In the same instant, something else became clear. Neither could Zack be what this was about.
How could she make reference to his birth and the realization that similar situations would arise over and over in their life that was so top-loaded with Sebring family needs? How could Jack enjoy his grandson if he had to live with the fact that he lost her over Zack’s birth? The rip she caused would scar his heart forever.
Jack’s eyes were intense, focused beams. His strong grip and mild shake demanded an answer. Mentally, she zipped through options. Since telling the truth served no purpose, her only choice was to endure in silence. She would make peace with the circumstances because she did love him so.
The second shake he gave her wrenched words from her throat. “Just think about it, Jack. You figure it out.” With the noncommittal challenge, she pulled away.
When he arrived at her front door the next morning, she was shocked by his unkempt appearance. The results of hard work and perspiration showed on his clothes and in the dust and dried mud layering tasseled loafers. He gave her a smile that didn’t quite mask the fearfulness brimming his blue eyes: They told her he was a man trying to hold on to a woman letting go.
“Where would you like these, ma’am?” he teased, adopting a deliveryman’s personae. Her gaze followed the rawhide gloves he held and a forearm crisscrossed by thorny scratches. They pointed to two raspberry bushes tucked inside the bed of a pickup truck parked in her driveway.
Callie’s connection with the distant past broke when the wind swirled through the tunnel alongside the cabin. A cut twig teetered off its red maple perch and toppled to the ground.
Again, she looked around at the area Lucius cleared. She could drag the larger pieces to the chipper, but the rest of the work would go quicker if the smaller pieces could be raked. She stored no rake at the cabin. Jimmy had one, but Nadia used it. Callie thought Sarah might be a good source for a rake. Sarah went back to cover the condo office after Nadia arrived with her husband.
Callie stepped back inside, filled a plate with food, then buzzed out to the driveway, and climbed into the Santa Fe. She parked the vehicle on the graveled patch in front of the condo office. Carrying the foil-covered plate, she entered the outer office and found it empty. “Sarah, are you here?” she called.
“Callie, that you?” Sarah’s voice floated through the doorway of her private office. A few seconds later, she appeared, stopping behind the counter where a short stack of outgoing mail lay.
“I hope I caught you before you had lunch.” Callie held out her offering. “Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and biscuits.”
“How sweet. Thanks.” Sarah’s eyes crinkled. “I’m starved.” Callie laid the Styrofoam platter in Sarah’s outstretched hands. “Are you getting that tree cleared away?”
“It’s nearly done. I could rake twigs the rest of the day, but for the want of a rake.” Callie let her pleading face finish out the request.
Amused, Sarah said, “I have two you can borrow.”
“Great. And thanks for the lend of Nadia. She’s nearly as expert as Jimmy.”
“I’m fortunate to have her. She’s quite capable.” Sarah’s brows knitted briefly, studying Callie. “Say, while you’re here, why don’t you take a look at the papers that need your signature? There’s just a few. You can use my desk.” She left the plate on the counter and motioned Callie around.
Yesterday, Callie planned to sign the necessary paperwork, but overheard Beebe’s plans to move to Michigan, and a panic set in. Today, she’d take the time to complete the task.
Nothing in Sarah’s office changed since the last time Callie peeked in. Sarah picked up the brownish expandable folder tagged Heatherwood from the top of the filing cabinet just inside the door. She carried it to a wooden desk angled to face a large window on the back wall. The property behind the office was small, rocky, and dropped off to a shallow ravine. Across the ravine, a forested area climbed up the mountain.
Sarah indicated the seat behind her tidy desk, and Callie sat down. A closed manila folder lay on the desk blotter. Sarah slid a pen within easy reach. “Everything’s self-explanatory,” she said. “Take your time.”
