Hideaway Home

by Hannah Alexander

  But she still heard the footsteps of someone climbing the concrete steps to the wooden front porch below the window. It was too hot in this upstairs room to leave the windows closed at night, and so they opened both to create a cross-breeze. The James River Valley caught that breeze and seemed to direct it upward and into the open windows in the evenings.

  Yesterday evening that breeze had been most welcome, because, when not entertaining company, Bertie had spent her time helping Lilly in the kitchen, sorting dried beans for overnight soaking, helping with mincemeat pies and baking black-walnut cookies. And worrying, worrying, worrying about the gas in the farmhouse and the message on the kitchen window.

  But she couldn’t let herself think about that right now. In a few hours would be Dad’s funeral.

  Dad used to love Mom’s dishpan cookies, made with oatmeal, molasses, chocolate chips and black walnuts. In fact, there wasn’t much Dad hadn’t loved about Mom, which was why Mom had gone out of her way to please her husband. The love they’d shared had always been an inspiration to Bertie when she was growing up, and it was why she’d been so surprised to discover that other marriages weren’t always as happy as Mom and Dad’s.

  Last night Bertie, Edith and Lilly had baked a huge batch of the dishpan cookies, and Lilly had crowed with delight when she’d taken her first bite. They’d be serving the cookies at the funeral dinner today.

  Lilly had fretted about the grieving daughter being forced to cook for her own father’s funeral, but Bertie had reassured her she needed the activity to keep from thinking about many things.

  The spring on the screen door downstairs groaned as it opened. Someone stepped inside—a man, by the heavy sound of footsteps. A moment later, Lilly called out a welcome from the dining room, her footsteps making the floor creak downstairs.

  “Help you, sir?” her generous voice boomed.

  In a very short time, Bertie had gotten used to hearing every conversation that took place in the living room, as the staircase directed sound up to this bedroom like a mega-phone. It was why she’d heard Red holler and fall out of bed early this morning.

  She frowned again at the memory—at the rejection. It was the only thing she could call it. Why should she even bother with Red? He didn’t want her. He’d made that clear enough yesterday, when he’d left the house and not made an effort to talk to her the rest of the evening.

  The man downstairs asked for a room for himself and his wife.

  “Sorry, sir,” Lilly said, “but we’ve got guests filling the house all weekend.”

  He offered to pay double.

  Lilly didn’t hesitate. “I’d do it if I could, sir, but we can’t turn out our other guests.”

  Bertie was out of her bed and throwing on her clothes by the time the screen door slapped shut, and the footsteps echoed the visitor’s return to his car. She daren’t run out into the road half-dressed, though it frustrated her to let him get away. It was because of her that he hadn’t been given a room.

  She caught Lilly in the kitchen, heaving her bulk from stove to kitchen table with surprising agility as she started preparations for the large country breakfast she always advertised in the Hideaway weekly newspaper. While cooking breakfast, she was also working on the huge pot of beans, and had a cake pan of cracklin’ cornbread ready to go into the oven.

  Lilly was famous for her breakfasts on Friday and Saturday mornings, which were open to the public. She’d told Bertie last night that she’d begun to make almost as much income from her breakfasts as she did for her rented rooms.

  “You can’t keep doing that, Lilly.” Bertie finished buckling the belt around the waist of her dark blue denim pants as she joined Lilly at the kitchen table. “You can’t turn down paying customers like that. It’s your livelihood.”

  Lilly handed Bertie a bowl of flour, a wooden spoon, buttermilk and a crock of freshly churned butter. “Think you can bake me up a batch of biscuits that’ll keep our customers comin’ back for more?”

  Bertie took the items and laid them out on the table. “’Course I can, but you don’t need me livin’ here with you to do that.”

  She paused. If they’d had this conversation yesterday morning, she’d have insisted on staying out at the farm and riding her bike in every morning to help with the household chores. But she knew that would be out of the question. At least for today, until after the funeral, she needed to keep her mouth shut about what she and Edith had found.

