“To the airport. I think you should go home for a few days—spend time with your folks and take a little bit to sort things out on your own, without anybody here swaying your thoughts. Me included, because I’ve got a whole lot of nothing helpful to give you right now, kid. Maybe you’ll find some of the answers that you’re looking for there. Or, maybe not— hell if I know—but at least you’ll have space to breathe without either one of those jerks giving you trouble.”
Nik’s idea shocked Claire—not because it wasn’t marvelous, but because it was unlike Nik to run away from things or stifle her opinions. Home, Claire thought, wondering what it would be like to go home, if she could even call it that anymore. It had been too many years since she’d seen the old farmhouse she’d grown up in, walked along the lazy trails in the forest that edged the backyard.
Claire looked down at the black pumps on her feet and had a wicked thought. “Nik, could I borrow a better pair of shoes? I want to go home in style.”
“That’s my girl,” Nik hooted, fluttering off to fetch something Claire would surely regret asking for.
Chapter 19
Claire was almost used to the sapphire-blue stiletto heels Nik had coaxed her into wearing when her plane touched down in Houston a handful of hours later. She had turned down the several pairs of clunky glittery monstrosities and strappy torture devices Nik had first suggested, having to rein in her friend’s enthusiasm finally to get Claire out of her “house slippers.” Claire had opted for what she saw as the most reasonable option.
Even so, the pencil-thin stilettos, with inclined peep toes and feather-like plumes at the heels, made Claire feel a bit like a strutting peacock—emboldened and embellished. Either way, she felt sure that neither Jake nor David would approve of her choice of footwear, which made her like the stupid peacock shoes even more.
She had phoned David before boarding her plane, knowing that he would eventually find out she’d left New York and, not wanting to sound any alarms that would send him running to Texas, let him know she’d decided to take a few days off and spend some time at the farmhouse. He’d sounded skeptical, but compliant, probably seeing her sudden trip as her way of coping with leaving New York and trying to be supportive.
“I’ll do my best to give you some space to wrap up things on your own,” David had grumbled over the phone. The conversation had more or less ended there, stunted as David resisted his nature, and refrained from putting any more pressure on Claire. “Give Mark and Tabitha my love,” David noted in the end. Then he’d added–with a mischievous note in his voice, “Of course, that is, if I have any to spare, now that you’ve taken it all, Ms. Baker.” That last had made Claire smile.
A small kernel of her was grateful she didn’t have to phone Jake about leaving town. His three-day window seemed to absolve her from checking in, thank goodness. That was one phone call she didn’t think she had the strength to make.
Mark and Tabitha Fisher lived in a large white nineteenth century farmhouse with a sweeping front porch and red-shuttered windows. The house was nestled on a large plot of land that included a small patch of densely wooded piney forest in the back of the house, and a quaint but bountiful perennial flower garden that Tabitha cultivated all year long. It was a picturesque home, complete with a pair of well-worn rocking chairs on the front porch, and a long sidewalk that curled from the gravel driveway to the porch steps.
In the background, the sun was setting the tips of the tallest pine trees on fire. This time of evening was one of the times that Claire enjoyed the most on the Fisher’s property. As a girl, she would sit on the front porch swing and watch as the colors of the setting sun melted into the horizon. Watching the sun set here in this place again filled her with a warm feeling.
It was almost surreal to walk toward the house, as if Claire were walking backward in time. In all those years, she had called and kept in touch by letters and cards, but, like almost everything in her past—except for David—Claire had left this place behind her, allowing it to fade into memory so that she could remember it as it had been, perfect and unchanged. But much to her surprise and delight, the farmhouse looked much the same today as it had in her memory. Perhaps there were things that time didn’t change after all. Maybe some things that were well and truly good didn’t need to be safeguarded in memory to stay that way.
“My stars, is that you, Claire?” Tabitha had opened the front door and was looking toward the yard, wringing an embroidered dishrag in her hands.
