“Okay, so not your boss,” Carrie said. “How much longer until the test?”
“It’ll be four weeks from this coming Monday.”
“And by that time you’ll have solved the case of who killed David Rayburn and it won’t be Rozelle,” I said.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Or you’ll have solved it while I was back on restricted duty for assaulting a police detective with a cup of coffee-black-no-sugar.”
I lifted my glass. “Here’s to solved cases.”
7
Huddled in my bathrobe and some newly unearthed sweatpants, I carried a fresh cup of coffee down the stairs to my workshop. Fleece-lined slippers, I thought. What I need is fleece-lined slippers. Only October and already the overnight lows made walking through the house without a hat and scarf a questionable activity.
Shuffling to the table, I set the mug of coffee down then stood and watched the steam rise for longer than I should have. Some mornings weren’t meant to be started in a hurry. Some were meant to be eased into like a leisurely stretch.
Beside the door leading to the yard, I kept a small bookcase. Its shelves were filled with old books on art and gardening that belonged to my grandmother, a couple of volumes I’d picked up at museums, and a very few softbound books filled with stained glass designs. I ran a finger along the stapled “spines” of the design books until I came to the one with the pine green cover. That one I pulled from the shelf.
It wasn’t titled The Big Book of Christmas Designs but it may as well have been. Poinsettias and holly, angels and candles, candy canes, snowflakes, cardinals, and Santa Claus. If the symbol represented Christmas even remotely, it was incorporated into a pattern within that book. Even snowmen. Why was it snowmen were associated with Christmas when those round and frosty giants hung around all winter?
Shaking my head, I carried the book over to the table and set it down at the center. I was going to have to do an Internet search to find patterns suitable for Chanukah.
Carrie had suggested I create small holiday pieces for the shop. Handmade ornaments and sun catchers that celebrated the season and she could sell as the perfect gift for someone who has everything. Or in my opinion, the perfect gift for someone you don’t know well enough to buy for. In fairness, that opinion had come up toward the end of my third glass of wine.
Lifting my coffee cup with one hand, I flipped open the cover of the pattern book with the other. While I sipped at my coffee, I studied the images on the inside of the cover. Santa, holly, candy cane. Red, green, silvery white.
The beams overhead creaked, and I let out a sigh. Someone was up. And not someone as in Grandy, who first of all rarely got up early in the morning. And on the rare occasions he did get up early, he tended to leave me in peace. With Mom and Ben visiting, all manner of disturbance was possible.
I held my breath and listened, hoping the footsteps I heard would follow the path to the bathroom, but no such luck. The squeak of floorboards moved down the hallway and down the stairs.
Mentally preparing myself for an eventual interruption, I flipped to the inside back cover of the book. Here there were angels and snowflakes and a Christmas tree. More green, some blue, clear.
Images of the clear glass greenhouse came to mind, but I shook them away.
The greenhouse required perfectly clear glass. Snowflakes, on the other hand, were none so plain. They required a textured glass—maybe glass with smooth lifts and curves like the surface of water, or that ripple-looking glass usually found in bathrooms. I took another sip of coffee, a big one, but still the proper name for the ripple glass escaped me. No matter. I would have to make a trip to the glass store to stock up on the holiday colors I would need. I could look at the clear glass options then.
As I flipped to the book’s centerfold, where a pattern for a Santa in a half-moon spanned both pages, someone sneezed.
That someone was not me.
I turned in time to see my mother stepping slowly down the stairs, her own cup of coffee in hand.
“Bless you,” I said.
She smiled her thanks as she reached the bottom step. “Am I interrupting anything?”
I looked from her to the book opened up on my table, gave the question a moment’s thought. Apart from my morning peace and quiet time, I wasn’t exactly involved in anything that required concentration. And once she and Ben were on their way north in the next week, I would have that quiet back again. It was not a sacrifice to give one morning to my mom.
“I was hoping we could talk,” she said, shuffling into the room and coming to stand beside me at the table. “Just us. What are you working on here?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Nothing yet. Getting ready to start in on some Christmas pieces for Carrie’s shop.”
She let out a breath that other people might have turned into a low whistle. “Christmas already? Boy, it gets earlier every year, doesn’t it?”
“Early for carols and egg nog, yes. But by some crafters’ standards I’m already behind. Handmade takes time.”
“I’m sure it does.” She gave me a brief one-armed hug before passing behind me and circling around the far end of the table to where a work desk and chair sat tucked beneath the corner windows. With an audible sigh, she lowered herself into the chair. “You enjoy this stained glass thing then?”
I grinned. “Yes, I enjoy this thing.” I glanced down at the open pattern, admiring the curved shapes used to form Santa’s beard.
“And you’re making money at it, your grandfather says.”
“Some.” I nodded without assurance.
“What are you working now, Georgia, three jobs?”
Trepidation set in. I turned the page in the pattern book slooowly. “What’s on your mind, Mom?”
Leaning forward, she said, “Don’t you think it’s time to get back to, you know, the life you had? Get back to living?”
“I am living,” I said. I took a sip of coffee.
“This isn’t living,” she said with a sweep of her hand.
