The Return

by Margaret Guthrie

Lydia’s first message to The Ranch was short and to the point. “I am well and working hard. Margie and I are learning how to work a snow blower, run a house with peevish radiators pounding out their grievances, strange noises and creaks in its arthritic wooden joints, slow to give us heat, and lethargic in giving us hot water from faucets that sing soulfully. But I don’t really complain. It’s the memories resurfacing as we pull out old pictures and books and other items long stored away that give us real pause. I believe even more so that truth is an ever-changing, ever evasive matter. It strikes me that it can be molded like wax, melted down like a candle, burned precariously like a flame, threatened with extinguishment at any breeze of doubt or unearthed contradictory fact. Furthermore people choose their truth. It is a matter of perspective, the angle at which one looks at a thing. Just like climbing a mountain when you look up to see a peak and think it’s the top, yet a little further on you see a higher peak beyond. So how are we to approach Truth in Interpersonal Relationships? That is my question for now and my last thought at this time.” She signed it, sent it and made a copy for her file. She didn’t expect an answer. She hadn’t asked for news, didn’t really want any. Someone would probably send some anyway.

  Lydia considered how personal to make this report, or draft of a course outline. She had barely begun to be introduced to the characters involved in That Night, the title that sprang to mind in reconstructing the episode. It was almost like writing a play, developing the roles to be played out. The motives. The desires. The actions and reactions.

  Obviously people hadn’t forgotten. Certainly not Stanley Seward. Nor Jake Jackson. And Mike Harris having ulcers, surely an anxiety carry-over. If his mother was as disturbed as Sherrie indicated, and in denial, it must bother Mike a great deal. What was his truth? He had taken the burden of his evil brother, Sherrie had said. Lydia thought Mike must be a very sensitive person, one who cared about others.

  One day Lydia followed Margie through the downstairs rooms, looking at the furnishings and talking about the problems with the house. Before she had even gotten here, Margie had walked through it with Mr. Lambert, a carpenter and retired farmer who had known their parents and grandparents. Why Margie hadn’t probed into that, Lydia couldn’t figure out. Just showed her intentions were on the house and not on their mother. But Lydia was going to talk to Charles and Hazel Lambert as soon as she could. She more and more wanted to know what her parents were involved in when they went on their trips and why they were always writing letters.

  Margie pointed out the essential repairs that he said would be needed to bring it up to code. “One thing is the roof, which has leaks around the chimney. Another is the wiring, which needs updating at the least. And then there’s the furnace which isn’t very efficient. In fact, the whole heating system needs to be replaced. He suggested baseboard water pipes to replace the radiators. Of course, the outside needs painting, but you and I could do a lot with the inside to make it look nicer.” Lydia couldn’t believe her enthusiasm. Was Margie a project person, needing things to do to keep her going, make her feel important?

  They had stopped and were standing at the living room windows watching the children play in the snow on the schoolyard next door, all bundled up making them look fat, though some had their coats open in front and hanging on their shoulders like they were ready to throw them away.

  “Remember when we did that?” Margie said, poking her sister in the ribs, a grin on her face.

  “You’re up to mischief,” Lydia replied maybe a little too seriously. Certainly she didn’t feel like poking back, as she might have done had she not been thinking over what she had just heard.

  “Hey, let’s get this clear right now. I didn’t come here to do any physical work on the house.” She looked at her sister holding back a curtain to get a better view, still smiling as if wanting to go back to the good old times. Lydia sighed. “You have something specific in mind?”

  “Well, we could strip off the wallpaper and ceiling paper. Then give it a coat of light colored paint. Maybe oyster. Or off-white.”

  “Whoa,” Lydia said. “Didn’t you hear me? I didn’t come here to strip wallpaper and paint.” Outside, some little girls were screaming, and Lydia turned to see what was happening. It looked like a snowball fight. Boys pelting girls, girls in turn pelting boys. “Suppose one of them is Stanley and Shirley Seward’s daughter? Tanya? Or the other one, Jennifer? Mike and Charlette Harris’s daughter?”

  Margie didn’t answer and when Lydia looked over to see why, Margie had her mouth open into a rounded O as if the words had been suddenly quenched, a look of hurt in her dark blue eyes, and shoulder’s drooping as if all the energy had been drained out of her.

  Lydia laughed. “Margie, if we want the house to get an historical designation we have to follow their guidelines.” Lydia reached over and touched Margie’s cheek, let her finger slide down gently. No tears, at least. How things had changed. When they were growing up Margie was her idol and she did everything Margie asked, without question. Now, she had to weigh Margie’s expectations that seemed to change from one day to the next, with practicalities.

  “They don’t want it decorated just any old way. It has to be kept authentic, whatever that means. We better wait a while. See what’s in the minds of people in the community.”

  Margie dropped the curtain and went over to examine a watercolor she had dug out and put on the wall. “Maybe. I guess nothing’s urgent.”

  “Only, maybe we could get a garage door that opened automatically?” Lydia pressed. “That’s what I promised myself when I parked the car. That was a bugger to lift.” Lydia left the window too and hooked her arm over Margie’s shoulder.

  “Or we can leave the door open, Lydia. As Jake suggested.” Margie straightened the painting that didn’t need straightening. It was old. Glass covered it. The frame was dark wood about a half inch wide all around.

  “I remember that,” Lydia said. It’s Aunt Lola’s, isn’t it? Dad’s sister? She was a big woman and wore a silk-like dress that had big flowers all over it. She used to float when she walked.” The image came suddenly. Aunt Lola walking up to the front door, kind of...floating. That’s the only way she could describe it.

