Chapter Thirteen #2
I smiled. “So where’s your dad now?”
“Utah, with his fourth wife,” he replied. “She’s Mormon. They’re in the bowling alley business. What about yours?”
“My dad?” I asked. He nodded. “Works at a private school. He met my stepmom there when I was little. I’ve got three siblings: twins that are six and a baby.”
“So you don’t live with Cat,” he said.
“I didn’t even know anybody called her that until we got here,” I said. It seemed like ages ago she’d pulled up in that sports car, the first of this series of surprises. “She left when I was four. We do visits a few times a year, but have never exactly been close.”
“Right,” he said. “I guess that explains why you’ve never come down for the summer.”
Somehow, it was only then that I realized my mom wasn’t the only mystery to everyone here. And at least she had roots. I was a stranger. Except for a few details. Like, now my toothpaste preference.
“I wish I had, to be honest,” I said now. “It seems like a pretty cool thing to be able to claim.”
“It’s not too late, though.”
“You don’t think?”
He shook his head. “You just need a few good shared memories. That’s all it takes.”
A few minutes later, after passing a sign welcoming us to Bly Corners, we hit what appeared to be a business district area. There was a police station, a post office, and a few retail stores. On the end sat a courthouse, a row of columns lining the front.
“Fun fact: That’s where your grandfather, the Judge, presided,” Ben told me as I studied it. “Thirty years on the bench.”
“You sound like a tour guide.”
“Is it impressing you?” He glanced over. “If so, I can also go into local history and government. Had to take a class the year I was in school here.”
I smiled. “Not necessary. I’m fully impressed as far as that category is concerned. No room for more.”
“But you’ll tell me if that changes?”
“Promise.”
He smiled, then slid his hands over the wheel. “Now, if you direct your attention ahead, you’ll see Bly Supply approaching. Perhaps you are acquainted with their famous sympathy grapes?”
“I am,” I said. “It’s actually one of my best shared memories, now that you mention it.”
“See?” He leaned over, bumping his shirted shoulder against my bare one. I felt a little zip, like a charge. “It’s already happening.”
Well, something was. I could tell by the mix of anxiety-slash-thrill I felt, instantly recognizable. It had been a while. But it’s a feeling you don’t forget.
We parked in the Bly Supply lot next to a seriously dented blue van sporting multiple STUDENT DRIVER: PLEASE BE PATIENT stickers.
Behind the wheel was a baby-faced girl with a bunch of braids pulled up into a topknot.
She was so engrossed in her phone, she didn’t even register us when we walked right past her to the entrance. Some stories tell themselves.
The doors opened with a wheeze and we went in. Inside, it was basically a warehouse, lined with rows of shelves. Glass coolers and produce were against one wall.
“Okay,” Ben said, grabbing an oversized grocery cart—I don’t know why I’d expected anything else—and pushing it toward a sign that said DAIRY. “First up is eggs.”
They came in flats of two dozen. He loaded up a stack before moving on to bread (several multipacks) and adding a few gallons of milk. As we passed the fruit section, he examined some big plastic bins of strawberries before throwing four of those in as well.
“It’s like shopping for a giant,” I observed when he added an oversized flour sack that puffed a white cloud as it hit the cart. “You guys do this every day? I can’t believe you go through that much.”
“In restaurants backups are crucial,” he explained. “The worst is running out of something.”
After a stop for enough napkins to wipe clean a small country, we finally turned onto the personal care aisle. The toothpaste was on the far wall, and there were, indeed, both plain paste and gel options. In eight packs only. We stood, surveying them together.
“You know, I’m suddenly feeling really hopeful,” I observed.
“I told you!” he snorted. “Okay. Decision time. Mint or Cherry Sparkle Fun Gel?”
“Whatever you want,” I said.
“Really?” He turned to look at me square on. “I was sure you’d have firm opinions. Thought I might even get strong-armed.”
“By me?” He nodded. “Why?”
“Well, the other night you were pretty pissed off about your boyfriend.”
“That might have been the beers,” I said.
“You threw your phone in the lake,” he pointed out.
“A rash decision, which I regret.”
“And then,” he continued, “at the Egg, you just jumped in and started working, even though you knew nothing about waitressing or restaurants.”
“It was that obvious?”
“You did it, though. Not the act of a person who is wishy-washy.”
Put this way, I could kind of agree. Amazing, the change in view from someone else’s eyes. It made me wonder, fleetingly, what else he saw.
“Actually,” I said, “I hate cherry.”
“Me too.” He smiled, then reached out, taking an eight pack and tossing it into the cart. “Mint, it is.”
