by Deb Donahue
She felt grimy and sweaty from all the work she’d done so far, and discouraged at how much still remained. If she truly wanted to bring the house back to life, that would mean carrying all the excess furniture back up the stairs, some of which was too heavy and bulky for one person to do alone. And she knew no one who could help.
Well, no one except for Harlan Hunter. And something in her balked at asking for any further assistance from him. She was sure Sissy and maybe even the postmistress would be willing, but probably not able. They might, however, know people she could hire. She resolved to ask soon.
Miranda started down the crowded stairwell, eager to shower and change into clean clothes. Two small windows cast squared shafts of light on the piles and piles of books. Pausing, she picked through a few. She found novels and biographies and picture books and some that looked like journals. In one particularly dusty stack, she found photo albums that were so old the pages were brittle. Several of the stick-on corners holding the black and white photos in place had come loose from the black paper backing. Blowing dust off the top one, she took them back to the dining room and set them on the window seat.
A long, hot shower helped take away the chill from upstairs and made her feel refreshed. She set water to boil on the stove to make tea and picked up an apple to nibble on for lunch. Then, curled up in the sun pouring onto the window seat, she pulled the old photo albums close to look through them more thoroughly.
She started with the album that looked the oldest. Loose photographs had been stuck randomly in the pages of the book. Many of them had information written in faded, fancy cursive on the back. Dad and Grandpa, labeled the back of a picture showing a seated unsmiling man in a stiff color and tie circa the late 1890’s. The young boy standing at his side had a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Auntie 1938, said another one of an infant about six months old.
None of the names looked familiar to her and she had no idea which side of the family they belonged to. She wished her grandmother were still around to give her the story behind each photograph. It was so sad that there was no one left who remembered these faces of so long ago.
The next album, Miranda was delighted to discover, was more recent. She recognized pictures of her father as a child, and the young faces of her grandmother and grandfather, though her grandfather had died before she was born. Other faces she knew or could guess at: Dad as a young boy surrounded by all his cousins in an extended family shot, bridesmaids lined up next to her mother in a wedding photo.
There were pictures that showed the farm, also. Before the garage had been built, there had only been a small tool shed in place. The back porch had once been only a narrow set of steps leading to the door. And here was her father as a teenager standing by the water spigot in the middle of the driveway with another boy a few years younger. From their pose with tools and grins, it seemed clear that they had just finished installing the “newfangled” apparatus on the existing well and were pretty proud of their accomplishment.
Miranda drew in a sudden breath. Behind them in the picture was a black and white car exactly like the one in her dream the night before. She guessed it was a model from the seventies, and looked fairly new, so her father must have been in his late teens when the picture was taken.
There was something familiar about the young man with her father and she studied it for some time trying to figure out why. The boy was younger, maybe 9 or 10, with a shock of hair sticking straight up at the back of his head. Miranda frowned, trying to imagine the face aged. How would he look today?
Harlan Hunter! Miranda gasped. Wait, could it be? Maybe it was a relative of Harlan’s with the same facial features. Although, doing the math in her head, Harlan Hunter could be her father’s contemporary. She wasn’t sure why this disturbed her so much. Maybe it was because she had developed such a dislike for Harlan and her father obviously seemed to have been his friend.
She spent the rest of the afternoon outside, pulling up a few weeds around the house, finding an apple tree with fruit ripe enough to pick. Mostly, though, she just enjoyed the Indian Summer weather. Sunlight glistened off spider webs stretched across the grass like gossamer carpets. Rufus chased squirrels and dug holes and raced after fallen leaves driven by the breeze.
Testing the tire swing, Miranda lowered herself into it and pushed off, gently swaying with her feet up and head back, a huge grin on her face. When her stomach told her it was almost supper time, she headed toward the house reluctantly. Stopping on the porch, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the clean fresh air. Tomorrow, she thought, she would open all the windows in the house no matter how chilly the wind might be. The place needed a good airing out before the cold winter months tamped down on them.
