Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 2

by Chautona Havig

  The weather was awful today—not something I was particularly thankful for. The roads were slick and two cars ended up in the ditch nearby. I felt cruel, but I didn’t answer the door. One man pounded demanding the use of my phone, but I told him I didn’t have a phone and if he didn’t leave, I’d come out with my gun. So, while I wasn’t thankful for today’s weather, I was thankful for a warm house, a gun to protect us with, and interesting books to read.

  Actually, I’ve been thinking of a lot of things to be thankful for, and I thought I’d list them. I can compare every year and see if my opinions change or grow.

   The Lord. Without Him, I truly would be nothing.

   A trustworthy financial planner. Mr. Barnes has already proven himself faithful.

   A world of information and the resources to purchase what I need.

   Mother Earth News. I’d be lost without that new-age blarney-filled treasure trove.

   My daughter. I would never have had the courage to buck the modern American lifestyle without her.

   A love of beauty—this really helps keep me going.

  I think mentally, I will be counting our years from Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving. I think I’ll also move the calendar out of the kitchen and into the pantry. I think, when I am struggling, it is too tempting to start counting days away. For a year or two, it can stay where I have to make a deliberate effort to look at it. By that time, Willow will need to learn the days of the year and the months and seasons. By then, surely, I will have grown accustomed to life lived rather than existed.

  Chad’s truck interrupted her reading. She’d planned to read all of her mother’s Thanksgiving entries but had overslept and frost overnight had sent her into the fields to retrieve the lambs and cow. Gomer, the “painted lady” had dried up during the past week, leaving her free from milking.

  Bursting in from the cold, Chad shivered. “Oh it’s cold out there. We could have snow this week!”

  Willow set the journal back on the table and hesitated. Moving from under her soft warm afghan and quilt was not something she relished. “Is your truck warm? It was so cool all summer that—”

  “It has a heater. My truck is warmer than this room. You’re letting the fire die out.”

  “Don’t want it going while I’m gone. Mother was particular about that. She said the risk of loss of everything wasn’t worth the half an hour of comfort when we were away from the house.”

  With a shrug, Chad brought her coat from near the stove and held it out. “Well get into your coat quickly then.”

  “I need to put out the ice blocks and then I’m ready.”

  Afraid to ask, Chad watched as she pulled warm gloves on and carried large plastic containers full of water outside. Curiosity bested him and shaking his head, he asked, “What exactly are those for?”

  “Ice. For the icebox in summer. We fill the ice room with them.”

  “Why not use the ice maker in your freezer?”

  “We don’t have an ice maker in ours. It’s a waste of space when we can get ice free all winter without using up valuable freezer space.”

  It made sense, but didn’t. A new idea occurred to him. “So why didn’t you carry them out there after you filled them up? Or better yet, use the hose.”

  “Mother didn’t like the hose for this. Sometimes we drink the ice, and the hose lies out there in the dirt all the time…”

  “You’re ignoring my first question.”

  A foolish expression crossed her face. “Because, if you must know, I had to go to the bathroom when I was done filling them and I got sidetracked with the journals until I was warm and cozy on the couch, and then I didn’t want to get up.”

  “Now that is the most refreshing thing you’ve said in a long time.”

  The corner of her mouth twisted as she considered his words. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just that usually you do everything, by the book, regardless of whether or not you really want to do it. This time you just skipped the whole thing and did your own thing. I love it.”

  He grabbed the loaves of bread and bouquet of dried flowers she’d arranged for his mother and grinned at her. “Ready to go?”

  “Ready.”

  They stepped outside the door and Willow reached to twist the spigot a fraction of a turn. “I don’t want the pipes to freeze.”

  “What about inside?”

  She grinned. “It’s dripping slowly upstairs—filling the bathtub.”

  Somehow, Chad knew that she’d use that water for the animals or to feed some growing thing somewhere. Before he could ask, another thought danced around the edges of his consciousness. “Hey, where’s Saige?”

