The House at Rose Creek

by Proctor, Jenny

  “I’d be happy to come get you, Linny. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Chapter 10

  Kate drove the familiar roads to the hospital and pulled into the small parking lot beside the emergency room entrance. She half expected to see Linny hobbling out to the car on her own, waving her crutches above her head, daring anyone to keep her from walking without assistance. But she was pleasantly surprised to find Linny sitting comfortably on a bed in one of the exam rooms, her ankle heavily wrapped and splinted and propped up on a pillow.

  “Well, it looks like they’ve taken good care of you,” Kate said as she walked in and took Linny’s hand.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t break my ankle sooner,” Linny joked. “I could stay here all night and not worry one bit about the dishes getting done.” She squeezed Kate’s hand. “Thank you for coming.” She motioned to her ankle, lifting her leg just an inch. “They say I have to come back next week for a more permanent cast. I’m thinking pink. What do you think?”

  Kate smiled. “Pink would definitely suit you. How does it feel? Does it hurt at all?”

  Before Linny could answer, Leslie came bursting around the exam room curtain.“Linny! I came as soon as I heard! Are you all right?” She froze when she saw Kate standing next to Linny. “Oh,” she said curtly. “I guess you don’t need me, then.”

  “Well, now, Leslie,” Linny said. “Of course I do. I didn’t want you to have to leave the children, so I called Kate to come take me home. I just didn’t want to worry you. I said that in my message, didn’t I?”

  “Tommy was up,” Leslie responded. “I was just trying to get him back to sleep when you called.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did come. The more the merrier when bones have been broken!” Linny winced as she shifted her weight, cautiously repositioning her ankle on the stack of pillows at the foot of her bed. “You know, girls, I think I’m goin’ to have the doctor look at this one more time,” she said as she waved a hand in the general direction of her ankle. “I think it’s pinching me on one side. Since you’re both here, why don’t the two of you go down to the cafeteria and get some coffee, maybe talk awhile?”

  Linny didn’t even try to hide her scheming. It was obvious what she was trying to accomplish. Leslie protested first.

  “Actually, if you’re all right, I think I’ll just get back to the children. I hate to leave the babysitter too long.”

  “Your neighbor does not count as a babysitter. Beatrice is a friend. I guarantee she’s snuggled on your couch right now with a bowl of popcorn and an old movie on the television, listening to the sweet stillness of all your children sound asleep. Just go get some coffee.”

  Kate blushed at her aunt’s persistence. She looked up at her cousin and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “I didn’t know about this either,” then motioned hopefully in the direction of the cafeteria. Leslie sighed her acquiescence then turned and walked away.

  “Be patient with her, Katie. It’ll be all right. Oh, and if you see a doctor on your way out, send him in here, would you? I wasn’t kidding about the pinching.”

  “I will,” Kate assured her. “I’ll be back in a little while to take you home, okay?”

  “Don’t hurry on my account. I’m quite comfortable right here. Get on now. You let Leslie get too far ahead of you, and she’s sure to just slip out the door and go home.”

  Kate hurried after her cousin, catching her just as she arrived at the hospital’s small cafeteria. The two women silently filled their coffee cups and sat down across from one another, their metal chairs scraping on the worn linoleum of the floor. They sat silently, awkwardly, filling their cups with cream and sugar, waiting for the other to speak first.

  Finally, Kate began. “Leslie, I swear I didn’t know anything about the house. Aunt Mary never said anything about it. I just . . . I had no idea.”

