by Donna Ball
Cici drew in a sharp breath, and Lindsay and Bridget immediately turned their attention to their glasses of iced tea.
Lori rushed on before Cici could speak, “Just hear me out, Mom. I know we’ve had this conversation before, but I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. The whole point of college is to find your calling, right?” Cici opened her mouth to reply but Lori didn’t give her a chance. “Well, I think I’ve already found mine!” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, her face lighting up. “This place, this house, living off the land and communing with nature . . . I have a chance to do what other people only talk about doing!”
The three women shared a quick and secret look. Hadn’t they said almost the same words when they had decided to leap into this adventure? Wouldn’t it be somewhat hypocritical—not to mention selfish—to deny the younger woman her chance at finding what they had found?
Sensing her advantage, Lori pressed on. “College isn’t for everyone, you know. Look at you, Mom. You worked your whole life in real estate—”
“I went to college,” Cici pointed out sharply.
“But you didn’t have to,” Lori said. “That’s the point. And Aunt Bridget married a college professor; she didn’t become one. And even if Aunt Lindsay was a teacher her whole life, now she’s an artist, which is what she always wanted to be, and you don’t have to go to college for that! All of you are doing what you always wanted to do. It just took twenty-five years—and no college education—for you to get around to it!”
Cici drew a breath, released it; looked to Lindsay for help, who shrugged; looked to Bridget for help, who suddenly discovered her shoelaces were untied; started to speak, and took a sip of her tea instead.
“This is what I want to do,” Lori said passionately. “I want to restore old houses. And I don’t want to spend twenty-five years working in the wrong job before I do it! I know I don’t have your talent with a hammer and T square, Mom,” she rushed on, “or yours in the kitchen, Aunt Bridget, or yours with paint and decor, Aunt Lindsay. But I do have something to offer. All I’m asking is a chance to prove it to you.”
This time, when Cici looked at her friends, it was not for help, it was for confirmation—and, along with sympathetic resignation, she saw it in their eyes. There was only one reply she could legitimately make, and so she did.
“You’ve seen how much hard work is involved in this place,” Cici pointed out, “and it’s about to get harder.”
“I know that,” Lori insisted.
“You’ve got to keep up with your chores, and that includes restoring the pools.”
Lori squared her shoulders. “I promise.”
Once again, Cici passed a silent consultation to Lindsay and Bridget, and received barely perceptible nods in reply.
“Three months,” she said. “You’ve got three months to come up with a viable business plan to make this place self-supporting, and it has got to be accepted by all three of us. If you can do that, that will be enough evidence to convince me you’re mature enough to make your own decisions about your career. But if not . . .” Her tone darkened in warning. “You are going back to college, no questions asked, end of discussion. Fair deal?”
“Fair deal,” agreed Lori, her eyes glowing. She sprang from her chair and threw her arms around Cici’s neck. “I love you, Mom! You’re going to be so proud of me.”
“I’m already proud of you,” Cici assured her, and she couldn’t help smiling. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you.”
“Any of us,” added Bridget.
“Remember, all your chores,” added Lindsay.
“And we’re the final judges,” said Cici. “No arguing.”
“I’m going to surprise you,” Lori assured them gaily as she hurried off. “You just wait and see!”
Cici blew out a breath when she was gone. “Well,” she said.
“Well,” agreed Bridget.
Lindsay looked at Cici. “What if she actually does it?”
“That,” replied Cici, and took a long gulp of tea, “is what worries me.”
Evening. Even with two young people in the house, it was a sacrosanct time of day. The supper dishes were done. Ida Mae always went to bed in her downstairs suite immediately afterward. The sheep had been rounded up for the night by the ever vigilant sheepdog, who had been fed and was snoozing on a pile of hay in the barn. Bambi the deer was in his pen, safe from predators and hunters. Noah was in his room, working on his report. Lori was, presumably, watching DVDs or listening to her iPod—with headphones either way, which was the rule at Ladybug Farm. Lindsay, Cici, and Bridget gathered on the front porch to watch the sunset for the first time in four long, cold months. The expression on their faces as the setting sun cast hues of gold and pink across their skin was reminiscent of those of prisoners who had just walked outside the big gate and who stood dumbstruck, barely able to comprehend the glory of the freedom that was offered them.