Opening her eyes, she looked across the field toward the barn. No strange movements in the window today. She smiled, but the smile faded as the man and dog she’d seen that morning skirted the edge of woods again. This time she could see him more clearly and was almost positive it was the same man she’d seen in Greenville. It was too far to see his face, but the hair color, body build, even the jacket, matched almost exactly what she remembered. He was carrying a rifle.
Suddenly the man noticed her and froze. He motioned to the German Shepherd, who also stopped and looked Miranda’s way. Rufus was still far off in the orchard so had not seen them. They stood that way for what felt like minutes before finally the man raised an arm in greeting, waving it slowly. Miranda hesitated, then raised her arm as well. The man nodded, then turned and disappeared into the trees, followed by his dog.
Rather than alarming her, seeing the trespasser a second time made her feel relieved. He must be a neighbor out hunting. The house had been empty a long time so perhaps he hadn’t known someone was now living there. Or maybe he’d even had an arrangement with her grandmother and had been given permission to hunt on her land. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to do it.
Rufus distracted her just then by running up with a dead bird in his mouth and laying it at her feet.
“Yech, Rufus, what did you do?” It was hard to scold him, though. He seemed so pleased with his accomplishment. So Miranda just sighed and headed into the garage, hoping to find a shovel so she could bury the carcass. Several shovels and rakes hung from a rack next to an old wood burning stove in the back corner.
She made her way past a workbench and several lawnmowers in various stages of repair. Standing in the corner just under the shovels, she found an old rusted safe with a combination lock. It was a strange place for a safe, she thought. Despite its rusted state, it didn’t seem to have been there that long. It was not covered with dust—in fact, it was evident someone had swept dirt out of the way before placing the safe down.
There was no way to open it, however, and Miranda doubted it contained anything of value anyway. No doubt it was just an artifact that had been relocated from the house much like the furniture in the front room. Maybe her grandmother had been planning on selling some of her antiques but had to stop mid-project when she became ill. That reminded her of Patty telling her how her poor grandmother had been left alone for two days after her death.
She shook her somberness off as well as she could, but as she patted the last spadeful of dirt on the grave for the dead bird, she decided to visit her grandmother’s grave soon and leave flowers. She could not undo the years of silence between them, but she could do her best to show some respect now.
She heated more of the casserole up for supper but was only able to eat a few bites of it. That strange, lingering taste seemed intensified today. Rufus appeared to like it well enough, however, so she gave the rest to him and threw some macaroni in hot water to make a simple pasta dish for herself. Sissy’s canned tomatoes were perfect for a sauce and when she mixed it all together with salt and basil and a little onion, the results tasted just like the spaghetti her grandmother used to make.
She finished off her supper with vanilla wafers dipped in cold milk, eating them in front of th
e fireplace like she’d intended to last night. She’d kept the couch pulled close to the hearth and lit the fire despite the fact that the furnace was working. There was something about the crackle and light of a fire that make a house feel so cozy. Stretching out with a pillow under her head, she watched the flames. After a while, they began to dance like pretty ballerinas and she began to feel drowsy, her head drooping as she sang some nonsense song to herself that reminded her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She’d almost fallen asleep when she heard Rufus gagging behind her. Sitting up so fast her head spun, she looked over the back of the couch to find him throwing up, shoulders hunched as he disgorged a smelly mess on the floorboards. Finished, he staggered a few steps away, almost falling sideways, then paused to vomit again, this time spewing more liquid than chunks, his stomach heaving like he was never going to stop.
Alarmed, Miranda ran into the kitchen to grab paper towels. It was not so unusual for Rufus to throw up. If he grew overly excited or ate something that didn’t agree with him. Was it the casserole making him sick? She shouldn’t have given it to him, changing a dog’s food should always happen gradually and people food was seldom a good idea. Or maybe he’d ingested something when he caught that bird.
