Chapter Seven
Bailey Rae pulled the last of the dishes from the drying rack, the silence of the cabin heavy in spite of her houseguests, the first people to sleep under the roof since Winnie had drowned.
She’d been spending as little time as possible in the house, afraid it would trigger her grief.
But being here now had the opposite effect.
She took comfort from straightening the milk-white glassware on the display shelves, recalling the stories behind the collection of items found at flea markets and garage sales.
Working at the farmhouse sink brought happy memories of helping Winnie with spring cleaning.
The kitchen had been the heart of the home, and spending time in it reminded Bailey Rae of how places had the power to heal.
Would the cabin offer the same to her guests?
Not too long after Martin had left with his supper, Keith retired to the Airstream, while Gia and Cricket sealed themselves in the guest room. Because of exhaustion or avoiding questions? Either way, they’d holed up with their pain and secrets behind the door.
Leaving Bailey Rae alone, with only Skeeter for company while she boxed away more of the keepsakes. She wouldn’t have room for them in the camper but could tuck them away in a storage unit for someday when she had a house.
Sitting on the braided rug in the living room, she pulled a stack of photo albums from the shelf.
There weren’t many pictures around Winnie’s house, but those weren’t the days of cell phones and unlimited selfies.
Just a few Polaroids were tucked in an album with sticky pages, cellophane sealing them in.
Faded images without the artfulness of how to extend a leg just so, or how to tip the face to the most flattering light.
No perfectly adjusted filters to hide behind, just truth in the lines on their faces and the emotions behind their eyes.
Still, there was an authenticity to those imperfect moments.
She paused at one of Libby smiling even with the dark circles stamped under her eyes, all the more apparent with the wind lifting her long hair.
Keith clung to her hand. Bailey Rae felt a gut punch at the similarity to Gia and Cricket. To herself and her mother.
She flipped the page to a newspaper clipping of Russell beside his race car, Winnie sitting proudly on the hood wearing bell-bottom jeans and a floral halter top.
Her hair shielded most of her face, all layered and curly, still blond and so different from the graying braid or messy bun Winnie had worn for as long as Bailey Rae knew her.
Under the photo, Winnie had written: Us. 1978.
Her aunt had never been clear about the starting point for their relationship.
She’d insisted the present mattered most. So Bailey Rae had come up with ways to trick Winnie into giving a timeline for different things.
Since jars of canned fruit and vegetables had dates on them, Bailey Rae would ask who helped with those.
Or she would thumb through old magazines and search for the address sticker to pinpoint who dropped it off and when.
For the longest while, she’d wondered why it mattered to her so much.
But then in a psychology magazine, she had stumbled on an article about memory disruption and sequencing in trauma survivors.
Gaps in her memory frustrated her, but more than anything, they scared her. What did those holes contain?
How unfortunate she’d already tossed the old magazines or she would have hunted for some of those articles to give Gia—
A knock at the front door startled her into dropping the photo album.
Her stomach lurched and her eyes darted to the corridor leading to Gia’s room, then back to the cabin’s main entrance.
Skeeter scrambled to his feet and sniffed along the bottom of the door.
But he stayed quiet. The dog only barked when strangers came around.
Bailey Rae parted the lace curtains to peek outside, then breathed a sigh of relief. Keith stood on the porch with a couple of Coke cans in hand. The shirttails of his button-down flapped loose from his jeans, scruffy but scrappy. As always. Except with much less hair these days.
She slid the chain off, then unlocked the dead bolt. “Is everything okay? Or is this a DoorDash delivery?”
Chuckling, he passed her one of the cans. “I saw the spare-room lights go out and thought you might want some company.”
“That’s thoughtful of you. Thanks.” She popped the tab and joined him on the porch. “And thanks for staying over too.”
“I love my mother,” he said, leaning against the railing with his drink, “but I have to admit, I don’t mind the quiet night’s rest.”
“You’ve taken on a lot with her care.” People around town whispered about Keith not being able to hold down a job—or a relationship—but his devotion to his mother made up for a host of flaws.