“Hi, Tabitha,” Claire called, smiling. She had almost forgotten how pretty Tabitha was. Her easy grace and southern charm were as irresistible as her cooking. “You wouldn’t happen to have any apple pie, would you?”
In the bright shine of the doorway, with the light from the entry chandelier hanging behind her, Claire could see how time had changed Tabitha, wrinkling her round cheeks into soft, downy folds, adding frailty to her ever-thin frame, greying her once honey blonde curls. But she was just as lovely as ever. Claire set her bag at the doorway and took Tabitha’s outstretched hands, letting her look her over. “I’ve missed you, Tab.”
“Oh, I’ve missed you, honey,” Tabitha exclaimed, dropping Claire’s hands and throwing her arms around her. “Where’s David? Isn’t he with you?” She adored Claire, of course, but there was always a special twist in her smile when she mentioned Davie.
Claire’s cheeks turned pink before she could stop herself as Tabitha let her loose. “It’s just me, this time. I needed to…I just needed to see you, I guess.”
“Well, we’re always here, honey.” She squeezed Claire’s hands. “Let’s get you some pie. Mark, you’re not going to believe who’s home.”
When she was full of pie and conversation, Claire let herself out the backdoor and sat in one of the large rocking chairs on the long porch. Mark’s grandfather, whom she’d never met, had handcrafted the chairs and covered them in tanned cowhide to give the chairs an even more authentic cowboy facade. As a girl, the prickly hairs of the hide had itched Claire’s skin, but now it was just another pleasant reminder of her youth. In the dark, Claire could just make out the shapes of blooms in Tabitha’s garden waving in the last hues of the dusky sunlight. The flowers reminded Claire of Jake’s wildflower picnic bouquet, wilting in her bedroom far away.
A muffled grunt let her know she wasn’t alone. “Tabitha thought you might like to take your cider on the porch,” Mark greeted her, handing her a streaming cup. “I think I’ll join you,” he motioned toward the chair’s neighbor, “if you don’t mind.” Claire nodded, and he sat beside her, staring out into the uninterrupted space of the lawn.
For a while, they sat quietly together, sipping cider and rocking in the evening breeze. Mark had the same easy, gentle way about him as Tabitha. He was content to sit quietly and enjoy the presence of someone’s company. In many ways, it made confiding to Mark easy, even if advice wasn’t something he was often comfortable giving, especially to Claire. He always looked tense when Claire brought her troubles to him, encouraging her to talk with Tabitha instead. But he would listen and give the best counsel he could when she talked anyway.
“I’m sorry I haven’t visited,” Claire whispered. It hadn’t been what she’d meant to say, but it was still true. She felt ashamed. The Fisher’s had taken her in and cared for her, and she’d never really appreciated their unconditional love until now. They must have thought her so ungrateful to leave one day and never return. Phone calls and Christmas cards seemed painfully inadequate to repay them for giving her a home.
Mark took a slow sip of cider and sighed into the night air. “Oh, that’s all right, Claire. You know you’re always welcome anytime you want to come…come on home.”
Claire felt she was finally beginning to understand the concept of family. Time and places might change and life goes on, but family was made of those who stayed in her heart. Mark and Tabitha were her family, and families didn’t stop loving each other just because you got older and moved away.
“So why now?” Rocking beside her, Mark seemed an image of what David might be like one day, far from now. They shared so many of the same subdued mannerisms, the same guarded wisdom.
“My heart is broken.” Claire felt a twinge of embarrassment saying it. “I thought I had found what I was looking for in New York, and then…everything changed. I thought that I might find some answers here.”
Mark grunted and nodded. “So it’s David, then?” he said, more statement than question.
Claire didn’t know how to answer. Finally, Mark looked at her. He had the same grey eyes as she did, and they were kind and warm.
“Do you remember when you kids were about eight years old and Tabitha took the candles out of your rooms?” Claire nodded her head yes.