Whatever it was, she’d never seen him so sick. By the time she cleaned up the floor, he’d ceased vomiting, but had retired to his bed and lay there looking weak and miserable, one eyebrow cocked her way like he was asking why she wasn’t doing something to help him.
Why hadn’t she pushed harder to get a phone installed right away? Miranda tried to remember if she’d seen a veterinarian’s clinic when she was in town yesterday. Patty would probably know where there was one, but the post office would already be closed for today. Sissy, Sissy would know. The woman had lived on a farm all her life, she’d told Miranda while they cleaned up. She might even be able to tell how serious the dog’s illness was.
The drive to Hunter’s farm seemed to take forever, especially since she took a wrong turn twice. She had to turn around once when she reached a dead end. After that she drove slower, so she could find the right road. Rufus lay limp and unresponsive in the passenger seat, so she was relieved to finally find the huge mailbox at the head of a driveway with HUNTER written in bold black capitals.
The farm consisted of a huge white barn, a brick house and several small outbuildings. As Miranda pulled up in front of the porch, a Bassett hound who had been sleeping on the porch stood up and started baying. The dog’s tail was wagging, but still Miranda hesitated to get out of the car until Sissy herself came outside. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she yelled at the dog to be quiet and peered at the car with narrowed eyes like she couldn’t quite see who was visiting them.
She seemed delighted to find out it was Miranda, until she found out the reason for the visit. “Come in, come in,” she said, waving them in.
“If you could just tell me where I can find a vet. My phone isn’t working and I just don’t know—“
“Well now, I’m no vet, but I’ve had dogs all my life. Let’s take a look at the poor thing and see if there isn’t something we can do for him here.” She waited while Miranda carried Rufus inside and then lead them to the kitchen at the rear of the house. “Here, sit down here with him.” She shooed a cat out of a rocker that sat near a breakfast nook. Three other cats stared out at them from under the kitchen table.
Miranda sat down, cradling Rufus gently on her lap. “He killed a bird earlier, or found one already dead. I don’t know. Could that be what’s wrong? Do birds carry rabies?”
“Let’s take a look here.” Sissy squatted down beside them and took Rufus’s head in her hands, looking into his eyes. The dog licked her hand. “This isn’t rabies, believe me. I saw a rabid raccoon once. Scariest thing I’ve ever faced. You say he got a bird. Did he eat it? Could he have eaten anything else that’s got his tummy upset?”
Miranda thought of the casserole and how funny it tasted, but didn’t want to offend Sissy by mentioning it, so just said, “He could have. Something had been chewing on the bird before he brought it to me. Plus he’s been running around in the orchard all day. There’s no telling what he might have found out there. He’s like a garbage pail sometimes, the things he thinks are food.”
“The Terminator here is like that, too.” Sissy stood up and went over to the hound who had followed them inside. She reached down to pat the Basset’s smooth head. “I think I still have some of the medicine the doc gave me the last time. Let’s see if that does any good before we start worrying.”
The veterinary clinic, Sissy told Miranda, only had set office hours and had already shut down for the day. “The doc is getting up in years, so I guess he’s entitled to be set in his ways, but Lord, if someone’s got a calf that needs tending to off hours, you’d think we were asking him to cough up a kidney.”
She wrapped up a small white pill in a piece of cheese and fed it to Rufus. He sniffed it first, then gulped it down. Licking Sissy’s hand once again, he laid his head on Miranda’s knee, awake but not alert.
“Let’s give that some time to work,” Sissy said, pulling up a chair from the kitchen table to sit next to Miranda. “If he’s not feeling better in a little bit, I’ll drive you to the doc’s house myself and we’ll bang on his door till he finally comes out, office hours or no office hours.” She pulled out knitting needles and a skein of red yarn from a sewing basket on the floor and started working on something that looked like a sweater.
