The Return

by Margaret Guthrie

  #

  Now, in the middle of March, Lydia, with her black cat Obsidian curled up in the passenger seat, was on her way. She had her computer with her, and already knew there was an internet provider in New Hope. She hoped Margie would accept Obsidian. And that he would accept her. Margie wasn’t exactly a cat lover, she remembered. She wasn’t sure what Margie expected from her in regard to the printing shop and Sherrie Claxton, and she dreaded what the house was going to need. On one hand, the whole move seemed rather surreal, yet on the other, she knew something had to be done to end her disturbing dreams. Maybe when it got warm she’d plant a garden, grow some flowers. She’d always loved to work in the soil, loved taking a pitchfork or spade to turn it, break up large clumps, then kneel into it, take the soil in her hands, smell its breath, watch tiny insects and worms go about their business. Something about the earth made her feel good, calm, and close to the heart of things. She loved the way she could shut out the rest of the world and just be in the garden. And then, sometime of course, she’d visit the gym. And deal with what was there.

  By late afternoon she entered Iowa, followed Highway 30 west. A grey sky spit tiny snow crystals against the windshield and ahead it looked dark and threatening, but she was tired and needed a place to stop and get a bite to eat. Forty miles to go. These rolling hills were treacherous when wind filled the deep ditches on each side of the road with snow and everything looked level and white. Or when visibility was shortened to a few feet and one strained to see the white stripe on the edge of the road. But that was not now. That was only a fear of the future. Besides, she had a back-up team and she could visualize a protective light around the car and she could sing along with the tape she had brought. She just needed a short stop.

  Outside Tama she spotted King’s Tower Cafe and pulled in. She put Sid on a leash and together they found a spot out of the wind to do his thing. Then she picked him up and carried him in, hoping there would be no objection. The walls had old framed pictures of Indians she presumed were from the near-by Mesquakie settlement. She had long held respect for their story. When they were forced off this land in 1846 when Iowa wanted to become a state and marched into Nebraska, some of their ingenious young men hid out along the Iowa river and sent runners back and forth to their Kansas brothers while developing a scheme to get their land back. With the money the U.S. government gave them to resettle, a few were designated to go to the Iowa legislature and ask to buy their land back. To their credit, the legislature honored that request. Thus Tama was founded.

  Lydia noticed that some of the employees seemed to be Indian, but the waitress was white. She wondered what it was like on the settlement, how they were making it in this world a hundred and fifty-three years later.

  The waitress was not delighted with Obsidian, but relented when Lydia explained she didn’t want to leave him in the car because of the cold, and didn’t want to leave the motor running in case someone wanted to run off with it. She smiled her best smile. “It’s not customary,” the waitress grumbled, adding she wasn’t responsible if the manager objected.

  “That’s fine,” Lydia said. She ordered tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwich. Others came in as she ate and stomped their feet of snow. She overheard comments that there would be a foot before nightfall. She ate as quickly as she could, and even with some deep breaths the tension crept into her shoulders and neck.

  Back in the weather she picked Sid up and hurried to the car. The snow came down in serious biting flakes and wind whipped hair into her eyes. Lydia turned on the wipers and headlights. It was slow going. She had to watch carefully for the turnoff at Highway 65 that would take her straight north to New Hope. There was little traffic, as if everyone knew better than to be out. She marked the mile on her odometer, the only way to judge the turn off and slowed down. There were no headlights behind her, thankfully.

  The landscape had changed since she was last here, what she could see of it. How long ago? Six years? Five? Whenever that tornado had come through and taken the barn off the property and strewn it around. She and Margie had to get someone to clean it up. It had been a quick trip. Jake Jackson, the caretaker, was the only one she saw and then very briefly. They had paid a lot of money to take care of the mess.

  Some time in the past there had been more trees, she was sure. More farm buildings. Smaller fields. With the snow blowing across the open space it was like the vast spaces of the west. What had happened to the Iowa of small farms like she had known when living with Grandfather and Grandmother Kinnen?

  Lydia tried to see through the snow blowing crosswise in front of her. The ground had become the white level field she dreaded and she bent forward to see the edge of the road. New Hope, where are you? she spoke out loud to Sid, who couldn’t care less. She turned the heat on full blast. It warmed her hands, clenched like a vise on the steering wheel. The odometer said the turn-off should be soon. Then it was there, and she was glad of her slow speed. Not much further now, Sid, she advised. With the turn she headed straight into the snow, her vision narrowing until the car and herself were in a white cocoon. But there was no traffic and at last she was on the last hill before it leveled out into New Hope with street lights on in the mid-afternoon darkness. She passed the Friends church, took a right, then left and coasted into town. Another right and she was on Main Street with the gas station, garage and restaurant on her right and the grocery, beauty shop, hardware, mercantile and video shop on the left. Cars were parked at the restaurant. One more left turn and she followed the street past well-kept small white houses on both sides and until just before the school, she turned into the Kinnen driveway. Margie had the back porch and garage lights on.