“I had fussed about the candles at first, told her to get the electronic lights, but she said a candle was warmer in a way that a light could never be. When she took them out…well, I always thought she should have left them for a just a little bit longer.” He smiled at her, a faint rising of his lips, and went back to rocking.
Claire sat, bemused, and sipped her cider as she tried to understand Mark’s cryptic memory. Eventually, he stood and pecked a kiss on the top of Claire’s head, an unusually affectionate gesture from the ascetic man. “Perhaps you should go for a walk out in the woods tomorrow. The forest is beautiful this time of the year.” Turning inside the doorway, he ran his fingers across the light switch to turn the porch light off, but decided against it and left it shining.
Chapter 20
At dawn the next morning, Claire did as Mark suggested. Pulling on a light denim jacket over a long burgundy dress and a pair of suede toast-brown booties, she made her way to the backdoor of the farmhouse, eager to walk through the familiar paths in the woods behind the farmhouse. She had slept wonderfully in her old bed, though had woken in the middle of the night, and opened the door that once joined her and David’s old bedrooms. It had seemed somehow wrong to leave it closed, even if he wasn’t sleeping around the corner. She had felt silly doing it, but when she opened her eyes in the morning to see the door still open, it filled her heart with a simple joy.
The house was quiet as Claire crept down the stairs to the kitchen. She half expected to see David already up and dressed, waiting for her at the breakfast table, sipping coffee and reading the paper. She and David had always been early risers, up in time to watch the sun swell up over the horizon. Tabitha had always insisted that before David came, she had to peel Claire out of bed at noon. She said David’s fondness for watching the sunrise roused Claire from her sleep, because she couldn’t bear to miss it with him. David joked it was because Claire wanted an early start on breakfast, which had always been her favorite meal of the day, and knew he always took eggs and grits, her favorites, with his coffee. Really, both were right.
Fortunately, Tabitha had remembered Claire’s habits and set a fresh pot of coffee to brew. The delicious aroma was just now filling the kitchen with the smell of cocoa beans. Tabitha always ground her own coffee, and it made the flavor even richer and more delicious, as if it had just a few extra happy thoughts sprinkled in. Resting beside the coffeepot was a braided straw picnic basket with a yellow piece of notepaper taped to the top. Claire fetched a mug from the cupboard and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she read:
I believe it is called a stroll down Memory Lane, dear Claire. Walk slowly. –Mark
Mark’s riddles stumped Claire. It was unlike him to be so obscure. Perhaps he was trying to tell her something without telling her, to help her see something she was overlooking. He had always been such a reserved, almost withdrawn man, but he seemed different now. Perhaps she and David weren’t the only ones who had changed. Or, maybe she was seeing Mark as he had always been, the same way she had only recently come to understand David. It was a bewildering thought, to rediscover people you’d known your whole life.
Claire scrawled a quick thank-you on the back of Mark’s note and set off to the patch of woods behind the house. The trees seemed shorter than she remembered, but of course, to a small girl they would have seemed huge, green mountains rising into the sky with tips that poked the clouds themselves. The farmhouse in her shadow, Claire took heed of Mark’s words, letting herself fall deeper into memory with every step she took inside the open arms of the trees of the forest, calling up memories so faded they’d almost ceased to exist completely.
It was impossible to count how many times she had walked this trail, how many times it had been more than a dusty path worn by two pairs of small feet—hers and David’s—through winding pines and oaks and prickly bushes. It had been a trail to adventures and places just on the other side of reality. As they’d grown, the path had been their way both to home and away. They had walked this path, telling secrets, sharing stories, and once or twice one of them had run down this trail in tears, the other one following faithfully. Once, she’d run so fast down the path, crying because a boy in her class had poked fun at her curly red hair, that David had to chase her into the woods, and he’d fallen and twisted his ankle only a few feet behind her.
Claire could see him again clearly, sprawled on the dirt, his childhood uniform of black slacks and white button-down covered in dirt, staring up at her with glistening tears in his eyes. She’d stalked back to him, angry and impatient with him for ruining her dramatic moment.
