Chapter 21
After the Fourth of July, life in Lost Valley takes on a pleasant, easy rhythm for me. I guess I’ve truly adjusted to the pace here, at last.
My days are about walks to the winery, watering my flowers, doing a little cooking and baking, trips to the market and the café, and working with the lost and found.
I’ve become a regular at the Brandywine Library as well, enough that they know who I am and why I’m there, and they seem as pleased by my mission—Mabel’s mission—as the residents of Lost and Found.
And more items get posted. My three-ring binder logbook is a busy place!
As a side effect to all this, people seem curious to learn about the town of Lost and Found.
So I’ve also shared more about the town itself online, about the few businesses still surviving, and even the remains of those that have passed—attempting to capture with my camera the charm in the chipped paint of empty storefronts and the faded lettering on plate glass windows.
It’s like those faces that hold beauty for me without necessarily being pretty in a traditional way—the rustic wearing down of things holds an unexpected appeal, a history I can feel when I take the time to look closely.
Much to my surprise, a TV station in Lexington caught wind of my lost-and-found exploits and did a small feature about the project on their evening news, using some of my posts, including a short video where I talk about some specific items. It’s satisfying to be doing something people find worthwhile.
And though I think the locals are far more excited about the fanfare part of it than I am, I love seeing them begin to take pride in their small town, which, it turns out, is not nearly the fresh hell I first thought upon my arrival.
Matt wanders over every couple of nights with a bottle of wine, though I’ve learned to have only one glass—no more!
I’ve taken to keeping a dessert on hand to go with the wine, too, even if it’s just break-and-bake cookies.
But I also made a no-bake cheesecake that was cool and light for summer, and yesterday I got some of Melva’s chocolate cream pie to go from the Last Chance.
Like many things, I’ve simply accepted his presence in my life while I’m here.
We talk about his daughter, my friends, our jobs, whatever else comes to mind.
But that’s as far as it goes. Well, okay, that and some flirtation. Because that just seems to be who he is—a natural flirt. I don’t flirt back. Or I try not to. I blush, though. I feel it sometimes, the heat climbing my cheeks like little licks of flame. But I try to ignore it.
Perhaps the most amazing part to me is how all these things fill up my days. Six weeks ago, I couldn’t have dreamed my existence here would be anything more than wandering around looking for things to do. Now, some days, I actually wish I had more time to read.
Even so, I can’t deny that life moves slower for me here—and it turns out the slowness is, in fact .
.. a gift. Having the time to take the walk or bake the cake or sit in Grace’s backyard with her is a gift I never saw coming and couldn’t have imagined I would value.
But maybe it’s like Matt said. Sometimes life has to force on us the gifts we wouldn’t have gotten any other way.
Over the course of about a week or so, I realize my snapdragons aren’t blooming very much anymore. And since I can’t just google it, I do the next best thing: I go knock on Grace’s door.
She doesn’t answer, which is often the case, so I walk around the house to find her out back. “Grace, I have a problem,” I announce.
She looks up from her metal bench knowingly. “I know ya do, honey. And I was wonderin’ if you was ever gonna talk to me about it.”
Getting closer, I peer into her eyes, trying to figure out what on earth she’s alluding to. “If I was going to talk to you about what ?”
She leans forward slightly. “You and Matt.”
As my eyes go wide, I sway backward a little, like something has smacked me in the face. “I’m here about snapdragons,” I correct her.
She looks disappointed. “Well, that ain’t nearly as interestin’.” Then she lets out a sigh. “What about snapdragons?”
Okay, I’m still stuck on whatever her assumption was about Matt, but I try to get back to the relevant topic. “They’re not blooming anymore. They look healthy, but they’re not getting new blooms.”
She tips back her head in a way that tells me she indeed has the answer I seek. “Part of that’s the summer heat. Sometimes they don’t bloom as much in the dog days until the weather cools a little. But the bigger problem is likely that they go to seed if you don’t deadhead ’em.”
“If I don’t what ’em?”
