Chapter 19 Olivia
The doorbell startled Olivia from her sleep. Pushing herself up from her desk, the typewriter carriage knocked against her arm. Sometime during the night, she’d stopped mid-sentence, her body spent.
Without Hattie’s endless pots of tea, the late nights were much shorter than they used to be. And her office—her entire house, actually—was a disaster.
Warm light pooled over her desk from the morning sun. Or was it afternoon?
The desk clock read nine-nineteen.
Was Simon supposed to visit today? Depending on his class schedule, he drove over about once a month now, patiently awaiting her reply to his proposal, but he wasn’t due back until Thursday.
If she had the energy to get herself properly dressed, he was going to escort her to the first showing of Silver Summer in Lancaster.
Several times since she’d returned from California—eight months now—Simon had shown up at the house to surprise her, reminding her that he still wanted them to marry. Then he would chide her for not getting enough rest.
His interruptions irritated her when she was trying to write, but she always calmed her temper before speaking.
She couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t in her right mind.
While Hattie had passed in February, a dull fog continued to plague her, clouding even the ache in her chest. Unlike the years after Graham’s death, a story flowed in her aunt’s absence, but her once orderly routine had completely unraveled.
Hattie had acted as Olivia’s personal clock, keeping up with the rhythms of life.
A basic schedule that most people took for granted: breakfast and lunch, bedtime and wake, Sunday services and Wednesday nights.
Now everything blotted together in the ink spilling over Olivia’s life, impossible to tell black from white.
Everything in her mind, in her life, was mixed up.
When she left for Los Angeles in January, things had been hard between her and Hattie.
More than anything, she regretted the anger between them.
The harsh words and frustration over Simon.
Everything had happened so quickly with Olivia swept up in the idea of marrying a charming, eloquent gentleman who pursued her like one of her imaginary heroes.
She should’ve slowed down. Given Hattie more time to adjust. Even if she disagreed with her aunt’s assessment, Olivia should have listened.
She never told Hattie about Simon’s proposal. She’d merely kissed her cheek, said she loved her, and boarded a transcontinental flight to spend six weeks in California.
The sun had boosted her spirits, and while she missed Haven House and her quiet lake, part of her wanted to invite Simon out west for a few weeks so they could enjoy the ocean together.
When Jillian called her with the horrific news that Hattie had died in her sleep, her world shattered. There she was in Hollywood, so wrapped up in a world of make-believe that she hadn’t even known her aunt was ill. Old age, Dr. Blackwell said, but sixty-seven hadn’t seemed old.
The studio purchased a ticket for her immediate return, and Simon had grieved with her. He didn’t press her again for an answer to his question—not until the summer—but even though the autumn months were upon them, she still wasn’t ready to marry.
The doorbell chimed again, and she reached for her robe.
As she descended to her bedroom, her feet felt like bricks—heavy to lift but necessary to keep her grounded.
She plodded past the photograph of her and Graham on their wedding day.
Past the Bible verse embroidered by Hattie: Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.
Peace. How she wanted that again for both her heart and home.
The first floor felt like an icebox in the morning chill.
She draped a shawl around her housecoat as if that would offer some sort of propriety.
While she probably should have peeked through the glass to see who was knocking, no one except the women from church and Simon knocked anymore.
Sometimes Simon acted like they were married already, coming and going as he pleased. Sometimes . . .
Oh, her head wasn’t on straight this morning. She had to clear the fog before she said something she’d regret for the rest of her life.
Opening the front door, she was prepared to tell Simon that she was too tired for a visit.
Ask if he could come back later today, after she’d slept and bathed.
Instead her gaze dropped to the head of a boy maybe eleven or twelve years old with a torn flannel shirt.
Even though the ground was cold and soggy from an overnight rain, his feet were bare.
He should be wearing shoes and a warm coat. For that matter, he should be in school on a Wednesday. Or was it Tuesday? Her mind couldn’t seem to work out the date, but she knew who he was.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized in haste. “I forgot to leave food on the back step last night.” And probably the night before. “I will find you something to eat.”
