Who would’ve suspected?
He would.
That was how his mind worked.
Annabelle apparently hadn’t expected the cat to act that way, however. She gasped. “SweetiePie, no.” She jumped up and grabbed the cat.
Mudd whimpered and his tail retreated between his hind legs.
Annabelle picked up SweetiePie, who became her darling again as if she’d been saved from her worst enemy. But it wasn’t Mudd who had threatened her.
Annabelle opened the screen and dropped the cat inside.
Mudd approached warily.
The cat stretched up against the screen.
Opening the screen, Annabelle sweetly shooed the cat away and closed the wood door. “Aunt B’s SweetiePie wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she declared, returning to the rocker. She waved a graceful hand. “Well, maybe a fly or a spider. I guess she’s just protecting her territory.” Her glance moved from Symon to Mudd and back again.
Yes. He and Mudd were the intruders.
SweetiePie was doing what came naturally, like Annabelle did when she found Symon in the backyard—she got her back up.
Symon drank from the glass and set it on the step below him.
Mudd strolled up to the steps, first eyeing the closed door and then the glass. Symon knew what might happen when Mudd came closer to sniff the glass, but he was careful not to injure his dog’s sensitive feelings. SweetiePie had already done that.
Sure enough, his tongue appeared and knocked it over. Symon picked it up and set it on the porch. Mudd licked the tea and started on the ice, playing with it like a cat with a mouse.
Symon looked over at Miss Annabelle wiggling her red toenails while she rocked, staring at Mudd. “Do you have a picture of the cherry tree?” he asked.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll ask Aunt B when I talk to her.”
His focus switched to the green leafed, gray moss-dripping trees along the drive. They were older, like him. They didn’t appear to be changed, unlike him. What was Miss B like now, and what did she think of him?
The change in him had been instant once he drove into Savannah. He was no longer the New Yorker he’d tried to become. He was a born and bred Southern boy, the caretaker’s son. And sitting in that rocking chair was a relative of the owner of this antebellum mansion, offering him a job.
He felt a smile, and to make Miss Annabelle think it was about his dog, he reached over and played with the clay-red hair on Mudd’s head.
Chapter 3
Annabelle wanted to ask how Symon felt about his dad dying. Likely, the way she felt about her own dad dying, so there was no need to ask. Had Miss B sent him a sympathy card? Did he have any other family? Where was his mother? She’d never seen a woman at the caretaker’s cottage. Had never given it much thought. The caretaker and his son had been part of the property.
The last time she’d seen him up close was when she was just into her teen years and she sat in the backseat of Aunt B’s town car with her mother while Symon, looking very much like a grown boy, drove them from the airport and talked with her dad, who sat in the front passenger seat.
That memory brought with it a recollection of resentment. She’d begun to notice boys, but this one didn’t even glance at her through the rearview mirror. She quickly removed herself from that memory. It had been ridiculous then, a silly feeling of a thirteen-year-old. And it really didn’t matter, anyway. Reminded her of the silly way SweetiePie and Mudd were acting around each other. Neither had a reason to be concerned about the other. Except...weren’t cats and dogs supposed to be natural enemies?
But none of that had anything to do with her and Symon, the caretaker’s son. He was a worker, she the employer. Well, not exactly though. It was more like he was doing her a favor. Was he a friend of Aunt B? Would she consider him a guest? Aunt B never mentioned him to her in a personal way. They’d had no reason to discuss him except on two occasions. One was when the caretaker had bouts with illness and Aunt B said the son had moved away. Then, after the caretaker died, Aunt B said Symon might come back again someday.
Annabelle didn’t know why he would.
But now he was here.
She remembered him and his dad as the property’s permanent fixtures, yet they’d been behind the scenes like Willamina.
No, not as visible as Willamina. She was like a servant at dinners or special occasions. But when Annabelle went into the kitchen and no other adults were around, Willamina became like a mama except she was sassy and her dark eyes threatened you not to cross her.
The caretaker and his son had never been sassy. She never heard them say a word except to give information about when repairmen would come, what window had cracked and needed to be replaced, when to be present upon the delivery of a new TV, computer or appliance.
“What all do you do?” she asked.
Annabelle detected an aloofness about him. The few times she’d been near him in the past she’d thought it was a subservient attitude. Now, she thought it was indifference—to her.
“Let’s see.” He looked up at the porch ceiling as if the answer lay there. Then he pointed to a stain she’d never noticed. “I could find out what caused that discoloration. Whether there’s a place on the roof that caused a leak and can be fixed easily or if the entire porch needs new roofing. Or the entire house.”
Annabelle groaned and shook her head. “Let’s try things that take less time and expense.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. “There’s general maintenance that shows, like high grass and the weed beds.”
She laughed when he looked at the flower bed in front of the banister. She remembered the beds used to look beautiful. She’d accepted them without thinking about how they got that way. Then last spring Aunt B brought in a landscaping service to get the beds ready. The same one her neighbors had used in Jones Square.
