Chapter 4. Lenore
Lenore
Her gaze snags on me between the gold-leaf window lettering, and she leans the broom against the counter before crossing to poke her head out the door.
“We’re not actually closed yet,” she tells me. A rich, toasted aroma drifts past her head. “I was just trying to get a head start on cleaning.”
“I know.” I point to the sign behind the glass, still swaying with the motion of her opening the door, which lists their business hours.
“I saw you standing out here for a while…” She lets the unfinished thought dangle in the air like a carrot, inviting me to explain why I’m loitering.
“I’m not supposed to be spending money on coffee,” I say, “but sometimes I just like to smell it.”
You would think that I’d be sick of that smell, but my caffeine dependency is the whole reason I ended up working at a coffee shop in the first place.
It started with the sleek, black, $800 espresso machine sitting on the kitchen counter in Matt’s high-rise apartment.
I’d make him a latte every morning before he left for work, practicing designs with the foam: hearts and swans and tulips.
The barista arches a pierced eyebrow. “I can’t give you free coffee,” she says, holding the door a little wider, “but I can give you donuts. We throw them out at the end of the day anyway.”
My mouth is watering already. “That would be amazing,” I say. “Thank you.”
I pass through the door, setting my bags on a high-top table that doesn’t have chairs stacked on it.
Inside, the shop is painted pistachio green, and there’s a chalkboard menu.
While the barista moves behind the counter to load a box with donuts, I peruse the artwork for sale on the walls.
A cross-stitched portrait of a cat, still framed in the embroidery hoop.
Several life drawings of vaguely nude figures, their bodies twisted into poses that suggest movement.
A series of watercolors depicting everyday scenes: laundry strung from a clothesline, a still life of a hamburger and a Diet Coke.
“Are these all local artists?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Some of them live in neighboring towns, but mostly, yeah.” She slides the box across the counter. “Here you go. If they’re a bit dry, pop ’em in the microwave for a few seconds, and they’ll be good as new.”
I go to retrieve the box. “Thank you so much—” My eyes dart to her name tag so that I can thank her by name. I falter for less than a second before recovering. “Rain.”
Rain doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s my middle name. My parents were living on a commune when they had me. It’s a whole thing.”
“I didn’t know there were still communes here,” I say.
“They’ve rebranded,” she says, “as ‘intentional communities.’”
“What’s your first name?”
“Sunshine,” she deadpans.
I take her in. With her dyed blue-black hair and brows threaded into Spock slashes above gray eyes, she looks a little like the human personification of a thundercloud. I decide that Rain suits her much better. “I’m Lenore.”
Rain barks a laugh. “Let me guess. Your parents were literature majors.”
I’m not even certain whether my parents finished high school.
“I have no idea,” I reply. I want to kick myself before the words have finished leaving my mouth.
Nothing kills a casual conversation like some accidental trauma dumping.
“I mean, I know my mom, but I’ve never asked her why she chose that name,” I say swiftly.
“What’s your middle name?” she asks, graciously overlooking my slip.
“Marie.”
“Shockingly ordinary,” she observes.
“Isn’t it?” I say, grinning.
The door chimes, and we both turn to see a rugged older gentleman step over the threshold, a hardcover book without a dust jacket tucked beneath his flannel-clad arm. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Rain tells him.
“You let her in,” the man says, pointing an accusatory finger at me.
“And now I’m kicking you both out,” she says brightly.
He grumbles, but lets the door fall closed, glaring at us through the gold-lettered window as he shuffles down the street. I collect my bags from the table beside the door. “Thank you again.” I raise the box of donuts in a cheers.
“I’d tell you ‘any time,’” Rain says, seeing me out the door, “but you have to actually pay for them before five PM.”
As soon as I step out, she locks the door and flips the sign to CLOSED. Most businesses here shut down around five, so High Street is pretty dead as I make my way back to the parking lot.
After I’ve loaded everything inside, I sit sideways in the driver’s seat with the door open. I unscrew the cap of my water bottle and pour water onto my hand with the emerald ring, splattering the asphalt below, and then pop the top on the dish soap and squirt some into my palm.