  “She’s off chasing rabbits. She’s getting pretty good at it. I found remains of two of them the other day.”

  “Awww I’m sorry.”

  Chad’s attempt at sympathy failed. Willow looked at him as if he was crazy and said, “Why?”

  “Well, you sounded discouraged, and that must be pretty gross—”

  “Well, I am a little discouraged. All that meat I have for her, and she’s off getting her own food. I really need to consider getting another dog for her.”

  He slammed the truck door shut and sauntered around to his side of the vehicle. The dog leaves rabbit entrails where she can find them and her only concern is the wasted dog food in her freezer. “Wow,” he muttered. “Wow.”

  Chapter Fifty

  The clock on Chad’s dashboard slowly changed numbers. Seven thirty-five changed to seven thirty-six. A mile passed. Willow’s nervousness increased. Chad noticed but said little as the trees and fields gave way to the Rockland Loop. She was probably just nervous—a new place and all.

  As he pulled onto the Loop, he skirted the city, out toward the suburbs. Willow seemed to notice. “This is different.”

  “Yeah, we live in Westbury—the old side.”

  “I see.”

  It didn’t take the world’s most astute person to realize that Willow wasn’t her normal carefree self. “Are you alright?”

  “No.”

  Three points for honesty anyway, Chad thought to himself. “What’s wrong?”

  “Rockland smothers me. It’ll pass. At least you don’t have all those horribly tall buildings.” She sighed. “Bill’s apartment. I love and hate it.”

  “Once we get in the house, you’ll probably feel better. You’re used to houses, and ours isn’t all that different from yours.”

  “Tell me about who all will be there.”

  Diversion. She wanted diversion; he could do that. “Well, let’s see. There’s Mom and Dad of course and Chris and Cheri. Then Aunt Libby and Luke will be there—”

  “Oh, are they bringing Aggie and the children?”

  Chad shook his head and made a left onto yet another residential street that to Willow probably looked exactly like every other street they’d crossed. “Aggie went up north to see her parents for Thanksgiving.”

  “I see. So Luke and Libby, anyone else?”

  He told her about his goofy uncle Ed, about his grandmother and grandfather—how they never said anything remotely pleasant to each other—and reminded her that Chuck was coming. By the time he finished describing the guests, he pulled his truck up in front of a large white house with tall round pillars.

  “Wow.”

  Amused that she used a word usually uttered about her, Chad smiled. “It’s nice. Pretentious for such a small house.”

  “Small!”

  “Yeah. It looks bigger than it is. They did that deliberately. It’s something about how they designed the façade.”

  “How do you know all that? It’s fascinating.” Willow’s voice sounded more nervous than fascinated.

  “We studied architectural styles in high school as part of our postmodern studies. My teacher was a hippie liberal who hated teaching in suburbia, so he spent all his time trash talking our town and our lives.”

  In such a short time, she’d adjusted to s
o many new things, including waiting for him to open her door. Of all days, today he had to do that. His mother stood on the porch, watching. She’d kill him if he didn’t. He took the loaves from her and nudged her toward the house. “Come on. Mom doesn’t bite.”

  Willow’s eyes widened. “Do some people do that? Bite?” She backed away just a bit.”

  “No. It’s just a saying—” A smirk twitched her cheek and Chad groaned. “Oh, you got me. I couldn’t believe—”

  “Sometimes people just assume that because I’m different that I’m stupid. I’ve gotten Chuck a lot, but it’s hard to trip you up. You know me too well.”

  “You know I don’t think you’re stupid, right?” He swallowed hard. If he had let her think…

  Before she could respond, Marianne Tesdall wrapped her arms around her son. “Chaddie-my-Laddie!”

  “Mom, you’re dead.”

  “And this must be Willow,” his mother continued as though Chad hadn’t threatened her with imminent demise. “Come in, come in. I want you to meet Christopher!”

  “Chad’s brother?”

