Chapter 8 Harper
Catawba was so small that Harper could see glimpses of farmland on both ends of the bricked street. As she rode through town, it reminded her of a movie set—quaint, compact, and camera ready from all angles. Even the clap of hooves from horses pulling an Amish buggy seemed perfectly cued.
Her mom grew up in an orphanage near Catawba, and she’d brought Harper here twice to visit Marcia. Back when Harper was still in elementary school, when they’d been crammed with millions into the suburbs of LA.
Even though they weren’t technically related, her mom and Marcia considered themselves sisters. Heart family, her mom used to say. Since Harper had spent much of their vacations here with Brett Sutton, the only child of Gerald and Marcia, she’d decided to adopt him as a cousin.
She glanced over at Brett in the driver’s seat as he waved toward another friend.
The sky was tinted orange as if the sun was fighting against its inevitable fall, and the weight of the day tugged on Harper’s shoulders.
She’d spent the night at LAX, then mulled over all that had happened at Evan’s estate during the long flight to Philadelphia.
Wendi had accepted Harper’s resignation and promised to have the rest of her things boxed and waiting for her in storage.
Thankfully, she didn’t see Evan or the rat pack again.
Instead of watching a movie, she’d slept the first half of the plane trip and started rereading Lavender Ridge on the second half, every page of Via Belle’s book reminding her of her mom.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Brett said for the third time since he’d picked her up from Philly.
He was six years her senior and clearly established as a professional with his gray power suit and tie.
After finishing law school—at the top of his class, according to Marcia—he’d landed a junior associate position at a Philadelphia firm.
“Mom thinks your visit is providential.”
She glanced over at him. “What do you think?”
“Did you know that Mom needed someone to house-sit when you called?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll go with coincidental.”
But she was with Marcia. The timing felt like something more.
Harper had talked to Marcia several times since her mom passed but hadn’t seen her in a year. After Mom died, Marcia said to call her if she ever needed anything, including a place to land, so Harper asked if she could stay for a few weeks until she found her footing again.
Turned out, Gerald and Marcia were in Florida for three months. Since Brett had a family, job, and an assortment of pets in Philadelphia, he was thrilled for her to house- and cat-sit so he didn’t have to keep making the weekly trek west to check on things.
For the first time in ages, it felt like she was exactly where she needed to be.
During their two-hour drive to Catawba, she and Brett had talked about life in California and her years of film school.
Then he told her about his twin toddlers and wife who he’d met during his judicial clerkship.
His grandparents—the couple who’d adopted Marcia when she was a girl—had moved to Florida to live near the ocean.
Harper understood. They hadn’t passed much water on their drive west, and she was already missing the Pacific.
“Catawba is barely a blot on the map,” Brett explained as they neared the northern edge of town. “But you can find most everything you need here or a few miles west in Lititz. If you need anything else, Lancaster is another twenty minutes south.”
“How many people live in Catawba?”
Brett waved at a woman pushing a stroller. “Around six hundred.”
“Do you know all of them?”
“Pretty much, unless they moved here since I graduated. Most of the residents are following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents.”
Harper marveled at that. What would it be like to be known by so many people? To be welcomed whenever you returned home.
“Our house is officially outside the limits,” he said, “but I attended school with half the town.”
While she had few memories of the Sutton home, she remembered the creaky floors and spectacular garden. Most of all, she remembered that her mom had been happy there, laughing with Marcia into the night hours like they were girls.
Brett pointed at a stone building between two wooden fronts. “There’s the post office, right beside the tea shop. At the end of the street is a general market for most everything you’ll need and an Amish-run bakery with the best pastries in all of Pennsylvania.”
“What about a library?” she asked.
“You’ll have to drive the whole twelve minutes to Lititz for that,” he said. “But I’m glad to hear you still like books.”
“I live on stories.”
“Your head was always caught up in one when we were kids. I thought you’d write a novel when you grew up.”
Inside the handbag resting beside her feet was Sissie Sloan’s glossy blue business card.
Part of her wanted to pull it out again, like she’d done about a dozen times on the plane, to make sure she hadn’t lost it.
The letters were a golden foil like Willie Wonka’s famous ticket except instead of entrance to a candy factory, she’d been given access to one of Hollywood’s top movie producers.