“I’m all she has.” He shrugged, shirt rippling on his wiry shoulders. Some people gained pounds with years, while Keith seemed to shrink. “She’s all I have, for that matter.”
Bullfrogs croaked from the river, interrupted only by a screech owl and tinkling wind chimes.
The sounds of home. Soon enough to be replaced by the lulling whoosh of waves echoing through the wide-open spaces with fewer places to hide.
Or so she imagined her future life near the water.
“That was a nice story about Uncle Russell and the grooves in the rug. I forget sometimes that he was like an uncle to you as well.”
Winnie and Russell had been old enough to be her grandparents, but they’d always seemed so much younger. Their deaths had caught her unaware.
Some people had to come to the realization that their parents were imperfect humans who were doing life for the first time too.
She always knew that about her mom. It was Winnie and Russell who seemed like superheroes, unmovable and steady forces who she thought would always be there to save the day.
“Didn’t you arrive in town about the same time Winnie did? ”
“I was little then.” He tipped back his drink, taking his time while avoiding her gaze. “I don’t remember much about my life before coming to Bent Oak.”
Did no one else understand her need for timelines? “Do you have any idea what Gia meant about the cookbook having a code?”
“Not a clue.”
“Your mother seemed to know something,” she pressed, frustrated.
“Mom is confused.” He rolled the can between his palms. “Maybe Gia just heard how kindhearted Winnie was.”
“Possibly, but the recipe book she held was old, and she seemed so ... convinced.” She shook her head, staring into the woods at the fat oak trees cloaked in Spanish moss. The dense forest kept its secrets hidden from prying eyes. “I should just ask Gia tomorrow.”
“Sorry I can’t help you.” He crushed his can with his bootheel. “Well, I’m gonna head on back to the Airstream. Call me if you need anything, and I’ll be here in a heartbeat.”
And he would be. Keith might have been a troubled teen. While he might not be the best husband or employee, he was loyal to those he considered family. Family by choice rather than by blood, he would say.
She hadn’t thought about how she would miss Keith too, even though he’d been a part of her life for decades, always there to help.
The realization of how she’d overlooked him left her feeling guilty and small.
He came in second for so many people he considered family.
Bailey Rae had Winnie and Russell. Thea had her husband and two children.
He just had his mother, who would soon forget he even existed.
“Hey Keith? Hold on just a second. I have something I want to give you.” She took his empty can and tossed it in the recycling before grabbing the photo album.
Back outside, she thrust the worn book toward him.
“I thought you might want some pictures of you and your mom. Maybe one of Winnie and Russell too.”
He opened the fat album, flipping pages slowly. Nostalgia spilled out of pages touched with dust. Shades of happiness and heartache wove together to make the fabric of memories.
“Wow, I haven’t seen some of these.” He skimmed a finger over a photo of him swinging from a rope into the river.
“Back when I was a kid, we had more freedom to explore. Especially once I was in junior high. Mama would go to work, and I would meet up with friends. We would float on an old inner tube. We didn’t have cell phones to check in and take a million selfies.
No live streaming. Just us, getting to exist in the moment and make choices. Good ones and bad ones.”
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like. No cell phones or chasing social media perfection.” Less pressure. “It was a different time.”
“Easier to hide what we were up to.” He plucked a photo from the album, the one she’d noticed earlier of him as a child clinging to his mother’s hand.
He slid it into the front pocket of his button-down shirt.
“I’ll check the yard once more before heading off to bed. Don’t worry. I’m a light sleeper.”
Clutching the album against the dull ache in her chest, Bailey Rae stayed on the porch long after Keith had slammed the Airstream door closed. She chalked up the twinge to change, not that it lessened the discomfort.
Back inside the cabin, she placed the photo album in a box marked keep/storage , full of files and important papers.
Newspaper clippings. Letters. She’d felt guilty and emotional reading them, although some were more benign, like the ones from some guy asking for more information about paper mill employees back in the 1970s.
She grabbed an unused cookbook and added it to the box for good measure since hers would be covered in cooking splatters.
She thumbed through the pages. What about this simple publication had drawn Gia?