I should take my own parenting advice

 Anyone ever get a weird vibe about what might have been?  I was browsing through some of my Facebook feed and  spotted some (not mine) reunion pictures - and I went to bed thinking "what if..."

What if I'd married the serious boyfriend?

What if I'd married the boy next door?

What if I'd married the boy who was in love with me?

What if I still lived where I grew up?

Who would I be?

Welllll, the serious boyfriend is still a friend on Facebook, but we kinda don't share the same core political values and we're both quite outspoken. (AKA: there would be noisy fights at the Thanksgiving table) He's chosen a life I can't see myself living, although I think he has peace with it. 

 The boy next door - le sigh. I still sneak peeks at his profile every once in awhile just to see how he's doing. And I miss who he was, although I'm not sure we'd like each other if we just met now.

The boy who was in love with me - ahhh. He was (and still is!) a sweetie. His lovely wife and brilliant children do him credit. He is, of them all, the one who turned out the most like I thought he would - a creative, science-y career, a lovely life.

I'm really, truly afraid that if I hadn't uprooted everything and moved here I'd still be moribund, still stuck doing all the same old things - and never feeling the need to change.

I guess I gave myself roots and wings, and I soared.

ketchup

I'm still here. Still nattering along, just being me. The kids are getting bold and big - can I even call Cass a kid anymore? Prolly not, really, since he's nineteen, bearded, and going to university (altho' Covid has made it less of a new adventure and more a taking classes online and not moving out of the house kind of thing) but he'll always be a kid to me. Roo is a junior in high school (HOW??) and coming into her own. She's making great grades, has two part-time jobs, and continues to be her own sparkly self. Bear is currently out on stress leave - this Covid mess has everyone twisted up. Aaaaand....we have a dog. We lost Jasper last spring, dithered a few months, then I jumped at the chance to foster, and....well, as my history shows, I'm an excellent foster parent, with attachment issues. They don't leave. Aurora the pocket shepherd (shep-border collie mix, as far as we can tell) has joined the pack. We are much richer for having her. I am very lucky to live where I do, Nova S is almost untouched (thank you, Premier McNeil, for your leadership and keeping us all safe) and we're all cautious but hopeful. Having the rest of my family still in the States, though, scares the bejesus out of me. Personally? Still the same weight, a lot more silver strands. Last night I realized I can wear Mom's wedding band now. It looks strange on my hand. I miss her fiercely somedays. The sun is out, although it's a bitterly cold day. The sky is a thousand colours of blue and the clouds look smudged like pastel crayons. It's a gorgeous day.

Yarn over and over

Someone, an old babysitter maybe, taught me to crochet when I was six. I remember making long braided loops of yarn and thinking how pretty it was. Then, like kids do, I charged forth into something else and forgot all about the flash of the hook and the way the colours fell from my hands. I tried to knit a few years ago. HA! The two sticks made me stabby. I managed to make lots of knots before completely losing my patience with the whole enterprise and hurling the knobbly bits into the trash. And that should have been the end of it, except.... Except I remembered the hook, and started watching videos and puzzling out stitches. I’m not particularly good at it (being left-handed, and also clumsy) and it’s slow, frustrating going, but I’m ....I’ve got a Christmas project on the go now, and I want to finish it. Knot so bad for an old girl.

Beneath the waves

Porter caught me to him as soon as the door closed behind her, and I went, shuddering, into his arms.  "That was terrible, Katie. Are you okay?"

I took a deep breath of his scent, searching my heart. Was I okay? Sad, yes. Heartbroken for how sorrowful my mother must have been. Chagrined by her life had gone from a cheerful, happy existence to a black and grey shroud of depression.  But okay? "I think so."

"It's good to know that she didn't walk away from us." I told Porters shirt front. "And horr-" my voice broke, and I took a big gulp. "Horrible to know that she couldn't."

He murmured something and brushed my lips with his. Dizzy, I tightened my grip around his neck and sighed.

"What are you going to do about Maud?" 

"I don't know yet. I know things can never be the same between us. God, Grand Dad will never forgive her. No matter what happens between she and I, her life will never be the same."

"Will she tell him?"

He was really so, so kind. Did it make me a bad person that I wanted to lose myself in him and forget for a little while what had happened today? Tempted, I stared up at him and sighed.

He caught my look and his lips twitched. "Later, Katie. Right now I think you might need a little diversion. Come with me." 

Taking my hand, he led me out to the disreputable old truck. "We," he said, smiling a bit, "are going for a drive. There is to be no talk about what happened. We'll come home in a few hours and talk it to death, I promise. But not now. Right now we need fresh air and something else to think about."

Although I thought it was a crazy idea, I was charmed.

Porter kept it light and casual as he turned the truck toward the hills that fringed the area. He pointed out squirrels and cows in a field and kids with fishing poles, all heading home for their suppers. He patted Wood when the hound insisted on laying his head in Porters' lap. It wasnt hard to follow his cheery statements with nonsensical replies until a swell of misery overcame me and I stared into my lap, ignoring his banter. I thought I was hiding my big fat treacherous tears well, but he slowed and stopped on a hill and reached out to catch one on his fingertips.

"Oh, Kate. I'm so sorry."

I was undone. 

He tugged me closer, undoing my seat belt and folding me against his heart. I snuffled and snorted and wept against him until I reached a point where I felt marginally better, and then he kissed me long and deep and pulled me out of the truck to stand beside him.

"Look at the sky."

It was a fantastic display of pink and orange, shading down to grey. Here and there, tiny points of light showed through as the first stars peered out. In the valley below us, porchlights and streetlights were beginning to come on. It was a magical and comforting scene, and I sucked in a breath, sadness forgotten for a moment.

Porter took my hand, stroking my fingertips. "I know you're sad and sick and angry right now. But look, Katie. Look at the town, and look at the sky. Can't you feel your mother's peace? Look at the stars.  She's with you, Katie. Every day. She always has been."

Looking out over the display, I felt something hiccup in my chest. Something creaked, like an old rusty door cracking open, and suddenly I knew...Porter was right.

Mama had never left me.

The next day was hard. The family was all there, Grand Dad looking older and sadder than I had ever seen him. Ford hugged me for a long time, his usual smile gone, all bonhomnie absent.

I drank a lot of tea with Clay, and listened: to the birds, the bonging of the grandfather clock on the mantel, Maud's explanations interspersed with her noisy sobs, Wood's tail swishing across the floor, Grand-Dad's voice, sore with unbelieving and despair, ringing through the closed parlour door.

It was a long, turbulant day. At one point Grand-Dad asked me to take him down through the gardens to the riverside. I nodded and walked beside him, matching his heavy step. 

He paused at the lower field, smiling wistfully at a grove of peach trees. "Your Mama," he said, "started those trees with pits from peaches she brought from my house. She said they were the sweetest things she'd ever tasted."

He sighed, lost in the past. "You have her eyes, Katie-girl. And her laugh. She was always laughing."

At the bank, he stopped just before the dock. "So. It was here, then."

I nodded over the lump in my throat, missing the memory of Mama but more touched and sad for my Grandfather's breaking heart. He looked greyer and tired beyond compare.

He stepped out and looked at the rushing water, lost in thought. When he spoke it was with a heavy cadence. 

"Will you leave me for a bit? I need to think."

I nodded again, stretching up to kiss his cheek. 'I love you, Grand-Dad.'

I wandered through the gardens past the clump of peach trees, topped the rise, and saw my house. I was taken aback suddenly by how much I loved this place. Everything -the curtains, the trees, the windows, the way the porch beckoned, the gingerbread of the house itself - created a picture that made me heart swell in my chest. This.....this was home now.

What would happen now? The summer was almost over. My life in Rowland waited. The house was finished - would Grand-Dad sell it now? It held no ghosts for me, but how could he bear to know that his daughter had died there near the spot his granddaughter was having her morning coffee?

And what about Porter? Did the summers' end spell the end of us?

Mama's jacket

There was a hush, then the guys leaned forward, reinvested in the conversation and focused in on my unhappy aunt.

"Well?"