Jillian Lamb and the other women from church had brought her casseroles for months after Hattie’s death, and she always left a portion on the stoop. But the meals and company had dwindled over time. Some days, she forgot to eat at all.
She had milk and bread in the kitchen now and what remained of Hattie’s canned peaches plus whatever the grocer had delivered last week. The boy appeared to be hungry, and so was she. Neither of them would be particular about the selection.
She glanced down at her own feet with a slipper on her right foot, the only slipper she could find. Her left toes poked out from under the hem of her robe, the rest of her attire as ragtag as his.
“I’ll make a meal for us now.” She inched back from the door to give him space. “Please, come inside.”
“I can’t.” As tears fell down his thin cheeks, her heart raked itself over a bed of coals.
Was he too embarrassed to step inside? He wouldn’t be if he saw the dishes piled up on her counters or the shoes that no longer found their way into her closet or her pile of laundry long overdue for a wash.
The only order was the manuscript upstairs stacked beside her typewriter.
The only thing that seemed to make sense.
“We’ll eat outside then,” she said. “On the back stoop. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you there.”
She pinned back her hair and brushed her teeth, changing quickly into a skirt and sweater before locating the missing house slipper, hidden partially under her bed. It was the most she’d done for her toiletry the entire week.
He waited for her on the stoop, chin cupped in his palms. When he declined the invitation to join her at the table, she set to work by herself, toasting bread with a pat of butter, warming a can of condensed milk. Then she drizzled the sweet milk over toast and dusted it with cinnamon.
She intended to pour him a glass of fresh milk, but her bottle stood empty in the refrigerator. Had she forgotten to pay the milkman to deliver more? She would ring him this morning to settle the bill.
The boy ate ravenously on the step as she chided herself. It had been a year since he first started showing up at her back door. How had she forgotten to provide for him over the past week? Such a basic thing.
Even if she didn’t see him arrive, the food was always gone before morning, often a note of thanks in its place. How many times had he visited to find nothing there?
She’d been so intent on her writing. Her safe place. When she stepped outside her tower, her head slipped out of her story and reality crashed in. The world outside wasn’t as welcoming anymore.
Still, she went to church most Sundays, when she remembered to check her calendar, and occasionally, when her stomach got the best of her, she’d dine in Catawba or Lititz.
But most days and nights she spent in her fictional world, surrounded by the most delightful people.
Best of all, she could solve their many problems. When it made sense, she could even redeem the villains.
But her own house felt lonely. She desperately needed to fill it with life again, outside the cast of characters on the page.
She opened the back door again, plate in hand, and motioned at the corner of cement beside him. “May I join you?”
The boy nodded, his mouth full of toast.
“We’ve never been properly introduced,” she said. “I’m Olivia Ashe.”
She held her breath, afraid he’d run again like last year when she’d asked his name, but after taking a long sip from his water cup, he answered. “I’m Eli.”
“It’s awfully nice to meet you, Eli. I’ve enjoyed your notes very much. I’m sorry I haven’t been as consistent with the extra food. My aunt passed away earlier this year, and I’m afraid my mind is still scattered.”
He lowered the cup. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
And she wondered if he, too, knew something about losing a loved one.
“Thank you. She made those brownies you liked.” Wind rustled the autumn leaves around them, spraying copper and gold dust across her lawn. “Winter’s coming quickly.”
“Supposed to be an extra cold one.”
After spending January and most of February in California, she’d think every winter in Pennsylvania cold. “Do you have a warm place to spend your nights?”
“It’s warm enough.” He held out his empty plate. “You got any more of that toast? I’ll bring the plate back.”
“Do you mind me asking who it’s for?”
Another breath of hesitation, like he wasn’t sure if he could trust her with his secret. “My grandpapa. He’s sickly.”
“How sickly?” she asked, alarmed.
Tears welled in his brown eyes. “I can’t get him outta bed no more. He just lays there and—”
“I’ll make another portion right now.” She dusted off her skirt and took his plate. “May I check on him with you?”
Eli swayed between heels and toes. “Pops likes his privacy.”
“Too much privacy can be dangerous.” She knew that well, how it could eat away a body and mind.
He shook his head. “He ain’t gonna want you to see him like this.”