Welcome Back

by Lin Stepp

  “Your mother is sharing wise words with you.” John took a last sip of coffee and stood up. “And the more likely explanation of the ghost sightings around here is that someone is playing a prank for some reason. If that’s so, that individual could be dangerous. Maybe mentally unstable. I want you boys to promise me you won’t go to the Upper Farm around the area where you saw this ghost again, or go across Indian Creek above the ridge where other folks have witnessed these sightings. It might not be safe.”

  Mary Beth folded up her paper, got up, and walked around the table to give both boys a kiss. “Daddy John is taking me to work at the store, since Clyde is fixing my car. You boys be good while I’m working today and you mind Ela and Manu.”

  “Okay.” Bucky sent Ela a devilish grin. “Maybe we’ll go watch Ghost Hunters on TV.”

  “Merciful heaven.” Ela rolled her eyes. “I’ll sure be glad when all this ghost business is resolved.”

  Heading down the Farm Road in the truck a short time later, Mary Beth asked, “Daddy, what do you think is really behind the ghost sightings?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Bee,” he said, using her childhood nickname. “The police department is looking into it, but they haven’t found any clues to lead them to affirmative answers yet.”

  “Well, I don’t like any of it.”

  Pulling up at the store, he followed her out of the car and inside the building. “While I’m here, I’ll bring in those boxes from the back storeroom that were delivered yesterday.”

  “Thanks.” She tucked her purse into a cabinet under the register. “Most of the boxes contain apple-related gift items. I’m gearing up for the apple season to come.”

  John smiled. “I think we’ll see a good crop of Early June apples this year. That will give you some apples to sell sooner than usual. I’ll go check the rows later today and see how they’re coming along.”

  Mary Beth put a hand on his arm. “How are things coming along with you and Mom?”

  John’s eyes narrowed and then he stiffened.

  “Oh, don’t get all defensive, Daddy.” She leaned a hip against the counter. “I just meant in general. I know you’ve been to Hill House a time or two and that you took Mom to Cataloochee Ranch to clog Friday night. I wish I could have seen that. I used to love watching the two of you dance.”

  “We had a good time. She enjoyed herself.” His lips twitched into a smile. “Vance Coggins said he wished you’d come along to sing with him and the band.”

  She smiled. “I’d like to do that again soon. I promised him I’d sing with the group the next time they got scheduled at the Stompin’ Ground.”

  “Let me know when that is.” He selected a Tootsie Roll from a candy barrel and tucked it in his pocket. “I’ll bring your mom down one night. She said she’d like to hear you sing.”

  Mary Beth drummed her fingers on the counter. “I still feel strained with her. I wish I didn’t, but it’s been so long since we were close.”

  “Go up and talk to her at Hill House on your own one afternoon. See if you can break the ice, get her to sharing.” He reached over to touch his daughter’s cheek fondly. “I talked to her a time or two like that, and I think it’s helped.”

  “Do you think Mom will be mad when she finds out we’re really not having financial problems and didn’t need her to rent Hill House to help us out?” Mary Beth bit her lip.

  John shrugged. “She might get whipped up at first, but I think when you explain that you and Rebecca cooked the idea up so you could spend time with her again, she might work herself past it. Might even feel flattered.”

  “I hope so.” She slipped on a red Cunningham Farm Store apron, reaching around to tie it in back. “I need to open the store, Daddy.” She looked toward the big clock on the wall. “Ela said to remind you to take that basket of fresh vegetables by the church for the minister.”

  “I’ll remember,” he said, heading for the door.

  A quarter mile down Black Camp Gap Road, John looked for the turn to Fairview Methodist Church, sitting like a beacon on a hilltop at a rise in the road. The historic redbrick church, with its high, Gothic steeple and lovely old stained-glass windows, had been built with the same brick used for Cunningham’s Main House. The Cunningham family had donated the land and much of the money for the construction of the church, as well.

  Mother certainly told me that often enough. John rolled his eyes at the memory.