She let out a furious huff of breath. "Katherine, I have been over and over this - why do I have to tell you this again? I - "

I cut in. "Because, Aunt Maud, I want to know. Where is my mother's coat?"

Her eyes blazed.  "I did the best I could, Katherine Alice. I did the best thing I could think of for you, and your brother. I did the best I could. Why are you digging this up now? Let the dead lie.

"Maud! Just tell me. What happened to her coat? I grew up hearing all the whispers, all the lies, all the parts of the fiction that you orchestrated. Mama put on her coat and went out in the night and was never seen again. Tonight you said she was in her nightgown. Where did it go?"

"I threw it under the dock!" Maud snapped, then looked ashamed.  "I went back up to the house but Phillip was dead drunk and Alice wasn't coming up - she was dead and I thought....I took a big rock and I wadded the coat around it and threw it into the water. She was gone! There was no getting her back! There was no....." she trailed off, studying my face.

Porter had my hand, his long fingers wrapping tight around my own. I pulled strength from him and faced my aunt, calmness flooding through me. "You thought that here was a tidy way to end a giant mess. No one had seen. You could just....walk away. Walk away, comfort your grieving brother, mop up the spilled milk, erase the crazy from the family tree. Was that it?"

She looked rebellious. "You grew up fine."

"I did. I was lucky enough to be loved by my father and my grandparents and my great aunt. But there was a hole in my life, and questions always in my heart. Maud, how could you?"

My voice broke a little, and Wood whined, shoving his big head at me again. I patted him absently while I kept my eyes locked on Maud's troubled face while her expressions cycled through belligerence to dignity to confusion to quiet sorrow.

"I did" Maud said, heavily, slowly, sadly, "what I did, to protect you, Kitty. I thought your mother's....illness....was like a cancer - if I cut it out of your life completely,  everyone would recuperate. Everything would be different - I never imagined how much this would haunt you - but really, was it so bad?

"Was it bad? Knowing people thought your father killed your mother? Hearing the whispers? Wondering what I could have done that was so awful to make Mama run away -and stay away - from me forever? Feeling flawed all my life?  Was it bad??"

"Katherine, you can't imagine how terrifying it was, watching Alice go mad and seeing your father try to cope. He tried for so long. He even gave in when she said she wanted another baby -even after three doctors told him it was a terrible idea -he thought it would give her some grounding, some joy." She looked at me sorrowfully. "Alice was good with babies. Stanton told me to hush, but I knew this wouldn't end well, I knew it."

I was flooded with the relief of finally knowing what had happened and rage that it had.

Maud clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at the tabletop. "I'm sorry that I couldn't save your mother, Katherine. I'm sorry you and your brother grew up not knowing. That I couldn't protect you from that. I'm sorry I couldnt find the words to tell your father or your grandfather the truth. But I'm not sorry I protected you from years of being labeled the lunatic's children."

We were silent -I was struggling with what to say- and she looked up at me. She looked old, I thought, and exhausted. She waited a minute, then spoke into the suddenly loud silence, making Clay jump a little in his seat. "I suppose," she said, heavily, "that you'll want the truth to be known now."

Was that what I wanted? I had no idea. Although.... "Grand-dad will have to be told. And Dover." 

She sucked in a breath, and nodded. "It's time."

ripples of memory

Her chin came up and she looked like her old fierce self. "I searched all over. Usually she just stalked the paths near the house, but that night I ran all the way down to the lower garden before I saw her."

I didn't dare move. Or breathe. Maud drew a shuddery breath and went on.

"Kitty, I yelled my head off but she just...didn't... stop. She was just ahead of me on the path down to the river, and I was screaming like a banshee. She looked back once - I remember how serene her face looked in the moonlight - but then she turned again and went on."

Clay made a stifled noise. "The river!" he half-whispered. "The river flooded its banks that night!"

My great-aunt looked at him, her mouth trembling. "The river was washing over the edges of the dock there. Alice went out on the dock, tipped her head back to look at the moon," Maud sniffled and went on "stepped off the edge, and went down like a stone."

"I ran after her, of course. It was eerily quiet that night, and if you hadn't seen the ripples, you never would have known anything had happened. I watched and waited but she never....she never...."

"She never came back up."

I was fighting down sobs. "Why didn't you go after her?"

Maud looked ashamed and oddly triumphant.. "I don't swim, Katherine Alice. And your father was ...." she searched for the right word, and I stepped in, icily furious.

"Drunk?"

She nodded. "I went running back up toward the house, screaming out for him. It wasn't until I couldn't wake him up that I thought of what would happen when people found out."

"When people found out my mother was in a drowning accident?"

"No, Katherine. When people found out your mother was wandering around outside by herself in a nightgown while her child slept and her baby - her starving baby -  wailed. What kind of woman would do that?"

Her mouth firmed. "I was protecting you. People would say your mother had a lover. That she was meeting him near the river and after a quarrel decided to run away. That she never loved her children or her husband. Rumours would start, and soon you and your brother would be bastards."

I sucked air down to my toes. "Aunt Maud. They said that anyway."

Before my eyes, she aged. "I know, Katherine." she half-whispered. "What could I do? I moved you out of here. I gave you a new home, a good life. Phillip wouldn't have been any better knowing the truth - he'd still have taken shelter in a decanter - and there was noone else that needed to know." She ignored Clay's indrawn breath. "I didn't realize until a few years later that this man here" - she nodded towards Clay -"had cow eyes for your Mama, or that she had been such friends with Minna Clairborne."

"I regret hurting them."

Porter's arm was around my shoulder now. I didn't feel alone.

Looking at her, I could see the toll this had taken on her. The years of secrets. The years of regrets.

"Maud," I said, leaning forward, "what did you tell Grand-dad?"

She leaned back in her chair, surprised. "Stanton? He knew Alice was going downhill. He knew she couldn't handle being a mother. He knew she...." she trailed off.

Drily, I filled in the obvious blank. "That she was thinking of leaving?"

Maud snapped."That she'd decided to leave. She was going to go home. She was going to give up. Stanton knew she was unhappy. He didn't need to know she was dead. It was kinder to let him think she'd just left without saying goodbye."

All the years of not knowing where my mother was. The years of whispers and taunts, of not thinking I was good enough, that I'd been left... came down to one woman's fears. All of them.

I heard the clicking of toenails and then Wood shoved his head into my lap. Smiling a bit through my tears, I petted his silky ears and ruffled his neck fur. "Oh, good doggie. Such a good boy." He broke the tension nicely and gave me a moment to recoup before I thought again to speak. Still stroking his worried head, I asked her the question burning through me.

"Do you regret it?"

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. "When I see you? No. You grew up fine."

She grew insistent  "Katherine, there was nothing I could do. She was gone.It was easier on your father and your grandfather to just....say she left."

I leaned forward again. "Maud, where's her coat?"

out in the moonlight

Maud's face was taut with rage. "Katherine Alice. How could you sit here and listen to...to this nonsense! I loved your mother."

I goggled at her, unsure if I was really seeing her or not. "Maud? Why are you here?"

She snorted, delicately, and stepped into the seat Clay scrambled to offer. Ignoring his furious blush and his protests that he hadn't meant it, that he'd only thought she was involved in the beginning, she looked straight at me, seething.

"I came here.....because Minna Clairborne called me. She seems to think you needed me to be here for this festival of yours, that you needed me to see what you've done over your summer. Now I walk in here and you're listening to lies. Katherine Alice, did I raise you this way?"

Porter's hand was warm around mine, his presence calming. His eyes when they met mine were confused but steadfast. He had no idea what was happening, but offered love and support.

"No, Maud, you didn't. I'm really glad you came for the festival. This is, though, my home, and you should have called to let me know you were coming.Clay and Porter and I were discussing the night my mother disappeared. Do you have something to add?"

Maud made a rude noise. "I'd love to hear this conversation."

Porter looked over at her, his dark eyes flashing. "The night Katie's Mama disappeared, you were here. What happened, Maud?"

