Spirit Me Away

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  Sig smiled half-heartedly. “Ja. I am a little bit tired, too.”

  “I’m taking your temperature. Wait right here.”

  I flew up the stairs, grabbed the thermometer and a clean plastic sleeve from our medicine chest, and hurried down again. “Here, under your tongue. Are you up for coffee? No, that’s not a good idea. How about some tea?”

  He tucked the thermometer under his tongue and nodded when I mentioned tea. I started the teakettle and found the green tea in the cabinet.

  “Want some honey in it, buddy?”

  Siegfried had what my mother used to call “fever eyes.” They looked glazed and he squinted when he looked into the light. He nodded, resting his head against his palm again.

  I dropped the teabag into the cup, swirled in some honey, stirred it, and set it before him. The thermometer beeped. I took it from him, discarded the disposable sheath, and read the display.

  “Cripes, Sig. It’s 103.1.”

  “I am sick?” he asked. He looked dazed.

  “Very.”

  “I have work to do,” he said, but his voice weakened and trailed to a whisper. He lay his head on the table.

  “Not today, you don’t. Come on. I’m putting you in Mrs. Pierce’s room. She won’t be home ‘til tomorrow night. This way I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Here,” I said, twisting open a bottle of Advil from the counter. I filled a small glass with water. “Take these. It’ll bring down the fever.”

  Siegfried dutifully took the pills. I ushered him into our housekeeper’s first floor bedroom suite. We’d transformed this small wing of our 1811 farmhouse into a convalescent room for my wife, Elsbeth, when she had come home to die from the cancer. Mrs. Pierce had joined the household to help with Elsbeth. After my wife passed, we’d asked Mrs. Pierce to stay on as a housekeeper and nanny. The room worked out well for our mother hen, and she’d made it quite homey.

  I placed the mug of tea on the night table and motioned for Sig to sit on the ladder-back chair beside the window.

  “Sit there while I change the sheets. It’ll just take a sec.”

  As I ripped apart the double bed, Shelby wandered into the room looking bleary-eyed. She was still in her pajamas, and I was shocked to see her up so early.

  “What’s going on?” she asked with a yawn.

  Tossing the pillows on the free chair, I stretched a fresh fitted sheet over the mattress. I was still mad at her. “Your uncle’s sick. He has a high fever.”

  She looked at him with sympathy. “Oh, poor Uncle Sig. I’m sorry. Can I get you anything? Do you want me to bring Sheba in here for you?”

  I looked at her in surprise. It was as if my wife’s personality had suddenly infused into Shelby. The intonation, the words, and the facial expressions were all Camille’s. The raving she-wolf from the night before had vanished. Vamoosed.

  “Ja. Sheba,” he mumbled.

  Siegfried and I had rescued the golden retriever from a hunter’s trap two years earlier. Siegfried and the sweet canine had adopted each other. She slept on his bed every night.

  He closed his eyes again. “Danke.”

  Shelby smiled, pushed dark locks from her eyes, and trotted out to the mudroom to get her coat.

  “Be back in a jiffy,” she said.

  I stared after her in surprise.

  Siegfried spoke with his eyes still closed. “She’s like her Mama, Ja?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s so bizarre. One minute she’s tearing my head off, and the next minute…”

  “She is a teenager,” he whispered.

  I helped him walk to the bed. “I don’t remember Freddie being this bad.”

  “She was a good girl,” he mumbled. He slid beneath the sheets and nestled into the pillows.

  I laughed and pulled the comforter up to his chin. “You’d think I would have learned something about teenagers, having raised Freddie.”

  He smiled and turned on his side. “Ja. But she was different. And Shelby had a very hard start.”

  He was right. Freddie gave Elsbeth and me a few rough moments when she was growing up, but it had been relatively painless. I never realized how lucky we were. Poor Shelby had lost her biological father to prison due to his repeated abuse of her mother. In addition, she had been in a coma for many years after a delivery truck nearly killed her. It hadn’t been an easy life for a young girl.

  Try to be more tolerant.

  The thought hit me hard, as if I were hearing it from someone else.

  Who? Elsbeth? My father?