  “We’re here, Sid.” He raised his head, yawned and stretched. She reached over and gave him a stroke before getting out of the car and hand lifting the heavy wooden garage door. “Number one, get an electric lift for that door,” she told herself. She pulled her Suburu into the garage beside Margie’s Toyota and cut the engine. It cracked and snapped as it cooled. Before she had a chance to pick up Sid and dash to the house, another sound made her stop and listen intently. Wind? No, the snow was coming down silently now. It was a voice. Not Margie calling from the porch, either. Hun-uh. No dream, either. “Ly-di-a.” No mistaking it. “Ly-di-a.” She had come home.

  “Mother,” Lydia whispered and closed her eyes. She sagged back into her seat and let the memory of a game they used to play come to her. Hide and seek. Lydia, hiding behind a door and jumping out saying ‘boo’ when her mother passed by. Oh, how she had giggled at her mother’s startled cry. One-up-manship? “Some game, Mother,” Lydia muttered.

  She gathered Sid and his leash, tucked her purse under her arm. Again the voice.

  “Ly-di-a?” This time it was like being called to supper. Like ‘where are you,’ or ‘come in now.’ An order. She hugged Sid to her chest as she walked carefully through the snow to the door of the back porch. Inside, she stamped the snow from her shoes. Margie opened the kitchen door, explaining she had been on the phone or would have come sooner. Lydia slipped into the kitchen and let Sid down on the floor. He lowered himself into a cautious slinking position as if the enemy might be right around the corner. Lydia embraced her slightly taller and broader sister with the darker-blonde hair cut short and business-like. Margie clasped her back as if she were finally being rescued.

  “You’re so tiny,” Margie told her. “Don’t you ever eat?”

  “Like a bird, as they used to tell me.” Lydia released herself. “It’s the yoga. Margie, I’ll show you. It’s relaxing, energizing, keeps your limbs supple...”

  “Oh, noooo,” Margie groaned. “No, you have our mother’s build, I, on the other hand, am a big-boned Kinnen. My father’s child.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” Lydia laughed. “I am my mother’s...” She stopped, feeling a chill run through her, an expectant pause in the air, makin
g the hairs on her arm rise up as if pulled into an electrical charge. “It feels dry here,” she said, “for March in Iowa.”

  “Well, the furnace is on. The air is dry.”

  “Don’t you feel her?” Lydia whispered, wrinkling her forehead, rubbing her arms.

  “Who?”

  “Mother.”

  Margie gave her a disdainful look, then turned away. “You’ve had a long drive. You want some cocoa or something?” She was already going over to the cupboard and pulling out packets of instant cocoa, tea, coffee. She went to the stove and turned the gas on under the kettle. “We’ll have hot water in a minute.”

  “Cocoa would be great,” Lydia said. She threw her coat over one of the chairs around the round wooden table with claw feet that she remembered. “Look at that,” she remarked. “I’d think that would be long gone.”

  “Well, it came out of storage when the last renters left. They ran off with some of the good stuff. Left the antiques. Maybe they found them too heavy to move.” Margie chuckled. “I think we got the better deal, though. This old stuff has history. It may not be museum quality, but some people would pay as much for this table as they would for a classy glass and metal model.” She brought over two steaming mugs of cocoa and placed one in front of Lydia and set one down for herself. She turned back to the u-shaped end of the kitchen where there were no windows, just cupboards, sink, stove, refrigerator and brought back a plate of cheese and crackers. She’d apparently prepared for this welcoming home time.

  “I’ll get the litter box in a minute,” Lydia said. “I hope you don’t mind Sid. You didn’t used to be crazy about cats.” She watched Margie give a slight shrug and a non-committal grunt.

  “We’ll get along.”

  “His real name’s Obsidian. Named after a big hunk of it that someone gave me once. I use it for a book-end. It’s volcanic, you know. My friend brought it back from Oregon. It seemed kind of appropriate to name the runt of a litter after a rock that was transformed from red-hot liquid lava to a cooled-down solid black rock. Obsidian has survived by being loved and cared for.” Lydia stopped herself. She was prattling on with explanations that Margie probably didn’t care a hoot about. Was this truth in inter-personal relationships, or was it just a justification for not respecting her sister’s cat allergy, if that’s what it was.

  “You always did have a black cat.” Margie sat down and sipped her cocoa. “You want your old room back?”

  “Sure, why not? Did you take yours back?”

  “Yes.” Margie paused, as if thinking back to some childhood happening. “But no codes this time.”

  “You mean you don’t want me tapping on the wall? We had such a good code worked out. Morse code, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose.”