Maud was vibrating a little in her chair, the anger pulsing up from her clenched hands into the taut cords in her throat. I could tell she really wanted to tell the gardener's son that he was meddling in things that weren't any of his business, but she held it in. "Katie? You call her Katie?"

Porter nodded. "I do."

Maud dismissed him with a flick of her eyes and centered in on me. "You know she was wandering out of the house at night, right?"

I shook my head. Clay nodded. "I did hear something about that."

I shot him a narrow-eyed look but kept silent.

Maud snorted. "Two gorgeous babies, a husband that adored her, a new house, gardens to play in. None of it was enough for her. She wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't nurse you - she said she could feel her life being sucked out of her when she did - walked all over the property in her nightdress (Maud's voice was scandalized. You'd have thought poor Mama had been caught voting Democrat) and wouldn't tell us what was wrong. I begged her, Katherine Alice. She was asleep. Like her light had gone out. We'd bring her the baby - you - and she'd smile and coo but the minute we left her with you she'd just let you cry.

She started stalking the grounds soon after that. You were hungry all the time. We tried you on goats milk and cows milk and honey and water, but you were never full. Never happy. Always red-faced and screaming. It got so your Daddy was the only one who could talk Alice into feeding you at all, and only if he distracted her long enough. Most of the time she'd listen to him for awhile then reach down and yank you away, and you'd squall loud enough so she'd leave. Go walking in her gardens, her blouse all rucked up and barely covering her.

Maud went on, her finger stabbing the air for emphasis. "She was going to leave your father, you know. She was going to move back home - Stanton tried to talk her out of it, but she was determined - and leave Dover with a toddler and a baby. And Alice wouldn't have looked back."

"There was something broken in her. And she was getting wild. There were nights when I'd come up to Bailey and she'd not come to bed all night. Dover would rock you and rock you and rock you, but even though you were wailing loud enough to wake the neighbors - Minna even offered to feed you, since she'd just had Julia, but your father wouldn't hear of it - your mother was indifferent. She'd coo at you during the day, but the night times were different. It was like she was made of stone."

Clay handed me his handkerchief, and I realized then that my cheeks were wet. My heart and my head hurt.

"So Mama didn't want a baby. Where did she go, Maud?" Maud looked down at the table and I knew. Cold ice shooting down my spine, I let go of Porter's hand and sat up straight in my chair. "So...your niece wasn't doing well with motherhood, and she was going to leave her husband and go back to her parents' house." My voice was eerily calm. "Great-Aunt Maud? When did you decide you had to kill her?"

Maud's head snapped up and she focused a look of loathing at me. "Can you really see me murdering your mother? My brother's daughter?"

 I blew out a breath. "No, I can't, really. But I'll bet you do know what happened to her."  I could tell by the way she looked away from my gaze and winced that I wasn't wrong.

Clay learned forward. "Maud, it's been so many years. Where did Alice go?"

I opened my mouth to snap that I knew Alice hadn't just gone away, but Maud blew out a long troubled breath and I stilled.

Maud's voice was so quiet we all leaned in as one. "I would never have hurt Alice. I couldn't. I was furious with her, angry that she wouldn't see what precious gifts she was throwing away and broken-hearted when she wouldn't let any of us get close to help her, but hurt her? No."

"It was almost two in the morning, and Alice was up, pacing the house. I had sent your father to bed an hour before. This was getting to him, too, and he'd been hitting the whiskey. I was standing in the kitchen holding you, and you were screaming so hard your face was blood red, and it was like we weren't even in the room. She was like an animal. And all she wanted to do was escape."

Maud was looking at her hands folded in her lap. She sucked in a deep breath and then focused on me. "Kitty, I let her out of the house. I thought it would do her some good to get out in the fresh air (the rain had stopped for a bit that night) and while she was gone I could try and get you to take a bottle and maybe you'd fall asleep." She sighed. "You didn't like the bottle. I didn't realize how long Alice had been gone until I heard the clock chime. I put you in your bassinet there by the stove and went out to find her."

memories

Porter tried another tack. "Dad, when did Minna and Maud last talk?"

Clay set his coffee mug down.  "I guess - the last time I saw them together was the day the children left. Minna wanted to keep you here, you know. She said it was inhumane to take you both away from where you'd grown up, where your father was, where your mother would expect to find you. Maud said that people were beginning to talk -she was right- and that she would bring the babies back the minute Alice re-appeared. After Minna carried on a bit, Maud said she'd think about it, but then the next morning y'all were....gone."

He stared at the table, rubbing the grain slowly with his thumb. "I'd never seen Minna cry like that. She would come over and put her baby down on a blanket in the garden and wander around, weeping big silent tears and touching the apple trees. Then she'd go down and stare out over the river, hugging herself and shivering. Her eyes were red for weeks. Minna thought the world of Alice, and having you taken away was awful for her."

I thought for a minute. "So Maud just took Dover and I and left Daddy here?"

He nodded. "Phillip was like a sleepwalker. He wasn't very capable of taking care of you, Kitty. He didn't really know what to do with a baby - Alice had taken care of Dover  -  and when you would fuss he'd try to figure out what was wrong and then get irritable when you wouldn't stop crying. It wasn't the best situation.
       Maud told Phillip she'd take you both back to Rowland and find a nanny for you. Dover could start school there if he was there long enough, and that way Phillip could concentrate on trying to find Alice."

"Instead" I broke in "we never went back. Daddy died still mourning Mama, and Grand-Dad and Maud just....took us in."

Clay looked relieved. "Yes."

Porter was holding my hand so tightly I was wincing a bit. "But Dad, you didn't believe Alice just disappeared, did you? So tell us - who did you think murdered Alice?"

Clay looked miserable.  "I thought....I thought...."

A sound from the hallway brought his head up. There stood Maud, a look of distaste on her face.

"I thought" said Clay, all in a rush, "that Maud had killed her."

long time coming

Clay sighed. "It's been so long. A long long time to think someone's involved without having any proof."

I stood up and went to the stove, bringing the pot with me and refilling the mugs.  I worked to keep my voice calm and non-judgmental. "Was there someone you thought was guilty?" Any reason you didn't turn them in?

He snorted. "It's a small town, Kitty. I've been thinking about this for years."

Porter moved to grab an apple out of the big copper bowl I kept on the table. "Dad, who do you think did it?"

His father looked old. Old, and tired. "I've thought it was just about everyone at one point or another. When the posters started getting papered over with lost dog and flea market notices, your Great-Aunt came down and stayed with you kids while your father got reacquainted with a bottle.When Maud took you two and moved away, people ...stopped talking about it. Then your Daddy's Mama claimed the house after your Dad died,  the trees grew in so you couldn't tell anything was here, and people just....forgot. Shit, (he looked at me guiltily, and I nodded to acknowledge the slip, and he went on) after the Fosters' house burnt a couple of years ago, this place stopped being the 'haunted' house for the kids, even. People just pushed Alice into the past, and forgot her."

He raised his head and caught my eye. "I didn't forget."

I was holding Porter's hand now, clutching it tightly, his hand running soothingly over my knuckles.

"So help me, Clay. Tell me what you know."

He began hesitantly. Life living near the woman he'd always had a soft spot for had been hard. It was hard being near her, seeing that (he threw me an apologetic glance) the man she'd married didn't deserve her, that she was big-bellied with another child that would tie her to this man forever. She was so happy, so overjoyed to be having another baby, even after the bad time she'd had with her first.

"She loved you from the moment she knew you were coming," Clay said gently. "Don't ever, ever forget that."

I was swallowing back sobs that wanted to rise in my throat.  How, I wanted to say, do you go from loving a baby with your whole heart to leaving, just leaving, and never coming home? How do you leave? And how do you not come back?

I  nodded. There just didn't seem to be much to say.

"I stayed near, you know. I tried to help as much as I could. I've never let your mother's gardens go wild, not even the ones down by the river.And when your grandfather said I could live here, I did. I couldn't (he reddened) bear to stay here, not here where she lived, but I love the little house. It keeps me close to her."

