CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wednesday was no better for sliding down the mountain and into Denver, making Nolan glad he had instituted his winter schedule of working from home three days a week rather than two. Despite an arduous day of pumping water out of the second story above Kris’s shop and a long evening of catching up on work, he was up two hours before daylight, grinding through his email inbox from his home office, donned in his gray-and-red plaid flannel bathrobe and slippers. Working during the early hours, when no one in the office in Denver and no clients around the region would be sending new messages or picking up the phone with questions, bolstered productivity. Nolan sorted his messages into folders: those on which he was copied for courtesy, those he could direct to a paralegal for next steps, and those he would add to his own list of tasks to ponder more deeply.
Mediation questions most made him twist his mouth in puzzlement. In a family law practice, mediation meant something had gone wrong at a fundamental level in a relationship that once had at least held the promise of beauty if not beauty itself. Where had it gone wrong? What was the plot twist that brought sad and angry parties armed with lawyers to glare at each other in a legal conference room? Nolan could sort out what was fair from a legal standpoint, but he always hoped also to figure out something that might bring some degree of healing even when the relationship was beyond restoring to what it had been.
Patrick.
Sigh.
The mediator needed a mediator.
Nolan printed a document that had arrived attached to an email and slid it into a folder to read and mark up later when his brain moved into an in-depth groove. He had a yellow legal pad with a list of tasks jotted for this day, and he starred the essentials to accomplish what he could in the hours while Canyon Mines was waking up and perhaps come back to in the evening when it returned to rest. But this sweet town that had been his home for twenty-six years had taken a hit in yesterday’s storm, and Nolan couldn’t stay warm and dry in his home office all day knowing that people he cared about were trying to restore their property.
By the end of Tuesday, it was clear that several blocks of downtown had lost electricity. The building Kris and Carolyn shared had the worst damage because of the burst pipe, but other structures had assorted issues. The Heritage Society volunteer director, Marilyn, discovered a window well filled with snow, and the aged window leaked moisture into a stack of recently donated boxes up against the cement wall. Marilyn panicked about the potential damage before she’d even had a chance to inspect the boxes. Homes were without heat. A roof that should have been replaced last summer was collapsed from the weight of the snow. The hardware store was doing its best to get more propane in stock. Half a dozen families had significant vehicle damage. No doubt more stories would emerge.
Nolan raised his eyes to the view outside his office window. The home, situated toward the western end of Main Street, where structures petered out into wider spaces, boasted mountain vistas through the seasons. Today pink glare returned Nolan’s glance, snow canopied across towering evergreens draping into valleys as sunlight inched upward. Before long it would be a blinding dazzle of white, and the residents of Canyon Mines and the other towns along I-70 would shovel themselves out.
At the sound of Jillian’s bedroom door opening, Nolan cocked his head to listen to her shuffling steps.
“You’re up early.” She rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand, just as she had since she was a toddler.
“Wanted to get some work done.” Nolan stacked a couple of folders. “I’m sure it will be all hands on deck on Main Street today.”
“No doubt. I’ll get the coffee going before I jump in the shower.”
“Eggs and bacon? We should have a good breakfast before we head over to help.”
“Maybe I’ll shovel before I shower.”
“Let me do that.”
“I can pull my weight around here, Dad. I get free rent, after all. And you were already sore before everything you did yesterday.”
“Tucker did most of the heavy work yesterday. I’m fine.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I guess we’re going to have to flip for it.” Nolan reached for a nickel in the coin dish on his desk, their strategy for resolving rare impasses about household chores. “Winner gets to shovel. You call.”
“Heads.”
Nolan tossed the coin, caught it, and flipped it on his wrist. “Tails. I win. I’ll shovel.”
“I was going to say tails.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Then I’ll make breakfast.” Jillian padded out of the room.
Nolan hit SEND on three emails, his mental to-do list already shifting to supplies he should be sure to load into his truck before they left the house.
Both showered and dressed forty minutes later, they sat at the breakfast bar, their favorite place to eat.
“I heard from Kris while you were pushing snow around,” Jillian said. “Tucker arranged for some company to come out and assess. She says they can fix the pipe, restore the damage to the flooring upstairs, get everything properly dry, the whole business. Tucker claims they can keep downtime to a minimum for both businesses.”
Nolan swallowed a bite of eggs. “Do you suppose he thought to tell them it’s a historic building?” They couldn’t just haul in some PVC and slap down linoleum.
“Valid question. I guess they’ll see that when they come. But Kris says we shouldn’t worry about that building today.”
“I don’t suppose there is any point in cautioning her about accepting this massive level of generosity from a man she barely knows.”
Jillian pushed her shoulders up toward her ears. “She seems to have gotten over that. In any event, if we want to help, there are plenty of other places.”
“Marilyn is in a tizzy about those boxes at the museum. They’re related to a family that has been in Canyon Mines forever, apparently.”
“I feel bad. She wanted me to help sort them, and I just haven’t had a day to give her. I had promised her I would next week.”