“Basically, it’s living in the moment.”
“Yeah. But radically so. Like, it’s a new mindset.”
Liz passed another plate down to Anne from the cabinet. “Do you really want to be messing with your mindset, though? With the wedding so close?”
“It’s not…” Anne sighed, turning to look at me. “You understand, right, Finley? Radical mindfulness? Only living in the now?”
“How do you meal plan, though?” Liz wondered, picking up another plate.
Apparently, Anne did not only read books about relationships. Since sharing the Mastodon Theory—as I’d come to think of it—she’d also referenced one about the life-changing power of vitamins and using crafts to process trauma. Now, radical mindfulness.
Lana, across the porch from me, snorted. I said to Anne, “I just got dumped. Being fully in this particular moment is not exactly appealing.”
“Yes, but,” she said, “remember: It’s a test.”
“What test?” Lana asked.
Just then, there was a thunk from the stairs, followed by a groan. “You got it?” I heard Kasey say.
“Yeah. Just slipped for a sec,” Ben replied. “Which way we taking this?”
“Outside!” my mom and Liz said in unison.
Ben and I had returned from Bly Supply to find all hands on deck getting ready for the estate sale.
He’d been enlisted to haul furniture, while I got the longer straw, sorting stuff on the porch.
Now I peered down the hall just in time to see him walking backward, carrying one end of a bookshelf turned sideways.
Kasey was at the other end. There was a damp spot on the back of his shirt, right between his shoulder blades.
His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his tanned arms.
“What about this?” Lana asked Liz, indicating a table with a flat pillow on top of it by the windows.
“Oh God,” Liz said. She came over, putting her hands on her hips. “The piano bench! I forgot that was even there.”
“We have a piano?” Anne asked.
“No. Just a bench,” my mom, who was taking books off a shelf, said.
“We actually did have a piano,” Liz said. “In the old house.”
I was confused. “I thought this was the old house.”
“It’s the same house,” Liz explained. “But originally, the part my grandfather built was only the kitchen, porch, and one bedroom. It was only later, when they decided to live here year-round, that Mom and the Judge added on.”
“I can’t believe you still refer to him that way,” my mom said, her voice annoyed. “You can’t just say Dad?”
“Mom called him the Judge,” Liz replied.
“And that wasn’t weird?”
“It’s just who he was.”
“Who?” Kasey asked as she came back in.
“Dad,” my mom told her.
“The Judge,” Liz said at the same time. Agree to disagree, I suppose.
“We were actually talking about the Woods,” my mom told Kasey now. “Specifically, when the addition was built.”
“I remember that summer,” she said. “All the drywall and sawhorses. It was chaos.”
“But so fun! We slept in that trailer, remember, Cat?” Liz said to my mom, who either didn’t hear or pretended not to. “That was the same summer as Hurricane Margaret. The flooding took out the porch and everything on it.”
I looked out at the lake. “The lake came all the way up here?”
“Yep,” Kasey told me as Ben disappeared back up the stairs. “You used to be able to see the high-water mark in the kitchen, till we painted over it.”
“It was so awful,” Liz added. “Mom cried for days. But the Judge was just like, ‘Well, we were ripping the old porch out anyway. Nature just did it for us.’ ”
“He was always practical,” Kasey agreed.
My mom turned, shoving the box of books she’d packed toward the kitchen, where it banged into a cabinet.
“I wonder what’s in here. God only knows the last time it was opened.” Liz walked over to the piano bench, gently lifting the lip. Both Lana and I stepped back, bracing for more vermin. Instead, inside was only a bunch of papers. “Oh wow! Sheet music!”
“Who would have guessed,” my mom muttered.
Ignoring this, Liz pulled out some papers covered with notes: “Happy Birthday”; “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”; “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Something else fell as well. A picture.
I bent down, grabbing it. It was small, square, with a white border marked Jun ’80.
Immediately, I recognized the familiar front steps, on which a group of people were gathered.
A man with a beard, wearing khakis and a white T-shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
Beside him was a woman in a flowered dress, her hair tied back, a small girl with scabby knees and unfortunate bangs I immediately recognized as Liz beside her.
On the man’s right was another girl, a bit older, with hair the same shade of brown.
She held a plump baby in overalls on her lap.
“Oh,” Liz said softly. “It’s a porch picture.”
“What?” Kasey moved closer. “I thought they were all in albums.”
“Apparently not.” Liz studied it. “Look at them. They were both so young.”
Anne laughed, gesturing for me to pass it to her. “Look at you, Mom!”