Porter put a peeled orange in front of me. I was suddenly bemused by the thought that we were going to eat the fruit bowl for breakfast, the three of us, and had a quick second of shame that I hadn't cooked something. Then I caught myself, thanked him with a quiet word, and got back to the conversation.

"Who did you suspect?"

He shot me a crooked grin. "Right off the bat, your father. I think most of the town did. He and Alice had been having rows since they found out she was pregnant again, and having Maud come by all the time didn't help much. She was.."

I stopped him. "Maud was here?"

Clay wore a quizzical smile. "She was here a lot, Kitty. She'd come down, spend a few days, help your mother, then leave again and do the same thing the next weekend. I thought Phillip must have bitten his tongue a lot, having an extra wife. But she was a great help, especially after you were born. She organized people to fill sand-bags when the river started rising, you know. The night your Mom disappeared."

"Huh" I said. "I don't think I ever knew she was here when that happened."

Clay shook his head. "It musta just never come up. Look, Maud was heartbroken when Alice disappeared. She clung to you and your brother like a life raft, and she wouldn't let anyone - not even your father - express any doubt that your Mama was coming home soon. She believed that with her heart and soul."

"Clay," I said, changing the question, "why doesn't Maud like Minna?"

His face changed, became harder and less transparent. This Clay wasn't going to give me answers.

"I don't know, Kitty."

And for the first time, I didn't believe him.

crush (crushed)

Clay's mouth hung open. He sounded dazed and horrified. "You what?"

Porter's hand was still cold in mine, but his voice was clear and resolute. "I heard you, Dad. I heard you tell Mom to get the shovel. Now why did you do that?"

Clay looked at me, and I shivered. He still looked like the kindly man who had smoothed my transition here and helped me in so many ways, but was he? Was he my friend? Or had he hurt or (my mind shied away from completing that thought) done something to my mother?And if he had,  how could I ever trust my instincts again? Suddenly the thought of knowing my mothers' fate wasn't as appealing as it had been.

But Clay was still speaking, his hands tight on the mug before him on the table, his eyes cast down, his voice far away.

"I think", he said, picking up the salt shaker and moving it around restlessly, " that I loved Alice from the very first time I saw her." He smiled across at me. "Not that she paid me any mind, though. She was always someone else's girl. I used to stare at the back of her hat in church and wish that just once she'd turn around and beam one of those wonderful haunting smiles towards me.But I don't think she ever really saw me.I was just the kid from down the street."

His grin faded. "She fell in love and married and had your brother the same year I married Grace. Gracie was a beautiful, kind woman - you have her eyes, son  - who knew she wasn't the love of my life. I think, though, that she never knew who was. I tried to spare her that. We were happy."

Porter stirred. "I know Mom loved you, Dad. What happened that night?"

Shaking his head, Clay looked back into the years. "I'd spoken to Alice a few days before - we'd talked about her new baby girl and how happy she was - and then the river began to rise, and everyone's attention turned to filling sandbags and keeping the water out of the town. Your father was looking for your Mama, and he'd asked me to keep an eye out for her while I was around town." He sighed. "They....disagreed sometimes, Katherine. Your Mama spent some nights at Minna's house. By the time the waters weren't such a threat anymore, Alice was nowhere to be found."

"Porter" he said gently, "you don't really think I....." He broke off and then went on, his voice stronger."I looked for her every day. I wanted her to come home."

I could barely see through the tears in my eyes. He was telling the truth, anyone could see that. He'd loved and lost and he'd just laid his entire soul bare, and I believed him.

Porter stretched his arm out. "Dad. I'm sorry."

"But help us. Who else could it be?"

twilight

It was something, Porter told me, hunting for words, his eyes focusing on events far back in time, that he remembered from when he was a boy. Something that had stayed with him, but until he heard my mothers story and met me hadn't really made any sense.

"I remember my father coming in from work," he said, his hand touching mine, "and I remember how angry he was. My mother was sleeping on the couch  - she usually did when he was working late - and he blew right past her - no hello, no kiss, no how was your day. I was at the top of the stairs - I'd been up in my room playing with a toy and my flashlight. Even that young, I didn't sleep very well, and it had been thundering. My father shouted for my mom "Gracie! Get up! Alice is gone!"

I slid my my fingers around his, noticing that his hand was cold in mine. "It sounds like your Dad was really upset when Mama disappeared, Porter. Were they friends?"

He nodded. I couldn't understand the tenseness that still flooded from him. "Why does that memory make you angry?"

"Because, Katie, my Dad didn't grab a flashlight or a bullhorn or round up my mother into a rescue posse and go beating the woods. My father told my mother to put on her dark coat and to grab the shovel."

I sat back, mouth agape, putting the pieces together, trying for a way that didn't paint Clay in a bad light, and failing.

Porter looked miserable. "I've been over this again and again in my head, Kate, trying to remember  more about that night. What stands out the most is my Dad was so angry. I'd never seen him that upset. He snapped at my mother  - he usually treated her like a queen - and roared at me to go back to bed when he caught a glimpse of me huddled at the top of the stairs."

I thought. Clay had always been so open, so friendly. But I had no experience with murderers, and couldn't trust my instincts. Or could I?

I listened to Porter's heart beat under my cheek. (When had I moved toward him?  He was comforting and familiar and smelt like paint thinner and fresh air, and despite what he'd told me, I was relaxing in his arms.)

He kissed the top of my head. "I think" he said, angling so he could see my face, "we need to talk to my father."

I nodded. "Tomorrow."
                                                                                                    

light blue

I couldn't get Maud to talk about Mama anymore. She'd huffed at me when I asked if she'd like to stay the night and called for a taxi, and we'd had twenty minutes of horrible, stilted conversation while she waited. She had said that the house looked terrific, but I was left with the impression we hadn't talked about what she really came to say when she offered her cheek to be kissed and finally said goodbye.

I puzzled on that the rest of my evening - if showing up and warning me off finding out my history wasn't the purpose of her visit, than what on earth had been?


The next morning came without any clear answers, and I yawned my way through breakfast. I was finding Wood's leash for the walk to the grocery when he woofed once and went to the back door, waggling all over the place. I went to the door, telling him he was a very undignified dog indeed, and went immediately tongue-tied and clammy at the sight of Porter on my porch.




I quelled the silly girl inside me that wanted to sigh with how handsome he looked, forced my features into a delighted (I hoped not foolish) grin, and sang out "Good morning!"

He smiled. "Katie. I brought you something." He held out a crumpled lunch sack. All sorts of romantic, foolish things popped into my head - flowers? Candy? Jewelry? A letter professing undying love?

Where, I asked myself, did that thought come from??

He tipped the contents out into his hand. "I saw these up at Hanover Ridge, and I thought they'd match that little chest of drawers. Was I right?"

I touched one of the antique drawer pulls, admiring their soft shine. "Perfect. Thank you."

 His voice was very soft. "Katie?' He was so close, all rugged hair and big dark eyes and Porter....

And then Porter Ryan kissed me, there on the porch with the sun lighting up the flowers we'd planted and the breeze sighing in agreement and my knees just disappeared. He stepped back and smiled down at me. 'Good morning. What should we do today?'



That evening, after a day spent refinishing, sanding, and painting the chest of drawers in the hallway (it wore its new coat of pale pale blue well, and the little knobs twinkled like stars) and two long walks around the town and sandwiches eaten near the pond, we sat watching Wood run through the yard and talked about the Peach Festival. I was telling Porter about the committee I was on 'The women there are very kind and very, very politely trying to kill each other. It's funny watching them smile and knowing that the other shoe will be dropping any moment. But that will be over soon - the Festival is next week!"

Porter laughed. "I hope this town will survive!"  He eased himself out of the rocker, looked toward where the first stars were beginning to peep out of the sky, blew out a breath, and asked "Kate, how invested are you in finding out about your Mom?"

It took me a minute to catch on. "Very invested. Why?"

"Because I think I might know where she went."

a warning shot

The next morning (after being woken by a cold dog nose and a fine slop of slobber) I was drinking coffee and rubbing Wood absently with my foot, thinking about last night,  when I heard a 'Hellooooo!" echo through the downstairs. It was Julia. Wood scrambled up and made a beeline for her, woofing the whole way. "Well, hello there, gorgeous." Julia said, leaning down and ruffling his head. The hound sighed and rolled over on his back, all paws in the air. Men seemed to do that around Julia.