It no longer even throws Grace when I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Deadhead ’em, honey. Ya gotta pinch off the Martian heads.”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. This sounds potentially similar to what Mr. Freeman taught me to do with daylilies, but no Martians were involved in that. “Okay, Grace, I’m sorry, but you’ve really lost me here.”
When she laughs, I know that without saying it, she’s echoing Matt’s frequent comment about me: city girl . And it’s true—despite my small-town upbringing, one would never know I ever lived outside the metro area.
“That’s what my mama used to call the seedpods on a snapdragon,” Grace says.
“Martian heads. When the petal falls off, underneath it leaves behind a seedpod that looks like a little green head with one antenna stickin’ up out of it.
Now, if ya left it there, it’d dry out and let new seeds fall into the ground, which is how most o’ them flowers got there in the first place.
But to get your blooms for the rest of the summer, ya just find some of the Martian heads and pinch ’em off, simple as that.
That’ll get your flowers all pretty again. ”
“And it’ll be easy to figure out what I’m supposed to pinch off?” I ask to clarify.
She gives a nod. “The antenna makes it real clear it’s a Martian head and not a new bud. If in doubt, though, just squeeze it real gentle-like—new flowers are soft, but seedpods are rock hard, like a pebble.”
“Look for the antenna and pinch off the Martian head,” I repeat back.
“That’s right, honey,” she answers. “And I’ll look forward to seein’ them flowers burst back into bloom.”
As I turn to go, against my better judgment, I peek back over my shoulder and ask, “Um, what problem did you think I was having with Matt?”
“Well, that ya like him but don’t think you should start somethin’ since ya won’t be here long, or ... maybe ya just don’t feel quite yourself after what you been through this year.” It’s like she’s been reading my diary—except I don’t keep one.
Yet I nip this in the bud. “Matt is a great guy, but there’s nothing like that between us.”
“Pshaw.” Grace rakes an aged hand down through the air.
“You two been flittin’ around each other like a couple o’ June bugs all summer.
And all I got to say about it is—get to my age and ya realize life is short, and that we cain’t really know how many opportunities we got left, and that maybe we oughtn’t pass up good things when they come a courtin’. ”
Rather than argue the point, I instead take all that in, nibbling on my lower lip, then ask with a tilt of my head, “Do you have regrets, Grace? Things you wish you’d done differently?”
“In romance, no,” she says. “But in other ways, yep. Wish I’d seen more o’ the world. But livin’ in the country my whole life made me just wanna ... stay there, in my little cocoon. Gettin’ very far from home made me nervous. I wish I hadn’t let fear rob me of seein’ different places.”
That makes me sad, but rather than let her dwell on her past, I assure her, “Don’t worry. I’m not letting fear rob me of anything.”
“So you say,” she retorts as I turn to walk away.
“Thanks for the flower advice!” I toss over my shoulder, then head back to my own house and, perhaps, into my own cocoon.
Grabbing a little bucket from the garage, along with Mabel’s kneepad, I put on my floppy hat and sunscreen, then head into the flower bed. It only takes a minute to recognize the seedpods—and to instantly understand the Martian head analogy.
There are, predictably, a lot of them. As Grace indicated, though, they’re easy to pinch off. It takes a while, but somewhere along the way I realize that, just as with the daylilies, I find the task relaxing.
Afterward, my back is stiff, but I discover myself standing near the street, studying the cottage, thinking about improvements Kevin and his family should make to it.
Replacing the old concrete porches with wood composite decking and adding new rails would do wonders for the exterior.
A little paint on the inside would also help a ton.
But then I remember no one in his family actually uses the house or seems to care much about it, so I decide it makes more sense to keep the ideas to myself than share them with Kevin.
When the phone rings inside, I rush through the screen door to answer like a woman on fire. “Hello?” I say breathlessly as I pick up.
“Hey!” It’s Syd. “I have great news!”
“What’s that?”
“I just came from your house and the remodel is done, done, done! And it’s so gorgeous, Jess! You’re going to love it!”
