Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You're Wearing Us Out!

  “How about you start with a quarter?” a voice from the back yelled.

  “How about I start with a dollar. One-dollar bill, one dollar, one dollar, one, one, one-dollar bill. Who’ll bid just one lousy dollar?” Silence.

  “How about you start with a quarter?” the voice from the back yelled again.

  “Who’ll give me half, half a dollar, half a dollar bill. Who’ll give me a half?” Silence.

  “I’ll give you a quarter,” the voice said. Swifty saw an arm rise in the air, holding a bidder’s card with number 124 on it.

  “One quarter, I’ve got one quarter. Who’ll give me a half? Quarter give me half, half a dollar bill!”

  Dorothy saw Swifty reach for the gavel he kept tucked in the back of his belt. “Arthur! Do you have a number?” Dorothy hadn’t bothered to register for a number since everything in the auction was hers to begin with, or so she thought.

  “Yup. Why?”

  “QUICK, ARTHUR. RAISE YOUR NUMBER!”

  Arthur reached into his coverall pocket, pulled out his number, lifted it in the air and yelled “HERE!” so Swifty didn’t miss that there was another in the hunt.

  “I’ve got a half, half a dollar, who’ll give me one dollar bill? Half give me a dollar!”

  “HERE!” came the voice from the back.

  “I’ve got a dollar, who’ll give me two, one dollar looking for two!”

  Dorothy poked Arthur in the ribs. “RAISE YOUR NUMBER, ARTHUR!” Dutifully, Arthur pierced the air with his card.

  “Two dollars I’ve got two, two, two, who’ll give me three?”

  “HERE!” While Swifty noted the stranger’s bid, Arthur asked Dorothy, “What in the jumpin’ Jupiters are ya gonna do with that thing, woman?”

  “Hush up and just hold your arm in the air, Arthur. And don’t put it down ’til I tell you to!” Arthur did as he was told. Swifty acknowledged Arthur’s three-dollar bid and asked for four.

  “YUP!” said the voice from the back.

  “Four, who’ll give me five? Do I have five dollars?” Arthur supported his raised right arm with his left, acting like the bidder’s card weighed a ton. “FIVE, now I’ve got FIVE DOLLARS!” Swifty said, pausing a moment in his own astonishment. A mumble rippled through the crowd. “Who’ll give me a TEN-dollar bill? Five I’ve got five, who’ll give me ten?”

  “What happened to SIX?” asked the bidder in the back.

  “Just trying to speed things along so I can get a potty break in before we move inside,” Swifty said. Everybody laughed, since it was a potty he held in his hand.

  “Well, I’ll give you SIX!” said the sarcastic voice.

  “Dorothy, why don’t ya just let that piece of junk go? What’s gotten into ya, woman?” Arthur stared at her long and hard, wondering if she hadn’t lost her mind back there behind the barn.

  “Arthur Landers! Do not lower your hand! Don’t even LOOK like you’re wavering! Can you see who in the world that is bidding against us?” Dorothy craned her neck, but from her perspective, the face of the bidder that belonged to the arm could not be seen, and she didn’t recognize the voice. Arthur kept his hand held high as he turned to see if he could get a gander at who was bidding against them while Swifty acknowledged their seven-dollar bid. At that moment the crowd jostled just enough that Arthur could see it was the stranger who’d given him some lip.

  “HERE!” the stranger yelled when Swifty asked for eight. Although he’d previously determined he wouldn’t pay more than six dollars tops for this gag gift for a golfing buddy who’d recently suffered a bladder infection, when he saw he was bidding against the testy, burly man who’d nearly refused to wait on him earlier in the day, his nostrils flared, and he set his good sense aside. The two men glared at each other for a brief moment until the crowd closed their view again. Never mind the gag; now it was a matter of wills.

  “I’LL GIVE YA TWENTY DOLLARS!” Arthur yelped, trying to stare a hole through the crowd in the stranger’s direction.

  “Arthur! What in the world are you doing?” Although Dorothy wanted the bedpan and flowers, she surely hadn’t thought about having to pay twenty dollars for them.