“What are you talking about?” I felt my forehead crease above the bridge of my nose. If I wasn’t careful, my face was going to freeze like that.
“This is not living. A handful of part-time jobs and no place of your own isn’t living, Georgia. It’s hiding. This is you hiding out in your grandfather’s basement waiting for the thunderstorm to pass.” Her eyes blazed into mine. “It’s passed. It’s over. It’s time to get out and enjoy life again.”
I took a breath, scratched at my head. “I am enjoying life,” I said. “I like it here. I have good friends, I—”
“You have friends in the city, too, or do you not keep up with them?” She did not pause for an answer. “You had a good job and a successful fiancé. You were on the verge of having a wonderful life.”
“Yeah,” I said over a laugh. “And then I lost my job and my fiancé kicked me out and I was on a whole different verge. Thanks, but I’ll pass on that wonderful life.”
She started to lift her coffee cup to her lips but stopped along the way. “All right. So things took a bad turn. That doesn’t mean it will happen again. But you’ll never know what heights you can reach unless you get out there and try.”
I sighed. “Look, Mom, I don’t think . . . That life I had, it’s not what I want anymore. I’m not sure it’s what I wanted then.”
“That’s just the bitterness talking.”
“Is it? What if it’s more truth than bitterness?”
Her eyelids lowered ever so slightly, enough to give her the appearance of a wise old woman. “It’s easier to let yourself believe you didn’t want something than to face the pain of losing it.”
“I faced the pain,” I said, not a little bit dramatically. “I’m over it.”
“Then get back out there. You have an excellent degree, go do something with it. Get back to civilization. Go
to museums. Meet people. Ben says the urban environment in Los Angeles is really on the rise and it’s ideal for young professionals like yourself. It could be perfect for you.”
“Los Angeles? California?”
She pulled in a breath and her eyes lit. “You could go for a visit. See for yourself. I bet you’ll love it there. A couple of weeks in the sunshine and you won’t ever want to come back here.”
“What is it with you and Ben?” I snapped. Finally. “Why are you so dead set on getting me out of Grandy’s house? What is so all-out awful about me being here? Isn’t it a good thing I’m here? Doesn’t it ease your mind at all to know I’m watching out for Grandy? And he’s watching out for me? We’re family. Why are you so bent on me leaving?”
The telltale sound of doggie nails on wood warned of Fifi’s approach, and more, it warned that Grandy was awake. But Mom didn’t know that.
“Because I don’t want you to get stuck here,” she said at last, coming to her feet. She closed the distance from the chair to the table with the speed of a mother rescuing her child from danger. Coffee sloshed as she banged her cup down on the table. Palms on the tabletop, she leaned across the surface and said through gritted teeth, “This town will pour cement around your feet if you let it. It will drag you in and drag you under and you’ll be stuck here in this decrepit little hamlet while the world gets smaller and smaller around you. I want more for you.”
Fifi raced down the steps and commenced her morning let’s-go-outside dance at my feet, rising up on her back legs and bouncing back to the floor.
“You deserve more than run-down old luncheonettes and pharmacists that still dispense Coke syrup and a house that can’t hold in heat,” Mom continued. “This town will suffocate you, and I won’t stand here and watch that happen.”
“Standing and watching was never your way,” Grandy said. At the top of the half staircase he stood with his hands in the pockets of his deep blue bathrobe, looking more imposing than a five-star general in full dress uniform. “You were more the don’t-look-back type.”
He took each step with an intimidating sense of purpose, bringing with him a cloud of anger that shuddered through the room and woke a seed of fear deep within me. Even Fifi stopped her happy morning dancing and pressed herself against my legs in hopes I would protect her.
“Dad,” Mom said. “What are you doing up so early?”
“The dog,” he said. “Knew someone was awake and wanted out.” He had yet to look at me, instead keeping his gaze locked on my mother. “I know how you feel about this town, I know you never liked it, thought it was a second-rate, hick place to live, and you couldn’t wait to leave. You took every opportunity that came along.”
Shaking her head, she lifted her coffee cup. “It’s too early to do this, Dad.”
“Is it? It’s too early for you and I to talk but not too early for you to denigrate my town? My house?”
“You don’t mean talk, you mean argue,” Mom said. “And we’ll only say the same things we always do and end up angry at one another like always.”
“I wouldn’t be angry if only you’d stop talking about my home like it’s something to be avoided at all cost.”
“And now you’re exaggerating,” she said on a sigh. “So can we do this another time? If you don’t mind, I’m trying to have a conversation with Georgia.”
Grandy turned to me then, his jaw tight, but said nothing.
I pulled in a breath, reached one hand down to the smooth fur on Fifi’s head. “I have to walk the dog,” I said.
“Georgia,” Mom said.
I held up a hand, long-buried memories of the two of them shouting at each other floating to my awareness. “If I remember right, this is where I make myself scarce,” I said. “Let’s stick with the script, huh?”
I snatched up the pattern book from the table, avoiding eye contact with both Grandy and my mother. “Come on, Fifi. Let’s go outside. Outside? Yes? Yes, let’s go.”
