Chapter 33. Lenore
Lenore
I’ve barely parked at the curb outside the white clapboard church when a call comes through the car. Gita Chaudhari, Green Mountain Realty. I tap the screen to answer. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Lenore?” she chirps.
“Yes, it is.” I unplug my phone from the charger and press it to my ear as I step out of the rental car, squinting one eye against the sun shimmering through amber leaves in the town square.
The local Grange is running hayrides up and down High Street as part of their annual fundraiser, the red utility tractor’s engine grumbling and spitting exhaust.
After a beat of hesitation, she says slowly, “I’m calling with some unfortunate news about your home on Silas Road.”
I freeze with the hatchback popped open. “What about it?”
“I’m afraid your buyer is getting cold feet. After getting ahold of a few contractors in the area, they’re convinced that the ten thousand you knocked off the purchase price won’t be enough to cover the necessary repairs.”
It won’t. Obviously. Hope flickers like a candle in my chest, but it gutters in the wind. If the sale falls through, that means I’ll have time—but I won’t have the money.
I need to sit down. Think. I shut the hatch and walk around the car to the driver’s seat. “Are they asking us to lower the price again?”
“I’m afraid so,” Gita says. “To the tune of twenty thousand.”
I take a deep breath while I consider my answer. Damien said that he trusts me to make the right decision, but this … It’s awfully last minute. I should call him. Get his input.
“What would you like me to tell them?” Gita prompts.
“Let me touch base with my brother real quick,” I say, and we hang up.
I call Damien, but he doesn’t answer. Which doesn’t surprise me—I’m pretty sure his phone is on mute more often than not these days. I open a new text message, but hesitate with my thumbs hovering over the screen.
My eyes wander up to the rearview mirror, where gilt frames are visible over the back seat.
I had planned to donate the paintings to the historical society, but June at the antique mall said that they might be worth a lot of money.
More money than I can wrap my head around anyone paying for old paintings by an unknown artist.
I scroll through my list of recent calls and choose Callan Bradford instead.
No answer from him, either.
I frown at my phone. I thought we were on the same page, that it was easier to part with a for now rather than a goodbye, but now doubt wriggles its way into my brain like a cartoon worm through an apple.
I buckle my seat belt, turn the key in the ignition, and drive to his house.
His cobalt-blue Chevy is parked in the driveway beside the rusted flatbed trailer on wheel chocks. I try his number again, but there’s still no answer, so I climb out of the car and knock at the front door.
Duke’s collar jingles on the other side, which means at least someone in the house is alerted to my presence. “Cal,” I call tentatively through the door. “It’s me. We need to talk.”
Seconds pass, and then Duke whimpers and paws at the door. I knock again.
“Callan,” I say, louder this time.
Silence.
I wait another minute or so before tromping down the driveway, lost in thought. It doesn’t make sense that he’d be avoiding me. Maybe he’s in the shower or something.
I unlock the car and climb inside. I could wait another fifteen minutes and then try calling again.
If he still doesn’t answer, I’ll knock again, and after that, well …
I don’t know. Maybe doing any of those things will make it seem like I’m smothering him on our first day of would-be long distance.
I chew my lower lip and check my phone, but there are no new notifications.
A fist plunks against the driver-side window and I yelp. My heart thuds against the inside of my ribs.
I don’t even have a chance to mistake it for Cal because Thomas stoops down to eye level and gives me a tentative wave through the glass. I pop the door open.
“Is everything all right?” he asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “I tried to call first, but Cal’s not answering.”
“He took my truck to get it inspected.”
I let my head fall back against the headrest. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”
Thomas shrugs. “Could be twenty minutes. Could be an hour.” His eyes fall across the back seat. “What have you got there?” he asks, pointing with his wiry chin.
I glance over my shoulder. I don’t imagine it’s my suitcase or the cardboard moving box that piqued his interest. “We found some old paintings in the attic.”
A crease appears between his eyebrows. “In the farmhouse?”
I reach down beside my seat and pop the latch. “Yup.” I ease the door wider, and he steps back to give me room to stand. “Gran never had them displayed or anything. I was thinking about donating them to the historical society, but—”
“Those old bats?” Thomas shakes his head. “Callan ever tell you that one of them chased him into the dressing room?”