“Six o’clock,” murmured Lindsay contentedly, “and it’s sixty-two degrees. I love this place.”
“Days like this make you believe Nature has a master plan,” agreed Bridget.
“Speaking of plans . . .” Cici slanted her a sly look. “Good job assigning Miss Lower-Your-Carbon-Footprint to garden duty. I suspect we’ll hear a lot less out of her now that she’s got a chance to practice what she preaches.”
“And how about my contribution to the work schedule?” Lindsay demanded archly. “Was that a stroke of genius or what?”
Cici almost choked on her wine. “I didn’t think I could keep a straight face! Good heavens, Lindsay, you couldn’t pay me to clean out those pools!”
“My solution was to fill them in and make a patio,” admitted Bridget.
“Well, there you go,” said Lindsay smugly. “You want something done, you ask someone with a little ambition.” She sipped her wine. “I have a feeling fixing up an old house and living close to nature are going to seem a lot less romantic to Lori—and college dorm life a lot more appealing—before this summer is over.”
There was a moment of silence in which they knew Cici was trying to convince herself Lindsay was right.
Then Cici said, “Should we be worried about the social worker’s visit?”
Lindsay gave a half chuckle. “It’s just Carrie from town. She’s the one who came up with the idea for us to share guardianship with Reverend Holland in the first place, and she’s already approved the living situation once. It’s just a formality. But I wanted Noah to think we should be worried.”
“I think Lori is right,” Bridget said. “We are a little manipulative.”
“It’s one of those self-defense skills they teach you in Mother School,” Cici said.
“What is this about wanting to move back out to the woods?” Bridget wanted to know. “He’s not serious, is he? After we practically broke our necks last fall sneaking things down there to him to keep him from freezing—and starving—to death!”
Lindsay rocked thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m not sure. Part of it is just his Davy Crockett fantasy, I guess. But I think it might have more to do with the fact that he doesn’t know how to be part of a family. It can’t have been easy, all the adjustments he’s had to make this year.”
“Well, he’s not moving back to the folly,” Bridget declared.
“I think we can all agree on that,” said Cici.
“I don’t think we’ll hear much more about those plans for a while,” Lindsay said with a wry tilt of her head, “since it’s going to take him most of the summer to pay off that traffic fine.”
They were silent for a while, listening to birdsong, watching the colors deepen over the mountains and the shadows swallow up the lawn. Then a sudden stream of lamplight poured into the dusky shadows of the porch as the front door opened, the screen door squeaked, and Lori burst out. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got the plan.”
She bounced to a stop in front of them, a yellow legal pad in her hands, a v
ery pleased expression on her face. “What we’ll do,” she declared, “is turn this house into a bed-and-breakfast.”
Cici lifted an eyebrow. The other two sipped their wine and said nothing.
“I was talking to Ida Mae this afternoon,” she went on. “Did you know this place used to be a boarding house for military wives in the forties?”
Cici said, surprised, “I didn’t know that.”
Lindsay and Bridget looked at Lori with new interest. “Is that right?” Bridget said.
And Lindsay added, “A boarding house?”
Lori nodded. “That’s probably how we ended up with all those bathrooms. A house full of women . . .”
Cici grinned and lifted her glass to sip. “How about that? And sixty years later, it’s still a house full of women.”
“With plenty of bathrooms,” Bridget pointed out.
“So here’s the thing.” Excitedly, Lori leaned forward so that they could see the drawing she had made in the light that spilled from the open door. “This whole front part of the house—the living room, dining room, the bedrooms, of course, and the upstairs sitting room—would be public space. That little room off the living room could be the office. The kitchen is already outfitted for preparing big meals, and, Aunt Bridget, you know you’ve always wanted to run a restaurant.”
