Chapter 4 | Susan
FOUR
Susan
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OVER THE COURSE OF the next few days, Bradley came to Selma Sanctuary with his brother, and he always found time to come chat with me a bit.
It was pleasant, and easy, and comfortable.
“I brought you some strawberries,” he said on the fourth consecutive day at the house.
I was putting the noonday dishes away when he surprised me in the kitchen. “Oh,” I said, turning to him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I thought I overheard you telling your mother you were fresh out of strawberries yesterday, so...”
“That’s sweet. Really, very sweet.”
“I ran into your mother yesterday evening as I was leaving. Very nice lady.”
I chuckled. “She has her moments. She can be very testy when things go wrong, and since her legs aren’t as cooperative as she would like, she’s testy most days. But lately, she’s just been sad.”
“Yes. I saw that. She didn’t have many kind words about my brother.”
Again, I chuckled. “Well, she did have a few kind words about you. She told me this morning that she’d bumped into you. She said you were better looking and better behaved than Jeremy.”
He laughed. “I’ve yet to meet your sister, however. Are you sure she lives here?”
Once again, I chuckled, something that I was doing more and more these days. Sometimes it was a soft giggle, often a boisterous laugh and on several occasions a heartfelt chuckle.
“Yes,” I said. “She still lives here, although I can understand why you would question that. She’s been spending a lot of time in town with her friends.
With the threat of having to soon leave, she wants to see them as much as she can.
You know how it is with girls her age. She’s barely out of her teens. She’s 20.”
“And you?” he said. “Don’t you want to go and spend time with your friends before having to move?”
I shrugged. “I still have so much to do here. Someone should be coming today to look at a few pieces of furniture that we want to sell, and then we have someone coming in tonight to look at a few paintings that my mother is prepared to part with.”
“In other words, you’re tending to your responsibilities while she is out at play.”
I put the last of the dishes away and smiled at him. “Someone has to do it.”
“I assume she’s not so responsible as you.”
“You assume right.”
He leaned against the door jamb. “With my brother being so much older than I am, you’d think that he was more responsible than I was.”
“And he’s not?”
“Two years ago I had to help him out a bit when a financial endeavor didn’t go the way he’d anticipated.”
“That’s no fun.”
“And three years before that, he got himself into a bit of a bind and I helped him out, and five years before that he overextended himself and I loaned him a bit of money to get him through a rough time.”
“If you keep going back in time like that, you’ll end up telling me that when you were ten years old you had to bail your twenty-one year old brother out.”
He laughed. “Almost.”
“I was about to go out to the garden shed and greenhouse to see what can be sold. Care to come take a look?”
“Of course.”
It was a damp and cloudy day, the air heavy with the threat of rain. On the way out, I grabbed my sweater and put it on.
“My father had the greenhouse built a few years ago. He wanted to dabble with seed collecting, but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it’d be.”
We entered the greenhouse. A wide counter to the right was filled with empty pots of various sizes, three watering cans and a misting bottle.
Beneath the counter were bags of dirt, fertilizer and several smaller bags of seeds.
To the left were several hanging planters that were also empty, and very large flowerpots on the ground.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many flowerpots in one place.”
“I think he came to just enjoy buying pretty planters.” I pulled a planter closer to me. Filled with dirt, the dried and brittle branches of a small plant begged for loving care. “Do you garden?”
“Me?” he said with a laugh. “No. You?”
“Oh, heavens no. I’m better with numbers than I am with plants.
Numbers don’t lie. They don’t need special care.
Plants on the other hand, they can start to wilt, and you think you need to water them only to learn that you’ve been watering them too much.
Fertilizer? Same thing. More? Less? Different PH? ”
“So, you’re a numbers person.”
I nodded as I ran my hand over the top of a pretty yellow flowerpot. “An accountant to be more precise.” I looked at him. “What about you? What do you do? When you’re not helping your brother out that is.”
“These days all I do is work with my brother. About a year ago he was having a rough time, and I joined him on this real estate development business. My brother sees big. He’s a dreamer.
Maybe a bit of a gambler. I’m the more level-headed one who actually looks at the numbers, the feasibility reports, the budget.
In other words, all the boring, practical side of the business. ”
“I get that. Does that mean that real estate isn’t your first love?”
“Far from it.”
“What is your first love? What do you want to do with your life?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Why? Why would I laugh?”
He shrugged. “Well, my brother did when I told him.”
“I have a feeling your brother isn’t much of a reference when it comes to things like this.”
“You may be right.”
“So? What do you want to do with your life?”
“I was studying theology when my brother’s troubles took over.”
“Theology? Like religion?”
He nodded. “My ultimate goal was to become a pastor.”
I smiled. “Yes. Indeed. I could easily imagine you at the altar of a church. Gabriel Tillsbury is the pastor here. In fact, I am a member of a book club that meets at his church.”
“Perhaps you can introduce me to him some day.”
I nodded as I continued to look through the pots on the table, then spotted a small notebook. I picked it up and flipped through the pages.
“What’s that?”
I immediately recognized my father’s handwriting. “My father’s notes; seeds he wanted to buy; dates he wanted to plant by. Hmm. He spent an entire summer jotting down the temperatures and rainfall. I had no idea he was really this interested in the garden.”
A sudden thought came to me and instantly left me feeling sad. “Will your brother be tearing this down?” I asked.
“It’s hard to know what he really has in mind.” He headed to the door. “What about the garden shed?”
I sensed he didn’t want to talk about his brother’s plans and while I was tempted to press him for more information, I respected his desire to remain quiet on the matter.