“Why are you crying?” she’d demanded, stomping her foot.
“Because I fell and twisted my ankle,” David had sputtered. “And I’m not crying.”
“You are.” Indignantly, Claire had pulled him to his feet and helped him dust off his clothes. He’d had a small tear the knee of his trousers, and Claire could see a stripe of blood through the slit in the cloth. That bit of blood had made Claire forget completely about the boy at school, and she’d used her dirty hands to wipe away her tears, smearing mud under her eyes. “I’ll sew them for you when we get home,” she’d promised, hoping to sound very convincing about her sewing skills.
“If you want,” Davie had replied, as if he couldn’t care less. They’d taken each other’s hand and marched off back down the trail together. She had held David by the arm as he limped along.
It was a good memory and remembering it made Claire smile. She’d been wrong. Jake flying down the stairwell hadn’t been the first time she’d been chased after all.
Farther along the path, almost at the place where she began to grow tired of walking, grew an old oak, taller and wider than any other nearby. This was Knobby, Claire and Davie’s favorite tree. It was huge, stretching so high into the sky that even now, Claire had to lean way back to see its top high in the clouds. It was thick and round, so massive that when they’d stood on either side, arms reaching for each other’s, even as teenagers their fingertips could only barely touch around the tree’s waist. They’d named the tree after a dinner-plate sized knob that stuck out of its side a little higher than where they stood.
Some of Claire’s best childhood memories had taken place beneath this tree. It was under Knobby’s tangled branches one night, camping outdoors under the stars, that she and David had shared their memories of their parents with each other. They had carted as many blankets and pillows as they could carry out to this tree and lay side by side in their pajamas, staring up to the sky.
“I don’t remember my father at all,” David had confessed to her in the dark. “But I do remember my mother. She was very beautiful and very sad.” He’d furrowed his brows, pursing his lips as he considered the sky above them. “She would sing to me a lot, though, that’s what I remember most. She liked to sing stories about the stars. She said that they were the eyes of the people we’d lost. They can’t say anything, but they’re always there, watching.”
David turned on his side to face Claire, his eyes reflecting white pinpricks in the moonlight. Claire remembered wondering why David’s mother had been so sad, and if it was that same inveterate sadness that made David so gloomy all the time. Sh
e’d thought it was awfully unfair to be so sad, especially when he’d found so many reasons to be happy.
“What do you remember? Were your parents sad, too?”
“No,” Claire had said, smiling a little at her memory. “I remember my parents dancing. My dad had dark eyes like you and my mom had curly hair and grey eyes like me, and they were dancing together in circles, like in a music box. My dad kissed my mom and she laughed.” Claire grinned bashfully at David. “I think that’s what it must be like to be in love, don’t you?”
David had nodded. They were both quiet for a few moments and then he leaped suddenly to his feet and reached down for Claire. “Let’s dance here then, and maybe they will all see us!” It had been very out of the ordinary for David to be so spontaneous and playful, even back then, and Claire had giggled, letting him pull her up and lead her in awkward, spinning circles in the moonlight, dancing and singing and hoping their parents were smiling down on them.
Claire pushed that memory away as she settled herself beneath the old oak, not ready to think too much about David just yet. For the moment, she was content just to think of love how she had believed it to be so long ago—that just one kiss was the recipe to happily ever after.
When Claire had finished her lunch, she stretched against the tree, pulling her hair sharply as it stuck between slivers of bark. The sudden pain made her wince and cry out. Her complaint died when she realized what had snared her curls. Etched into the tree was a crude, misshapen heart, curved roughly around the initials D.H. and C.B.—David Hunter and Claire Baker. Underneath the heart, in a series of rows that became more sophisticated as they graduated down the tree, was a list of dates, starting with the year David had come to live with the Fisher’s and ending with the year they’d left.
The Acorn Tattoo: The Neverland Series Part 1 Anniversary Edition Page 11