I scrub it around to work it into a lather, then wiggle the ring experimentally. It’s slippery, but it still won’t fit over the knuckle. I think maybe the swelling has gotten worse. My finger bears a strong resemblance to a hot dog—not quite twins, but maybe second cousins.
I should probably drive to the nearest emergency room.
With a miserable groan, I slump sideways into the seat, my legs and arms going rag doll limp.
I don’t have health insurance at the moment.
I owe more than I care to admit on my student loans.
My meager efforts to budget by cutting out frivolous things like artisan coffee and a well-balanced diet are all for naught if I rack up ten grand in hospital bills.
I’m sitting like that for less than a minute, the sun red behind my closed eyelids, when a terse male voice asks, “What are you doing?”
I crack an eye to find Callan standing a few yards away with his car keys in hand.
“I’m wallowing in self-pity,” I say.
“I can see that,” he says. His voice pitches up with mild concern when he adds, “Publicly?”
“It’s the only way to get other people to pity me.”
“All right,” he says, taking a few steps toward me. “I’ll bite, but first I have to know what I’m feeling sorry for.”
I wave my hand with the back facing toward him, so that the emerald ring is impossible to miss. Taut, disapproving lines bracket his mouth, but he doesn’t comment.
“I know,” I sigh, letting my hand fall against my thigh with a smack. “I’m taking care of it.”
In the shade of his baseball cap, his brows pinch together. “Taking care of what?”
I tilt my head upright to look at him properly. “The ring,” I say in the same singsong tune one might use to say, Hello, earth to Callan!
“What about the ring?” he asks.
“It’s stuck,” I say, with deliberate slowness. “I should’ve known better than to try it on. Gran’s hands were so small, and meanwhile I’ve got these massive witch hands—”
“Witch hands,” he repeats, not quite a question.
I’m starting to wonder whether he fell and hit his head somewhere in the three-hour window since we last spoke. “Witches have, like, long bony fingers,” I say, “for casting spells.”
Cal laughs under his breath. “Your grandmother was five foot nothing, and you’re, what—” He tosses out a hand for me to fill in the blank.
“Five eight and a half,” I say.
“Obviously you’re going to have slightly bigger hands,” he finishes.
I give him a sullen look. “That’s not the point.”
He sighs through his nose and steps forward, casting a shadow across me. He holds out a hand with the palm upturned.
After a breath of hesitation, I place my hand in his, and suddenly my hands don’t seem so large after all. His palm is rough with calluses. He squints at the emerald ring, nudging it with a thumb. “I’ve got an idea,” he says, releasing me. “Let me grab something out of the truck real quick.”
It’s not an explicit invitation to follow, but I hop up anyway, trailing after him through the parking lot. “I’ve already tried soap,” I say, in case he failed to notice that my hand smells suspiciously like ruby-red grapefruit.
Cal pops open the passenger-side door. I forgot how everyone here seems to leave their homes and vehicles unlocked—it’s hard to fathom, after living in New York for so long.
After a few seconds of rifling through the glove box, he straightens, holding a travel-sized dispenser of dental floss. “Have a seat,” he says.
I climb into the passenger seat, turn sideways again to face him, and hold out my hand. “You keep dental floss in your car?”
Cal snaps off a length of floss and threads it beneath the ring band. “You don’t?”
“I don’t own a car.” His forehead crinkles as he glances up at me. Up close, his eyes are an unforgiving blue: dark, almost murky, like the deepest part of a lake. “It’s a rental. Ow!”
I flinch back on instinct as he begins to wind the floss tightly around my swollen finger, but he catches me by the wrist. “This won’t work unless you hold still.”
“A warning would’ve been nice,” I mutter.
Using the floss, he binds my knuckle, compressing the swelling.
While he’s not looking, I take advantage of the opportunity to study him up close.
There’s a cowlick in his left eyebrow that has been there since we were kids, and a pale scar bisects his large, straight nose.
He smells like trees and fresh-cut grass and motor oil, and it’s both weirdly nostalgic and a little intoxicating.
I swallow around the pulse flittering in my throat, like some nervous teenager.
Once my finger is wrapped tight, he grabs the other end of the floss and pulls so that it unravels, carrying the ring with it.
The ring drops into his waiting palm, and he hands it over.