“He looks like he might fall asleep,” Miranda said, noticing Rufus’s eyelids seemed to be getting heavy.
“Yeah, those pills make them a bit sleepy. Sleep is the best medicine there is. Cures a body while the mind takes a rest. Not that I recommend using drugs to get to sleep. Natural’s always the best way to go.”
Miranda agreed. “Although,” she added, “sometimes that’s the only thing that works. I’m certainly glad I took some last night. You’d think I would have slept like a log after all the work I did around the place, but I had the worst dreams that kept me tossing and turning all night.”
She was also beginning to wonder if maybe she’d need to resort to sleeping pills again tonight. She was feeling wired again, her heart pumping, ears ringing. Rufus seemed to sense her tension, whimpering in his sleep and jerking with little yips like he was having nightmares.
When Sissy offered her some chamomile tea, Miranda accepted readily, hoping that would calm her down. They chatted about their dogs while Sissy shuffled around the kitchen getting cups and tea leaves, setting the kettle on the stove. The Terminator had earned his name from the number of chickens he’d killed in his youth. “Harlan wanted to put him down but he was only acting according to his nature. A hunting dog’s got to hunt and if you don’t let him take after raccoons or pheasants, well, you’re bound to have to lose a chicken or two.”
Miranda requested recommendations for someone who could help her move or haul away some of her grandmother’s things. Sissy told Miranda where she could get the freshest produce and what time the Fall Festival started on Saturday. Harlan and Bob, she said, were off in the fields harvesting corn.
“They’re liable to be gone till after dark during the week like this. I tell you, that man owns so many acres it’s lucky he can take the Lord’s day off during spring and fall. And Bob half the time don’t even do that. You’d think the man was paid by the hour, the amount of time he spends on that combine.”
Finally the medication seemed to have settled Rufus into a natural sleep and the tea had at least kept Miranda’s skin from crawling. Miranda decided he seemed well enough to return home.
“Here,” Sissy said, pressing a bottle of pills into her hand when they reached the front door. “A dog his size, give him half a pill in the morning and another tomorrow evening. If he’s not better by then, you can find the clinic out by the interstate, next to the fast food place out there. Hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. You need anything before, then, you j
ust come on over and let me know, you hear?”
The sentiment was comforting and Miranda was grateful, but as she drove home toward the setting sun, she couldn’t help wondering what roller coaster she’d be riding tomorrow.
What on earth was wrong with her? Happy and blissful one moment, and semi-paranoid the next. She hadn’t felt this much anxiety since she’d started counseling sessions years ago. The stress of making a major life change like this certainly seemed to be taking its toll.
Chapter 8
The roller coaster that was her life lately took fewer twists and turns for Miranda in the days that followed, for which she was grateful. She had another vivid nightmare after leaving Sissy’s that day. Not as intense and threatening as the first night, but complete with night sweats and the lingering sounds of a music box tune she knew she should recognize.
The dreams occurred every night after that, but with less physical distress. She definitely did not experience the sort of waking nightmare she had the first evening in the house. She had to assume the only reason she’d been so freaked out then was from being in a new place and being beset by memories. Either that or she’d gone slightly crazy for a few hours. By the fourth night, it almost seemed natural to dream of ballerinas dancing to the twinkly tune, though it still disturbed her that the sound seemed to linger even after she woke up.
She had used Sissy’s recommendations for a moving company and hired two men who helped her bring some of the excess furniture back upstairs and haul other things away. The results were that she got the front room cleared out enough to set up an old phonograph she’d found. Cleaning house to the sounds of Glen Miller’s swing band made the work seem more fun. In the evenings, she’d put on some old rock and roll records that must have been her father’s or turn on NPR on the radio and listen to smooth jazz while she read a book with Rufus napping on her stomach.
The dog had recovered, too, feeling much more himself and raring to go. She still kept a close eye on him, though, and didn’t like letting him go outside on his own in case he got into more of whatever had made him ill in the first place.