  He walked across the church lawn, after parking the car, to let himself in the iron-fenced cemetery, scattered with small and large monuments of church members gone by. The Cunningham plots lay near the back boundary of the cemetery, in almost a miniature cemetery of their own with so many markers now.

  John took off his hat at his parents’ graves, the joint stone of Mary and John Cunningham’s standing next to them. Stuart’s monument stood a space or two away, with a white granite angel atop it. It always made John sad to see it.

  “Hello, John.” Pastor Oliver Wheaton called his name as he walked across the cemetery to join him. He reached out to shake John’s hand.

  “I saw you as I went out the door to put birdseed in the feeders.” He pointed toward an array of feeders near the side of the church.

  John laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Maybe you’d better not put those feeders so near the windows by the pulpit area.”

  A flush ran up the minister’s young face. “You may have a good thought there.” He looked toward the feeders. “I guess you saw my attention drift the other Sunday. Right in the middle of the sermon, I looked out and saw a yellow-throated warbler. It’s a rare bird for this area. Bright yellow throat and distinctive birdsong.” He paused, looking toward the feeders again. “I’m fond of birds.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, Oliver,” John said. “Country folk, like here in the valley, understand a love for wildlife.”

  A tall man, nearly John’s own height, the young minister looked directly into John’s eyes. “But I need to keep my avocations and my vocations separate. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “You’re just starting out here, Pastor. You preach a good message, are liked by all the people in the church. No sense in giving folks something to talk about.”

  He considered this, straightening his belt as he did. “You know, I think those feeders would fit nicely near that side fence covered in vines.” He pointed to the area. “I could easily see any bird visitors from my study window on the back side of the church, but not from the pulpit.” He grinned.

  “Good plan.” John smiled. “Maybe you could use something about birds in one of your sermons. There’s a lot of references in the Good Book to birds, flowers, and trees. You might even make a series of it. Turn something that caught folks’ attention into a message.”

  “Hmmm. You might have a good thought there, too.” He glanced at the grave below them. “Your brother?”

  “Yep. Died just before his tenth birthday. Hard on all the family.”

  “Hard on you?”

  “Not in the way you mean. I was a late child and only a baby when Stuart died. But it left me the only son to carry on with the orchard.”

  “Did you have other aspirations?”

  “Not really.” John rubbed his jaw. “But my mother wasn’t an easy woman to live with. That caused problems with my family after I married.”

  “Is that why your wife and boys left?” Oliver asked candidly. He lifted his hands. “As you say, it’s a small valley and people talk.”

  “Yeah, I reckon that was the main reason why.”

  “I hear she’s back and folks are wondering if you’ll reconcile. Is that what you want, John?”

  John closed his eyes. “I never stopped wanting that from the day she left, but it’s hard getting back to a place of trust after all that’s happened. She keeps wanting to look back, rehash the past. I feel that what’s past is past. Isn’t that biblical?”

  “Perhaps, but things still need to be talked out, even
old issues, in order to move on. Especially with women.”

  “You been married?”

  “No, not yet.” Oliver laughed. “But I’ve pastored and counseled a lot of women in the ten years I’ve been in the ministry, in two different churches. They like to talk things out more than men, need to talk things out to move on.” He grinned. “You might want to change your plans about where to locate your own feeders, too—decide to put them out more in the open.”

  “I get your point. But I’m not a man who likes to get all analytical. I’m more a man who likes to deal with today and move on.”

  “Even if it means moving on alone?”

  “Ouch. You’re direct.”

  “Sometimes it pays to be.” Oliver ran a hand over the top of the angel on the grave. “And sometimes we don’t like to talk about things of the past because we don’t want to remember them. We want to bury them, even from ourselves. I’m not sure that’s always healthy. Here’s a scripture related to that idea you might want to think on from First Corinthians 13: ‘Love is patient. . . and rejoices with the truth.’ When hope and trust are lost in a relationship, you have to be willing to give the patience and love to restore it, even if that means dragging up some old memories you’d as soon bury and forget.” He glanced down at the graves. “These loved ones have gone on, but the ones who remain are precious. And time is short.”

