standard fee was nothing to sneeze at, but the people who hired him always felt the need to send something, and so he had gathered quite a collection of bric-a-brac that he stored in one of the many empty rooms in his house.
Mike’s degree was in architecture, but his minor in preservation was what had finally shone through. He loved the old buildings he’d grown up around. He had an innate understanding of what was right and wrong for the remodel of a house; or the new use of a theater built in 1915. He could sense a client’s smallest concern and still convince them that keeping the old was almost always preferable to razing and rebuilding. And then he’d show them why: financially, esthetically, and finally, in personal pride. His restorations were flawless, but Mike engaged the clients in such a way that in the end they received the accolades for their foresight.
Mike placed the box which contained the latest addition to his thank-you gifts on the lawn and leaned against the beech tree as he flipped through the rest of the mail. Opening the dedication announcement, he saw his class year in one-inch boldface and chuckled. How could twenty years have gone by? Then it occurred to him that if he’d gotten one, so had Kate. And it would be painful for her. And that was painful for him.
He dropped the stack of envelopes next to the package and closed his eyes. He’d have to call Donna Estes to find out what the committee was planning for the dedication of the new gym. Paul Armstrong was one of Staunton’s local heroes and the high school never passed up a chance to capitalize on his name. Kate would be expected to attend, and Mike knew what her reaction would be.
Sighing, he pushed himself away from the tree and picked up the rake. He finished raking and bagging the leaves, then let himself into Kate’s backyard through the side gate with the intention of doing a little more work, but Homer had other ideas. The dog had been sleeping on the back porch. At the sight of Mike, he let out a small yelp, leapt up and bounded toward a ball he’d left under a shrub. Dropping it at Mike’s feet, he gazed up at him expectantly.
“Homer, I don’t have time for this,” Mike said, but he picked up the ball anyway and tossed it across the large yard. He didn’t get any more work done as the dog tirelessly retrieved the ball for the next half hour.
Stalling didn’t help. Kate still hadn’t returned when he let himself out of the gate and picked up his mail. Homer’s whining followed him back across the street.
CHAPTER
FOUR
“You wanna talk about it?” Sheryl Keller’s strong fingers found a knot the size of a walnut near Kate’s left shoulder blade. She dug into it, trying to ease it away.
The pain caught Kate by surprise and, with a gasp, her eyes flew open. Voice muffled by the doughnut-shaped pillow her face rested in, she asked, “How do you do that?”
“What?” Sheryl kept working the knot until she felt it break apart.
“Find the most painful spot and then torture me with it—that’s what. I don’t know why I come in here thinking a massage is going to relax me.”
Practiced hands moved across Kate’s bare back until they homed in on another knotted muscle. “You didn’t answer my question,” Sheryl said.
Kate grimaced as she felt another small tendon pop into its rightful place. “You’re not the only massage therapist in town, y’know.”
There was a smile in Sheryl’s voice as she worked a fresh handful of oil into Kate’s tight shoulders. “Yeah, but I’m the only one who doesn’t charge you.”
Kate grunted.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” Kate asked.
“What brings you here in this sorry state of clenchitude?”
“I came for a massage, not a therapy session.” Kate spoke a little too sharply and regretted it instantly.
But Sheryl wasn’t put off. She’d known Kate a long time—twenty-one years, to be exact—and knew the latest manifestation of her personality. Paul’s death had brought on a pitiful state of melancholy the first year, which blended well with the later state of inertia. Now, closing in on the third year of his passing, bitterness had crept in. It was a shame because, just before his accident, Kate had seemed to be coming to some kind of positive place within herself. Changes had been in the air.
“Nice weather we’re having,” Sheryl said in an exceedingly chirpy voice.
“If you must know, I got the announcement about the new gym …”
“And you figure Donna, that perpetual cheerleader, has something big planned to honor Paul, which means you’ll have to be there for it.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Kate’s voice hardened. “And I refuse to be put through it.”
“Hey! You just undid everything I’ve been trying to fix for the past half hour.” Covering Kate’s back with the sheet, she said, “Turn over. Let me work on that steel rod that passes for a neck.”
Sitting behind Kate, Sheryl cradled her head with one hand and began slowly stroking the tendons in Kate’s neck. She spoke softly. “Mike will be there for you. You know that. He won’t let you face it alone.”
“Your brother is never around long enough to buy milk. What makes you think he’ll be here for the dedication?”
“He’ll be there for you and Paul, no matter when it is. When is it, anyway?”
“I didn’t look.” Kate winced as Sheryl found another tender spot.
“You haven’t been doing those neck stretches I showed you.”
“No, but I promise—”
“Promise you will. I’ve heard that before.” Her fingers moved to Kate’s temple. “Have you been in
the shop lately?”
Kate shook her head slightly. “Now you’re trying to give me a headache. Is that it?”
“Nope,” Sheryl answered, all innocence. “I just wondered if you’d gotten in any pieces I’d be interested in. That’s all.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Sherry.”
“Okay, so maybe I wondered what you do with yourself all day, every day.”
“I do enough. Can we change the subject?”
Sheryl stood and moved to Kate’s right side. Uncovering her arm, she began working on her bicep. Kate opened her eyes and was struck anew at how physically different Sheryl and Mike were. They were like a photograph and its negative. Sheryl had inherited her mother’s honey-colored hair and brown eyes, while Mike had his father’s black Irish hair and clear, gray eyes.
Sheryl caught her looking and smiled. The smile was Mike’s. “Did I tell you Matt is back for the winter?”
“Isn’t he going back to school?”
Sheryl hesitated, turning her attention to Kate’s forearm. “He’s decided to take a semester off.”
“Oh. How did he like Charleston?”
“Savannah.”
“Sorry—Savannah. How did he like it?”
“Well, I think he enjoyed spending the summer with his dad, but he’s glad to be home for a while. He’s going to be doing some work for Mike.”
“Hope I finally get to meet him. How old is he now?”
“Twenty this April.”
Kate sighed. “I can’t believe you have a son who’s twenty years old. And I still can’t believe I’ve never met him.” Sheryl was only two years older than Kate. Where did the time go?
“Yeah, I feel like I’m in early retirement. I see all these other women waiting till they’re in their thirties to have kids and I think I did the right thing. God, I’d hate to be raising a teenager in my fifties.”
“Yes, you were lucky.”
Sheryl stole a glance at Kate’s face and knew it was time to move on to other topics. “Had enough?”
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