  “There’s only one thing I know fur sure right now, Dorothy, and that’s that that fella ain’t a-gonna git that ugly bedpan!” Although Dorothy had no idea as to the why of Arthur’s sudden determination, she was glad of one thing, that Arthur was on her side. And on her side he was, clear to the finish when the bedpan and poinsettias went to bidder number four, which was Arthur’s number. Yes, the bedpan was all hers, but not before she had to pay thirty-five dollars to get it!

  “WE WON!” she yelped to Arthur when the gavel finally came down.

  “Yup, we won, Dorothy! We beat that sissy pants good, by golly.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill and handed it to her. “I reckon fer what we paid for that dented piece of garbage and some plastic flowers, we oughta have joint custody, don’t ya think?”

  Dorothy stuck out her hand to shake, and Arthur accepted. “Deal!” she said. And they both laughed for a solid thirty seconds.

  24

  It was the end of a second day of exhausting but fruitful work, during which time the cleanup committee—who’d arrived immediately after church—waited for final pickups, often having to help people load. All the auction items had been cleared away, except for a couple of miscellaneous boxes of stuff from which owners had obviously retrieved their choice item, having been forced to bid on a box-lot of goods. As if arriving direct from heaven, Dorothy’s mother’s old apron had been stuffed into one of them. She reclaimed it with utter joy, deciding she would display it on a wall in her new home. All looked forward to the next day’s holiday when they could catch their breath.

  Dorothy told the committee just to go ahead and toss the rest of the odds and ends of leftover auction items in with the leftover rummage sale boxes of stuff. They needed to get rid of them somehow, and Dorothy had already rejected them once. Then everything that had been boxed was donated to Now and Again Resale, whose owners happily came and loaded every last scrap into their old horse trailer. The committee then tidied up the grounds, depositing debris in the Dumpster.

  Sometime just before the last pickup truck roared its way down the Crooked Creek lane, Caroline Ann’s bedroom set strapped in the back—while its dimple-cheeked, curly-haired, blonde new owner giggled in the front seat next to her daddy—the Wetstras made the decision to have one final bonfire together at day’s end. Dorothy suggested they invite Katie and Josh and make it an Official Good-bye/Hello to Crooked Creek Farm Event. Everyone agreed. But this evening they would settle for nothing less than a creekside gathering rather than their usual fire pit up near the barn. Dorothy’s men had dutifully loaded everything needed on the trailer behind the tractor, even though they groaned about once again getting stuck in the loading/unloading cycle.

  Katie had purchased the tractor-trailer duo fair and square at the auction. Although she wasn’t sure exactly why, she knew it needed to stay. The old John Deere’s official first duty under its new ownership had been to tow them all—lock, stock, firewood and benches—through the wild grasses and flowering weeds down to the feet of Willy, Woodsy and Willoway.

  The sound of crickets, rustling water and quiet conversation permeated the warm Sunday evening air. Nostrils were treated to dew-laden, earthy aromas intermingled with the fragrance of smoke from the bonfire. Some of the stars actually winked, appearing like blue and reddish jewels luring the eye to behold them, and from near the horizon a full moon watched over it all. Katie and Josh, Dorothy and her sons and grandsons all sat around the fire, realizing that sooner or later they’d have to get up and say their official hellos and good-byes to the now empty estate—empty, that is, aside from the Dumpster.

  The group spent the fireside evening talking about recollections from Dorothy’s youth, as well as from those of her sons and grandsons. Josh gave them a replay of his first crawdad hunt with Dorothy, an
d they all laughed about Josh and Alex’s adventure when they wore their T-shirts tied around their heads.

  “As long as you didn’t get wet, everything was okay, right?” Vinnie teased. “Right. I mean, come on! Who among us hasn’t gotten wet in Crooked Creek?”

  Flatly and with perfect enough timing to make his point, Josh answered the redundant question. “My mom.”

  “What?” Steven asked incredulously. “Your mom hasn’t gone crawdad hunting?”

  “Nope.”

  “Too bad it’s too dark to find the little buggers now,” Vinnie said.

