by Nan Rossiter
Beryl and Rumer could hardly believe their ears. “Oh, my goodness!” Rumer said happily. “Rand will be absolutely thrilled! I’ve never seen him as cheerful as he’s been here—it’s like he’s a different kid. He absolutely adores Tommy and Meghan.”
“Can you imagine the fun we’d have?” Beryl said with a smile. “Thanksgiving and Christmas … and Memorial Day and Labor Day picnics—it would be like old times.”
“Maybe we won’t have to sell the house either,” Rumer added hopefully. “Maybe Will could fix it up—and we could buy you two out.”
“It would be nice to not sell it,” Isak agreed. “Now, Ber, you just have to bring Micah and Charlotte into the fold.”
Beryl smiled. “I’m working on it …”
“By the way,” Isak said, “Meghan said you guys didn’t stay in her hospital room the other night, so … it’s time to come clean.”
“We stayed at a hotel in Danbury,” she answered. “But nothing happened …”
“Yeah …” they both teased suspiciously.
“Honestly, nothing happened,” Beryl insisted innocently. “There was too much going on to even think about that. By the way, do you need to shower?”
“Nope, I have a hotel room now … since I have no idea how long Matt’s going to be in the hospital, and sleeping in his room just wasn’t working.” She took a sip of her coffee while cutting a piece of coffee cake. “What time are we supposed to be there?”
“Around eleven,” Beryl answered.
“Do you guys want a piece?” Isak asked, and Rumer nodded and Beryl slid plates over for each of them.
“We should probably get going soon.”
“Do we need to bring anything?” Isak asked.
Beryl gave her a funny look. “Yes, we do,” she answered softly, “and I’d also like to bring a copy of the story.”
Isak took a bite of her cake and nodded.
42
Will came down just before they left. “Don’t you think this is sort of odd?” he said to Ru after Beryl and Isak had gone outside. “What should I tell the kids?”
“Just tell them we had to run an errand. It’s sort of the truth.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay,” he said skeptically, pouring a cup of coffee. “And what time do you think you’ll be back?”
“We should be back by midafternoon—it’s about three hours from here.”
“Well, don’t forget, our flight is at nine tonight and we should get there early.”
“I won’t forget. I’m all packed and Isak’s giving us a ride. You need to make sure Rand is packed and doesn’t forget anything—like the homework he still has to do.”
He pulled her into a hug and grinned. “And you make sure you pay attention to which way the wind is blowing.”
Rumer laughed. “Thanks for the tip!”
He walked out with her and peered in the driver’s window at Isak and Beryl. “Have a safe trip,” he said cheerfully. “I hope you have your credit card to fill up this beast.”
“It’s already full, smarty,” Isak said.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be filling it up again,” he said with a grin.
Isak revved the engine. “Hey, can you make sure my two kids have their overnight bags packed?”
Will nodded.
“Thanks! You’re a good brother-in-law.” Will rolled his eyes and Isak looked over at Beryl. “Have everything?”
Beryl felt the lump in her jacket pocket and nodded. Then Isak looked to make sure Rumer was in, waved, and peeled out, leaving Will standing in a cloud of dust and beeping her horn all the way up the driveway.
Will shook his head and called, “Thanks for waking the kids!”
“Do you know the way?” Beryl asked as they pulled out.
“Yup,” Isak answered, reaching for the directions she’d Googled that morning. “I can get us up there, but you’ll have to navigate when we get to Jackson.”
Beryl nodded, looking over the directions Isak had printed at the hotel. Finally, she tucked them in the door pocket and Isak turned on the radio. It was still tuned to the country station she’d been listening to on the way up, and the DJ was saying, “This one’s for all the moms out there on Mother’s Day …” Carrie Underwood’s sweet voice came on, singing, “Don’t Forget to Remember Me.” Beryl looked at her sisters in surprise. “I forgot it was Mother’s Day!”
“So did I,” Isak said. “And my kids didn’t even get out of bed!”