She eyed me. "Taking the day off?" I nodded, suddenly aware of how my paint-splattered jeans and tee shirt looked less than crisp next to her own garb, and tried to resist the urge to pull at my clothes.
I was so glad to have a day off. I wanted nothing more than to hole up in the house, admire all the work I'd done, and maybe indulge in a giant bubble bath.

"I thought we could go over ......"she broke off, seeing my face fall, and revised (fairly obviously) what she had been going to say. "To Bangs Falls and look at dresses for the opening night of the festival. There'll be a dance, you know." She eyed me, a grin creeping over her face. "After, of course, we go over these figures for the refreshment tent."

Ah well, what was a bath compared to going shopping with a friend? I smiled back. "Of course. After the figures. Just give me a minute to change."



I was a tired girl that night. I'd spent far more than I'd planned to, but Julia had a talent for finding outfits that made me look as if I had a shape, and I'd enjoyed myself immensely. I'd even brought back a collar and lead for Wood. I was totally unprepared for my doorbell to ring as I held up clothes so the dog could stare puzzledly at them. (Wood's brain: Is a food? No? Oh. Next item: Is a food?)

I recouped a little as I went for the door. It must be Julia, I thought, and had a smile on my face as I swung the door open "Did you forget something? I think we forgot my......" and trailed off, because it wasn't Julia at the door.

It was Maud. I stared, open-mouthed. She stood silently regarding me for a few moments, then rolled her eyes and huffed. "Really, Kitty, I know I taught you more manners than this. Invite me in, girl, and close your mouth before the flies get in."

I gathered my thoughts. "Of course, Aunt Maud. Come in. Did Ford bring you here?"

Aunt Maud shook her head, her eyes darting everywhere, taking in all the changes I'd laboured over - the new soft paint colours, the lacy curtains, the  furniture now covered in pale fabrics.  She looked askance at Wood's dog bed, sitting near the fireplace. "Kitty! Do you have an...animal living here?"

I grinned. I couldn't help it. "Aunt Maud, meet Wood. He's the one sniffing your shoes right now."

She squeaked a bit and jumped back, then took in his waving tail and foolish look of doggy devotion, and ....smiled? Aunt Maud smiled? and put out her hand. My dog rose to the occasion, not jumping or slobbering, just calmly accepting her murmurings as his due and snorting when she stopped patting his head.

I'd never had a dog at the Rowland house because Maud was so set against them - they dropped hair everywhere and dragged dirt in the house and rolled in disgusting things and would probably eat the supper right off the table, to hear her tell it. So to see her calmly making friends with my hound was a little surreal.

She looked up after a minute, with a wistful smile on her face. "I've missed having a dog about." I goggled at her. She coloured a bit and then pulled some of the old steel back into her spine like a well-worn coat. "Kitty. What have you been doing this summer?"

"Aunt Maud. (I waved her to a seat.)You can see what I've been doing.  I know you were here when Mama lived here, so you can recognize the changes. Otherwise than working hard, I've been co-chairing a committee for the local festival. You must remember Minna Clairborne? I'm working with her daughter."

Maud had begun to relax, but she snapped to attention. "Minna? Why on earth are you hanging around Minna? Katherine Alice, I do not want you near that woman. She is poison. She no more knows what happened to your mama than I do, and I do not want you to be listening to her tales."

Minna had seemed perfectly rational to me. "Aunt Maud" I said slowly, "why are you here? I'm happy to see you, but why now? And why didn't Ford drive you down?"

My great-aunt seemed to be growing angrier by the second. "I came" she said, biting the ends of her words off, "to see you, Kitty. To see what you have been doing. And to tell you that I know your grandfather has been filling your head with foolish tales about your mother. Katherine Alice, I knew your mother like a sister. Your mother no more ran off into the night without taking you and your brother than I would. Stanton has this idea that she's been" she groped for a word "....hiding from us all these years. Your Mama loved you. She would never leave her babies. No, Alice is dead. And I want you to leave her be."

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. "Really, Aunt Maud? You think I should go on not knowing? I should just ignore the fact that while no one seems to think she was suicidal (Maud winced) there's no suggestion of who could possibly have hurt her? I should just let my father be the scapegoat for this? How did you explain this to Grand-Dad?"

I paused. "Except.... you didn't tell him, did you?"

Maud stood up, her face tight in the half-light. "I do not intend to discuss this, Katherine. And I don't want you to either. Let the dead stay where they are. And stay away from Minna Clairborne."

under the stars

The past month had been a whirlwind. Clay and I had been working hard on the house, Julia had convinced me to serve on the festival committee, and I'd acquired a dog. Porter was around enough to make my breath catch, helping his father paint and plaster, sending me long slow smiles, disappearing in the afternoons, reappearing with parcels and packages under his arm, always with that steady look. I was breathless a lot, and it didn't all seem to be from the work.
.
I was sprawled across the rocker, tiredly studying the stars just starting to peep out past the porch roof and trying to work up some enthusiasm to go figure out dinner when a cough and a footstep alerted me that I had a visitor. Wood, the half-grown hound pup Clay had found skulking around the junkyard when he'd been dropping off a load from the basement, lifted his head, thumped his tail once, then relaxed again. I wasn't surprised when Porter stepped into the circle of light - Wood had spent two weeks with Clay and Porter before finding his way up the drive and into the house. (I had better treats.) Now he showed no signs of leaving and I..... liked it. I'd never had a dog, but he was company and it was nice to have life in the house. His foolish face smiled a lot, and he was a pretty good listener.

The ghost of Mama seemed to have retreated. These days, I was living fully in the present - working hard, learning who I was, growing up. Maud would be surprised.

"My, Miss Kitty, you do look a sight" Porter said, half-mockingly. "Did you and Dad finish everything today?"

I was sleepy and content where I was and suddenly, horribly aware of what a wreck I must look like. This is my house, I told myself sternly, ignoring how my stomach leapt when I saw him. I look tired and a mess because today has been long and hard and I got a lot done. But....

"No, not everything. But quite a bit. I'm learning a lot. I think I ask more questions than your Dad has time for, but he's been terrific. And look at the house!"

He rocked back on his heels and stuck his hands on the pockets of his jeans. "She's coming alive, all right."

I scrambled up and went out on the lawn, admiring my home. Pink, purple and yellow coneflowers and lantana rioted in the windowboxes and lined the newly re-bricked walk, lending happy colours to the scrubbed brick of the steps and chimney and re-whitewashed siding. Soft light glowed in the windows, Wood snored on the porch, and the dusk dressed the old house like a dowager in her best dress.

I was happy, I realized suddenly, and couldn't resist a quick turn on the grass. Porter put out his hand and pulled me to him, grinning, then spun me away. "A dance, Katie? Under the stars?" He hummed something under his breath and lowered his head to mine, his arms continuing to shuffle me slowly around the square.

His voice died after a minute, and I lifted my head to see him staring intently at me. Instantly blushing (and glad that the deepening twilight made it likely he couldn't tell) I swallowed a few times and blurted the first thing that came into my head "I like it when you call me Katie."

Porter looked amused. "You do, huh? I find it much easier to make a girl pay attention to me if I call her by her name. 'Hey you' doesn't work as well." He was stepping back, diffusing the odd tension that had sprung up between the two of us when he took me in his arms, and I was grateful to him for it.

"No, I mean it. The only one who calls me Katie is my grandfather. Maud called me Kitty the first time she saw me, and it stuck."

He studied my face. "You look like a Katie." He was suddenly very close. "I think of you as Katie." Porter murmured and brushed my hair back from my cheek."I want to kiss you, Katie."

He put a finger under my chin, his eyes dark and turbulent. "I won't, though. Not tonight. Tonight - dance with me, Katie."