  “But it’s never too late to get wet!” A hint of a threat rose in Jacob’s voice. “I’m game if everyone else is. And he—or she—who isn’t game is a chicken liver.” Although Katie couldn’t see his eyes through the reflection of the fire in his glasses, she had a feeling he was talking directly to her.

  “Jacob Henry,” Dorothy said. “I do believe you’re trying to cause trouble. We don’t even have any towels down here with us, let alone up at the house now.”

  “Chicken Liver,” he said to his mom while he looked right at her. “Chicken Liver,” he said to Katie, turning his head in her direction. With that, all three boys began unlacing their shoes, as did Vinnie, then Jacob. Although Jacob had just intended to taunt Katie a bit, it seemed the rest of the clan was taking action. In a flash, Dorothy bent down to untie her pink laces.

  “You can’t be serious!” Katie said. “You’re all liable to trip and slip in the dark and injure yourselves. Think about your mother here,” she implored.

  “Whose mother are you talking about?” Josh asked. “Theirs or mine?”

  “She who doesn’t volunteer to get wet gets wet anyway!” Vinnie said.

  “Now, boys!” Dorothy reprimanded, as if they were all five years old. But they were already cautiously heading toward the creek, the full moon lighting their paths just enough to keep them from stumbling over branches.

  “Come on, Mom. I’ll guide the way.” Jacob, who had now peeled off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs like the others, came over and took his mother’s hand, helping her up from the chair. Dorothy glanced over at Katie, who was still sitting on the bench, her spanking new white cross-trainers tightly laced. “Come on, dearie. I think it would be best for you if you join us voluntarily, lest this group of wild and woolies takes you hostage.”

  “Really, Dorothy,” she said stuffily. “This just isn’t my thing.” Katie trusted that her firm statement would be respected.

  “Wet feet don’t have to be your thing,” Jacob said sarcastically. “They just need to be your wet feet.”

  By now, the boys and Vinnie were kicking water at one another and whooping and hollering, their voices echoing in the darkness. Jacob was guiding Dorothy one step at a time as he backed his way into the creek, holding one of her hands in each of his. Her eyesight surely wasn’t what it used to be, especially in low light. “Whoo-ee, that’s chilly water,” she said when her feet squished into the familiar and comforting muck. “But it wouldn’t be so refreshing if it wasn’t!”

  Katie, sitting all alone, stared into the fire, the sounds of laughter encircling her. For a moment she began actually to pout, feeling abandoned by juvenile behavior. But at the exact same moment it struck her that she had chosen to stay behind—an insight that would never have occurred to her several months ago—a chorus of relentless “Chicken Liver! Chicken Liver! Chicken Liver!” came her way from the creek.

  Off went the shoes. Off went the designer socks. Off to the water she bravely strode, ouch-ing her delicately pedicured feet across the rocks and into the waters of Crooked Creek. Before they finally doused the fire, packed up and piled back onto the trailer, every one of them was sopping wet. Katie couldn’t remember when she had ever laughed harder.

  “Let’s begin upstairs in my office,” Dorothy said to the damp and motley-looking crew, “and work our way through, just like we did when we sorted through things.” Dorothy led the way up the stairs, once having to stop and rest. As they stood on the stairway, Vinnie said, “Mom, maybe we should have skipped the bonfire and splash party. I imagine you were worn out enough already.”

  “Don’t be silly, Vinnie. Why, you can’t begin to imagine how that restored my very soul. I wouldn’t trade that new memory for anything, not even for all the crawdads in the creek.”

  Room by room, they entered and, as instructed by Dorothy, formed a broken circle around the periphery. With ceremony, Dorothy stepped into the middle of the empty room, her voice sounding a bit hollow with nothing to absorb the sound, and announced, “Office, I am saying good-bye. Thank you. You have served me well.” Then she motioned Katie and Josh to step forward into the circle with her. “Office, this is Katie and her son, Josh. They’re your new tenants. Thank you for all the memories you are already beginning to impart to them.” Although Katie at first felt awkward and silly, not to mention the fact that she looked disastrous, by the time they were done with the first two rooms she had forgotten about her vanities. An acute awareness of a deeper meaning now grew in the pit of her stomach. Occasionally Dorothy would thank a room for a specific memory, especially in her bedroom, the room in which she had been conceived and born. Everyone choked back a tear before they left there.