“Mine didn’t either,” Rumer added, “but I guess if we didn’t remember, we shouldn’t expect them to remember.”
They listened to the melancholy lyrics—each lost in thought, remembering what it had been like growing up in the loving warmth of Mia’s guidance.
The miles flew by, and soon the White Mountains were looming majestically all around them. “You better get out the directions,” Isak said as she turned off Daniel Webster Highway. Beryl unfolded the paper and looked around to get her bearings. “We’re on Route 302E,” Isak said, “aka Dartmouth College Road.”
“Okay, well, in a bit you’re supposed to turn left onto Route 16 North—aka Pinkham Notch Road.”
“What’s ‘in a bit’?”
“Uhm …” Beryl traced her finger down the page. “Twenty-nine miles.”
Isak glanced at the odometer, quickly calculated, then looked in her rearview mirror and realized Rumer had fallen asleep. “Ru, we’re almost there,” she called. “How come you’re so tired—did you have a long night or something?” she teased.
Rumer opened her eyes and grinned sleepily. “Maybe …” she murmured, stretching and looking out the window. “Wow! It’s gorgeous up here,” she observed.
“I know, it’s the perfect escape for an artist,” Beryl said.
“Which way?” Isak asked, slowing down.
Beryl glanced down again. “Right—through town, and then left onto Carter Notch.”
Isak continued to follow the directions and stopped at the bottom of a driveway. “This must be it,” she said with a nervous sigh.
Beryl nodded and looked at the clock in the dash—it was almost eleven. “Good job,” she said.
Isak followed the long, winding driveway until it opened onto a meadow that wrapped around an expansive lawn and a gorgeous post-and-beam home with windows that looked out in all directions. “Wow,” Beryl murmured.
“Ditto that,” Isak said.
“I want to live here,” Rumer said softly.
As Isak pulled up to the house, the older gentleman who’d been at the service came from the direction of the garden, using his cane with one hand and a fistful of weeds in the other. He smiled and waved, and then dropped the weeds into the wooden bushel that was next to the stone walkway. He slowly made his way toward them. “Welcome,” he said graciously.
Isak, Rumer, and Beryl smiled warmly and politely took his outstretched hand. His eyes sparkled as he looked at Beryl. “So, you talked your sisters into this?” he said, winking at them.
Beryl smiled. “It wasn’t as difficult as I expected.”
“Well, I’m grateful and honored. It means so much to me, and I think it would make your mum smile.” He paused. “I have some refreshments: mint iced tea, which I try to make like your mom did but, just like her cinnamon toast, it never tastes quite the same.” Isak, Rumer, and Beryl all laughed and he smiled. “I also have blueberry muffins, fresh from the oven.”
Beryl reached into the backseat for the envelope containing the copy of their mom’s memoir, and said, “That sounds wonderful.”
He led them inside, explaining and pointing out details as they went. The kitchen, where the refreshments had been set out, was bright and sunny, and when they walked in, an old orange tiger cat opened one eye and peered at them curiously from where he was curled up on a sunny armchair. “That’s Alfred Lord Tennyson—also known as Al or Ally Cat. He’s Thoreau’s brother.” He looked at Beryl. “Do you still have Thoreau?”
She put the
folder onto the kitchen counter. “We do—Flannery too.”
David shook his head. “Your mum loved that homely old dame.” He poured iced tea into glasses. “I need to sit.” He motioned for them to join him and then passed the plate of muffins around. “You have to open them up and let the butter melt inside. Your mum taught me that.”
As they chatted, David asked about their families, and Mia’s girls realized that even though they’d only recently learned about him, he had known of them all their lives.