  Kate looked at Leslie, who had her arms folded across her chest, shoulders hunched forward. Kate could almost see the thick shroud of anger and resentment Leslie held tightly around her. Feeling she may have no other opportunity, Kate continued anyway. “What else do you want me to say, Les? I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the house. But more than that, I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when Tom died and sorry I stayed away for so long. It was selfish and wrong and just so stupid of me.” Kate shut her eyes and took a deep breath. The words tumbled around in her head, and she struggled to pull them into complete sentences. Even still, she pressed on. “Leslie, it’s the one thing I regret the most, more than anything else. I should have been there for you. I should have been at Tom’s funeral. I should have been there to help . . . been there for the children. I don’t think I can ever make it up to you, but I am sorry. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  Leslie didn’t move. Her eyes focused downward on her Styrofoam cup while her hands fiddled with the drawstring of the pale blue windbreaker she wore. Kate noticed the jacket and recognized it as the one Tom had given her the Christmas after they’d gotten married. The weight of the many losses in Leslie’s life swelled in front of Kate—a monstrous mountain of grief and loneliness near impossible to climb.

  “Kate.” Leslie’s voice was calm and distant. “You already tried to apologize once before, but it’s not that easy. You can’t just fly back into town when someone dies, spread your apologies like wildfire, and expect everything to be like it was. You hurt me. You abandoned me, you rejected me, and now you’ve taken the one thing that could keep me connected to my mother.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” Kate said, color rising swiftly to her cheeks. “I wasn’t trying to reject you.”

  “But you did. You went off to your fancy college and then landed your big important job, bought a fancy car, lived a big, impressive life in the city. Everyone knows why you stopped coming back, Kate. This life, this small-town life, my measly little high school diploma, it isn’t good enough for you anymore.”

  Kate was dumbfounded. “Is that really what you think? That I didn’t come back because I thought I was too good for you? I didn’t come back because I was tired of everyone making me feel like a failure because I didn’t have your life. You and Tom were so happy; it was like everyone was just waiting for me to finally get my act together so I could be just like you.” Kate pressed her head into her hands in exasperation. “And then, once I missed the funeral, I was just so ashamed. I . . . I didn’t really feel like I had any right to come back.”

  “That’s just an excuse. We’re your family. You always have a right to come back.”

  “How could I come back? It was awful what I did, jumping ship on everybody just because things were hard. I was afraid of this, Leslie, of this conversation.” Kate sighed. “It just . . . it was just easier to stay away.”

  “It would have been easier to not bury my husband and then my mother three years later. It would have been easier to not raise three children by myself, wondering if I have the strength to get out of bed in the morning, to hug and comfort my children when I am screaming on the inside because I don’t know if I can do it for one more day. Any road but this one would have been easier, Kate. But we don’t get to choose the road our life takes. Sometimes it just happens, and it stinks, and there isn’t anything we can do to change it.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “And we can’t run away from it either,” she added.

  Kate knew Leslie was right. She had run away, and it had been an awful, cowardly thing to do. But she wasn’t running now. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the urge. She could have given the house to Leslie and made it back to her life in the city in time for work on Tuesday morning. But that wasn’t who Kate wanted to be anymore. Somewhere deep within her, she realized it wasn’t who Aunt Mary wanted her to be either.

  “That’s why she gave me the house,” Kate whispered softly to herself.

  “What?” Leslie asked.

  “Aunt Mary,” Kate explained. “She wanted me to stop running, to stop ignoring this part of my life—the most important part.
”

  “How is a house going to teach you that?” Leslie sounded weary.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Kate smiled timidly at her cousin.

  Leslie didn’t smile in return, but Kate thought she noticed the deep frown lines between her brows lift just a little.

  “Kate,” Leslie said carefully. “I’m glad we had this conversation, and I’m grateful to hear your apology. But you’re still going to have to give me some time, okay? This whole house thing—it’s still really hard for me to comprehend.”

  “I understand,” Kate said softly.

  Leslie rose from her chair. “You better get Linny home. Charles is probably worried about her.”

  Kate glanced at the clock hanging above the door of the cafeteria. “You’re right,” she agreed.

  They walked in silence back toward the emergency room. Leslie left without talking to Linny again, asking Kate to give her a hug and relay her promise to check on her the following afternoon. Kate did so and then helped her aunt into the wheelchair the hospital staff had provided.