“I’m not sure what’s weeds and what’s flowers coming up.”
His wry grin indicated it might be both.
“How long are you staying?” she asked.
“That depends on Miss B.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t asked for a job. But...was that why he came here? To ask Aunt B for his daddy’s job? Probably needed one to pay for that car. But that wasn’t her business.
“I’ll need the key to the storage room under the cottage.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“If no one has stayed in the cottage, then I suppose it would be here in the house, in the laundry room on the keyboard.”
She nodded. “There are some keys there. Just let me know.”
“You want to give me your phone number?”
At her quick look, he spoke in a bland tone. “A phone call or text message might make things easier. That way I can let you know if I go to get fuel for the mower, if it needs to be repaired, if I should get mulch for the entire place or the front bed only, replace those banister slats that are warped and paint them or paint the entire banister. Little things like that.”
She felt foolish. But then, what did she know about being an employer?
“If you prefer,” he said, “I can come knocking on the door when I have a question. Or we can use social media. Email. Facebook. Twitter—”
She laughed. “I get the picture. Why don’t you just do the basics for now and after you see Aunt B we’ll take it from there.”
“Good enough.” He grinned. “I’ll start with the grass.”
“I’ll look for the key.” She got up and went inside, shooed SweetiePie away, surprised at the way the cat was acting. Of course she knew SweetiePie was independent, but not an aggressor.
She got a key from the laundry room on the board beneath the initials SR and returned to the front porch.
He stood when she held it out.
“I assume SR stands for storage room,” she said.
“Either that or Savannah River.”
“Well, if it doesn’t open the storage room, try the river.”
He held out his hand and she dropped the key into his palm just as her phone rang. “Oh, I need to get that.” Probably Wesley or Miss B.
Symon turned to go.
She opened the screen door and out streaked Sweetie Pie like white lightning. Mudd yelped and scuttled over the lawn, across the driveway, and tried to hide on the other side of the picket fence separating the big house lawn from the cottage yard.
“SweetiePie,” Annabelle yelled, which did no good.
The cat looked at the dog cowering on the other side of the fence, then turned and sauntered back to where Annabelle was holding open the screen door and marched into the house as innocently as if nothing had happen.
“She’s never done that before,” Annabelle said.
“Has a dog been around before?”
“No.”
“Maybe that’s why she hasn’t done it.”
“Maybe.” But she was doubtful. “She’s a sweet cat. And she was declawed when she was just a kitten. She’s a house cat. Only goes to the porch or out to potty, when she doesn’t use the litter box.”
“Well,” he said, “at least they have that much in common. The potty part, that is. But she does have fangs, you know. Mudd got more exercise today than he’s used to, being holed up in an apartment.”
Oh, so he had an apartment.
“And, she didn’t hurt him. I suppose any self-respecting dog needs to be made aware of his boundaries. But I’ll check to see if any damage was done to his legs. Hate for him to end up as a three-legged dog.”
Was he serious? The dog had run with difficulty and his breathing sounded like fear or pain. SweetiePie might have sensed that since she didn’t attack him or outrun him, which she could have. Before she could ask, the phone started ringing again.
She lifted a hand and hurried inside. By the time she got to the phone, it had stopped ringing. She ascended the stairs while listening to her messages. The first was from Megan, who said she needed to talk to her but it wasn’t really urgent, just urgent.
The second was from Wesley, saying he had to be in a meeting, then a dinner, and would call her later tonight.
Seeing the time, she groaned. She’d have to rush to be at the mall by four. She looked out the window and SweetiePie jumped up onto the sill.
She watched Symon stroll to the storage room door, accompanied by the limping Mudd, who seemed none the worse for his trek across the lawn. They disappeared inside the room. The cat meowed and her blue eyes questioned.
Annabelle sunk her fingers into the soft fur on SweetiePie’s head.
“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “They’re only temporary.”
Chapter 4
Inane, how a little girl not yet in school who had stuck her tongue out at him in Miss B’s kitchen could evoke retaliatory emotions in a grown man.
Any resentment or jealousy had been childish. Now he’d have to describe his feelings as having been correct, based not on childishness but on a deep-seated sense of unfairness.
That sassy little girl had had free reign of Miss’s B’s house and grounds while he’d been relegated to the front steps or Willamina’s kitchen. And unless he was helping his dad, he belonged on the other side of the picket fence.
Willamina’s chillun, as she called them, came with her sometimes and could play with him down along the creek, but Annabelle wasn’t allowed to go there. And he’d wondered if it was because of her age, the creek...or because of him. Did they think if she started to drown in the swollen creek he wouldn’t save her?
He laughed and looked at Mudd for acknowledgment that he wasn’t crazy for reverting to such a childhood memory. He likely would have been crazy had Miss B not recognized his overactive wild-story imagination and steered him toward the blank sheet of paper for working out the truth and meaning.
