Chapter 9
Those next June days are filled with rain and the finding of lost things. With not much better to do, I become consumed by the task. Turns out I’m still on a mission from Mabel.
Just as when I started this project, I don’t want to care about these things, but I’m moved by them anyway.
I’m moved by their journey as much as anything else—how they were once loved, and then someone cared enough to send them here, and Mabel cared enough to .
.. turn them over to me. Even if unwittingly.
I’m not sure what to do about them or with them, more than anyone else whose hands they’ve passed through, but I still feel I’m doing my duty to Mabel by spending time with all the things, just digging and looking and thinking about the people who lost them.
Somehow, with each box or container I open, I see Mabel more clearly, too.
There have been instances, surely, when I’ve wondered if she was a little dotty—finding her clouds, and at certain frustrating moments, like discovering I’ve been following a treasure map to the garage sitting right outside the door—but more and more, I can’t deny a distinctive, quirky beauty in her, and oddly, I find myself missing her without ever having met her.
Probably a sign of spending too much time alone, but that’s where I am.
Whereas upon my recent arrival here, a week of rain would have sounded like the seventh level of hell, instead those days take on a certain rhythm for me, the first sense of rhythm or balance I’ve experienced since I left Riverside Drive.
In between scouring the lost-and-found items, I keep an eye toward the sky, looking for breaks in the clouds.
When they come, I grab up my ball cap and a raincoat—I didn’t bring one but find a nice blue Lands’ End jacket in Mabel’s closet—and get in my daily walk.
I recommit myself to them. They were easy to skip the first couple of days when I was so out of sorts, but no more.
I start checking the mail since I’m having mine forwarded, and given the weather, I take to checking Grace’s, too, and just leaving it tucked inside her screen door.
As it’s starting to pour one day and I’m scurrying back across the road, I glance back to see her open the door and give me a wave as she yells through the screen, “Thank ya, hon!”
Sometimes it’s dry enough on the back porch to sit outside with a cup of coffee and look out over the lake.
I finish my Grisham book, but rather than start another right away, I find myself taking in the view instead.
Suddenly everything seems greener, lusher.
During those dry periods, I grow more aware of the bright-pink tufts on the mimosa trees, and I see some Queen Anne’s lace and purple clover starting to bloom down near the water’s edge.
Sometimes when it’s not raining, I hear frogs ribbiting all around the lake’s perimeter.
One night I take the time to make a simple but tasty chicken casserole from one of Mabel’s handwritten recipe cards, and since it’s way too big, even with leftovers, I deliver some to Grace.
She seems delighted, then holds up one finger.
“Wait right here.” She returns with a covered bowl of the “brown beans” she mentioned before and some cornbread in Tupperware. “Good rainy-day food,” she informs me.
Turns out she’s right. For something that looks so simple and bland, the beans provide several delicious meals, and when I run out of cornbread—which Grace instructed me to “sop up the juice with”—I discover plain white bread tastes delicious as a sopping tool as well.
I haven’t seen the cowboy next door since the rain began.
I confess to glancing toward his house at moments when I’m out, but his pickup truck is always gone.
I even consider leaving some casserole on his porch, and have suffered the mild urge to tell him how deeply I’ve gotten into studying the lost and found—but I still don’t want him to think I’m .
.. attracted to him in any way. Since I’m not.
One night toward the end of the week, I sit down in Mabel’s easy chair and pick up her phone to call Kevin.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t kept in closer touch, honey,” he tells me when he hears my voice.
Though, honestly, that hasn’t even occurred to me.
I mean, maybe when I first arrived I was desperate for communication, and sure, I had that grand plan to harass him with every thought or question I was unable to google, but I guess exploring all the lost items has kept me busy enough that I’ve quit fretting over things like that.
Yes, I still hunger for an internet connection, but by the same token, I seem to be getting by okay without one.
“The phone works both ways and I haven’t called you, either,” I absolve him. “And I know you’re busy.”
“Still, I meant to check in more. How are you?”
“I’m ... okay.” I say it with more contentment than despair. “And believe it or not, I’ve actually been busy, too.”
“With what, pray tell?”
“Did your grandma ever tell you about the Lost and Found lost and found?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Just as I suspected. So I tell him. About the instructions, about how it led me to meet Jo and Grace, about what I finally found and what Matt told me about it all.