“Those bangs.” Liz sighed. “Cat cut them.”
“What’s a porch picture?” I asked.
“Annual family shot.” She smiled. “We did them each summer. The earliest ones have my grandparents and Aunt Charlotte in them.”
“A lot were lost in the flood,” Kasey murmured, studying it as well. “I’m not sure I’ve seen this one before.”
Liz sniffled. Anne put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry! It’s a good thing. Like finding a buried treasure.”
“I know,” Liz said. “It’s just emotional. Another reminder that every part of this house has a story.”
“Remember what Mom said,” Kasey told her. “That’s the best thing about memories. No matter where you go, you carry them always.”
Her sister nodded, wiping her nose with a tissue she’d pulled from somewhere. “I just keep thinking what she and the Judge would think about us selling. They put so much of their lives into this place.”
“And they left a wonderful legacy,” Anne assured her.
Just then, a phone buzzed. I tensed, my hand reaching for my back pocket. Of course, nothing was there.
“It’s Jonathan,” Anne said, her face breaking into a wide smile as she studied her own screen. “He’s asking if anyone wants Bulldog Burgers tonight.”
“Yes,” Lana and Kasey said in unison. Kasey added, “Tell him it’s on me.”
As Anne typed this response, Ben returned, plopping a box down beside where I was sitting. “Found some more dollhouse stuff.”
I pushed the flaps back, revealing a pile of furniture: couch, tiny end table, a standing lamp with an actual cord.
In a separate plastic bag, I found the rest of the food, as well as books with real pages.
Also, some handsewn linens: pillows with rickrack borders, quilts, a tiny nightgown on a hanger.
“No people,” Ben said, squatting down opposite me. Close enough to remind me of his shoulder bumping mine in the truck, that little zing.
“We had some,” Liz told him. “But they got lost.”
“After Cat cut their hair,” Kasey added.
I looked at my mom, who was now consulting her pad of paper. Then I went back to the box, pushing aside a small painted wooden washing machine and a plastic potted plant to unearth… a piano. I slid it onto the porch.
“Is that your guitar?” my mom asked Liz, nodding at the nearby case.
“You played guitar?” Anne asked her. “How did I not know this?”
“It was only for about five minutes.” Liz blushed. “We had this boarder in the cabin—”
“Splinter,” Kasey added.
“Splinter?”
“His actual name was Donald,” Liz told Anne. “Worked at the boatyard. He played and said he’d teach me.”
“And he did,” Kasey said dramatically.
“No.” Liz sighed. “We had two or three lessons. Then he went to work one day and never came back. Left this behind, with a big mess we had to clean up.”
“God, no kidding. Remember the fridge?” Kasey asked. “It was like a crime scene.”
Ben walked over to the case, undoing the buckles to open it up and take out the guitar. I watched as he settled it into his arms. When he plucked the strings, they made sour, creaky noises. “Not in bad shape. Just needs a little attention.”
“Don’t we all,” Kasey sighed.
“Knock, knock!” a voice came from the porch. “Anyone home?”
“In here,” my mom and Liz said in unison.
It was Angela from the consignment place. Another woman, stout with short hair and also in a North Lake Estate Sales golf shirt, followed behind her. “Just coming by to see how it’s all going. You remember my partner, Janine?”
“Of course,” Liz said. “Come on in.”
“So it’s all getting taken over to the space by the Egg by Friday for the sale Saturday?” Janine asked. Angela nodded. “Honestly, I’m a little worried about the truck and that driveway.”
“You should be,” Kasey said. “How big is it?”
“Box truck.”
Liz said, “I’m sure we can make it work. The hard part is just getting it all down and out.”
“There’s still stuff upstairs?” Janine asked, looking concerned.
“Not that much,” Kasey told her.
My mom looked at Angela. “I was thinking. What about hiring some people to help us move this along?”
“Do we really need that?” Liz asked.
“If we want it all done by Friday. We’re too close to it all. Being sentimental is slowing us down.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being sentimental,” Liz protested.
“I can call the office, make some inquiries,” Janine said to my mom. “Can’t hurt. Just give me a couple of minutes.”
Kasey and Liz exchanged a look as she pulled out her phone, heading into the living room.
“There’s sentimental and then there’s codependent,” my mom said after a moment. “Big difference.”
“It’s furniture,” Kasey replied, her voice flat. “Save us the psychoanalysis, please.”
As my mom grumbled something in reply, I looked at Ben. When he raised his eyebrows, I had to bite back a smile before my mom could see it. Our secret. I liked the way it felt, having one.