When they finished their muffins and iced tea, David gave them a tour of the downstairs and showed them two more portraits he’d painted of Mia. “There’s one more in here,” he said, turning on a light in a small room off the kitchen. “I don’t paint much anymore; I do enjoy reading, though.” The room was simply furnished with a mission chair, its rich brown leather seat worn and stretched. Next to the chair was a Prairie-style floor lamp that glowed warmly over the chair, and in front of the large window that looked out over the gardens and the mountains in the distance was an oak mission desk and matching chair. The walls were lined with books, and it was evident that this was where David spent most of his time. He pointed to a pencil drawing that was hanging near the chair. “That’s the last drawing I did of your mum—it was the last time she was here.” He motioned to the window. “She was sitting out in the garden. She had been very quiet that day and she seemed confused about where she was. She kept asking me to take her home. It was then that I began to realize something was wrong.” He walked over to the drawing, lifted it off its hook, and handed it to Beryl. “I want you to have it.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Beryl protested.
“I insist,” he said. Then he looked at Isak and Rumer too. “The paintings in the other room will be yours, too, someday.”
Beryl stammered and looked at her sisters, “I … I don’t know what to say … we will treasure them always.”
He nodded, his eyes sparkling.
They followed him out into the backyard and Beryl looked up at the sky, recalling the words her mom had used, “A canopy of endless blue.” It certainly was! He made his way down a narrow path to a stone garden dotted with ornamental grass and covered with mountain pinks. He pointed to a peak in the distance. “That’s Mount Washington—it still has snow on it.” Then he turned and nodded to a weathered wooden bench. “And that’s where your mom was sitting when I drew her picture.” He smiled wistfully. “She loved to sit out here.” As he spoke, a beautiful tawny-gray mourning dove fluttered down from a nearby tree, landed on the sunny bench, and cooed softly, seeming to be uninhibited by their presence. “This is where I had in mind.”
Beryl nodded, reached into her pocket, pulled out the honey jar, and looked at David. “Would you like to … ?”
He shook his head. “No, no—you three. I’m just happy to have a part of her here with me.”
Beryl took the top off the jar and handed it to Isak. They each took a turn, sprinkling some of the jar’s contents; then Rumer handed it back to Beryl. Beryl hesitated and then swung her arm out over the garden, startling the mourning dove, and releasing the last of the fine gray ash into the wind. They stood silently watching as it swirled and sparkled and drifted peacefully off into the endless blue New Hampshire sky.
43
Micah opened the car door to let Harper out and then unstrapped Charlotte from her car seat. “Sooo, how’d it go?”
“It was nice,” Beryl said, watching Harper race across the yard, running circles around short-legged Flannery, who was panting happily, trying to keep up; and, once free, Charlotte ran after them. “I’m glad we did it,” Beryl continued. “He gave us a drawing of my mom and said the other portraits would be ours someday too. His home is absolutely …”
Micah looked up in surprise. “He gave you another drawing?!” Beryl nodded and he shook his head. “Ber, do you have any idea what his artwork is worth?”
“Well, he inferred that it has some value.”
Micah raised his eyebrows. “Some value? It’s worth more than you know! Ber, his paintings are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars—and after he dies, that figure will probably increase exponentially!”
Beryl shrugged and smiled. “Well, I already told him we’d never sell them.”
He laughed. “You might have to sell them—you’ll go broke trying to insure them.”
Beryl laughed too. “Oh, well, we’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
They watched Charlotte happily picking dandelions with the dogs nosing along on either side of her, and Micah leaned against his car. “I was also thinking about your mom’s memoir and how you said she wanted to be a writer—like you do,” he added with a grin. Beryl nodded and he continued, “Well, I think there are a lot of publishers who would be very interested in this unknown window into David Gilead’s life—it’s quite romantic. And if you were to write a prologue giving the back story and an epilogue explaining what happened, I think it would really get attention.” He paused. “You’d probably want to wait until he’s gone, though, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start working on it.”
Beryl looked thoughtful, considering his suggestion. “You know, every now and then you come up with a pretty good idea,” she mused.
He grinned. “I try.”
“Well, let me finish telling you about the house, which was absolutely amazing, and the views—they were breathtaking. I know that sounds clichéd, but there’s no other word for it. But what I really wanted to tell you is that he wants us to visit again, and I was hoping you could come next time.”