  “Ready to go?” a nurse asked. When Linny nodded, she steered the wheelchair down the hallway toward the hospital exit. Kate could sense Linny’s impatience as she walked beside her aunt. She was obviously anxious to hear how Kate’s conversation with Leslie had gone. They had barely made it through the hospital doors before Linny stomped her one good foot on the ground, halting their progress and thoroughly startling the nurse.

  “Well?” she finally questioned. “I’m not going another inch in this thing until you tell me how things went with Leslie.”

  “The coffee was very good,” Kate teased.

  “Katie, don’t you start with me.”

  Kate laughed and reached down to touch Linny’s shoulder. “It went much better than I had expected. Thank you for your not-so-subtle assistance.”

  “Yes, well, you know what they say . . . broken bones mend broken homes.”

  “Really, is that what they say?” Kate asked.

  “I just said it,” Linny said with a grin. “I think it’s got a nice little ring to it. That counts for something, right?”

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, after a quick run and a long shower, Kate sat down in the sunroom with scrambled eggs, toast, and a tall glass of orange juice. She checked her e-mail, ignoring several from her office, determined not to be sucked back into work mode just yet. She laughed at the thought of how hard she had pushed to have daily updates and reports e-mailed to her so she could stay in the loop. And now here she was, ignoring them on purpose. She was just getting used to being away and was a bit surprised at how much she liked it. But even her newfound freedom from work couldn’t hedge her curiosity in one regard. She couldn’t keep herself from opening a message from Veronica with the subject line, “Steve.” He had eaten lunch with Francine Weston from third-floor public relations the day before and had had flowers delivered to her desk that morning.

  Ha! Kate mused. He was much faster than I thought. She was actually relieved that she didn’t feel even a twinge of jealousy at the idea of Steve dating other women. He really wasn’t the right person for her.

  Just then, the house phone rang, disturbing the stillness and startling Kate so drastically she sloshed orange juice all over the front of her shirt.

  “Well, that’s just lovely,” she said to herself, reaching for the phone. It was Mr. Lewis, a friend of Charles’s and a painter who was happy to take care of the rest of the farmhouse. Kate willingly accepted his offer, and then, while it was on her mind, called up Mr. Brumfield about the rest of the needed repairs. Grateful to have the burden of home improvement lifted from her shoulders, Kate decided she should start sorting through the years of accumulated clutter that filled the closets and corners of the farmhouse. It was a dangerous job with a house so full of memories and emotions for so many people. She hoped that before her three weeks of vacation were up, Leslie would be willing to come over and help, but Kate reasoned it was still too soon to issue such an invitation.

  The attic, however, felt safe enough for her to start on her own. Little of what was in the attic had anything to do with the family members who were still living. To be safe, she decided she wouldn’t throw anything away until her cousins had had the opportunity to look it over. Before getting started, she went upstairs to change her orange-juice soaked shirt.

  Kate yawned as she climbed the stairs to her room. She had stayed up late the night before and had hardly mustered the energy to climb out of bed that morning, much less put on her running shoes to run four miles. Still, she’d forced herself to go. How else might she run into Andrew? She’d left the hardware store optimistic that they would run into each other again, but even after twenty minutes of unnecessary stretching in the school parking lot, he had never made an appearance. For a moment, she wondered if he’d stopped running in hopes of avoiding her, but then she chided herself for thinking such things. She hardly knew the man. She probably gave herself too much credit in thinking he even thought of her enough to avoid her. More likely, he simply wasn’t thinking of her at all.

  As she picked out a new shirt, she thought of Ian’s journal, the reason she’d been up so late. After she’d returned from the hospital, she’d stayed up reading, working her way through each page of the journal. It was slow and tedious. While a number of the entries were perfectly clear, much of the journal was faded and barely legible, requiring patience and good light to be read. Kate didn’t mind the extra effort. She was captivated by Ian’s words. Though day-to-day living was obviously very different two hundred years ago, Kate had found it surprisingly easy to relate to his words.