Nolan picked up his coffee mug. “My gut says she’s not going to get a lot of sympathy about old papers when there are broken windows around town and leaky roofs and the power is still sketchy in places.”
“I know.” Jillian crunched bacon between her teeth. “I guess if Kris doesn’t want me, I’ll check in with Marilyn. Everybody around town will be rearranging things today.”
“I can make sure that window well is shoveled out and get a proper cover for it from the hardware store so this doesn’t happen again. The leaky window will need to be replaced, but that is a task for a warmer day.”
“I’ll let Kris know where we are in case she changes her mind.” Jillian reached for her phone.
“I’ll warm up the truck.” Nolan reached for his keys.
Marilyn was overjoyed to see them. “Finally, someone who understands the potential importance of these papers.”
“Where are the boxes now?” Nolan asked.
“Still downstairs.” Marilyn led the way. “The best I could do last night when I discovered the catastrophe was pull them away from the wall and try to sop up the water with towels. Whoever packed them put too much in them. The bottoms are falling out, so we have to be careful. I cleared tables in the group education room and plan to work in there.”
“Let me get the boxes,” Nolan said. “You and Jillian can see what to do with the papers, and I’ll work on making sure there’s not a repeat performance with the window.”
“The Heritage Society would be so grateful.”
Nolan moved the boxes, grimacing at the reality that the bottoms and sides of several were indeed soggy and the contents at risk. He did his best to deliver them to the group education room before the cardboard gave way entirely, left Marilyn and Jillian to devise a strategy for sorting and salvaging, and went around to the back of the building to attack the window well with a snow shovel. At first its width made it fairly easy to shovel
, but soon he realized it was deeper than was first apparent, making the task awkward enough to assure Nolan’s sore back muscles would need an extra day to recover.
“There you are.”
Nolan straightened up and pushed his hat off his eyes. “Tucker.”
“You’re a hard man to track down, my friend.”
“Have you come to help?” Nolan was beginning to think this was a job for a younger man.
“To rescue you! Wouldn’t you rather go skiing?”
“Skiing?”
“Inches more snowpack, fresh powder. I thought it was great yesterday when I took Kris out, but this will be fabulous today. Perfect for remedial recreational refreshment.”
Nolan stuck his shovel in the mound of snow he’d been transferring out of the window well and leaned on it. For the sake of conversation with Tucker, the invitation was tempting.
But no.
“I’m afraid not,” Nolan said. “There’s a lot to do around town. When I get this window well sorted out, I’ll see if I can help inside. If not, I’ll go on down the street and find another project.”
“I essentially got the same answer from Kristina. I tried to lighten her load, and she just plunged into someone else’s project.”
“I’m sure she appreciated the arrangements you made. Canyon Mines pulls together on a day like today.”
“Okay then,” Tucker said. “Another time.”
“Right. Another time.”
Tucker tramped off through the alley, and Nolan turned back to his shoveling. His back creaked as he bent over again and protested with every load of the wet snow, but at least the job was done. At the hardware store, he found the last of the window well covers and returned to install it before going inside the museum to warm up.
“I’m happy to report that window well will see no more snow,” he said.
“Thank you!” Marilyn said. “I’ll mention to the maintenance committee that the window replacement is rising in urgency.”
The front door opened, and a man came in. “Hello!”
“I’m sorry, we’re closed today,” Marilyn called across the education room.
The man came closer.
“It’s Tucker,” Jillian said.
“Who’s Tucker?” Marilyn asked.
Nolan made introductions and said, “I thought you were going skiing.”
“I changed my mind.” Tucker shirked off his green jacket and dropped it on a chair with his backpack. “I thought maybe I could help. Now, what’s the system here?”
“It’s pretty basic at this stage.” Jillian stood up to point at various tables. “We’re just getting everything out of the boxes to start. Dry documents go on that table there. Damp ones can be spread out on the other side of the room. Dry photos on this table here, and damp ones over there. Try to make sure nothing is sticking to anything else. And then we’ll just see what we have and go from there.”
“I can handle that.” Tucker opened a box with a damp splotch on one side. “Looks like mostly photos here.”
“Watch out for any notations on the back,” Marilyn said. “If they’re wet, please try not to smear them.”
“Got it.” Tucker positioned a chair and began extracting photos from the box. “These look really old. Do you mind if I ask if we know who we’re looking at?”
“We know the general family,” Marilyn said. “We hope to learn more about specific individuals by going through all of this in an organized manner at some point.”
Tucker glanced at Jillian. “Genealogy heaven?”
“Might be,” she said. “Hard to say yet. Any names or dates?”
Tucker flipped a photo. “Howard Blankenship, 1932.”
“Mmm,” Marilyn said, “that’s not the surname of the family who donated the boxes.”
“Could be another branch of the family tree,” Jillian said, “or just an old family friend. Anyone really.”
“That’s the year my grandfather was born,” Tucker said. “This dude could be about the age of my great-grandfather, I guess.” Nolan caught Jillian’s eye.