  “Oh no,” Marianne explained, “Chris is Chad’s brother. Christopher is my husband— Chaddie’s Daddie!”

  “Mom!” Chad groaned and shrugged at Willow. “She likes to torment me with that.”

  As Marianne led Willow to the den, Willow’s head turned to Chad and mouthed, “Chaddie-my-laddie?”

  “That’s it; I’m never bringing home a girlfriend. Just a friend is too humiliating!”

  “What’d you say, Cha—”

  “Enough Cheri, or I’ll sick Chuck on you.”

  “Bring him on,” his sister challenged. “I hear he’s a doozy. Why’d you invite him, again?”

  “Because Willow was stuck with him, and dad wanted to meet her.”

  Cheri met and held Chad’s eyes for several seconds and then shook her head. “You know mom is hoping—”

  “Yeah, I know. I thought maybe if she met Willow, she’d see that it’s not going to happen.” He glanced down at the basket of post-it notes and pens. “I’d better take this to her and rescue her from their ‘discreet interrogation.’”

  As Chad disappeared around the corner, Cheri smiled to herself. “That is very interesting –my-laddie.”

  “What’d you say?” Chris stood at the bottom of the stairs with an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Chad’s friend, who happens to be a girl, who is not his girlfriend, but is.”

  “What?”

  “Exactly, my brother. You said it well.” Cheri nodded for emphasis.

  “Chad’s protesting too much?”

  “See, now aren’t you glad you have me to keep your psychology toes sharp and agile?”

  Chris grinned. “This I gotta see.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Just back off, though. We want to see it all, and if he suspects—”

  “You are wicked, little sis.”

  Cheri grinned. “But smarter than your average sibling.”

  “Oh, that was low.”

  Unaware of the scheming behind the scenes, Chad made small talk with his parents before he pulled Willow away, holding up the basket as an excuse. “Once people start arriving, everyone will be fighting over it, so we’ll just get it out of the way now.”

  Willow shrugged and followed Chad to the kitchen table. Cinnamon rolls and a glass pitcher of juice with clear plastic cups in a stack beside it filled the center of the table. “Hungry?”

  Willow nodded looking for a plate. Chad scooped a cinnamon roll onto a napkin and handed her a plastic fork. “Mom’s cinnamon rolls are the best!”

  “Ok, so what is the basket for, and why did you try to get me away from your father?”

  Chad hadn’t anticipated her perceptiveness. “Well,” he began. How do you tell a woman that he didn’t want his family to start making wedding plans just because you brought her home? “Remember how mom was hoping for something—”

  “I see.” A glance at her told him she did see. Before he could respond, she added, “And the basket?”

  “It’s a tradition. We don’t have a lot—every year is different in most respects but turkey at someone’s house and the Thanksgiving basket are two anyway.”

  “Ok, that explains a lot. I completely understand the purpose of it now.”

  Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Sorry. It’s actually very simple. We write down a word or two on these papers to describe what we’re thankful for.”

  “So if I was thankful for my new car, I’d write down ‘my new car?’”

  Shaking his head, Chad said, “No it’s not just that. The goal is to write down something you’re thankful for that reflects you as a person but isn’t so specific that you might as well put your name on it.”

  “I don’t say who I am?”

  Suddenly, Chad realized he’d jumped into the middle of an explanation. “No. Sorry. See what we do is, during dinner, we pass the basket around the table, and everyone draws a paper from it. Then, based on the answer, we guess who wrote it.”

  Rephrasing the explanation, Willow tried for clarification. “So, I write down family. Somehow, that tells everyone something about me so it makes it easy for them to guess it was me instead of everyone else around the table who might have written down family?”

  “Well, sort of, yes. For instance, last year when I graduated from the academy, I wrote down, ‘donuts.’”

  Silently, Willow sat waiting for him to finish. Chad, on the other hand, still amazed at his brilliance, waited expectantly for understanding to dawn. She finally shrugged. “That’s it? Donuts?”