“You’re kidding,” he says when I’m done. “That’s wild.”
I don’t tell him I think his grandmother felt neglected by her family. That would be cruel. I just hope she knew she was loved.
“What are you going to do with it all?” he asks.
Again, as if there’s something to do. Clearly every person who’s mailed stuff here—some of the postmarks dating back to the 1970s, for heaven’s sake—thought there was something to do with it, but I breezily reply, “Nothing. Just look through it and appreciate it a little.”
Part of me is surprised by my new breeziness—but maybe these days of wading through the lost and found have brought me to the realization that we all lose things.
Big things, small things. Jasmine lost her necklace.
Sarah and Isham lost their son. For me, it’s hair and my parents.
Oh, and my respect for the WRTB station managers—since even if I wasn’t quite ready, that’s not why they want Tiffany at my desk right now.
It’s not that this notion makes me feel better about my own losses, but perhaps . .. less alone.
“How’s life in Cincy?” I ask.
“Well, I’ve been spending more time with Patrick’s grandma.
She’s a spunky lady. We’ve been having movie night twice a week—the three of us take turns picking.
I even make popcorn. And okay, I confess I started this just trying to sort of .
.. do my part, make sure Patrick knows I care—but turns out it’s a nice way to spend time.
With him and with Nana. And by the way, when you come back, we need a fourth for euchre.
Nana loves to play euchre. So I’m enlisting you. ”
“I’m terrible at euchre,” I remind him of my least-favorite card game.
“I know. We’ll draw straws to see who’s stuck with you on their team. And maybe with some regular play, you’ll get better.”
I laugh. Even if I don’t enjoy euchre, it’s nice to feel valued. “All right, I’ll play. And that’s so nice about Nana, Kev—I’m glad to hear it.” Then I ask, “How’s work?” It’s the topic we’re probably both avoiding, so I make the split decision not to.
“Fine. Busy,” he says. “If you’re wondering about Tiffany ...”
“I am. There, I said it. And I can handle the answer, whatever it is.”
He hesitates before replying, “Nothing much has changed. I still see her as someone who’s doing fine but not as good as you, and no one is saying much about the situation.”
So maybe they really are just waiting for my hair to grow? Not ousting me altogether, as I sometimes begin to fear? Maybe it really is just about letting the summer pass?
“Buuuuut ...” he goes on, his tone planting an additional seed of hope in my heart.
“But what?”
“She mispronounced ‘ goetta ’ on the air the other night,” he tells me, giddy as a little kid.
I sit up straighter in my chair. “Really?”
Pronounced “getta”—the o is silent—it’s an only-in-Cincinnati German concoction of meats, spices, oats, and a few other things boiled together.
Sometimes it’s a breakfast food; other times it’s served in a sandwich or as a burger topping.
I wasn’t sure how to say it, either, when I was new to the area, but I made it a point to find out before I had to report on the city’s annual Goettafest.
“Yeah, and it wasn’t a surprise to her,” he says. “Not a filler piece stuffed in at the last minute. It was in her script, which apparently she didn’t bother looking over before airtime. Rob even corrected her with live cameras rolling.”
“Wow,” I say. Rob, like me, has been in the business for twenty years and, also like me, doesn’t like his newscast to come off as incompetent. And it’s not that he or I have never made a mistake, but fortunately it’s been pretty rare. “What happened then?”
“Well, she tried to laugh it off—they both did—and she was like, ‘The secret’s out—I’m new here,’ but it was awkward, and she looked uncomfortable, both about the flub and being corrected on-air. Afterward—”
I’m so enthralled, I cut him off to say, “There was an afterward?”
“Yeah, Rob confronted her during the break. Told her, ‘The script isn’t just a backup for the teleprompter. It’s so you know what you’ll be reading and make sure you get it right.’”
“Yikes,” I say, ever so glad not to be involved in that kind of high-level drama.
“To her credit, Tiffany fell on her sword and apologized, saying it wouldn’t happen again. But she was rough for the rest of the show and even a little dicey the following night, too.”
Thinking through that, I almost feel bad for her, but ... “It’s not that I wish Tiffany ill, so ... is it wrong that I’m kind of happy she messed up?”
“Under all the circumstances, nah.”