What had Annabelle’s background made of her? What had that fancy little girl become? He could imagine most anything, but had difficulty seeing her scooping out a litter box. Maybe Willamina still worked there and did that chore.
The last time he’d seen Annabelle up close when he’d lived here she was just getting into her teen years. He drove her and her parents to Miss B’s from the airport. He didn’t look at her in case she stuck out her tongue. After all, he was eighteen then and ready for college. She was a kid.
She wasn’t a kid any longer.
Now that he thought about it, he’d been aware of her picture in the paper when she won some kind of beauty pageant. He hadn’t thought much about it, just turned the page to the sports section that had news about his swimming team.
But, if he’d met a girl like Annabelle in New York his approach would be quite different from sitting on the porch asking for a key so he could do her yard work. In New York, a girl would be asking to do his. Except he didn’t have a yard to take care of in New York. He had a studio apartment in a concrete jungle and he preferred the caretaker’s cottage any day.
But he didn’t need to tell anybody that. He didn’t need to tell anybody anything, come to think of it. He did tell Mudd a few secrets however and often ran a few thoughts by him.
“You’ll be fine, boy,” he said to Mudd, who stuck close to him, heeled in fact without being told. He’d been trained well. Probably missed his former owners. “We’ll just need to steer clear of that feline. Seems she’s relegated you to this side of the picket fence. I think she’s more tease than threat. Time will tell.”
He unlocked the storage room that filled most of the space beneath the cottage. The stale warm air was quite a contrast to the memory of mingled smells of wood, paint and tools. Even metal had its own odor.
Everything now lay mute and lifeless without his dad. The windows were dirty, something that never would have been had his daddy been alive. His daddy kept the tools and work tables as neat and clean as he did the property.
He could almost smell the earthy odor of his dad and hear him say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” And his dad had made him redo things more than once.
The riding mower was parked to the side on cardboard and the battery sat on a back shelf. Just from the looks of it, he knew his dad had been the last one to use it in the fall and had stored it for the winter. He checked anyway to confirm that the gas tank and the oil had been drained.
He made a mental list of supplies he’d need. “Come on, Mudd,” he said. “Let’s take a look at the creek. There’s much more room here than the few feet of dirt behind the shrubs at the apartment in New York.”
Glancing back at the big house he saw the white ball of fur stretched out on a second-floor window sill, looking comfortable and self-satisfied, and her face turned toward them. Mudd looked, too, and whimpered.
“You’re fine. Just stay on this side of the fence.”
He could almost hear his dad telling him about the landscaping, what they needed to do to keep the creek from flooding the yard after a hard rain. At certain places they’d placed boulders and a selection of plants that combined with the natural growth, providing a lush oasis while another section was a peaceful place to sit on the bench and read or make up stories while propped up on boulders or against a tree. The path along the creek needed to be tended, to keep the natural look without being overgrown. Tree roots needed to be checked for damage.
Symon realized how much his dad had taught him just by talking as they worked. He’d considered it all research for what he put into his stories. Standing there now, beneath moss-laden trees and smelling the creek, he experienced pleasure, a desire to work in the dirt with his hands. He wanted to clean out the unnecessary underbrush, clear out the vines that tended to take over. Remove spindly
and diseased trees. It looked as if no work had been done here in over two years.
His dad had introduced him to fishing for panfish in that creek. Also how to clean and cook it. And the eating was nothing to sneeze at. He hadn’t fished in years. Mudd might enjoy it, too. Maybe a dip in the deeper part of the creek. Symon used to swim in it, pretending he was a salmon going upstream.
Strange, the place he wanted to get away from now beckoned like bait to a panfish.
He was a free spirit. Yes, like moss that floated in the air. And then the oak trees beckoned and the moss made them its home.
Home.
His dad had taught him he could be a landscaper, a caretaker of top quality. But Symon had wanted to be like Miss B, a person in a big house who paid the caretaker.
Now, as Symon and Mudd walked around to the front door of the cottage, he glanced back at the big house and smiled. No, now that he could own a big house with its long drive and spacious lawns if he wanted to, he rather preferred something like this cozy cottage tucked away amid lush green cypress, sourwood that would soon exhibit drooping white spike clusters and live oaks draped with Spanish moss. Summer annuals needed to be planted in Miss B’s flower beds. They would be beautiful against the backdrop of boxwoods and azaleas.
The front door was unlocked, as if waiting for him. Miss B had written that he was always welcome to return here. An instant of dread passed over him as he walked into the cottage where he hadn’t been in over two years. Then, he’d been filled with the emotions of having to dispose of his dad’s ashes. No funeral, no remembrance; his dad would be forgotten after Symon packed anything of his own to take away. He’d left a note saying that Willamina or anyone else could do as they wished with his dad’s few belongings, which were just clothes and shoes. Symon had scattered his dad’s ashes and told himself that part of his life was over.
Now, however, standing in the living room, he felt the absence of the man who’d always been there. The man who’d kept his son. Had he wanted him, or had he just not known what to do with him after his wife left?
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