Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  “We were all so parched we must have just gulped it down. Sit down, Louise, I can still make a pot of tea,” Ruth said to her daughter good-naturedly.

  “So are you the painter, Louise?” I asked trying to distract her with another subject. “I love all the decorative rosemaling. Did you paint it yourself?”

  She beamed with pride. “Thank you, yes. I took some painting classes at the community college. Unfortunately, I’ve filled the house, so now I’m trying to see what I can do with creative cooking.”

  I got up to take a closer look at the plate I liked. It had a red background with a prayer written in Norwegian around the outside rim. The middle was a distinctively intricate swishing design. “Did you create the designs yourself?”

  Louise and Connie joined me at the hutch. “Some are my own interpretations but I have tried to copy traditional designs also.”

  “They are very beautiful. I would love to have some items done like this. Do you paint for others? I would pay you for it,” I said sincerely, straightening up as sugar from the lefse filtered down toward my stomach.

  “I would love something also,” Connie added. “Just think how much our mothers would like something like this for Mother’s day or Christmas.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said laughing, obviously touched. “I’ve never painted for anyone else, but I sure could. I could also teach you to do it if you’re interested.”

  I smiled going back to the table. “Thank you very much, but I’ll start with just buying something from you if you don’t mind. I have my hands full clearing out the old house, and I’m not sure I have the time right now to take up a new hobby.”

  “I would like to try it,” Connie added. “I love to paint. I have an art degree but I concentrated on other mediums. Watercolors, sculpture, and a little drawing.”

  Louise looked pleased. “Splendid! I’ll get some materials together and give you a call.”

  “Thank you, Louise. That would be great,” Connie said.

  Ruth brought the newly-made tea to the table and we all had another cup, discussing television shows we liked and some of the local gossip.

  It was such an enjoyable afternoon I hated for it to end, but eventually we had to say our good-byes, with promises of another visit soon. As I moved to the front door, Tiny followed, licking at my feet, and I realized my bra was leaking sugar. I tucked my blouse in as Ruth gave me a knowing smile. I just hoped I could get out of the house without leaking too much. Connie and I returned to our house in such good spirits only to have them dashed.

  Simon was sitting on the front doorstep.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Why on earth would Simon be here now? He looked up at me as I walked past him, but I chose not to acknowledge him. We let ourselves in the front door and he followed me back to the kitchen.

  “What do you want, Simon?” I asked, pulling out the garbage can. I turned my back to Simon and reached into my shirt to pull the lefse out and drop it in the trash. He noticed what I was doing and had to comment. “Can I give you a hand?” he asked smirking.

  “Simon, I just asked, what do you want?” I didn’t smile or soften my tone as I tried to brush the sugar off my stomach, only making it more sticky. I gave up and turned to look at Simon.

  “Laney, I’ve been worried. I’ve heard some disturbing rumors about you and that guy that was here. You do realize he’s known as some sort of con artist. He tries to make people believe their houses are haunted.”

  “Simon, I don’t think anything I do is any of your business anymore so stay out of it.”

  “You’re still my business. I care about you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Laney, I miss you. Maybe I didn’t recognize what I had when I had it. I’ll admit I made some mistakes.”

  “Mistakes? Seriously, some mistakes? Is that what you call cheating, lying and deceiving?” I asked, my voice raising. “Not to mention being controlling and degrading.”

  “I’ve never been able to live up to your standards, Laney. Our problems weren’t just my fault. The cheating was a symptom. We were already having problems. If you had tried harder rather than run the first moment something didn’t go your way, maybe we could have worked it out.” I knew that face. The sincere, strong, I’ve got my shit together look.

  I stood looking at him in disbelief. I wanted to reach out and hit him or shake him. Something to let him know how frustrated I was with him. “This is the first time I ever heard you say you wanted to work anything out. I caught you, you moved out. When exactly was I supposed to work on it?” I didn’t even know what to say to the man. I just remained quiet, glowering at him.

  He moved forward and grasped my arms pulling me towards him. I put my hands out to push his chest but was ineffectual. He leaned forward and dropped his head to plant his lips on mine before I even knew what was happening.

  “Hey, Laney, you in here?” I heard Emmett ask from behind me as he came in the front door. I shoved Simon away from me as hard as I could. He let go of me but not before Emmett had seen us. “Excuse me,” Emmett said, surprised. “I didn’t know you were in the middle of something.” His face had become a mask of politeness but his eyes flashed in anger. He turned and strode out quickly and, flustered, I ran after him.

  “Emmett, wait,” I called. He stopped and turned. “It’s not what you think,” I said breathlessly. “It sounds like such a cliché, I know, but it’s true.”

  “Dean’s going to come by later. I just stopped to see how you were doing after last night’s investigation. You don’t owe me an explanation, Laney.”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” Simon answered, coming up behind me.

  “I’m not talking to you,” Emmett snapped, his face turning red.

  “Hey buddy, you can just keep walking. The door is that way,” Simon said. With that Emmett left quickly without a look back.