  “No one to keep anything from, is there?” Lydia said. “I mean, it’s just you and me.” Unless you counted Mother’s ghost, of course. She wondered how much of the dreams about her mother she dared to share, and how much other stuff she could share, like feelings, fears, fantasies, those private things that were vulnerable to judgements?

  “Just each other,” Margie agreed, giving her a smile that covered her own secrets, grown from her own living. Something about her ex-marriage, perhaps? her daughter Dianne? something about That Night still haunting her. Or Peter Anderson? Lydia smiled back, over the top of her cocoa mug.

  “Jake Jackson called the day I got here,” Margie continued as she got up and took her cup to the sink, ran hot water and busied herself washing a few dishes piled on the drain board. “I’d asked him to stock some groceries and he called to see if everything was okay, which it was. And I thanked him. Then he hung up like he was mad or something. No welcome, or how was your trip, or let me know if there’s something else you need. It didn’t feel very friendly.” She paused and looked over at Lydia, wet soapy hands in the air until she reached over for a towel and dried them.

  “Hmmmm. You think he felt put upon?” Lydia puzzled over it. The Jackson family lived across the street. Jake’s father has been the school caretaker thirty years ago. Then he got sick and Jake Jr. took over. “Are we asking him to do something outside his contract?” Lydia got up and took her cup to the sink and slipped it into the water, then found a dish towel and dried the few dishes Margie had washed.

  “I don’t think so. It’s pretty much the same as when Grandpa and Grandma hired him those winters they were in Arizona. After they died we just continued with him.” Margie opened cupboards and put dishes away. “You realize some of these dishes are the same we used when we were kids living here?”

  “Really?” Lydia looked. “Oh, where did you find these?” She picked up a plate and turned it over. “’Homer Ltd’” she read. “These are old. Too bad they have so many little nicks and cracks in them. Might be valuable.”

  “They were in the basement, packed away. You wouldn’t believe how many things I’m finding. This house has so many storage spots I guess Grandma and Grandpa just packed everything away when they started renting it out.”

  “I sense you’re feeling more about Jake than you’re saying.” Lydia turned to Sid who was meowing for attention. “Hey, I’ve got to get his things in. His water and food bowls. Litter box. You know.” She gave an apologetic shrug and made a face. She grabbed her coat. “Stay here. No sense in getting us both wet.”

  Soon the porch had suitcases and boxes, from which Lydia extracted Sid’s things. “So, tell me what you think, about Jake.” She set about placing Sid’s water and food bowl at the end of the kitchen with the six windows—three on one side overlooking the driveway, three on the side with the windowed-in back porch. Hot water radiators stood underneath the driveway side windows. On their metal covers their grandmother had placed African violets which seemed to bloom all the time.

  Margie leaned against the stove while Lydia worked. “Jake knows what happened That Night, Lydia. He was there. And I’m thinking he’s not so happy we’re back.” She watched Lydia dump fresh litter into the box she had placed in the hallway next to the basement stairs, and stepped back away from the dust that rose from the bag.

  Lydia sneezed, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and blew her nose. “Kitty litter’s not so good on the lungs. After a moment to recover, Lydia said “Well, he wanted us to do something with the house. He expected us to do it long distance?”

  “He didn’t say that. It’s just something about his manner that makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Maybe it has nothing to do with That Night. But guess we’re going to have to ask him what’s wrong, huh?” Lydia watched Sid sniff out the box to see if it met his approval. She took the bag and carefully folded it up. Marge showed her the garbage can on the porch where she could discard it.

  “If he wants the house torn down and we don’t, then he could see us as a threat,” Margie said when Lydia stepped back into the kitchen.

  “Surely it’s just a matter of talking about it, finding out his reasons, and explaining ours,” Lydia suggested.

  “Unless he’s got everyone on his side,” Margie sighed.

  “Guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” Lydia said, feeling like she was repeating herself. She was just too tired to speculate further.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Lydia.” Tears welled in Margie’s eyes. “I got so lonely, you can’t imagine.” Lydia opened her arms and Margie walked into them. Lydia, puzzled, visualized light filling the room, blessing the house, blessing them both. This sure wasn’t the strong Margie she had expected to see.

  Margie pulled out a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and blew her nose. “Thanks for coming,” she said, then reached down and actually tried to stroke Sid who was sniffing her out. He pulled back his head, lifted his wet nose to her hand, keeping himself in charge of this interaction. Lydia smiled to herself.

  “I was so determined to get into this publishing business
,” Margie went on as she gave up on Sid and stood up. “Now I’m not so sure. I may have bitten off more than I can chew.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see about that.” Lydia reached up and gave her sister a pat on the arm. Maybe she, too, had bitten off more than she could chew. Except that she did have that back-up team.

  


  Chapter 3