I went back into his arms gladly, and we danced, there in the shadows, all sorts of unanswered questions swirling around in my head. Why was I so afraid? I'd been kissed before. But Porter was different than the boys I'd walked out with in school. Porter was....different. And I was very afraid I was falling for him.

tea and flowers

Julia's house was stunning. Stunning. Like something out of a magazine. I was feeling a little country-mouse-goes-to-town while I waited on the porch, but that disappeared when I saw Julia's wide welcoming smile. "Katherine! You came. I think Momma's in the sunroom - come on back and we'll go find her."

Minna Clairborne was a tiny woman with the face of an angel and a back bowed by years of illness.  She waved me into a chair near hers and chirped "Oh, you look just like your Mama! Alice had the same eyes and pretty little hands. I'd know you anywhere, child. Come tell me what you've been doing."

Julia brought in teacups and passed around sweets while I regaled them both of what had been happening  this summer, how I'd uprooted myself and come to Bailey, how people were changing the house around me, how waking up to diesel engines and the sounds of work-boots clomping didn't phase me anymore.

Julia whistled. "Sounds like everything in your life changed. Are you missing anyone back home?" She waggled her eyebrows at me, ignoring her mother's shocked hiss. "Julia!"

"Oh, Momma. Besides, that handsome Porter's back in town for the summer, and living right on her doorstep. If he's going to have a broken heart, I'd like to know about it. Might want to stand in line." She laughed at her mother's expression. "I'm kidding, Momma. Porter Ryan is still just the boy who used to pull my pigtails."

I felt a quick twinge of something - was it relief? - that pretty, smart Julia didn't see Porter  - well, that way -  and changed the subject to Aunt Maud, feeling my cheeks heat up.

"Aunt Maud hasn't been here to see the house. I wonder if she's waiting until it's all finished?"

Mrs. Clairborne patted my hand. "Maud always was a firecracker. She gave your mama fits when she and your daddy first got married - wanted everything to be proper all the time, when your Mama was more....relaxed, dear. Alice was a gentle soul, but she could get riled up with Maud - I swear the first year they were married she must have threatened to leave six or seven times. 'Get that woman off my back, Phillip,' she'd laugh. 'You never knew what you were marrying into!' And he'd grin at her and tell her she brought the crazy into the marriage. Of course when they had your brother, he had to take care of your mama for awhile while she got her strength back, and that summer was when things changed. Alice never told me what they said, but things were never the same between Phillip and Maud after that."

 She smiled. "But people have a way of taking little insults and blowing them up out of proportion. By the time Dover was in knee-pants, things were simmered down. But then, a few days after your Mama ran over here all excited to tell me she was having another baby, Maud showed up on her doorstep and there was a hummer of a row. Maud was screeching  and your mother was shouting back that she'd do as she pleased and your father was stuck in the middle of it, trying to make peace where there was suddenly none."

Mrs. Clairborne jumped as the clock bonged. "My! You shouldn't have let me go on like that. Julia, why don't you take Katherine out and show her the gardens and I'll clear away these tea things. Katherine, Julia will invite you to tea again soon - next time I'll try not to get stuck in stories about long ago!"

I had so many questions, but I dutifully followed Julia out to the gardens and admired the flowers and shrubbery there. Sinking down on a bench, Julia smiled at me, twining some blossoms around her fingers.  "So, what's it like living next to Porter?"

I shrugged, trying not to look too eager. "I just met him yesterday. He seems...nice."

Julia nodded, then grinned. "Yeah. Nice is SO the word I'd use to describe Porter Ryan."
 She jumped up and gestured me ahead of her. "Come on - I'll show you the rest of the backyard and you can tell me how ....interesting....Porter Ryan is."

julia and porter

Mrs. Thayer ruffled up her feathers and scowled across the room. "Pheobe! I don't know where you left your manners, but you certainly didn't bring them here!" Miss Brooks looked chastened but unbowed.

 "Gloria, you know that last years' festival was poorly attended, and never so much as the day of that play." A quiet murmur of support ran around the room. Mrs. Thayer looked furious. Before she could speak, the woman sitting to my immediate right rapped her notebook sharply on the table. "Ladies! We are not here tonight to decide the details of the gala - tonight's meeting was to discuss general ideas only. Besides (she stared down everyone until they fell silent.) Kendall Thayer is away at university now, and will NOT be returning to our fair city for the next festival." I could have been mistaken, but I could have sworn I heard a soft 'Thank God' come from her lips as she fussed with her papers. "Now, who is leading the refreshments committee this year?"

I tuned them out, smiling and nodding in the right places,wondering why on earth Grand-Dad had been so insistent that I involve myself with this group, and busied myself watching faces.

There was a lot of feeling expressed about just how this years' festival would be run. Last year, I idly thought, could not have been good. The women were hard into it, several sharp conversations going on at once, their heads dipping with emphasis, voices rising. The woman to my right (Julia, I suddenly remembered, her name is Julia) let out a tiny 'tsk!' of annoyance, then sighed and let them all go. She glanced my way and our eyes caught. She shrugged a shoulder, and I realized she was very near my age. "I time it." she said, simply. "It does them good to get the irritations off their chests. And last year  there was- well, there is a lot of irritation over last year. I give them seven minutes, and then I'll call them back into order. That way", she said, flashing a surprisingly fond smile at the still-quarreling women around the table, "no one will have time to say anything they'll really regret, they'll feel better for getting it out, and we can all get back to business. You must be Katherine - I'm Julia Clairborne. It's a pleasure. My mother couldn't be here tonight - but she'd love to meet you. Come around tomorrow for tea?"

I was taken aback and charmed, all at once. "I'd love to" I said at last. "Oh! " she said, glancing up at the big clock hanging on the wall. "Time to reign in the passions. Ladies. Ladies!"

And we swept into a storm of signing people up to head committees and assigning tasks to others. The big clock boinged twice more before we adjourned, and Julia bid most of them goodbye before turning to me. "Clay will be able to point out where we live, but I think you've probably seen it. The big yellow house at the corner, right before your driveway."

"We're neighbors?"

"We are. And Momma would love to see you. She was friends with your Mom when she first moved here, and she remembers you as a tiny girl. Come by tomorrow after lunch?"

"I think I'd really like that."

I stepped out into the hot sun and looked around for Clay. Not seeing him (the hardware store? The bank? Where would I look?) I set off towards the end of town, mulling over the meeting and trying to put faces to names. I walked past the tall man lounging against the bumper before I realized that I was standing in front of Clay's truck.

"Well now", a voice drawled. "You must be Kitty." I looked up. "I'm Porter. Dad said to come get you. He got caught at the dentist. I think"-a dimple flashed in his cheek- "he'll brush more next time. Let's get you home."

He smelled like moss, I decided as we whizzed through the streets, or something woodsy and cool. Other than a few niceties, though, we were silent on the way, the wind whirring through the open windows the only sound. Porter whistled a couple of notes, then tapped his hand on the steering wheel.

"So how long are you going to hang out in Bailey?"

 "I'm not sure. Until after the festival, anyway."

He slowed to turn into the driveway and cut the motor in front of Clay's shed. He leaned back in his seat and sent me a half-smile. "Well, I'll see lots of you then. I'm staying with Dad this summer."

'Here?"

He nodded. "Here."

time and tide

BobbyKyle woke me up.

 Well, not him, exactly, but his giant, belching-smoke machinery did. I sat straight up in bed and discovered that a man with a worn gimme cap was felling limbs right next to my window. He winked as I yelped and dove for my robe.

 By the time I hit the kitchen, hair still wet from my shower, the roar of his big truck was gone and he was seated at the table with Clay, both men deep in conversation, coffee cooling in front of them.

 "Hey, Miss Kitty" said Clay easily, "what's going on for today?" He nodded his head towards BobbyKyle. "Bobby tells me he met you this morning." BobbyKyle had a firm grip and a shyer smile than I would have thought for someone who had already seen me in my nightgown. "Hullo, miss" he said, shambling to his feet and shaking my hand. "I'm so glad someone's come back to live here. This old lady (he gestured at the room) was getting lonely all by herself." He looked around the kitchen. "The inside's not bad. There's a big spot of the gingerbread over the eaves that's broken though, and there's some rot in the porch. Don't you worry. We'll get her shining." Clay nodded.