  “Nicely put, Pastor, but what about the scripture in Philippians that advises to ‘forget those things which are behind, and reach forth to those things which are ahead’?”

  “Very good.” Oliver smiled. “I like a man who knows his Bible, but let me add that there’s a comma after those words in Philippians 3, and the next part of the sentence urges to ‘press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’ I believe that scripture in full refers primarily to moving on in the Lord and onward in our walk in God.” He clapped John on the back. “But that was a good save, John. You showed quick thinking there.”

  John couldn’t keep from grinning, but then as he looked toward the graves before him, the grin slipped from his face. “You’d think Lydia could at least meet me halfway.”

  “Let me ask you this, John. Did you ever go after Lydia when she left, tell her you wanted her to come back?”

  “Well, no.” John kicked at a rock on the ground. “She’s the one who left. I didn’t ask her to.”

  “And she’s the one who’s come back.” Oliver put a hand on John’s arm. “A woman who had no interest in reconciling would never return to the place where her husband lives, John, and especially to a rental house right on his farm property.”

  John jerked his eyes up.

  Oliver’s gaze grew tender. “She’s already met you halfway, John Cunningham. Now you have to walk the other half distance—and do whatever it takes—if you want to win. Do you?”

  John frowned, stepping away from him. “You’re a dang meddling man, Oliver Wheaton.”

  “I might have said the same about you, coming here and hinting I move my bird feeders and keep my mind on my Sunday sermon.”

  John laughed. “You’re right there. When are you going to come over to the house for dinner? I’d like for you to get to know the family better.”

  “I’ll gladly come anytime. Ela Raintree’s cooking is legend around here.”

  John clapped the minister on the back. “Speaking of which, that’s why I stopped by. Ela sent you a basket from the garden, and I think she tucked in one of her poppy seed breads, too. I have it in the truck for you.”

  The men walked back to John’s truck, laughing.

  CHAPTER 9

  Tuesday, Lydia spent the day quietly at Hill House. She took pictures around the property, including photos of the growing kittens, and shared them online with her sons. Lydia fed the kittens, Trudi and Ava, soft, canned cat food now, mixed with a little milk. She enjoyed training them and watching them romp and play together. They entertained her, made her laugh, and kept her from becoming lonely in the evenings.

  She sat on the front porch in the late afternoon now, curled up in a wicker chair reading, the front door propped open to tempt the kittens to come outside. They needed to learn to navigate the outdoors, but Lydia knew they also needed supervision until they felt comfortable and safe outside. Ava and Trudi crept tentatively out on the porch to begin sniffing and exploring the area, but when an unexpected noise interrupted the afternoon silence, they jumped in surprise and scampered back into the house.

  “Silly cats.” She laughed at them. “That was only a crow you heard. See it sitting over there on the fence? He’s supposed to be afraid of you—not the other way around.”

  Wide-eyed, the two slunk back out on the porch after a few minutes, fears soon forgotten as they started batting a small pinecone between them. However, the sound of a car coming up the driveway sent them scurrying into the house again.

  Lydia looked up to see Mary Beth getting out of a small pickup truck. She lifted a hand to wave as she caught Lydia’s eye.

  “Hi.” She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. “I thought I’d stop by and bring you a loaf of Ela’s poppy seed bread. She went on a baking spree yesterday.” She walked up to bring Lydia the offering.

  “Thanks.” Lydia set it on the small table beside her. “Do you want to sit down?” She gestured to the wicker chair across from her. “I can make some iced tea, cut us a slice of Ela’s bread. I’m eager to sample it.”

  Mary Beth shuffled nervously as Lydia stood up. “If it doesn’t sound silly, maybe we could have hot tea—like we used to.”

  Lydia smiled, glancing at her watch. “What a good idea. It’s four p.m., and as your thoroughly English grandmother Howard would say, exactly the right time for afternoon tea.” She held open the door for her daughter. “I’ll make Earl Grey Lavender tea, dig out my bone-china teacups, and open some boxes of biscuits to accompany our bread. You can help me make the tea and set the tray.”