The remodel. A thing that used to seem so important, a thing I wanted so much. I—again—kind of forgot it was happening. “Wow, that’s great!” I say anyway. “So you really like it?”
“Absolutely! It’s amazing! The kitchen of your dreams. And more importantly, your house is no longer a construction zone. I arrived just as the workers were packing up their stuff. So that means you can pack up, too, and come home!”
My breath catches at the words. Sydney sounds so excited about the prospect.
And I should be excited, too. This is what I’ve been waiting for, after all.
The comforts of my big beautiful half mansion.
The luxury of my brand-new fabulous kitchen.
The convenience of pizza delivery and being able to grab milk and bread in a two-minute drive.
And the internet. The internet! All the time, right at my fingertips.
I’ve almost forgotten what that feels like.
I should be jumping up and down for joy. I should be champing at the bit to get off the phone, throw my clothes in a suitcase, and go speeding up Lost Valley Lane, never to look back. I should be feeling the relief drop over me like a heavy blanket.
Instead, though ... I’m suddenly not so eager to go home yet. I mean, the snapdragons need me. I like to think maybe Grace needs me, too—or at least likes having me around. I’m expecting Matt tonight and still have some chocolate pie left that I’d hate to go to waste.
“Why are you so quiet?” Sydney finally asks.
“I’m just ... not sure I’m ready to rush home.”
“Wow. Color me surprised.”
“Me too,” I tell her. “But I’m kind of into taking care of Mabel’s flowers now, and of course all the lost-and-found stuff ...”
“And the police chief,” she adds when I trail off.
I’m glad she’s not here to see my cheeks flush even as I insist, “I do not take care of the police chief. He’s a friend, a buddy, a neighbor.”
Syd just laughs.
“Anyway,” I proceed, “I guess I’ll just do my time as planned. If you don’t mind keeping an eye on the house a little longer.”
“Not at all.”
After a short pause, I admit, “I’m surprised you’re not, you know, fighting me on this. Reminding me that I literally have no cell service and am super hard to keep in touch with, or how badly I wanted to come home after I first got here.”
She seems to think that over before telling me, “Well, I miss you, of course. But you seem ... content lately. More content than ... maybe ever, the whole time I’ve known you.”
This throws me, and I argue. “I was happy before, too. Before the big C.”
“Happy, yes. But ‘happy’ and ‘content’ can mean two different things. You just seem ... calmer the last couple of weeks. More peaceful. Except,” she goes on, “for when I accuse you of being attracted to the police guy. Then you get a little riled up.” She laughs again.
But I ignore the last part—seriously, why is everyone so interested in me and Matt as a couple?—and tell her, “I guess maybe I am. I mean, once I got over my outrage about the lack of internet ... well, it would be hard not to feel at peace here.”
“Then it’s good for you. And Kevin made the right call thinking a summer getaway would help you do some more healing.”
Though I’ve had the same thought myself, I kind of hate giving Kev credit for that, since we all know he was really just trying to shield me from the bigwigs making me feel like crap. But perhaps that in itself is enough that he should get credit. “Maybe he did.”
“So you’ll stay down there another month or so, and then you’ll come home and get back to normal?”
“Yes,” I agree.
I’m almost tempted to invite her and Jayden down for a weekend.
I could relocate the lost and found from the spare bedroom, I could take them to the winery, we could eat at the Last Chance, and I could show them what might be the world’s oldest working jukebox while they indulge in Melva’s homemade pie. But ...
The truth is ... I’m not sure they’d see the charm.
It took me a while, after all. And I’m not sure Sydney would understand how delicious I find Melva’s chicken salad, or why I think Jo’s long silver hair and hippie sunglasses make her so cool, or why I consider Grace’s backyard a genuine work of art.
Some kinds of beauty just take a little longer to see than a weekend.
So I listen happily as she tells me all the fun stuff the two of them have been doing, and how they met Kevin and Patrick at a rooftop bar in Over-the-Rhine the other night, and I realize that a month ago I would have felt a little left out, but now I’m just .
.. glad for her. Glad for all of them. Glad my friends are happy and well loved.