  “Float?” Margie looked at Lydia for explanation.

  “Like she walked on air,” Lydia said. “I thought she was Jesus.” She gave a small, embarrassed laugh and let her arm drop to her side.

  “Well, she was a Sunday School teacher,” Margie said, smiling again. “But Jesus?”

  “Oh, you know how kids see things sometimes. There was something special about her.”

  “She was Grandma’s friend. I don’t think she was an aunt. Dad didn’t have a sister, Lydia. He was an only child.”

  “Okay. So I was only three or thereabouts. Anyway, where did you find it?”

  “In the attic like the other antique stuff that was stored away when renters wanted to use their own furniture. I had Jake and a friend get it down for me. Some of it came from that little shed out back.” Margie sat down in the rocking chair next to the corner fireplace. “Remember this rocker?” She started rocking back and forth.

  “Sure. That’s where Grandma rocked us. It still has that squeak.” It was the comfort chair, when Grandma drew you up to her lap, put her arms around you, and rocked. Sometimes she quoted a poem or sang a hymn. A cold or sore throat was made more bearable with that special attention. “Isn’t it odd that Mother never rocked us?” Lydia moved over to the old oak library table that sat against one wall, its shelves on each end empty of books. She ran her hand over the top with its lovely dark grain lines. The wood was thick and heavy, as the furniture was in those days before pine and fiberboard became so popular and cheap.

  “Mom had papers to grade. Don’t you remember? She was always busy at her desk, or at the kitchen table where she spread out her papers.” It was a simple statem
ent of fact, but even so Lydia felt there was a tinge of regret in Margie’s voice.

  “Yeah, they were both pretty busy. I guess teaching would make you so.” Lydia walked past the windows and noticed the children had gone inside and quiet had descended. “It’s really too bad to close the school. That’ll mean a really long bus trip for those kids. Delora’s six miles from here. I wonder what the parents think about it.” Lydia went over to the brown couch that she didn’t remember, and slunk down on it, suddenly tired. She needed a pillow to her back so she could put her feet flat on the floor. Furniture just wasn’t made for short people.

  “I guess we’ll have to go to that community meeting and find out, though I’m not too enthusiastic about going into that gym.” Margie started rocking slowly, and the squeak almost brought tears as they remembered their grandmother’s comfortable arms and lap.

  Lydia watched the curtain move slightly. A draft, she gathered, not a grandmother ghost, too. No, just another repair for someone. Probably the old caulking was all dried up and useless. She put her head back and closed her eyes, watched the little floaters behind her lids like paramecia swimming in a pool of water under the microscope. What innocent little creatures, living their lives without complications, just swimming around, swimming around.

  Margie sighed. “You know, this house was built in 1910, Lydia. A good, solid lathe and plaster house that doesn’t match these modern dry walls that you can hear through. It just needs some love and care to bring it back to life.”

  Lydia was silent for a minute. She wasn’t going to encourage any fixing up on their part. There would be enough to do with the printing business. Maybe this house preoccupation was a way for Margie to keep from thinking about her divorce from Brad and Dianne’s decision to stay with her dad. “So Dianne doesn’t like Iowa?” she asked, raising her head just enough to look over at Margie.

  “She’s 17. She likes her friends. No, Iowa didn’t seem very exciting to her.” Margie sounded sad and Lydia was sorry she had been so curt.

  “I’m sorry,” Lydia said. “I suppose New Hope doesn’t have much to offer when you’re used to the city. I remember that first day of school in Chicago.” She shuddered involuntarily.

  “You were holding my hand so tight it hurt,” Margie said, a tiny smile creeping onto her face. “I had to pull it off when I left you at the 4th grade room. You later said the teacher made you sit at a desk next to a big girl who looked at you as if you were some alien from outer space.”

  “Oh, God, that was Turnip.” Lydia sat up, pulled her legs under her and crossed them. “A big, lumpy girl that kids made fun of and I got to feeling sorry for. Even helped her with arithmetic sometimes. I wonder what ever happened to her?”

  “The important thing is, we survived, Lydia. Dianne could have survived, too, but with Brad she’s going to have everything she wants. He’s got plenty of money now that he’s a federal judge. Plus he’s learned to play the stock market, with the help of a few friends.” Margie let out a sound of disgust.

  “You getting alimony?”

  Margie gave a pained expression. “That cheapskate? Not likely. I have a business degree. I’m supposed to be well able to take care of myself. I have this big inheritance, he claims, as if half a big rundown house is going to somehow make me rich and half a small trust account will do me just fine.”

  “I see.” The trust money, which came from the life insurance their parents were foresightful enough to have, had helped them both with schooling, but it wouldn’t last forever. “Our food and heat money. Our electricity and telephone and car gas money,” Lydia said, nodding. “Well, I won’t have anything more until I get this course written up and start using it for retreat seminars.”

  “Sherrie’s publishing business is running a good profit. With a couple of months orientation and introduction to the community, we should do all right. That’s exciting, don’t you think?” Margie gave her an enthusiastic smile.

  Lydia looked at her skeptically. “Yeah, right,” she said.

  “So, the truth of the matter is,” Lydia wrote later that evening, “life is complicated. Just like Stanley Seward said. I will continue on the path to find truth. I will let you know who appears to me next in this unfolding drama.” With that she clicked the send button and the email went into that cyberspace that was as mysterious as truth.

  Chapter 6