  As I turned off the light and watched Siegfried fall asleep, I mused about my deceased wife and her brother. Intense and fiery, Elsbeth had complemented Siegfried’s gentle demeanor. The two had been bonded with psychic superglue. They were inseparable, and as children, we three had been best pals, wandering the Genesee Valley together on horseback. God, how I missed those days.

  Sighing, I stood.

  It’d been six years now since I lost Elsbeth.

  I shook the sad thoughts away, backed out of the bedroom, and pulled the door shut.

  Chapter 4

  Shelby burst into the kitchen with three canines racing beside her. The dogs simultaneously stopped and shook snow from their coats, which unfortunately landed in a cold flurry on my daughter. A breeze followed them into the kitchen and smashed the door against the wall.

  Shelby stood in the middle of the dogs, face screwed up in anger. “Argh!” She backed away from the dog mob and slammed the door shut. “Stop it, you guys. I’m going to smell like wet dogs now.”

  She kicked off my size eleven snow boots that she’d borrowed to fetch Sheba from the carriage house, left them on the floor in the middle of the room, and threw her coat onto a chair.

  I held back lecturing her about putting things away, especially my stuff. She frequently borrowed my boots for her trips out to the mailbox or to and from the cars. Why she couldn’t lace up her own boots was a mystery to me.

  “Are you okay?” I laughed.

  She flopped onto a chair. “They soaked me!”

  “Think you’ll melt?” I said, tossing her a playful smile.

  She rolled her eyes. “Dad!”

  I dropped a pat of butter into the cast iron skillet, cracked three eggs into the sputtering pan, and stirred them with a wooden spoon. Nodding toward Siegfried in the other room, I said, “Sheba will make him feel better. That was very thoughtful of you, honey.”

  “He adores that dog,” she said softly.

  As if on cue, Sheba pushed open the door to Mrs. Pierce’s bedroom and found her master. The springs squeaked when she jumped onto the bed. Max and Boris trotted into the great room and both rolled around on our antique Persian rug.

  Wet dog smell. Lovely.

  I continued to stir the eggs, marveling at Shelby’s ability to shift moods. First, screeching mad at the dogs. Next, melting with empathy for Siegfried.

  “Want some eggs?” I asked.

  Shelby wrinkled her nose and began rummaging in the refrigerator. “Yuk! No way. Do you know how much fat is in that butter?”

  I raised one eyebrow, casting a surprised glance her way.

  “Sorry, Dad. I mean, no thanks. I’ll just have some yogurt.”

  She grabbed a carton of cherry yogurt and stirred it slowly. I seasoned the eggs and scooped them onto a plate.

  “Dad?” she said, in a super-sweet tone.

  I knew a negotiating dance was about to begin. Sitting down to eat, I looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Um. About last night.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I didn’t smoke pot. Honest, I didn’t. Terry sat beside me and passed it around, but I said no. I swear to God.”

  I searched her eyes. She seemed sincere. “I’m glad, honey. That’s one of the reasons you’re not allowed to go to parties. There’s too much stuff floating around that could get you in trouble.”

  She frowned, pouted, and sighed. “I know.”

  She ate a few small bites of yogur
t and then looked at me again.

  “Um, Dad? Since I got up so early, if I start my work now, do you think when I’m done, you could cut me a break? I’m supposed to go to Alicia’s for dinner tonight.”

  She looked at me with her big brown eyes. I half expected her to start making cute puppy sounds. She was so darned obvious.

  “Sorry, honey. The grounding stands. I know you’ve gotten out of it in the past, but it’s not going to work this time.”

  She pouted, played with the yogurt, and then snorted. “It’s not fair!”

  The argument was predictable and familiar. I sighed. “Shelby, life isn’t supposed to be fair. If you play by the rules, you get the perks, like the car. Driving is a privilege, not a right. You need to learn that.”

  She sighed again. “Please don’t lecture me, Dad. I can’t take it any more.”

  She sounded just like I had felt last night.

  Concentrating on her yogurt, she worked on the next plan of attack. “So, what lame jobs do you have planned for your slave?” she said, sounding more and more like the Grumpy character in “Snow White.”

  I snorted a laugh. “My slave?” She’d done so few jobs around the place in the past few weeks that I thought “the princess” would suit her better.