"No one better for that then BobbyKyle. He practically grew up here. He'll soon set her straight." BobbyKyle launched into a complicated tale of neighbors and Sunday dinners and climbing apple trees and while I didn't quite understand it all, by the end of it I knew he loved the old house I had and would make her new and proud again.

 We were wet from washing all the windows (our chore for today)and covered in bits of leaves and debris, BobbyKyle still shearing branches high above us, letting the sun come sparkling through to the windows when I heard a discreet cough and turned to see my Grandfather, holding a grip of flowers, eyes twinkling down at me.

 "So, Katie, I see you've met Clay. What do you think of your new house?" I launched myself at him, feeling suddenly homesick and very small when I felt his arms around me.
"Hey now." he said softly, patting my back. "No tears. I came to bring you these and to see what you've done to the old place."

 I felt less shaky, and raised a smiling face to him. "Come inside and see what we've dreamed up."

 I had Grand-Dad settled at the kitchen table with tea and the drawings that Clay and I had worked so hard on before I spoke. "Grand-Dad, why didn't you tell me this was Mama's house? And what do you want me to do here in Bailey this summer?"

 Grand-Dad put down his cup."I didn't tell you, Katherine, because I wanted you to fall in love with the place before you found out its' history." He chuckled. "That didn't happen, huh?" He twinkled again. "I wondered if Ford would remember."

 "Katherine, I wanted you to live here because I think you can find your Mama." He waved a hand. "I know that everyone thinks she's gone. I can't, though - there's a part of my heart that refuses to believe my daughter is dead. So, I brought you down here. You alone in this family have the guts and determination to find Alice, and bring her home."

 I opened my mouth to protest - this happened years ago! Teams of trained police officers couldn't find her! How on earth could I - and closed it with a snap when I saw his face and the trust shining out of his eyes. I nodded.

 "All right, Grand-Dad. I'll try."

front porch

After supper Ford ferried Clary to her cousin's house, and I cleared up the kitchen and wandered out onto the porch, making notes about what I wanted to do first. I was still thinking about Mama and wondering why Grand-Dad hadn't told me this was her home  - and what was I supposed to do with this information? - when Ford came back. He folded his long self into one of the (squeakily protesting) rockers and looked out over the shaggy yard. He took tea with a murmered thanks but stayed deep in thought until I poked at him.

"Ford? Why didn't Grand-Dad tell me he'd bought Mama's house? I know he didn't tell Maudie - she'd have been all over that as another excuse not to let me go. Another damned-fool reason to milk the past and hurt the girl, Stanton." My voice shook a bit, but I imitated Aunt Maud anyway.

My uncle shook his head. "I don't know, Kitty. It seems like something you should have been told." He looked around with a frown.  "I must have been here before, but I don't really remember. I'm sure I don't remember Alice in this house."

Shaking off his pensive mood, Ford grinned. "Well now, girlie, what are you going to do next?"

Pump Grand-Dad for information was on the tip of my tongue, but I coughed back the words and took a long sip of my drink. "I think I'm going to spend tomorrow going through the house.  I'd like to poke around a bit and explore, and then Grand-Dad is going to have to explain this 'business' he wants me to help with. "

My uncle checked his wristwatch. "I promised Clary I'd pick her up in an hour. But until then, what can I help you with? I heard you and Clary discussing a desk..."



That night I didn't sleep well. I blamed it on the strange creaks and groans the unfamiliar house made, and the wind busily dragged tree branches across my bedroom window. I decided I wasn't just going to lie there, and was up and in the shower at seven a.m, mind full of errands to run and paint colours to pick and....

Downstairs, I turned the corner and pulled up short when I realized there was a man in my kitchen. "Hi there" he said, holding out a mug of coffee. "You must be Miss Kitty. I'm Clay." I wanted to scream - should have screamed, most of my training had prepped me to scream - but his wide brown eyes and crinkly smile disarmed me a bit, and I took the offered drink. A few sips later and I was ready to talk.

"Just Kitty, please. You're the caretaker?"

He laughed softly and shrugged a shoulder. "Something like that. Now that there's actually someone living in the big house, I'll get BobbyKyle down here to thrash back those trees. It'll give you more light. And I'll be around if you need anything."

The coffee had loosened my tongue. "My uncle said you could tell me about the town."

He shrugged, easy. "Sure. Anytime you want to hear a bunch of old stories, you let me know. I grew up here, married a local girl, raised my kids a few blocks from here.  My wife died a few years back. Her relatives owned our house, I had nowhere to go, and Stanton said I could stay here if I helped keep it tidy and running, just in case Miss Alice came back home. But it's too big for me - this place lost it's light when Miss Alice die....(he gulped and reddened a bit) ah....left - and so I stay here in the little house. It suits me better."

I raised an eyebrow. "The little house?"

He nodded. "It's at the foot of the driveway. I'm sure you saw it coming in."

I was aghast. "The shack?"

He chuckled. "Now that's what Ford calls it. I call it home. It suits me just fine. It's solid on the inside, dry and snug, and actually big enough for two."

So Grand-Dad had given me a house with a built-in watchdog at the gate. I wasn't sure whether to smile or give in to the slow-simmering tweak of anger I could feel twisting around in my belly. I chose to tamp it down and grinned at Clay. "So! What shall we do today? I wanted to look at the basement and the outbuildings and see what needs fixing and what might be stored everywhere."

He set down his empty cup. "Let's go."


I was running dirty sweat when we broke for lunch.  Clay staggered in off the porch, arms piled high with boxes, and set them down with a grunt. I opened a few cupboards and realized, guiltily, that I hadn't done any food shopping yet, and was pathetically grateful when Clay offered to take me out for a bite.

We ended up across the street from the grocery, eating ham and cheese sandwiches and sour pickles at Martha's Eat-In.  I was full and happy by the time my plate was clean, and peppered Clay with questions about the neighborhood, the house, and how he'd met Grand-Dad. He answered in between giant bites of peach pie, and by the time we left Martha grinning over the tip he'd left and headed into the Piggly-Wiggly to stock up on a few supplies, he and I were joking around like old friends.

It wasn't until we were back at the house and he was gathering his stuff to leave that I broached the subject I'd been thinking about all day.

"Clay, what do you think happened to my mother?"

He stilled and stopped loading wrenches back into his toolbox. "Kitty, I just....don't know." He shifted his weight and looked up at me, his eyes honest and kind. "I thought for a long time that your father had something to do with it, but we searched and searched - she's not here. Honey, I think she's just.....gone."

When your father was the last person to see your mother alive, you get used to the whispers and stares. Clay saying that my dad had killed my mother wasn't a exactly a new opinion, although it still stung. I swallowed hard - Mama! - and just nodded when Clay said he'd get BobbyKyle to come around in the morning and start mowing.

He left soon afterwards and I sat for awhile, letting the peace of the house soothe me.

"Mama, what happened to you?"

bailey

And within a few weeks, I did.

Aunt Maud had not been keen about my moving out. Grand-Dad finally broke into her chain of 'but what if this happens' with a quiet 'Maudie, do you really think I would send our Katie-girl out into harm's way?' after which she sighed heavily and began writing lists of things I could take with me to my new summer place.

It was arranged that Ford would drive me down, and to my surprise, Clary was in the front seat when we went out the door. Her face lit up. 'Kitty! Can you believe this? You're going to be living down the road from my cousin's house! Ford said I could ride along and I'll go see Judy Mae while you're getting settled. This is goin' to be so much fun!" Her enthusiasm made it easier to get in the car and ride away from the only home I remembered.

I couldn't resist a backwards glance at the house - was that shadow Aunt Maud standing behind the etched glass front door? -  and then we were gone.

Clary and Ford talked in soft tones while I lounged in back, cradling a wicker hamper that Clary's mama had sent with her so I wouldn't have to cook right away, and wondered if there had ever been a prettier day for changing destinies. Rowland slipped away as my thoughts went back and forth, and soon we were on the highway, avoiding trucks and laughing about signs on the side of the road. "The fruitcake capitol of the world?" My friend shot me a grin. "I didn't know Miss Venie had family here." She broke the tension, and we both giggled.