I kept up my monologue of pet-owner speak as I jogged up the stairs, ignoring my mother repeating my name and my grandfather telling her to let me go. The living room seemed to tilt and freeze as I stutter-stepped through. It might have been déjà vu. It might have been the memories coming awake, making me see that I’d been in this place—this emotion—before.
There was a difference this time, though. I knew it as I pulled Fifi’s leash down from its hook then snapped it onto her collar. This time I was an adult, and making myself scarce didn’t limit me to my little yellow bedroom. I had all of Wenwood to get lost in.
* * *
By a miracle of full house, needy bulldog, and cat in heat, there was enough confusion for the early morning that there simply was no opportunity for my mother and me to revisit our conversation. No surprise, that was fine by me.
I managed without interruption to pack a fisherman’s tackle box that I had repurposed to carry some stained glass supplies. The deep main compartment easily held two types of cutters, a ruler, marking pens, a spool of lead, a soldering iron, and assorted other tools I liked to have on hand. I used a basic cotton tote bag to carry sheets of glass and a roll of poster paper and carbon paper and I tucked in The Big Book of Christmas Designs as well.
All of this I loaded into the car with the intention of heading into the village and using the back room at Carrie’s antiques shop to get some Christmas pieces started.
Through the summer, when weekends could get crowded with antiques hunters, I had spent long hours working out of Carrie’s back room. Doing so allowed me to be on hand to help out should a rush of customers arrive while at the same time allowing me to keep busy with my own work during lulls. And though I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any big rush at the store and Carrie truly wouldn’t need me, I was certain she wouldn’t be averse to me hiding out in her back room.
I briefly considered bringing Fifi with me—the shop had become a second home to her—but decided against it. After thinking I had all of Wenwood to wander through, I didn’t want to limit myself to places where dogs were allowed should I decide against staying at Carrie’s.
The mail was in the box as I left the house and I grabbed it and carted it along with me into the car. There were no pieces of personal mail in the bunch, only a postcard from a real estate agent, the weekly coupon circulars, and the latest issue of the Town Crier. I tossed the lot of it onto the passenger seat and headed on my way.
Feeling the urge to put a little distance between me and my mother, I opted to take the drive out to the fancy coffee shop up on the highway and there pulled into the line at the drive-thru.
As I waited my turn to place an order, I picked up the Town Crier and forced myself to flip through the pages one by one rather than turning directly to the classifieds at the back, which I knew was what I really wanted to do. Denial is a powerful thing.
No, I had really had no plans to leave Grandy’s, though I can’t say why I didn’t. Until my mother’s arrival I had assumed I was simply happy where I was. And for all that I insisted as much to her, still, she was my mom. That meant whatever she said to me, right or wrong, carried extra power. So of course I faced the little itch of doubt that insisted Mom was right and I was staying with Grandy more to hide from life than to learn to live it happily again. Maybe it really was time to get back out on my own.
Wenwood was a small town with a low population. Its neighboring towns were not much larger. You had to go up to Newbridge to get any sort of real numbers. Because of this, the Town Crier covered not just Wenwood but most of the eastern side of Pace County. This wider coverage brought the listings of available apartments and rental houses up to almost two full columns.
Finally reaching the window, I ordered an iced latte and paid the tab before letting my foot off the brake long enough for the car to roll forward a whopping four feet.
I returned my attention to the classifieds and th
e properties listed for rent. Studio and one-bedroom apartments seemed the most predominant and the most affordable. With my limited earnings, renting a whole house was out of the question. But then again, wasn’t renting almost anything out of the question? I had Friday and Fifi to think of. I didn’t see a single “pets welcome” notation on any of the listings.
All right. Maybe that wasn’t something that got listed but was something that was negotiated after. In which case, there were a smattering of studio apartments in Edgewater that I might be able to afford. And Edgewater was a . . . well, a bit more run down than Wenwood but not too run down as to be scary.
Edgewater. Studio. Just me and Friday and Fifi.
In Edgewater.
Alone.
I let the car inch forward into the space that had opened up before me. Almost there. A frothy, caffeinated beverage was almost in my possession.
I looked back at the paper.
Edgewater.
Suddenly it seemed so far away. It couldn’t have been more than forty minutes from Grandy’s house and yet somehow that seemed a vast and challenging distance. It would be a long drive from Edgewater to Drew’s law office. Even longer out to the Dine-In. I’d be spending a lot of time in the car.
Alone.
And that was the bottom line. That was the reason I bunched up the Crier and tossed it to the floor in front of the passenger seat. That was the reason my stomach was coiling itself into a knot.
I wasn’t staying in Grandy’s house because I was hiding, or because I didn’t have the drive to go searching for a better job somewhere more urban than Wenwood. That wasn’t it at all. I was simply and genuinely happy where I was. One of the largest components of that happiness, one of the hardest for me to admit even to myself, was that I didn’t want to be alone. Living with Grandy had given me the sense of permanence I missed having as a child, the sense of family I longed for in those months when it was Mom and me leaving Grandy and Grandma behind and heading off for the next great destination that my mother believed would be perfect.
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