Sarah exited the office, saying she’d eat her chicken dinner outside. A few seconds later, Callie heard the squeak of the screen door’s hinges. By then, the folder’s top flap lay back, exposing a dozen stacked sheets. Sarah’s sign here and initial here tags positioned on various pages acted as guides. A copy of Heatherwood’s deed topped the stack. Jack transferred the cabin to Callie when his cancer returned and hope for a successful fight was lost. No further signature was needed, so Callie flipped that over to the left side of the folder. The condo association agreement came up next. She read the three pages, signed, and dated the last. She scanned the one-page fee schedule and scribbled her initials in the lower corner. She’d already mailed in her dues. Sarah xeroxed the check. That copy followed. She flipped it over.
She signed an agreement giving Sarah permission to enter the property for routine maintenance and general inspections when Callie was absent. Callie gave signed permission for Sarah to hold keys to Heatherwood, necessary in order to complete the maintenance. Callie paid the insurance premium in March and sent Sarah a copy of the statement. She turned it over and initialed a neatly typed sheet acknowledging that the contact numbers and email address listed were correct. That brought up the last sheet, but it was not any type of association form. It was a letter. The handwriting was Jack’s.
She remembered Sarah studying her over the office counter. She knew the letter waited. It was the reason she afforded Callie privacy.
Dear Sarah, the letter began.
Enclosed is a copy of Heatherwood’s deed. I’ve signed the property over to Callie. I know of your recordkeeping fetish and so have thought ahead to provide you with your very properly recorded copy.
These changes in ownership are necessary, Sarah, because I’m ill. The doctors give us no hope.
Callie promises she will continue to drive to West Virginia, to stay at the cabin, to enjoy the special world we built there. I hope she can follow through on that. In the meantime, while we’re both stuck in Maryland, please continue to give Heatherwood your utmost care.
You have been such a good friend that I must ask one more favor. Look after Callie for me when she visits. I’m going to miss her so very much.
Jack Sebring
A tearful Callie greedily absorbed every word written. She read the letter twice, then noticed a stirring in the doorway and turned. Sarah entered, a sense of reverence with her and a sympathetic look on her round face.
“After knowing Jack,” she said quietly, “after seeing him with you, then receiving that letter, well— It’s just foreign to think of him married to anyone other than you. God, he loved you.” Sarah patted Callie’s back. Her fingertips lingered, and Callie looked away, her chin trembling. “And leave it to Jack to turn my perception of the hereafter on its ear.”
Head bowed, Callie smiled at the other woman’s amused tone, and then Sarah found a thoughtful one.
“I still can’t get over it. He was going to miss you after he died, and love you even then.” She patted Callie again. “Anyway, I thought you’d want the letter.”
Unable to speak, Callie nodded. From somewhere, a tissue box appeared, then Sarah slipped out, closing the door. The quality of her friendship was higher than most.
On that Friday, Callie proved her mettle against grief. Public tears were the worst, but the fight was on. After a three-tissue blow, the starch was back in her backbone.
Letter in hand, she got to her feet. The office door opened quietly. Sarah was nowhere around, neither inside nor out, but two rakes leaned against the Santa Fe.
Callie reached through the open passenger window and laid the letter on the seat, then grabbed the rakes and went around to the cargo door to store them. Settling behind the wheel, she never let her gaze drift from the letter. No wonder Jack made her promise to return to the cabin. She suddenly thought of the cabin as it had always been—a rendezvous for lovers. He’d been waiting there for her for such a long time. Waiting, and missing her. How comforted he must be by her presence. She ran a fingertip across the folded sheet. Jack was just the kind who’d have the strength of will to carry himself beyond death.
Closing her eyes, she thought back to the predawn when she felt the touch of his hand, when her promise remained unfulfilled. That supreme effort was meant to convey his patient understanding. If she listened carefully that morning, she might have heard his voice in her ear. “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
Now in a rush to return to Heatherwood, she turned the engine over and negotiated a tight U-turn. The odd twist of feelings rode with her.