We went to the garden shed and I pulled back the big double doors.
“That mower looks new,” he said. “You can get a good price on that.”
“I think that’s the only thing of value here. I mean, the rakes and shovels and hoes... there’s nothing really worth selling.”
He looked at me, his gaze intense.
“Did I say something wrong?” I said.
He shook his head. “On the contrary. I find that we’re very much alike.”
“How do you mean?”
“Quiet. Introspective. Pensive. Dare I say, introvert? Or, if you prefer, the reasonable and sensible member of the family.”
I laughed. “That is me in a nutshell.”
The sound of heavy raindrops falling on the tin roof suddenly drowned out our voices.
“Looks like we’re stuck here for a little while,” Brad said as he looked out to the sheets of water falling.
I smiled. There were worse places I could be stuck in. Or rather, worse people I could be stuck with.
The rain pounded on the roof with more and more intensity and as I stood beside Brad looking out, the garden was barely visible through the heavy rain.
“Do you think we should try and make a run for it?” he said after several minutes.
“I think you underestimate how far from the house we really are.”
He inhaled deeply and looked out at the rain.
“You’re right. And besides, this is a pleasant and unexpected interlude.
With my brother it’s always go, go, go, and while a part of me appreciates all the action, this.
.. the sound of the rain on the roof, the smells that emanates from the ground.
..” He looked at me. “Being cloistered in a garden shed with someone who appreciates it all just as much as I do.”
I smiled and shivered.
“Shoot,” he said as he shrugged off his jacket. “Here I am going on about the romance of it all while you’re potentially getting hypothermic.” He set his jacket over my shoulders.
I didn’t know how to tell him that the cold wasn’t responsible for my shivers. I simply thanked him and accepted the warmth of his jacket.
I looked up to the sky and saw a break in the clouds. Moments later the sheets of heavy rain turned into a pleasant shower and finally just sprinkles of water.
“It’ll be a muddy mess in places, but I think it’s safe to go now.”
*****
WITH THE SUN DOING quick work of drying up the rain puddles, Brad and I walked through the forest to reach the creek that bordered the Selma property.
“We must be almost a mile away from the main house,” Brad said.
“A little more than half a mile.”
“I hadn’t realized just how large the property truly is.”
“And you’ve still to see the wing of the house that we presently inhabit, and the stable and the workshop and what was once the servants’ quarters and the pond and the inner courtyard where we used to have our swing set.”
“I think my brother might have bit off more than he can chew.”
“How so?”
“Jeremy has visions of turning Selma Sanctuary into Baker Hotel... something like that. I think he’s underestimated the amount of work needed to turn an old ancestral house into a modern hotel.” He looked at me. “No offense, but the place needs a lot of work.”
“No offense taken at all. I’m quite aware of the work needed. Even for us to remain living here, there is work to be done. Unfortunately, the funds simply aren’t there.”
“I believe the same to be true for my brother.”
“But your brother seems so...”
“Full of himself?” Brad finished for me.
I laughed. “That’s not quite what I was going to say, but yes. He gives off an air of wealth and superiority, although he does seem to have issues with his personal appearance.”
“Ah yes. His aristocratic ambitions wrapped up in ill-fitting suits. That’s Jeremy.
While he likes to think of himself as upper crust, the reality is that he’s a gambler who knows not the art of a tailor.
” He shook his head. “Gambling. Yes. He loves taking risks.
He loves to put it all on the line, the adrenaline rush of doubling his earnings.
Unfortunately, the crushing defeat that follows never dissuades him from risking it all again and again.
He's gone from soaring wins to devasting losses, sometimes within the span of a single week. What am I saying? Even within the span of a single day.”
“So, what will he do with the property if he can’t turn it into a hotel?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to suggest he keep it as it is, perhaps with just minor repairs, and perhaps open it to the public. You know, a historic heritage type of thing.”
“Somehow I don’t imagine him being interested in preserving history.”
“You’re right, but I think the financial reality will bring him around.”
“Then again, if he’s fond of gambling, he just might go for it all the same.”
We walked on in silence, emerging from the forest and returning to the house by way of a flowering meadow.
Whereas our moments of silence usually tended to be comfortable and easy, I now sensed a weight on him. He seemed pensive and almost distant. I suddenly wondered if I’d said something to offend him.
“Brad,” I said as I stopped walking and turned to him. “I’m sorry. I realize that I sometimes forget that Jeremy is your brother. I didn’t mean to disparage him.”
Bringing his hand to his chest, he burst out laughing.
“Oh, my. Oh, dear sweet Susan. Do not ever apologize for speaking truthfully about my brother. No. No. I’m sorry, but my pensive mood is in no way related to your harsh words towards him.
On the contrary. My thoughts are of the situation he’s put you in.
Increasingly, I find his actions unreasonable and illogical. ”
I resumed walking. “I can’t argue with you there.”
“I want to talk to him.”
I nodded, eager to hear more.
“I’m going to propose that he allow you and your family to remain.
Perhaps as guides. Perhaps as managers of this museum of sorts.
This property is very large, and I am sure you can live in one wing, while the rest can be opened to the public as a historic site of interest. That is, if it is something that you believe you’d be interested in. ”
“It’s a very intriguing idea.”
“The Baker Development Company can only do so much. If we throw too much money into this, it will be a disaster. But if we open it to the public, gain interest, perhaps then slowly, very slowly, we can open a room or two to tourists.”
I smiled. “I think that’s a solution that we can live with.”
“Then leave it to me to convince my greedy brother. I think I might be able to turn him around.”