  “Arielle Potts invited Edith and me to stay with them while we’re here,” she told Lilly. “I hate to see you give up good income for a room.”

  “I want you here,” Lilly told her. “With no college tuition to pay anymore, and no kids to take care of except Red—who’s more help to me than anyone could be—I can afford to do what I want with some of my rooms, and I want to let my special guests stay here. That’s final.” Lilly nodded firmly.

  “Then at least let me—”

  “And don’t even start on me about paying.”

  Bertie pressed her lips together. “Thank you.” She sifted the flour and baking powder, mixed them and added the buttermilk. “Somehow, during any free time I can find today, I need to search through the woods and fields for some comfrey leaves to treat Red’s leg.”

  Lilly gave her a pointed look. “You think that’ll help him?”

  “Sure it will. Mom used comfrey a lot. It can’t hurt anything.”

  “I heard that it could. Wrap his leg with those leaves and it’ll heal the outside fine, but the infection inside the leg would then be trapped, and he could lose his leg.”

  “Not if we give him comfrey tea along with it. That’ll heal him from the inside out, while the leaves work on his wounds from the outside in. Besides, the infection should be gone.” Bertie focused on the task Lilly had set before her, taking comfort in the familiar recipe for biscuits. In her mind’s eye she followed a trail through the woods back of the farmhouse, where her mother used to gather plants for treatment.

  It had been well over a year since she’d been there, but Bertie knew what she’d need. She and Edith both agreed that whoever had been at the house yesterday wasn’t likely to linger there. She would probably be safe.

  She hoped.

  Leastways, she couldn’t let a little fear stop her from making sure Red got the treatment he needed to heal.

  “Lilly, do you have any idea why Red would refuse to have his leg treated?”

  Lilly looked up from her frying. “You talk to him about the comfrey yesterday?”

  “Early this morning, actually, after I heard him fall out of bed.”

  “He fell?”

  “Nightmare.”

  Lilly fixed her with a stern look. “Young ladies don’t go to the bedrooms of young men.”

  “I thought he might be hurt, and I couldn’t let him lay there. Anyway, Red’s behaving strangely about his leg. Don’t you remember that time he broke his arm?”

  Lilly continued to level a stern look at Bertie for a few more seconds, to let her know how serious her transgression was. Then she nodded, relenting. “I sure do. Why, he loved all the attention that got him from friends. He made a big joke out of it.”

  “Of course, he complained about having to drink that comfrey tea Mom gave him,” Bertie said, “but he did it, and he knew it helped him heal. Now it almost seems as if he’s ashamed of his war wound, which is crazy, and he doesn’t seem to even care if it heals.”

  A war wound like that was something a man would be proud of, wouldn’t it? But Red had not mentioned much about the war, had stayed quiet yesterday when Ivan was entertaining the ladies with stories. Where Ivan was proud of his uniform and his medals, and wore them yesterday, Red wore his old work clothes.

  Something was eating at Red, and Bertie aimed to find out what it was.

  Red couldn’t put his finger on what bothered him as he mounted Seymour again and rode back to the Moennig place. The beef cattle were out in the pasture, with plenty of grass to graze on a
nd a pond full of water to drink. He counted them from the road. All were there.

  The milk cows, of course, were already together in Ma’s small pasture between the house and the river. Red and his mother had moved them on Monday afternoon so they could be milked more easily and watched more closely.

  He guided Seymour across the front yard and up to the porch. Sure enough, the hickory switches looked like they’d been blown around by the wind. There were seven switches on the porch itself, and when he checked, he saw another one on the ground.

  Somebody wanted to play Bald Knobbers, and they were smart enough to make sure their victims got the message.

  He started to turn back to the road, but then he noticed the front door wasn’t completely closed. When Bertie came out yesterday with her recipes, he’d watched her pull the door firmly shut.

  Had someone been out here since then?