  I started to follow after Emmett. I had to make things right. I had to make him understand. I was almost to the front door when I felt Simon grab my upper arm and pull me backward.

  “Don’t go chasing after him. It’s really not lady-like to chase after men.”

  Instinctively, I wheeled around and my hand came up, slapping him hard across the face. Everything went into slow motion as Simon’s head spun to the side. The force of my blow added to his backward motion, propelling him faster than he expected. His feet tripped underneath him and he landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him. He lay still for a moment.

  I could feel my eyes go wide as I brought my hands up to my face. I was shaking, but it wasn’t from fear—I was laughing. I looked up and Connie was standing in the doorway, and she burst out laughing as well.

  Simon looked at me with reproach. “I could really be hurt here,” he whined. “I almost hit my head against the recliner.”

  “The point is almost. Oh, get up, you’re just fine.” I said to him. Neither Connie nor I could stop laughing.

  “I could press charges for assault,” Simon said from the floor, milking the situation.

  “What are you going to say? That you pushed yourself on me by kissing me then forcibly grabbed my arm? This was your fault, and I have a witness, lest you forget.”

  I looked down at the man I used to love, the man I used to pin my hopes and dreams on. It was all gone. I felt none of that now. “You need to leave. I didn’t ask you come here. What happened? Did your girlfriend dump you for a change?”

  “See, that’s just what I was saying, you never tried, you never stuck up for me. You just push me out and now you’ve gotten physically abusive.” Simon climbed quickly to his feet, obviously unhurt.

  “Simon, you’re being unreasonable, we’re divorced. I realize now, I don’t even like you. We were never even friends. I thought you loved me once, but that wasn’t real love. You wouldn’t have treated me the way you did if you’d ever had any respect for me.”

  Simon’s face turned an ugly shade of puce and I could tell he was ready to blow his top.
Connie still stood in the doorway. She was no longer laughing. She just looked at him with her head tilted to the side. Simon was exposed. He used to try to keep his loathsome behavior invisible to others so they wouldn’t know how he really acted. There was nowhere to hide now. Turning on his heel, he left, leaving a miasma of repugnant anger behind him.

  “You were married to that unbearable, controlling man for how long?” Connie asked. “You need a medal for not kicking his ass to the curb after about a month.” She stood looking out the front window to make sure he left.

  I was still shaking as I sat down on the couch and brought my feet up under me. “I can’t believe I let him control me. The one thing he got correct was that it was both of our faults. I let him walk over me. I lost myself in him and his life. I used to be so independent before we were married. I don’t know what happened to me. I think he was in the right place at the right time, and I wanted to get married and have babies. He just seemed so together like he had the secret to happiness and I wanted to know that secret.”

  I sighed and lay full out on the couch. “Maybe I should have tried harder to get him back. He was lovely when we first got married. Attentive, witty, and fun. Maybe it was partly my fault he got the way he became.”

  “EEwwww. Do you hear yourself?” Connie barked. “Are you crazy? You are an attractive, intelligent woman. Why do you tell yourself these things? He was an overbearing bore the first time you brought him around. And you know what else? He hit on me once after you were married.”

  Jumping to my feet I stared at her, “What did you say?”

  Connie softened her voice. “I swore I’d never tell you, but Laney, you have to see things realistically. He was a dog, he is a dog, and it has nothing to do with you.”

  She was right. I needed a dose of reality and I think in that moment I got it. My biggest problem was how I saw myself. He took advantage of my low self-worth and he would continue to do so if I let him. Well, not anymore. From now on, I was in charge of my destiny. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be the victim anymore.

  * * * *

  Dean showed up late in the afternoon to go over all the evidence from the night before. I let him do his thing while I retired to my bedroom to replay the afternoon over and over in my head. I threw on sweat pants and an old tattered t-shirt and lay down on the bed, replaying the incident with Simon and Emmett, wondering how to approach my mother about her father, feeling guilty about the end of my marriage. It was a relief to have a room to go to that was cleaned out and comfortable now.

  Before long, Connie came to check on me while I moped. She walked into the room and slid up onto the dresser. When we were growing up, sitting on dressers or countertops was a favorite form of rebellion as it drove our mothers wild. Now, it made me smile, thinking of all the shared history, the idiosyncrasies no one else would understand.

  “So, what are we going to do from here?” Connie asked.

  “I’d like to crawl in a hole, but that probably wouldn’t help,” I answered dejectedly.

  “Good job slapping Simon across the face. I wasn’t sure you had it in you.” Connie reached over and picked up the photo we had found of our grandmother and studied it.

  I had to laugh. Connie could always make me laugh. “Thanks. It was a long time coming. Hopefully he’ll just leave me alone now.”

  “I hope so too. What are we going to do about your mom? Do you think it’s true what Ruth and Louise said?” Connie put the photo back and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore. We should talk to our mothers in person. Maybe we could talk to your mom first then we could go see mine. Maybe your mom already knows about the rumor.”

  “It was a long time ago and we don’t know if Ruth is remembering things that really happened,” Connie said. “You know how things get jumbled up over time, especially with a woman that age.”