Bridget gave a conciliatory nod of agreement.
“The back part of the house,” Lori went on, “would be our living space. We could turn the sunroom into our family room, and we eat in the kitchen, anyway.”
Cici inquired politely, “Where would we sleep?”
Lori turned a page. “This,” she declared, “is a sketch of the cellar—as it could be. All it would take is a little remodeling, putting in some windows, a few walls . . . it’ll be a snap.”
“A snap,” repeated Cici, careful to keep her expression neutral.
Lori went on, “A room in the average B&B rents for about $200 a night—more on weekends and in peak season. And with this location—the view, the homegrown food, the gardens—”
“The pools,” added Lindsay.
Lori ignored her. “You could keep this place filled just about year around! That’s twelve hundred dollars a day! That’s eight thousand dollars a week! Thirty-six thousand dollars a—”
“We can do the math,” Cici said.
And Bridget added gently, “Honey, running a B&B is hard work. And there are licenses and codes and permits and regulations . . .”
“And it may be a tad bit optimistic to count on keeping all the rooms rented,” Lindsay said. “In such a slow economy.”
“Bottom line,” Cici said simply, but firmly, “we are not pimping out our house. We’ve worked too hard and love it too much to have strangers tramping through it for money. And I am definitely not sleeping in the cellar.”
“Ida Mae does,” Lori pointed out defensively.
“Ida Mae has her own room with a bath and private entrance from the garden. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s how she likes it. I, on the other hand, like my big sunny upstairs bedroom with its claw-foot tub and heart pine floors. I like it so much that I left everything I knew and went into enormous debt for it. So I think I’ll just stay there, thanks.”
“Me, too,” said Bridget.
“Me, too,” agreed Lindsay.
Lori blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs, and her face settled into lines of disappointment. “Well,” she said, “I guess I had a feeling you might say that.” And then she cheered. “But it was a pretty good plan for a first try, wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Cici.
“Couldn’t ask for more.”
“Brilliant,” said Lindsay.
“Okay, then, it’s back to the drawing board.” She gave them a wave with her legal pad as she swung toward the door. “I’ll be back!”
Bridget laughed softly as the door closed behind her and the porch faded to dusk again. “Do you know what I love about having Lori here?”
Cici slid a glance toward her. “Name one thing. I dare you.”
“Every time I look at her I’m reminded that I never, ever have to be twenty years old again.”
“Amen,” said Lindsay.
And Cici agreed, “I’ll drink to that.”
They rocked forward in unison, clinked glasses, and drank.
Stillness fell as the sky was leached of the last of its color. The birds settled in their nests; the animals slept in their stalls. The mountains, framed by the stark silhouettes of knotty tree branches, swelled indigo against a neutral background. The earth, not yet accustomed to holding the sun’s warmth, gave up a damp chill that smelled of decaying mulch and sweet budding grass. The women lingered, ignoring the prickling flesh on their arms, sipping their wine in companionable silence, wrapped in the contentment of the night.
“Spring,” said Bridget softly, at last. “Welcome home.”
3
In Another Time
Pearl, 1863
When Pearl stood beside her Papa’s grave with her hand wrapped in Mother’s cold, cold one, she did not cry. She was only six, and she understood that Papa had been kicked in the head by Caesar, their big red stallion, and had gone to live with Jesus and wasn’t coming back, but she didn’t understand why Mother wept so, if Papa was with Jesus, except that maybe she missed him. Later that day Mother put a rifle in the hands of Ebenezer, the big black man who helped Papa take care of the horses, and then they buried Caesar in a big hole that took half a dozen field hands almost a day to dig. Pearl wanted to cry for Caesar, who Mother said with a mean look in her eye was not with Jesus, but in the end she did not.
She was eight when the soldiers in the gray coats came and drove away all their horses, and even though Mother stood screaming in the yard after them and when they were gone she fell to her knees and wept in the dirt, Pearl did not cry. It seemed to her that eight years old was too old to cry over horses, because Mama Madie said she was almost a young lady now, and because it scared her to see her own mama carrying on so.