I pinch the band between my fingers and examine the emerald, which is now covered in a dull film of dried dish soap.
“You should probably get that resized before trying it on again,” Callan says, wadding up the floss and stuffing it in his pocket.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’d offer to pay you for saving me a probably ungodly amount of money, but all I have on offer are some stale donuts.”
“I’ll accept a donut.”
I hop down from his truck and lead him back to the car, where I present him with the full box of donuts. “Take your pick.”
After a moment’s deliberation, he chooses an apple cider donut, dusted in cinnamon and sugar. I’m reminded with a pang of our old farm stand near the highway, where my grandmother used to sell homemade donuts and hand-pressed cider during apple season. I wonder whether he’s remembering, too.
“See you tomorrow,” he calls through a mouthful of donut, already walking back to his truck.
I watch him retreat with a growing sense of unease.
This would be a deeply inappropriate time for my old crush to rear its head.
I’m here to bid farewell to the only real home I ever had, and by extension, to my grandmother.
It’s meant to be a pilgrimage, of sorts.
A soul search, and a search for answers.
Somehow, I think staring at Callan Bradford’s ass might cheapen that.
It’s not like these feelings could ever amount to anything, anyway. Once, fleetingly, I had let myself believe that they might—only for an outright rejection to douse my hopes like a bucket of ice water.
I won’t make that mistake twice.
There are two routes to get to the farm stand. If you’re driving, you follow Silas Road until you reach the highway, where you pull onto the shoulder and kick on your hazards to hop out.
But I’ve always loved a good walk to clear my head, so when I arrive back at the house, I take the other route by foot, cutting across our property.
The sun has dipped below the tree line, painting the sky a cool purple. It’s chilly enough now that I changed out of my shorts and into a pair of sweats before setting out. I’ve brought my grandmother’s journal along, too, in case it feels like the right moment to read a little further.
I pass by the pond where we used to swim during the summer, now mucky with disuse, silt settled thick along the bottom over last year’s dead leaves. Wild turkeys scatter through the overgrown brush, their brown feathers iridescent in the evening light, gourd heads a stark scarlet.
At the crest of a sloping hill, a rusted iron fence guards the family graveyard, where the name FRENCH is carved into crooked, moss-eaten headstones as far back as 1793—settlers buried on Wabanaki soil.
It’s been a while since the last person was buried here.
My grandmother had asked to be cremated in her will, her ashes scattered in the woods, putting an end to a long and arguably morbid tradition.
My eyes snag on a small stone slab, its edges blunted by centuries of harsh northern weather.
Pale lichen clings to the shallow engraving:
ALPHEUS SULLIVAN FRENCH & WIFE
It was my favorite headstone when I was a kid because it’s so obviously the oldest, cartoonishly simple with its cambered top and disinterested epitaph. I always wondered why it said wife.
There were passing mentions of Alpheus in local history books: how he had served in the Revolutionary War before returning to Vermont to a drafty log cabin on a rural plot of land, where he lived until he pulled together the money and resources to build the farmhouse.
But there was never any mention of who this wife—my presumed ancestor—was, save her relationship to her husband. Her name is lost to time.
I descend the other side of the hill and follow a short path through the trees, which spits me out along the highway. A lumber truck roars past, stirring the unkempt grass.
I follow along the shoulder to the farm stand, three wooden walls beneath a rusted tin roof.
Inside, the crates are stocked with apples in an array of colors: bruised yellows and tart greens and deep, waxy reds.
Depending on the rainfall each year, certain varieties ripen in September, others in October.
The farm stand operates on a trust system, with a green cashbox hitched to a wooden post to accept payment.
A hand-painted sign advertises PICK-YOUR-OWN, with an arrow directing visitors down Silas Road.
Steady income from the orchard keeps Callan paid under the table, so I’m not surprised he’s been keeping the farm stand stocked, but it’s a shadow of its former self. There used to be paper bags of donuts and boxes of maple candy and caramel apples hand dipped in my grandmother’s kitchen.
I grab a Honeycrisp from the crate and settle at the edge of the plank-wood floor, tall grass feathering around my ankles. The first bite is juicy, dribbling down my chin. It’s even better than I remember.
I crack open the journal in my lap and read the next entry in the fast-fading light of sunset.