  “I’m not sure. I have a feeling it’s true. Do you think it will change our mothers’ relationship? They would be only half-sisters really.”

  “Laney, don’t take on responsibility for everyone else and their lives. They will be fine. Their relationship is built on love and respect, nothing will change that,” Connie said, sliding off the dresser. “I have something for you.” She went out of the room and came back carrying a book. “I think this will help you.”

  I smiled at the cover and sat up. It was a self-help book on accepting yourself. I had read a lot of positive thinking books in the past. What was one more going to say that could help? I took the book from her and looked through the chapters.

  “I threw this in my suitcase when I knew I was coming to see you. This book really helped me personally. It didn’t fix all my problems or relationships but it did show me how to love myself and stop judging myself,” Connie said, going back to sit on the dresser.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, I’ll stop moping.” I leaned up against the headboard. “How mad do you think Emmett is at me? I swear, Simon ruins everything. Even if the divorce isn’t my fault, it’s hard to just let it go so quickly. We were together for ten years. I thought I would have children with him, would grow old with him.”

  “I know, but don’t look back so much that you forget to move forward. You’re young, independent, strong, and eventually I know you will be happy. You’ll probably always be a pain in the ass, though.” We laughed together.

  Dean yelled up the stairway. “Hey Connie and Laney, I’m leaving now. I didn’t find anything from last night’s investigation but we’ll be back tomorrow night.” Connie jumped down and we both moved to the top of the stairway.

  “Thanks, Dean. See you tomorrow,” Connie said as we walked down to the kitchen. “What do you say we get some sandwiches and eat in front of the television?”

  I made us sandwiches as Connie opened a bag of potato chips and got us each a glass of wine. Bringing our picnic to the living room, we sat down on the couch.

  Paging through the channels, Connie turned on a home remodeling show she wanted to watch.

  “Oh please, I don’t think I can take a remodeling show tonight. Let’s just watch an old sit-com or something—anything else,” I pleaded. Convincing her to turn on another show was easy—finding a sit-com we both liked turned into a squabble, but we finally settled on I Love Lucy.

  “So do you want to catalog some of our finds while we’re sitting here?” I asked Connie, remembering she had wanted to work on our sale some more.

  “I don’t think I can bear it. Let’s get back to that project when we’re rested. Maybe we can work on it sometime tomorrow. Right now I just want to veg,” Connie said.

  Only half my attention was on the screen as I sat watching. Looking at the cupboard next to the TV, I realized I never had checked it out. I wandered over and pulled the door open. Inside there were four shelves. On the top of a bunch of old National Geographics sat an old photo album just waiting to be found. “Eureka!” I yelled, startling Connie who was looking at an old magazine.

  Grabbing the photo album I took it back to the sofa and sat down. Connie and I scooted together on the couch and opened the book with eager anticipation. The first two photos were of an unsmiling couple in their wedding finery. He had dark hair with large eyes, with a finely shaped long nose and high cheekbones, and a full mustache covering his mouth. He was wearing a dark suit with a bow tie, and was quite a handsome man. The woman had lighter colored hair, she also had high cheekbones, and you could tell her eyes were lighter, probably blue, even though it was a black and white photo. She wore a tiara of flowers, and a high-necked, long sleeved, white dress. They made a lovely couple.

  “Who do you think they are? They’re not our grandparents, maybe great-grandparents?” Connie asked.

  “Could be our grandfather’s parents. For that matter could be either, we know our grandmother was blond but I suppose that doesn’t mean her parents were.”

  On the facing page were the same couple singly in other poses.

&n
bsp; “Do you think we look like them?” I asked.

  “The black and white picture makes it kind of hard to tell, plus it’s faded pretty badly. I can never really see resemblances from photos anyway,” Connie answered.

  We turned the page and looked at another married couple. They were also unsmiling.

  “Don’t you wish they’d been able to smile? I think they all look old and crotchety,” I said, and Connie agreed with a nod.

  None of the photos in the book were labeled and we were unable to guess who anyone was.

  “Isn’t it funny that we’ve never really been interested in our ancestors before? I remember doing a family tree when I was growing up for school but I just slapped some photos in and took the project back to school. These photos do seem familiar, but I don’t remember who they are.”

  “I think it’s something that comes with age,” she answered. “People tend to be self-centered when they are young. It’s hard to think of older people as interesting. It’s like you can’t see them as young and real, and having the same hopes and problems that you do. Instead you only remember them as the old people who tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing, and how difficult things were when they were young.”

  Disappointed that we didn’t know who anyone was, we put the album down. “We can take the album along when we go visit my mom tomorrow. Have you talked to your mom yet?”

  “I told her we were going to come over and talk to her tomorrow. I thought we should talk to her about it in person,” Connie said.

  “Good idea. I think I’m ready for bed. How about you?”

  “Right behind you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Someone was in my room. Before I opened my eyes I could feel the presence. The music started very softly, just a tinkling so faint I wasn’t sure if it was real, but then it started to grow louder. I lay completely still, holding my breath, too scared to move. A voice started singing with the music. “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.”