  “Yeah.”

  I had been thinking up jobs all morning and eagerly began to list them. “First, the barn. We have to clean those stalls.”

  She hissed a sigh and dropped her chin onto her hands. “We? Are you going to help me?”

  “No. You’ll do it alone.”

  Another eye roll. “What else?”

  “Shovel the path from the barn to the house. Everyone’s coming for dinner this afternoon. Then I want you to tackle the laundry. We have about ten loads to do, especially since the babies were sick this week. Mrs. Pierce got way behind.”

  Five-year-old Johnny and his twin fourteen-month-old sisters, Marion and Celeste, had been ill with an intestinal flu all week. We’d gone crazy changing and washing sheets, clothes, and even shampooing rugs. Between us all, we’d struggled to keep my grandchildren dry and clean. The diapers disappeared as quickly as a box of Kleenex empties when a child pulls them out for fun. Someone had been at the store every day, often twice per day, picking up extra Tylenol, Motrin, Gatorade, and Pedialyte popsicles. It was the week from hell.

  Shelby moaned and rolled her eyes. “You want me to wash pukey baby sheets? Oh. My. God.”

  I covered a smile with my hand and refilled my coffee cup. “Yup.”

  She finished her yogurt, tossed the can into the garbage from across the room, made the shot, and grinned. “I told you I should try out for basketball.”

  I laughed again. “Rightly so.”

  And then the chameleon changed color. Again.

  “So, everyone’s coming for dinner?”

  “They are,” I said.

  “Why do we have to feed the whole darned neighborhood, Dad? Why does everyone have to come here, every single weekend? Why don’t they ever invite us to their houses? It’s so annoying.”

  I picked up my dish and rinsed it under the faucet. I didn’t give her an answer. We’d always had a large crowd on the weekends. I loved feeding our family and friends. Family feasts were our tradition, after all. I preferred it in the summer, when I could harvest armloads of fresh vegetables from my garden, but I always found something good at our local Wegmans in the winter.

  I opened the dishwasher and put the plate inside, thinking about our adopted parents, Oscar and Millie Stone, who were coming to dinner with a number of other friends. At least once a week, Oscar drove Millie up the hill from Goodland Station to visit us. An accomplished nature photographer, Oscar tended lovingly to his wife, who suffered from advanced arthritis and was wheelchair-bound.

  The rest of the guests included Officers Joe Russell and Adam Knapp, our local police, who had become good friends over the course of the past few years. Joe Russell was dating my mother-in-law, Maddy, who also doubled as my secretary in the music department at Conaroga University.

  I smiled when I pictured Maddy, then closed the dishwasher gently. She was a vivacious, extroverted matchmaker who’d taken a shine to Joe. I tried to imagine a family feast without them, and failed. They were family, regardless of their genetic links or lack thereof.

  “What’s so funny?” Shelby asked.

  I shook my head and answered, “Nothing, honey. Just daydreaming, I guess.”

  “You do that a lot, Dad. So, after I do all those wretched jobs, can I go to Alicia’s? If I do the dishes, too?” she begged.

  I didn’t roll my eyes. I didn’t sigh. I remained calm. “Not this time, Shelby.”

  She blew her bangs up in the air. “Geez! You’re impossible. I can’t get anywhere with you today.”

  I dried off the skillet and hung it on the wall. “Guess you should’ve slept in,” I said, covering another smile.

  Under the Ice, available on Amazon in eBook, print, and audiobook.

  Afterword

  Dear Readers,

  If you follow the LeGarde series, you’ll know that Gus and Elsbeth would have been only sixteen and fifteen during 1969, the summer of Woodstock. Matter of fact, that’s how old I was in ‘69. But I wanted them to live through this experience as college students, so I’ve taken the liberty of advancing their ages to nineteen and eighteen, respectively. Led Zeppelin did, indeed, perform at the Boston Tea Party in January of 1969 (I was there), but I’ve moved the performance up to the summer months to match the story’s timeline.

  I also went to the Cambridge Commons frequently, where I saw Alice Cooper perform live. I’ve moved this performance up a few years as well, to allow me to capture the excitement of the era. The songs I mention here, which I clearly remember during the free concert, were released several years after 1969.