  People are people no matter the century, she had concluded.

  In several of Ian’s entries, he mentioned a girl named Jennie. Kate was fairly certain Jennie was the daughter of Abe MacDonald, the gentleman Ian mentioned in his first entry and his employer. The family Bible indicated that Ian married Jennie, and Kate was thrilled every time she read of their developing romance. Ian’s accounts were generally straightforward and practical, making Kate wish she could read Jennie’s version of the story. But she did find one entry that revealed the intensity of Ian’s feelings. It was only one, but it was enough. Back in her bedroom, Kate opened the journal and, finding that specific entry, read it one more time.

  29 April 1820

  I’ve asked Jennie to marry me. I don’t deserve her, but she’s agreed to have me just the same. I could not be happier, for surely there is no woman more capable and lovely than she. She was just a lass, though a bonnie one, the first time I met her. I thought little of her those first years, my head too full of myself to see how lovely she really was. But then one day, my eyes opened, and there she stood, same as she always was but, suddenly, completely different. Now that she is part of my life, I hardly imagine how I managed to get along without her. Her father has been generous in teaching me the skills of his trade, and though I never would have imagined, I seem to have a knack for it. He’s agreed to have me work by his side, taking over the business completely in time. I’m grateful and hope to honor his generosity by taking care of his daughter, treating her as best I can, as best as she deserves.

  Oh, to find such love, Kate thought. She believed her parents had experienced such love. She didn’t remember much about the dynamic of their relationship, but what she did remember was full of warmth. Mary had told her once that they had been soul mates. “I’ve never known a couple more devoted to each other than they were,” she had said.

  Leslie and Tom, on the other hand, had always been a bit more volatile in their relationship. They loved each other, of that Kate was certain, but from what she remembered of their early courtship, there was little middle ground between passionate love and outright loathing. The pair seemed to bounce between the two extremes as quickly and as frequently as the sun and moon changed places in the sky. Apologies were numerous and intense and generally resulted in a rekindling of emotion that turned the stomachs of anyo
ne unfortunate enough to be around.

  Years ago, Kate asked Mary if Leslie and Tom had mellowed out any as their marriage had progressed into parenthood. Aunt Mary had laughed and told her the only difference was that now they waited until the kids were asleep to battle things out. It must have worked for them. Kate was never aware of Leslie ever having been unhappy in her marriage.

  At the same time, Kate was sure she didn’t want that sort of a dynamic in her own relationship. She hoped that instead of someone who would capitalize on her hotheadedness, she might find someone who balanced her out—someone who ran and sharpened axes for neighbors and had a really great smile and amazing forearms. It still surprised her how readily her brain turned to Andrew. Who is he, anyway?

  Shaking the thought from her mind, she changed her clothes and headed upstairs to the attic. After several hours of sorting, the heat and dust of the cluttered space overwhelmed Kate’s senses. She retreated to the kitchen for a glass of water. While there, she decided to call and check on Linny. When no one answered, she thought it best to just go over and make sure she was all right. Surely she wouldn’t be out and about with a newly broken ankle. Kate slipped on her shoes and put her keys and cell phone in her purse. On the front porch, she met Mr. Brumfield, who was arriving to start work on the repairs.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Katie,” he said warmly.

  Kate smiled and took the old man’s extended hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Brumfield. Thank you for your help today.”

  The kindly man closed his other hand tightly around hers and looked in her eyes, his own filled with sadness.

  “Katie, I didn’t have the chance to talk to you at the funeral. I’m most mighty sorry what’s happened to your aunt. She was a good woman, the best I may have ever known, save my own dear wife. It’s a shame this had to happen so soon after Tom died.” He took a deep breath and patted the back of Kate’s hand. “I reckon God has a purpose in it all,” he finished, finally releasing her from his grip. “My prayers are with you, I want you to know.”