“Do you have any photos of your great-grandfather?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Tucker said. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Just doesn’t.” Tucker set the photo aside and picked up another.
“In my line of work,” Jillian said, “we like to think it all matters.”
“Believe me, it doesn’t.” Tucker flipped another photo. “Someone labeled this one in pencil. And really bad handwriting. I doubt anyone will ever read that again.”
“We’ll at least try,” Jillian said. “We may get clues from other context. You might notice a similar photo that has a better notation, for instance, or a date stamp, or a studio marker if it’s a professional portrait.”
“My mom has so many photos of my Grandpa Matt,” Tucker said. “I keep telling her she has to let me digitize them, but she refuses to let me take them out of her albums.”
“I feel the same way about pictures of Jillian when she was little,” Nolan said. “Digital photos are just too hard to press against your heart in a sentimental moment the way you can hold an entire album against your bosom.”
Tucker laughed.
“Dad, stop,” Jillian said. But she was laughing as well. “Somewhere we have a photo of me with my great-grandfather. Pop Paddy. I was just a baby. He passed not long after that.”
“That one’s in your baby album,” Nolan said.
“Well, I’m keeping my photos right where they are,” Tucker said. “In the cloud, safe and dry and uncontaminated by chemicals.”
“We’re in the process of digitizing everything,” Marilyn said, “but it’s a slow process. We have to depend on volunteer extra-credit hours from high school students and the limited hours when the machine is free at the library.”
“You don’t have your own machine?” Tucker seemed surprised.
“Look around,” Marilyn said. “The city leases us the building for a dollar a year, but everything else is donated services or we have to fund-raise for what we need.”
“You need a machine,” Tucker said. “And not a low-grade library scanner, but one worthy of a museum handling delicate documents. Maybe I can make a donation.”
“That kind of machine is expensive. I may be a small-town archivist, but I read museum publications.”
“I’ll see what I can do. In fact, make me a list of what else you could use that might be hard to fund-raise for.”
Marilyn’s eyes widened.
Jillian and Nolan exchanged glances. Was Tucker’s first impulse always to buy something for strangers?
Tucker looked around the room, nodding. “My grandfather would have liked this place. He always enjoyed giving to a good cause.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dinner guests, Dad? Tonight?” Jillian trudged into the kitchen behind her father. “It’s been a long day. A long two days.”
“I know.” Nolan dropped his keys into the copper bowl on the counter. “But the streets are plowed, the power is back on, and we were major help to Marilyn even if papers are still in piles. It’s worth it to end the day with a bit of normalcy, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
“We have to eat,” he said. “Cooking for four is no more trouble than cooking for two, and maybe we’ll get somewhere with Team Tucker.”
Jillian unzipped her jacket and let it fall off her shoulders onto a chair. “For someone who runs a company, he sure doesn’t like to talk about it very much.”
“See? You notice that too. He’ll stay with it for a couple of sentences and then change the subject.”
“Or minimize what he does.”
“Exactly.” Nolan waved a hand in a grand gesture. “I shall prepare a royal feast and ply him with my culinary skills.”
“Um, Dad, your culinary skills are vast. Truly. Kingly. But Kris and Tucker will be here in less than an hour. You didn’t give yourself much tim
e to prepare a royal feast.”
“Well then, how about Irish bacon and cabbage stew? It’s hearty fare on a wintry night.”
“Perfect. Bacon twice in one day. You won’t hear me complaining.”
“Ah, but I saved the good chunky stuff for a special occasion. There’s time for some quick buttermilk biscuits too.”
“I’ll set the table,” Jillian said. “To celebrate that the power came on and everything didn’t melt into a giant puddle, Kris is bringing three kinds of ice cream and some of Carolyn’s fudge for dessert, so don’t get ideas in that department.”
“Cobbler? Pie? A three-layer cake perhaps?”
Jillian rolled her eyes. “Give me your jacket. I’ll hang it up.”
Nolan exchanged his winter jacket for the white chef’s apron he claimed made him feel inspired and began humming as he set to work.
“Why are you humming ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Nolan sang, “Take me out for some ice cream; take me out to the store. Buy me a triple-scoop jumbo cone. I won’t share it. I’ll eat it alone!”
Jillian laughed. “Ice cream on the brain.”
She went into the dining room to select dishes and settled on the eclectic pieces her mother had collected over the years, colorful rich-hued plates beneath contrasting deep bowls to hold generous portions. Nolan’s stew, with its dark green cabbage and red bits of tomatoes, would add to the festive palette. With just four at the table, she laid the place settings two on each side rather than having anyone on the ends. It seemed cozier for soup and bread on a cold night.
Her duties discharged, Jillian had time to run upstairs, splash water on her face, pull a clean sweater over her head, brush her unruly dark hair and tie it up in the back, and be back downstairs well ahead of the expected arrival time of Kris and Tucker. She descended the back stairs into the kitchen.
“Need any help, Dad?”
“I believe I have everything under control,” Nolan said.
In the Cradle Lies Page 9