  Her daughter’s face lit up in a smile. “You brought your tea things to Hill House?”

  Lydia felt her heart catch. “Of course. I have too much English blood to forget something that important.” She moved into the kitchen, putting a kettle of water on the stove to boil and retrieving a chintz teapot from a shelf over the stove.

  “Oh.” Mary Beth caught her breath. “It’s your Chatsford teapot, the one Grandmother gave you. You still have it.”

  “I do.” Lydia smiled, and turned to get floral-patterned teacups and a matching bone-china tea tray from the china cabinet. She set two teacups, saucers, and spoons on the tray, adding white cloth napkins beside them and a two-tiered silver tea tray. From the cabinet, she took down two boxes of biscuits, one vanilla cream, the other chocolate-raspberry.

  While searching for the loose tea on the kitchen shelf, she said, “Mary Beth, you can cut slices of the poppy seed bread and put that and some of those biscuits on the tea tray. Once you open those biscuit boxes, there’s a metal tin on the shelf you can use to put the extra biscuits in.” Lydia gestured in that direction. When she turned around, she found Mary Beth holding the floral-patterned tin box, tears streaming down her face. “Oh Bee, whatever is the matter?”

  Mary Beth’s shoulders shook. “I’ve missed you so much, Mother. I am so sorry about everything.”

  Lydia moved to gather her daughter into her arms, smoothing her hair with loving hands, weeping now herself. “Me too, darling. Me too.”

  “I know I acted awful to you and the boys before you left. Said such horrible things.” She sniffled, laying her head on Lydia’s shoulder. “But I didn’t understand why you wanted to leave and I didn’t want you to go. Later, when I grew older and began to understand things better, I didn’t know how to get back to where we’d been.” The words poured out. “I started so many letters and then tore them up. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “You were very young when I left. Only thirteen.”

  “That doesn’t excuse me for being mean.” Mary
Beth sent Lydia an anguished look. “I wouldn’t talk to you on the phone all those years or answer your letters. I wouldn’t come visit when you invited me.” She pulled away, lifting wet eyes to Lydia’s. “Grandmother encouraged me not to write or talk to you. She said you didn’t love any of us anymore, that you’d turned the boys against us.”

  Lydia felt herself tense. “I imagine she did. Your grandmother had no fondness for me from the start, Mary Beth. I regret that. I hoped I’d win her affection in time, but I never did. In fact, the more time went on, the more she seemed to dislike me. I never understood it. I spent years and years trying in every way I could to build a loving relationship with her, but I never succeeded. Eventually I gave up trying.”

  She turned to the teapot, starting to measure out the spoons of loose tea into the infuser, then pouring the hot tea into the pot over the tea.

  Mary Beth sat down at the kitchen table. “I came today, hoping we could talk. Hoping to break the awful strain that’s been between us.” She started opening the packages of biscuits. “Have you felt it?”

  “Yes.” Lydia set the timer and then came to sit beside her daughter while the tea steeped. “I hoped things would get better with time.”

  “This is better, isn’t it? Even with the crying, it’s real.” Mary Beth pulled a paper napkin from the holder on the table and blew her nose. “Can I stay awhile and talk? Having afternoon tea with you feels so much like the happy times we shared when I was a little girl.” She touched the cups on the china tray lovingly. “When I saw the old tea tray, cups, and the tin, I simply broke. Maybe it was a good thing.” She raised wet eyes to Lydia’s. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

  “How could I ever hate you?” Lydia reached a hand across to stroke her daughter’s cheek, starting a singsong rhyme. “I love you as much as peaches love cream. I love you as much as a king does his queen—” Her voice softened over the words that she and Mary Beth used to make up together.

  Mary Beth interrupted, her eyes brightening. “I love you as much as daisies love showers. I love you as much as bees love flowers.” She laughed. “I remember we used to lie on old quilts under the Old Oak and make up those silly rhymes while the boys climbed in the branches.”