  He nudged Seymour around the side of the house to the back door. It stood wide open. Something red caught his eye from the kitchen window. He froze when he read the words.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Bertie slid a large batch of freshly cut biscuits into the oven and closed the door before the heat could escape. Most folks around Hideaway cooked with a woodstove, but Lilly had the wisdom to know she needed the most modern kitchen setup she could buy, with all the people coming in and out, needing to be fed. She had a gas stove and a nice, large icebox.

  There was a smokehouse out back of the house, where Lilly kept hams and bacon and sometimes smoked pork chops and sausage. She rendered her own lard in a huge kettle whenever she butchered a hog. She kept frozen meat at the meat locker on the town square; potatoes and apples, carrots and turnips in the root cellar; and jars of food she canned in the pump house. Lilly was a busy lady.

  Bertie knew her way around this kitchen, too. She should. She’d been here enough times over the years.

  She washed her hands at the sink and turned to Lilly, who stood carving thick slices of bacon from a slab she had brought out of the smokehouse yesterday.

  “I’ve made my decision, Lilly,” Bertie said. “You know Edith and I are beholden to you for letting us stay here, but I’m not planning to leave Hideaway after the funeral. Maybe never. You can’t keep giving us free hospitality while you turn away paying customers.”

  Lilly pulled a cast-iron skillet onto the front burner and turned the switch. Blue flames licked up around the metal. “I think you oughta let me decide how I’m gonna use my own house.”

  “I’ve got a perfectly good home, with three bedrooms and indoor plumbing.”

  “Your pa told me that sometimes the electricity shuts off on him.”

  “I can work with that. We still have a backup hand pump behind the house, and our old outhouse is still upright.”

  Lilly paused in her work and placed her hands on her wide hips. “Roberta Moennig, I’m not discussing this with you anymore. Red doesn’t want you staying alone out there until he’s cleared up this mystery, and that’s the way it’s going to be. Now, I know you’re a modern, independent woman, but you’ve got to understand that a man’s gotta be made to feel like a man, especially when he…when he might have reasons to doubt his abilities.”

  “But he’s a war hero, Lilly,” Bertie said softly. “How could he doubt that?”

  Lilly turned back to her work, draping strips of bacon into the skillet. They spattered, sending a rich, smoky aroma into the kitchen. It would bring the guests in to breakfast, for sure. Until last year, folks in America had done without a lot of meat so it could be sent to the boys overseas—as it should have. But Lilly had always taken good care of her own right here at home.

  Lilly suddenly turned again and looked at Bertie, wiping her hands on the towel. “That shell hit more than Red’s leg, Bertie. It seems to’ve ripped into his heart.”

  Bertie nodded. “I think more happened than that injury.”

  “Sure it did. He’s decided he’s not the man you need, now. He doesn’t think he’s gonna heal any further, and he doesn’t want to burden you with a cripple.”

  Bertie wouldn’t’ve been more shocked if the stove had suddenly turned purple. “He told you that?”

  Lilly gave her a grimace of a smile. “Didn’t have to. Don’t forget, I’m his ma.”

  Bertie closed her eyes. Oh, Red, no. “He must know me better than that. Does he think I waited for him all this time to walk away when the goin’ gets tough?”

  “It ain’t you that’s makin’ the decision, Bertie.”

  “He’s not getting away from me that easy.”

  “Then you oughta have a little talk with him.”

  “He’ll hardly talk to me.”

  “Keep tryin’. He needs to be showed you’re made of sturdy stock, and you can handle anything he was to throw at you.”

  “I haven’t changed.”

  “Red has. And besides, a feller doesn’t want to be a sympathy case.”

  “I’ve never seen him as that!”

  Lilly put the towel down. “I know you ain’t, but he’s not thinking straight right now. He’s got a lot on his mind, especially while he’s tryin’ to figure out what happened to your pa. Red’ll get to the bottom of things, you know.”

  “I know,” Bertie said.

  “Ivan Potts and John Martin think they’re helping, but they don’t know tracking like Red does,” Lilly said.

  Bertie felt suddenly chilled in spite of the heat in the kitchen. “Red knows how to take care of himself, but if the wrong person knows what he’s doing, he could be putting himself in danger.”