Throughout the afternoon, she performed the outside work robotically. They were an exhausted group when the tree was cleared. She expressed her gratitude to the O’Malleys, Updykes, and Lucius for their time when they headed out. Callie and her cabin mates dined on leftover chicken. By sunset, a swift coolness plunged down from the northern mountain peak. Callie scurried around, finding blankets to ward off the overnight chill she knew would come. If there had been conversation among them, Callie could not have attested to its content.
Eventually, a quiet darkness engulfed Heatherwood. Callie started out between the sheets, but, as had become the rule, sleep would not claim her. On that night in particular, she didn’t expect it would. She slipped out of bed, draped the blanket around her shoulders, and went into the great room. The surreal feeling that embraced her ever since she read Jack’s letter walked with her.
She drifted through the cabin, letting moments with Jack fill her mind and tug at her heart. She stopped to look through the window in the kitchen door. She knew she owed him more. She owed him a successful outcome to this horrendously difficult week.
In the night sky, gauzy cloud-cover trailed away. Moonlight lit the river and served to illuminate a decision Callie wrestled with for hours. She needed one more caucus. Through her, Jack would be heard. If Beebe wanted a topic to head the next clean page in her notebook, sentimentality should be written there.
“Jack,” she said to his nearby portrait, her little finger crooked, “when morning comes, I will speak for you.” Staring at the gleam in his eyes, she kissed the air between them, then slipped back to their bedroom, crawled between the covers, and slept.
The Godfrey’s Caper
At seven, Callie woke to a quiet cabin. She showered and dressed. She was nursing a mug of coffee and working patchwork squares into a design at the kitchen table when first Beebe, then Arnett stirred. Both went to stand under hot pulsating sprays. Lizbeth, with cartoon-like slits for eyes, shuffled out for coffee. She mumbled a good morning, which Callie merrily returned, adding that Lizbeth had thirty minutes before she served pancakes and sausage. The nod she gave Callie sent a cow-licked section of hair into a wild bob.
Callie felt for Lizbeth. After lunch yesterday, Lizbeth joined in with vigor to dismantle the tree. Last night’s hard sleep allowed the body only slow, deliberate movement. Callie worked out the worst of her kinks. The others would feel better soon.
And food would help. Callie’s pancake recipe, Jack’s favorite, called for egg whites only in the floury mix. She measured out small amounts of lemon juice, sugar, and baking powder. She got the griddle going and paid close attention to the link sausage in the skillet. She cleared her sewing away to set the table. Beebe appeared. By the time she poured four glasses of orange juice and set the coffee carafe on the table’s hot pad, Arnett and Lizbeth were seated. The cool mountain air gave everyone black-bear appetites.
When the clinking of silverware on china eased, Lizbeth announced she was considering a drive into town.
“Maybe later,” Beebe said, taking charge. “Callie has reserved time for a caucus.”
Arnett shrank visibly with the news.
“I thought she and I would chat about that while you two clean up. Would you mind?” Beebe sent her rhetorical question to Lizbeth and Arnett. She was already scooting her chair back.
Callie knew, as she followed her away from the table, she would not preview much more about her sentimentality story than just that. With the tree to clear, the group had not caucused the day before.
The windows and doors, closed against the overnight chill, prevented the cabin’s occupants from hearing Lucius’s truck pull into the drive. He simply appeared outside the kitchen door, swept through, bussed Beebe’s cheek with a kiss, then Callie’s. He glided over to the table where Lizbeth and Arnett still sat and pressed his lips first to a damp head, then curly locks. Between each kiss, he spoke musical and individualized hellos.
Callie wondered how long Lucius had been mainlining sugar.
“What are my precious girls up to this morning?”
“Callie and I were just going out to talk. She wants a caucus.”
“No, no,” Lucius said, his face a mask of horror. “Absolutely not. Lucius has his dinner party tonight. You haven’t forgotten.” He strode up to Beebe. “You mustn’t caucus. Not today. Upset ruins the digestion.”