  “Yeah. It was a stroke of genius since we’d had them for breakfast that morning, and dad bought them so mom didn’t have to bake anything. Everyone thought it was mom!”

  “That makes sense. What do donuts have to do with graduating as a police officer?”

  “Police? Donuts? See?”

  Her eyebrows rose expectantly. “See what?”

  Chad groaned. Of course, she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t know the cliché about officers and donuts. It wouldn’t make any sense to her at all. “Well, see, there is this joke that all officers do is sit in donut shop parking lots, eat donuts, and drink coffee so if you ever need a policeman, you need to go to the nearest donut shop.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “That was a good choice then. So if I am thankful for Saige, I’d say ‘herbs’ or ‘spicy friends’?”

  “Exactly!”

  Without a word, she took the paper and peeled a sticky note from the pad. “It’s all sticky.”

  “Yeah. Write on the side that’s sticky and then fold the edges to meet that way no one can read the words and think about them before dinner.”

  While she searched for the perfect words, Chad poured them each a glass of orange juice and passed her another napkin. Willow shook her head. “No thanks, that one was enough.”

  “I thought you’d like a napkin for your fingers. You’re holding your hands like you want to wash them.”

  “May I?” Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to the sink and rinsed the icing from her fingers. She retrieved the plastic fork and rinsed it as well. “Do you have a fireplace or something for the paper?”

  “Under the sink.” When she hesitated, he nodded. “Right there.” Chad rose, crossed the floor, and dumped his empty cup in the bag with the rest of the garbage. Though he sensed hesitation in her, he ignored it. “Come on, let’s go play Ping-Pong.”

  He returned the basket to the hall table and then led Willow down the basement stairs, where Chris and Cheri appeared to be in the middle of a game—appeared but it looked suspicious to him. “I play winner so Willow can watch. She can play next winner—that’ll be me, but hey.”

  “In your dreams Chaddie m’boy.”

  “That’s Laddie, Chris. You’ve been away from home too long,” Cheri taunted.

  “I still know how to give ice cube massages, girl,” Chad growled warningly.

 
; As his siblings battled their way to match point, Chad explained how to play the game, and pointed out good moves and bad ones. After several questions, Willow said she thought she understood the basic rules. “Let’s see you play.”

  Chris and Chad took their places while Cheri dragged a couple of lawn chairs from the corner of the basement. “Here. This’ll be good.” She leaned in and whispered, “I let Chris win so I could watch this. I love how Chad whoops Chris every time. Drives Chris nuts.”

  “I can’t help wonder…” a ball whizzed through the air and hit a support pole behind Willow’s head, “what that poor ball did to deserve such vicious treatment.”

  Cheri stood and grabbed another ball from a bucket nearby. “You dinged that one, Chad.”

  Willow watched as Cheri tossed it into the garbage near the dryer. “May I look at it?”

  The ball had a crescent shaped dent in it. “Wow. How—”

  “The edge of the paddle. See how he slices through the air with that swing?”

  “Yes.”

  Cheri grinned. “It works great most of the time, but once in a while the ball hits the edge instead of the flat of the paddle and the ball is a goner.”

  Willow’s first game was tame compared to the others. She focused on swinging the paddle, hitting the ball, and trying to aim it where Chad had to work to return it. While they gently volleyed, Chad working hard not to send his returns zinging across the net and into the wall at the back of the room, Cheri and Chris watched amused.

  Cheri pointed out a bulge in Willow’s sweater pocket. “The ball,” she whispered, “she kept it.”

  The pace picked up gradually. Willow’s confidence grew and occasionally she slammed the ball across the net, but Chad always returned it with equal force that she couldn’t meet. In no time, the game was nineteen to zero. Though tempted to give her a point, Chad knew she’d resent it. Game point. She returned a difficult serve and managed, albeit accidentally, to put an unexpected spin to the ball.

  A light of understanding dawned. She returned several difficult balls but eventually lost, twenty-one to one. “You won’t beat me so easily next time.”