  Alas, I never went to Woodstock, although I wished at the time that I could. But at sixteen I didn’t yet have my license, and my parents would never have allowed it in the first place, in spite of the fact that I was a boringly well-behaved, “A” student who didn’t do drugs, get drunk (only once, LOL, and I hated it) and who actually did his chores around the house without too much complaining. Sometimes I wish I’d been more adventurous, but I always said, like Gus does in this book, that “the music is my high.” It was all I needed.

  Finally, I was indeed attacked by a peacock, just like Gus at the commune. Our group at work volunteered every year during the “Day of Caring” for the United Way. I was painting a barn red—inside the pen of the supposedly locked up peacock—and out he came from his little door in the side of the barn, ready to kill me. In hindsight, it was funny. But I’ve never looked at peacocks quite the same since that day.

  I hope you can forgive these slight adjustments to the chronology of the family and history so that we might romp together through these most colorful times.

  Always,

  Aaron Paul Lazar

  www.lazarbooks.com

  Acknowledgments

  Huge thanks to Sonya Bateman, my long time critique partner, for her constant and unwavering support. I’ve learned more about writing from Sonya than from anyone else over the past decade. Generous and always open to frank discussion, she’s been a port in the storm for me on many occasions. Not only is Sonya a superb fiction writer, but she also writes exceptional synopses, the best in the business. Contact her if you’re a writer struggling with your own synopsis of your novel.

  Joan H Young, we have just discovered each other’s mysteries this year, and I must say, I love your work. Thank you for taking a critical look at my manuscript even though you are as always swamped with multiple projects and preparing for many woodland hikes at this point of the year. You really have an amazing knack for finding typos and mistakes, including what time the sun rises or sets in any part of the world in any year of history, or how to tune a lute. Thank you for spending so much time on this.

  To Robin P. Waldrop, who inspired me (okay, she nudged
really hard) to try my hand to move away from traditional publishing to self-publishing and who encouraged me along the way by offering insightful critiques and catching my dumb errors. Thank you, Robin. See her very popular YA paranormal romance books on Amazon.

  Heartfelt appreciation to Sonia R. Martinez for her good-natured assistance and judicious edits. Thanks for discovering that problem with the timing in Spirit Me Away, Sonia. Phew, I’m glad you spotted what you did when you did. Sonia is my favorite food writer, who hails from Hawaii, who never fails to bring a smile to my face.

  Joan Miller, I truly appreciate all the hard work you put into finding my errors and inconsistencies. I think you read through this manuscript three…maybe four times. You found the errors I made fixing the other errors you found. ;o) Thanks for keeping me from humiliating myself. I wouldn’t feel right unless you read through my manuscript before publishing, and I will always picture you and Gretchen’s cat Jessie reading at night outside by the chiminea. And we must thank Gretchen for the “yellow house,” since that was her favorite color! I know without a doubt that Gretchen is with you all day, every day, and that her comforting love with help you through this life until you meet again.

  Gabriela Scholter, I so appreciate your support and feedback, and thank you for your amazing speed and quality in your beta reading. Thank you for reminding me what accents belong on déjà vu how to spell Postum. I’m just glad that someone out there knows what I was talking about. It’s been many years since I had a cup. Say hello to Stuttgart for me.

  Cindy Taylor—one of my all time favorite book reviewers—has written stunning reviews for my books for years now, and I was thrilled when she offered to beta read this book as well. I love her reviews because they don’t just rehash the plot, they tell us how the book made her feel. She’s most eloquent in her own writing, and happens to have a real handle on commas. Thank you, Cindy, for all the years of support.

  Sheila Deeth is the author of a wonderful book entitled Divide By Zero. Like a human patchwork quilt, this dramatic family novel provides intimate glimpses into the minds of dozens of characters who will fascinate you. Sheila has always had a knack for picking up on the tiniest inconsistencies. Thank you, Sheila, for reminding me that I can’t have Gus park a car when it’s already stopped, or that Valerie can’t shout when her mouth is taped. Glad you found all those embarrassing errors. And thanks to you and your husband for helping me make Byron sound more authentically British.