Listening, Beebe tipped her head to one side, amused. “But Lucius—”
He cut her off. “No caucus. No upset!” Then his lips curled up at the corners. “No need,” he said, smug.
“Lucius, what are you up to?” Lizbeth said, her eyes narrowed by suspicion.
“Nothing, pumpkin. It’s just that I prayed you wouldn’t caucus,” he said, “not since my last trip to Godfrey’s.”
Lucius’s last word caused Callie to straighten, unobtrusively, she hoped. Godfrey’s was meant to clue her in. She caught and held his gaze for a nanosecond before Beebe spoke. “It’s Callie’s call if she wants to cancel.”
Everyone focused on Callie. She had to trust that Lucius’s show-stopping buildup to the evening’s dinner party was more about the true resolution the two of them were conspiring to produce than a successful social gathering. They became conspirators at Godfrey’s. Shortly thereafter, they maneuvered two others, Willie Thorne and Vincent Bostick, to climb onboard. She wanted to create a magic similar to the kind Jack could spark: diamond rings and a cabin’s name being excellent examples. She searched the carpenter’s face and made a decision.
“Okay,” she said, “I won’t cancel, but I will wait.” She was not opposed to keeping her midnight promise to Jack at the party, in front of Willie and Lucius. Digestion be damned.
Lucius took two long strides and pulled her toward him. “Thank you, sweet knees.” His next words dropped to a whisper. “We’ll talk outside.” Letting go, he turned to the seated pair. “Now, what was breakfast?”
“Pancakes,” Arnett said, getting up, infused with new energy, the kind only a delayed caucus could produce.
“Good,” Lucius said. “Pancakes will hold you. Do not eat. No caucusing, no eating. Put your heads together and come up with something else to do. If you can’t think of anything, Lucius has it covered. What, you wonder?” the day-planner said. “Just wait. Lucius brought a surprise. But first, I’m two chairs short around my dinner table. Callie, my dear, dear nursery mate, may I?” He laid an arm around Callie’s shoulders, then slid a covetous glance toward her kitchen furniture.
“Sure, fine. You get one. I’ll get the other. A little help, please,” Callie said to Beebe, who pushed through the screen door and held it wide.
They carried the chairs to the rear of his pickup and out of earshot.
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“See, I told you we needed a codeword.” He set the chair down to reach into the truck bed for one of the mover’s blankets he brought along.
“Where are things?” Callie said, suddenly anxious.
“Willie reported in,” Lucius said, still in secret-spy mode. “He made the call to Senator Emerson. He’s sounding positive. He’s got a plan for tonight. We’ll follow his lead.”
Instinct told Callie she could rely on intelligent Willie Thorne. With teamwork, they wrapped the first chair in its blanket, then moved to the second.
“What about the shipment?”
The shipment Callie referenced connected a fact learned while speaking with Vincent in Lucius’s cabin to a gift for Beebe. A quilt, in fact, one Callie planned to sew from Beebe’s mother’s clothes. Callie’s style of quilting came up during the conversation, and Vincent mentioned that the mother’s clothing still resided in Clifford Walker’s house.
“Vincent confirmed the shipment,” Lucius said. “I think it’s all going to work out.” Closing the tailgate, he faced Callie and clicked his heels. “It has been my sincere pleasure to serve.”
The Godfrey’s Caper, Callie thought. Jack could not have done better.
Callie waited while Lucius collected a half dozen DVDs from the pickup’s front seat. Of course, she thought, this was Lucius’s surprise. With any amount of spare time, Lucius watched movies. She remembered the specially designed shelves his music and movies occupied in the Bullwhip cabin. Back inside, he sought out Lizbeth. She whipped a terrycloth kitchen towel over her shoulder in order to receive the DVDs in both hands.
“I’ve got another handful of animated movies in the truck I thought Chad would like.”
“Oh, my!” she said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll put them in the Tahoe.” Smooching his fingertips, he tossed a measure of expressed affection into the air for everyone’s benefit.
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