  “He’s still a soldier. He’s doing what he has to.”

  “Lilly,” Bertie said, “how long should I let someone frighten me out of living in my own home? I thought that was one reason we went to war in the first place.”

  She was talking more to herself than to Lilly now. Yes, she was afraid. Terrified. She didn’t know if she would be brave enough to go back into that house after what she and Edith had found there yesterday, and yet it made her mad. She didn’t want to let anyone do that to her.

  “I didn’t think I had any enemies in this town,” she murmured.

  “Your pa didn’t have no enemies,” Lilly said. “He might’ve been cantankerous sometimes, but he for sure didn’t have no enemies in this town. None we knew of, anyways. That’s what makes it dangerous. We don’t know who to trust.”

  “How can it be any more dangerous out on the farm than it is right here?” Bertie asked. “You had that brick thrown through your window.”

  Lilly’s lips parted in surprise, and her blue eyes widened. “Who told you about that? After all you’ve gone through, you don’t need to be worryin’ about—”

  “John Martin told me yesterday afternoon, and I’m glad he did. I’m not a child, Lilly.”

  Lilly dabbed at her perspiring forehead with the back of her hand. Her plump cheeks were rosy with the heat. “Never said you was, darlin’. You don’t need to get all worked up about other things right now. What you need is time to recover.” Lilly gave a firm nod. “I can’t stop you from movin’ out, but I can sure refuse to rent a room in my own house. It’s your room, and it will be ’til I say different. No one else will be stayin’ there, whether you and Edith stay or not. I take care of my own.”

  Bertie raised an eyebrow. “Your own?”

  Lilly rested her hands on the table and fixed Bertie with a level look. “The way I see it, one way or another, you’re gonna be my daughter.”

  Bertie sighed, shaking her head. Oh, the stubbornness of mothers. And yet, she hadn’t felt this loved and protected in a long time.

  Sudden laughter reached them from the garden, and they both glanced out the back window to see Edith and Ivan gathering vegetables.

  “You noticed those two together?” Lilly asked.

  “How could I not?”

  “Ivan is a true gentleman from a good family. Edith’s an educated lady. They could do lots worse. Don’t hurt to do a little match
making, does it?” Lilly asked.

  Bertie shook her head. “Not at all.” She watched Lilly working, and marveled at the fact that she felt closer to her father right now than she had in a long time.

  Lilly had such faith in God’s provision. Sure, she’d gotten a brick through the window, had lived without a husband for twelve years, and had a son wounded in the war, but she’d had a thriving business all these years, and she knew how to smile, how to have fun, how to treat her guests with kind hospitality.

  The lady also had a bent toward romance. In fact, Bertie had discovered about a year ago that Lilly might even have been interested in Dad. They’d spent a lot of time together, laughing and talking. Lilly had taken several dishes of food up to the house when Dad was alone. Bertie knew this, because Dad had told her about it, and he wasn’t unhappy about it, either.

  Bertie remembered teasing him about Lilly a couple of times over the telephone, and he hadn’t protested. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it.

  She glanced up to find Lilly pulling a chair out and sitting down at the table. The smile, so characteristic of her all the time Bertie was growing up, was gone, and lines of sadness creased her face.

  Now that she thought about it, Bertie realized Lilly’s laughter, though still there, had been forced, her smiles lacking the usual happiness that radiated from her. She had always been such a powerful force in her family’s life—because she had to be, and because she was naturally gifted with a joyful spirit. Seeing Lilly so tired and sad jolted Bertie.

  “It must’ve been awful for you and Red to find Dad like that on Monday,” Bertie said.

  Lilly bowed her head with a somber nod. “He was a fine man.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lilly. Here I’ve been grieving my own loss and not given much thought to how Dad’s death is hurtin’ others. I know Dad thought a lot of you and Red.” She hesitated. Should she even mention it? “I even got the feelin’ you and he might’ve gotten to be pretty close…if you—”