When all the field hands ran off, and even Ebenezer and Lula in the kitchen and Old Luke, who was nearly blind but still carried in the firewood every morning, ran off, too, everyone except Mama Madie, who was a free black woman and owed no man in this world, Pearl wanted to cry for missing them. And when she had to carry water in a bucket that was almost too heavy to lift and dig potatoes and sometimes there was nothing but grits for supper, she wanted to cry because she was tired and hungry and cold. But then at night she could hear her mama weeping softly in the room next to hers, and Pearl would get up and slip into bed with Mother and hug her tight, and she figured it was probably best if both of them didn’t cry at once.
When the soldiers in the blue coats came, Pearl wanted to cry, because she was so afraid remembering how the gray-coated soldiers had stolen their horses. But Mother had fetched up her rifle and walked right out on the veranda to meet those soldiers with a real hard look in her eye, and Mama Madie came out the door and stood right up close beside her with her head high and her shoulders back. Pearl felt it was her place to stand tall, too. So she came between her mama and Mama Madie and stood up straight, and Mama Madie put her big bony hands on Pearl’s shoulders and squeezed so hard that she really did want to cry.
The soldiers’ horses tore up their yard and their wagons rolled over the kitchen garden, and they kicked up dust and noise something terrible. One of them rode up to the veranda and got off his horse and started up the steps until Mother raised the rifle at him. Likely he did not know Old Luke had used up the last of the ammunition shooting at a fox that was after their last laying hen. He’d missed him, too, probably because he was nearly blind.
So the man just stood at the bottom of the porch and took off his hat and said his name was Captain Somebody, and that his men would be camping here for a time, and Mother had said this was a peaceful house with no man soldiering on either side, and they wanted no part of their war. He answered that tha
t was good to hear, because he was a man of peace himself, a doctor and not a soldier, and he had with him a bunch of folks just trying to get home, but some of them were wounded and bad sickening, and he was in need of the house and the beds, thank you kindly. Then he looked at Mama Madie like the color of her skin made him wonder if Mother had lied about this being a peaceful house, and her fingers tightened so that Pearl thought the bones in her shoulders would break, and she said, real cool like, “I, sir, am a free woman and I owe no man in this world.” And he said just the same would she mind pouring him a cool draft of water, and she told him where the well was and to get it himself. That made him smile, tiredly, but he did.
The soldiers started carrying their sick and their bleeding into the house, and Mother said to Pearl, “Be quick and gather up the valuables and take them to Mama Madie.” There weren’t too many valuables left, but Mama Madie stuffed a bag of coffee down her blouse and Mother gathered up her medicines and her Holy Bible, but it was Pearl who thought to rescue Mother’s treasure box from its place on the table near her sewing chair. She hugged it to her chest and was hurrying across the yard when a big soldier with small ugly eyes and tobacco juice in his beard stepped in front of her and said, poking at the treasure box with a dirt-nailed finger, “Whatcha got there, tadpole?”
She hugged the box closer and took a step backward, but her heart was beating hard.
The man made to snatch the box from her and she ducked past him, head low, the box wrapped tightly in both arms. She thought she would run free but he caught her hair, which was braided in a pigtail, and jerked it hard, and she screamed out loud because it hurt, and also because she was so scared he would steal Mother’s treasure box.
He had his hands on the box and would have twisted it away from her but at that moment the captain, who had come from nowhere, shouted, “Sergeant, attention!”
The man with the beard stepped back and stood straight as an arrow, but he took the treasure box with him. The captain strode forward and took the box from him, and as much as Pearl wanted to, even though her chest was heaving with the effort, she did not cry. The captain opened the box, and plucked casually through the contents. Then he closed the box and said to the big man, in an odd, bitter voice, “Try to remember, Sergeant, that we fight on the side of God. And we don’t, as a general rule, steal sewing notions from children.”