Write from your heart.
Sissie was right. The Miles story had piqued her curiosity, intrigued her like the other stories she’d written, but all the material had come straight from her head.
How was she supposed to find a story in her heart?
She fingered the edge of her jeans. Brett had his entire life figured out, all neat and tidy and bundled up while she hadn’t quite grown up. “I’m still working on the writer possibility.”
“Then I hope you’ll get some writing done here.”
“Me too.” She glanced out the window at a steepled church. “Do you know if Via Belle lived near here?”
A flash of curiosity when he glanced her way. “I haven’t heard Via Belle’s name in a while.”
“My mom loved her books.”
“You’ll have to ask my mother about Mrs. Belle or—” He turned right at what appeared to be the only stoplight in Catawba, onto Cedar Street. “Let me show you someplace else I think you’ll like even more than the public library.”
They passed by a row of turn-of-the-century homes, some standing proud and quite elegant, their faces freshly painted. Others looked as if they could double for a haunted mansion with crooked shutters, broken windows, and knee-high weeds on formerly manicured lawns.
Each house, Harper was quite certain, had its own story.
“I wasn’t able to do much reading in film school,” she said.
“Too busy watching movies?”
“That’s pretty much all that I did for four years. We had to critique hundreds of them.” Dystopian. Film noir. Thriller. Drama. Musicals. Horror, a genre she hated along with the scars they left behind. The romantic comedies, she watched to escape from the weightier films.
“My twins are all about movies,” Brett said. “Monsters, Inc. is their favorite.”
It was strange to think of Brett as a father instead of a kid, ready to explore the hills and trees. The two of them, so like cousins, had transformed into musketeers in their earlier years, ready to battle an unseen enemy with makeshift swords.
“May the best monster win,” she quoted solemnly.
He grinned. “We’ll have you over for a barbecue soon, if you don’t mind the drive.”
“I’d love to come, after I buy a car.” A detail she hadn’t considered until now. Hopefully, she could walk or bicycle into town.
“You can use Dad’s Tacoma,” he said.
“I appreciate it.”
“Mom was supposed to tell you.”
“She probably did. Our conversation was a bit of a blur.”
“Of course it was. Mom talks faster than the genie in Aladdin.”
Harper laughed. “I adore her.” Even if she missed half her words.
“She loves you too. And she regrets not being there more for you and your mom in that last month.”
“Mom enjoyed every moment of their visits. Marcia always made her laugh, even in those final weeks.” When the pain had clenched her mom’s chest, stolen her breath.
The weeks when the hospice nurse traveled up from Santa Barbara to care for her.
Harper had felt so ashamed, not knowing how to help except to do her mom’s job so they could stay on the Cantor estate.
“Laughter is my mom’s greatest gift,” Brett said.
“It’s a good one. I didn’t get a ton of details about my stay, but I got a few stories about the cat.”
“Boss Man gives her more fodder . . .”
“She said I’ll be feeding him.”
“The most important task of all,” Brett concurred. “And really the only one except collecting their mail. The cat spends most of his day outside so you don’t even have to bother with a litter box.”
“I’m so disappointed . . .”
Brett snorted. “I figured you would be.”
“So I’ll get the mail and take care of—”
“Boss Man.”
“Right. I just can’t bring myself to say his name.”
“It won’t take long. He’s firmly in charge.” Brett turned onto another country road. “Thanks again for doing this. Mom would much rather have you staying here than someone she doesn’t know.”
“I appreciate her kindness, but I suspect she knows everyone in the county.”
“Even so, you’re the one she wants in her house.”
The scenery on both sides of the road shifted from a line of houses to acres of farmland, hemmed in by hills and trees. Knowing she could borrow Gerald’s truck to navigate these roads was a relief.
There were dozens of questions she should probably ask Brett, but right now, all she wanted was to crawl into a guest bed for the night. Finish reading Lavender Ridge and then sleep.
“What should I do with the mail?” she asked.
“Package it up twice a month and send it to Florida. My parents will pay for the utilities and everything else.”
Three months, she thought in amazement. A place to live and write with no food prep or catering or entertaining Hollywood rats. Providential indeed.