Bailey was a pretty town - shabby old houses set under huge trees jockeyed for position with newer low-slung homes, most with kids' toys in the yards. The sidewalks were wide and only crazed slightly with moss and treeroots, and the park was green and deep and cool.

I was beginning to get lost in my own sea of doubts - could I really live by myself? - when Ford slowed, then stopped the car. 'Taa-daa!' he said, pointing over the side of the car at a very overgrown patch of jungl-y bushes and vines. Off to one side there was a weedy driveway and a very small, ramshackle held-together-with-spit-and-hope building perched unsteadily on the edge.

Clary wrinkled her nose. "Really? That's it?"

Ford chuckled. " No, that's the shed. C'mon." He lifted one of my suitcases and a lamp and left me with the picnic basket, while Clara grabbed the mess of quilts and pillows I'd brought with me. We trudged up into the greenery, our feet making soft snicking sounds on the gravel. I was busily keeping branches away from my face when Ford stopped. "Well, Kitty, here it is."

I looked up  - it seemed to take a long time - and followed Ford's outstretched arm. Tucked up atop a gentle rise set a light-coloured house with a porch. The trees pressed in on it, making it look very close and dark, and the whole picture had an air of sadness at being forgotten.

Ford whistled. "I had no idea she'd look that bad. Grand-Dad said he'd had someone checking up on the house - he was told it was ready to move in. I'm not sure I should leave you here."

But I was curious, and afraid that if I left, I'd never come back. "C'mon. Let's go see the inside."

Ford produced a key, and the porch-boards groaned a few times but held when we walked across. The front door was a little warped and only gave way, screeching, when Ford strong-armed it, and the inside smelled close and stuffy but not musty, which probably meant there were no leaks in the roof. The interior (once Clary found a lightswitch) was nice - someone had loved this house. Clear colours and extensive mouldings were everywhere. There was even furniture - a stuffed chair there, a table here. Moving down the hall, I found a parlour with a small piano, and a big kitchen.

Clary had followed me. "Mm! Kitty, this will be lovely when you get the dust out of here. Look at all the windows!" There were lots of windows, and the kitchen was easily the brightest room in the house so far. I had a sudden flash of myself drinking coffee here, looking out over the porch into the backyard. It was a peaceful picture, and I felt a sudden swell of confidence. I could do this.

Ford was stomping around upstairs. Clary and I followed, stopping to exclaim over different details, and found him in one of the bedrooms, flipping a mattress on a bed. "I checked the taps - you do have water, and the lights work. These mattresses were covered with a sheet, so they shouldn't be too dusty for you to sleep on tonight, and tomorrow Clay will be here to tell you all about the town. He knows everything about this area."

My stomach was doing flip-flops at the thought of being left alone in a strange house. "You're not leaving now, are you?"

Clary  looked up from the quilt she was folding at the end of the bed, her eyes solemn as she took in how scared I was. "No, honey, we're gonna stay and eat some of Mama's fried chicken. Then Ford is gonna take me to see Judy Mae 'fore we head back." She dusted her hands together. "There. That's done. Let's go down and find some glasses and have some tea on your new porch."

Ford and I both followed her downstairs, Clary twittering about how lovely this would all be, how great this house was, how lucky I was to have such a fine place to call my own....

I was starting to feel much more cheerful about it all while Clary and I made lists of what I needed. We were debating a couch versus two big overstuffed chairs, digging out glasses for the thermos of cold tea her mom had sent, when Ford made a strange noise and I looked over to find him with his nose practically touching a photograph on the kitchen wall. He stepped back when I came near. "That's Stanton" he said. "Funny to see him so young."

The young man in the top hat and tails was unmistakably Grand-Dad, and the radiant woman on his arm could only be Ginny (as all her children and grandchildren had called her.) "Oh," said Clary, her voice soft, "it's their wedding-day picture."

I straightened suddenly. "Why is Grand-Dad's picture here? I thought he just bought the house a few years ago?"

Ford blew out his cheeks. "Well, yes. Grand-Dad bought the house back from Marion a few years ago. But really, the house hasn't been used since Phillip died."

Phillip was my fathers name. There was a buzzing in my ears. "My father lived here?"

Ford reached out to steady me. "Yes. This was the house he bought when he got married."

"Married - to Mama? This was Mama's house?"

"Yes, Kitty. This was your mothers home."

alice katherine

My mother had always been an enigma to me. She'd been happy during her marriage and pregnancy, Grand-dad had said, but sometime after my early, sudden, squalling birth, had decided she couldn't handle a second child and had....well, left.

Grand-Dad had searched, using the old boy network, and finding nothing, had quietly hired a series of private detectives to find her. Meanwhile, my father resolutely drank himself to death while staring out the window of Grand-Dad's house, watching for her to come home while I played on the floor. I had hazy memories of him, but mostly it was Maud and Grand-Dad that I thought of as parents.

Few mothers ran away from their months-old daughter. And even fewer just simply couldn't be found.

Grand-Dad said once that she was quieter through the winter as she grew heavy with child, more given to roaming the halls at odd hours and stroking her belly as she talked. They'd put it down to jitters, or fear of a second birth as hard as my brothers, and hadn't worried too much until she'd started laughing in response to conversations no one else could hear. It was decided that she was 'tired' and she spent a month at my aunt Georgia's house, but it only soothed her for a short while and soon she was roaming again, pacing the house in the moonlight.

I tried to imagine her, wide eyed and muttering, stalking the moon from one end of the house to the other, her hair pulled back, her hands clenching and unclenching as she walked. It was hard to superimpose that picture over the few photos I had of her - where she looked out, smiling and calm, dark eyes filled with what I thought of as love as she held me in her lap.

Then one night she'd taken her coat and gone out into the dark, and never come back.

There'd been a search, of course. Grand-Dad had enough pull with the State boys that Mama's face was plastered everywhere for months. But the leaflets had yellowed where they hung, and there was no trail. No body, either - they'd dredged several ponds and the marsh, and old wells and caves were prodded and checked.

She'd been gone twenty-two years. I'm older now than she was when she had me.

Grand-Dad walked for awhile, waving at a few people. We were close to the old railway station when he finally said "Katie, are you happy living here?"

His question surprised me so much I missed a step and nearly walked off the path. "Grand-Dad?"

 "Would you like to go somewhere else for awhile? I have a little house a couple of hours away from here - close enough so you could come and visit, but far enough so you could spread your wings and not spend your life taking care of us old folks." His eyes twinkled. "Maybe for the summer?"

I was sure I'd mis-heard him. I'd lived in Rowland almost my entire life.

He was quick to read my mood. "It's not a punishment, Katie. I need someone to oversee a few things for me in Bailey, and I thought you'd be perfect for the job. It's a bit of hard work....but there should be plenty of times for fun too."

He nodded at Mrs. Dailey, who was clipping her peonies. "Just think about it, Katherine." The rest of the walk was pretty quiet. Grand-Dad seemed lost in his thoughts, while I wasn't sure my head could contain mine. Did Maud know? Would she agree to this? Did I want to strike out on my own?

The house was still when we returned. Ford had taken Maud to her club, and Clary must have gone back home. Grand-Dad headed off to his study, and I took the broom with me out on the back porch, but after a few sweeps I gave up and headed for the closest rocker, mulling over what Grand-Dad had said.

Ford pulled in to the driveway, music blaring, and I gave him a grin.  "Where's Clary?"
He rolled his eyes. "You know darn well that Maud would rather go to church with mismatched shoes on than be seen with Clary Johnson. You should have seen her when she realized the top was down on the car." Ford was a good mimic. "Fo-ORD! You do NOT expect me to GET in THERE, do you?"

My uncle and I had always gotten along. He came and sat near me. "Did Grand-Dad ask you about the house in Bailey?"

I nodded, still giggling a little about Maud and surprised he knew.

"I think you should do it, Katherine."