“I’d like that,” Micah said.
Just then, Charlotte ran over with a bouquet of dandelions. “For you!” she said, beaming.
“Thank you, honey,” Beryl said, kneeling down to give her a hug.
Micah looked around. “Where is everyone?”
“They’re packing, showering, heating up leftovers, and getting ready to leave. I’m so glad you could come over. It’s going to be a shock to my system to have an empty house when they all go.”
“Well, Isak and the kids’ll be back, won’t they?”
“Later in the week. They’re going to stay in Hartford for a few days—visit Matt, do some sightseeing, maybe go up to Boston and Quincy Market, and Tommy wants to go to a Red Sox game.”
Micah’s face lit up. “Do you want to go too?”
“We could,” Beryl said. “I can have Isak get extra tickets. Does it matter what night?”
Micah shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me—any night is fine.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her. We could meet them for dinner before the game.”
“That sounds good,” he said, following her up the steps.
The dogs charged ahead of them onto the porch, Harper just about taking out the screen door. Rand was in the kitchen, fixing his plate. He looked up in surprise when he saw Harper come bounding in. “Micah, is that your dog?”
“Well, Harper’s really my parents’ dog, but I can borrow her anytime.”
Harper, who’d smelled the food, immediately plopped down at Rand’s feet and gazed at him forlornly. “She’s so cute,” Rand exclaimed. “She looks just like Norman, only smaller.” He scratched her head. “And you’re a beggar like Norman too,” he said, giving her a small piece of his roll.
“All Labs are beggars,” Micah chuckled.
Just then, Rumer came into the kitchen. “Hi, Micah! Hi, Charlotte!”
“Mom, did you see Micah’s dog?” Rand interrupted. “Doesn’t she look like Norman? Norman’s going to love having Harper and Flannery for cousins.”
“She does … and he will,” Rumer agreed before quickly changing the subject. “Are you all packed?”
“Yup,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Where’s your bag?”
He pointed to a duffel by the door.
“Do you have everything?”
“Yup,” he mumbled with his mouth full of lasagna.
&nb
sp; “Homework?”
He nodded, sipping his milk.
“Okay, well, hurry up and eat, because we have to go.”
He swallowed and looked perplexed. “Mom, no one else is even down here yet.”
“I am,” Will said, coming into the kitchen, dropping his duffel next to Rand’s and then reaching for a plate. “Hey, Micah! Want a plate?” he asked, holding one out.
Micah held up his hand. “No, I’ll wait—you guys are in a hurry.”
Just then, Isak came in and set her suitcase by the door. “Hi, Micah. Hi, Char!”
“Hi, Isak,” Micah replied while Charlotte just swung her feet and smiled.
“C’mon, guys!” Isak hollered up the stairs. “Uncle Will, Aunt Ru and Rand have a flight to catch! Tommy, you’re not going to have time to eat!” She grinned. “That’ll get him moving.”
“I’m not very hungry, Mom,” Meghan said, putting her suitcase next to her mom’s.
“Well, you have to eat something to take your medicine.”
“I’m not taking it,” she said, plopping into the chair next to Charlotte.
Tommy finally came in, his hair wet from the shower.
“Where’s your bag?” Isak asked.
“Upstairs,” he said, reaching for a plate.
She took the plate away. “Go get it! You’re not eating until it’s down here.”
He started to protest, but she just pointed at the stairs and he grumbled as he went to get it.
Twenty minutes later, the Suburban was loaded down with bags and suitcases, and hugs were being given all around. “Get in,” Isak told the kids. She gave Beryl a hug. “Good thing I switched vehicles.”
“I know! Good thing! Be careful and give Matt our love!”
“I will and I’ll let you know about the game.”
“Okay.”
Micah hitched Charlotte up onto his hip and she waved as Isak climbed in the driver’s seat. “Bye, honey,” Isak said, waving back.