  When they got to the last room, the kitchen, Dorothy had them form a tight enough circle to hold hands. It was time for a prayer of thanks. In the middle of the empty kitchen in the empty farmhouse, she began:

  “Lord, giver of life, of all that is seen and unseen, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness for the folks gathered here with me in this circle. Thank you for sparing me trying to say my good-byes by myself when I first moved out awhile back, for surely I would have broken under the weight.

  “But now, now with the people I love gathered around me, and the promise of new life and stories standing right here beside me”—she squeezed Katie’s hand when she spoke—“I don’t feel so much like I’m leaving something as I am just moving along and turning things over to the next loving hands.” She paused for five seconds, contemplating. “I imagine that’s what heading for heaven will be like. A feeling of just moving along to the next better place, making room for those who will come to this earth even long after I’m gone.

  “Thank you, God, for seeing us through so many trials. For feeding us off the land. For loving us, even when we didn’t love You with our whole hearts. Thank you for a sturdy homestead and the hands that built it.

  “Thank you for the uncountable memories I take with me and the joy that fills my heart when I sift through them. Thank you, God. Thank you. And that’s it for now. Amen.” Her voice had stayed strong and steady throughout.

  By the time they let go of hands, Katie’s nose was running like a faucet as tears streamed down her cheeks. When Jacob noticed her trying to wipe her entire face with her damp shirtsleeve, he reached into his back pocket and handed her his monogrammed cotton hanky.

  Before Dorothy got into Jacob’s car, she told everyone she needed to have a quiet moment by herself in the barn. “Please, dear, open the big door a crack so I can squeeze through. I’ll only be a minute.” Jacob held her elbow in his hand as they ascended the hill, past the silo, into the barn. He rolled back the door for her, then stood watch outside while his mother said her personal good-byes to the barn.

  Katie started up her Lexus, desiring to leave to give Dorothy space for her final farewells. When she turned the wheel, the Lexus’s headlights flashed directly on Jacob, revealing the fact he was wiping tears from his cheeks. Quickly she cut the engine, feeling as though she’d broken into the hidden heart of a man.

  Inside Dorothy stood silent, not even praying. She concentrated, willing her senses to absorb as much of the surroundings as she could. Oh, it wasn’t that she wouldn’t be back to visit. But it would never feel quite the same again, of that she was sure. For decades and decades, this place had been nothing short of God’s holy ground, where Dorothy could drink of her maker’s mag
nificent creation and melt into being nothing more or less than her complete self. “Just as I am, Lord. You’ve always accepted me just as I am.”

  Suddenly, the words she’d heard God whisper to her just a few short months ago when she stood nearly in the same spot as she did right now came to her again. Remember well all you see, for these splendid images will sustain you in the days to come. She closed her eyes and meditated upon the words. Favored verses from the first chapter in Second Peter rose within her. “. . . I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you…” “His calling and choosing you…”

  “John fourteen, twenty-six. Lord, I thank you for my Sunday school teacher who helped me memorize that one.” She spoke the verses aloud. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

  “THANK YOU, sweet Jesus, for reminding me I don’t even have to worry about remembering, other than to remember You were, are and will always be with me, no matter where I stand.” Dorothy Jean Wetstra then blew a kiss to the heavens. With the eyes of her heart, she fully understood the power of living in the moment. Her merry heart then delivered a huge smile to her face, and in that instant, Dorothy knew that no matter where she roamed, her very own smile would proclaim her memories—the very spirit—of Crooked Creek Farm.

  25

  Josh was happily off to his third week at Hethrow High and his first week getting on the bus at the end of the lane at Crooked Creek, the place he and his mom had now moved into. Katie’d had her concerns for his transition alleviated early on when he returned to the Lamp Post day after day rattling on a mile a minute about how Shelby had spent every free moment in the halls introducing him to this one and that, and how she seemed to know just about everybody. He engaged in nonstop, upbeat chatter for a solid twenty minutes nearly every day.