“I heard it was a porta potty.”
I lead him around the back side of the rental, where I open the hatch to reveal the paintings. Thomas stands beside me with his hands planted on his hips. “How old did you say these were?”
“We talked to June at the antique mall, and her best guess was late eighteenth century,” I say. “Cal’s been helping me search for the artist, but it’s a dead end. Somebody Button.”
His head whips toward me. “Button?” he repeats.
“That’s what we think it says.” I indicate the signature at the foot of the still life with cheese and bread. “See, right here.”
A heavy silence settles over us as we stare at the signature. At long last, Thomas clears his throat. “You have a minute to come inside? There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Thomas leads me into the living room and clears opened mail and a TV remote off the old iron-banded trunk that doubles as a coffee table.
“I haven’t opened this in some years, so it’s possible I’m remembering wrong,” he says, like he needs to ensure that I’m prepared to be disappointed.
He flicks the clasps open and hefts the lid.
A musty smell wheezes out. Inside is piled with envelopes, yellowed and blotchy with age. Some bear crumbling wax seals, others vintage postage stamps. Duke wanders over, the tags on his collar clinking as he sticks his nose inside the box and chuffs, stirring the paper.
Thomas nods at the letters. “Go on, then,” he says, settling onto the couch.
I toss him a hesitant look before gathering a stack and flicking through them.
They appear to span several lifetimes: letters from parent to child, between husbands and wives, from friends and distant cousins.
These are the letters Callan told me about, the ones that the historical society has been trying to get their hands on for years.
A slanted script addresses several to a Cpl. James T. Bradford. I settle into the recliner and slide the first letter from its envelope, the brittle paper folded crisply in two. Duke collapses across my feet with a long groan, like he knows this might take a while.
23 September, 1775. I wipe a nervous palm on my pant leg, wondering whether I should even be handling something this old, but I’ve been handling the paintings for weeks now.
Despite the elegant handwriting, the letter reveals an ordinary young woman, worried about the same things anyone else would be in her circumstances.
Her countrymen at war. Her fiancé, hundreds of miles from home.
It’s interesting, but I haven’t the vaguest idea how any of it relates to the paintings—until I reach the end of the letter.
Your ever faithfull Servant,
A. M. Button
I brush my thumb across a signature at the bottom of the page, my heart tripping over itself. “It’s the same as the paintings.”
Thomas grunts in acknowledgment. “Abigail Mary Dutton.”
I glance up, then do a double take at the letter. Dutton, not Button. We’ve been misreading the looping signature this whole time.
Slowly, pieces of the puzzle snap together. “Corporal James T. Bradford.” I look up from the letter. “There’s a painting of a man in a regimental coat.”
“It might take a while to explain it all.” Thomas pushes up from the couch with a groan. “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be great,” I say. “Thanks.”
He disappears into the kitchen.
I unfurl the next letter while I wait. I haven’t made it past the first sentence when the front door swings open.
Cal leans on a crutch, his chest heaving. “I saw your car outside, and I thought maybe…” He shakes his head. “Hi,” he says with wonder.
I spring to my feet. “Hi.” Just seeing him again feels like someone has dropped an anvil on my chest, crushing all the air from my lungs. “I’ve missed you,” I say, like it isn’t completely ridiculous to miss someone after only hours apart.
The crutch clatters to the floor as he crosses the room, and then he’s kissing me so desperately you’d think that we’d spent a month apart.
I make a small noise of protest with embarrassment flooding through my body at the knowledge that he’s kissing me like this when his dad could walk in at any minute, but Cal doesn’t seem to notice.
“I take back what I said last night,” he breathes, cradling my face in his hands. “I’ll come with you to New York.”
I draw back a few inches. “What?”
“We made a promise to be honest with each other,” he reminds me. “No matter what. Even if it’s hard to hear.”
“What are you saying,” I whisper, my stomach bottoming out in anticipation.
“These past few weeks, you’ve taken over everything. You are everywhere I look—in everything I do. I’ve never been one to run away, but even if I was, I can’t outrun you, Nore. It doesn’t matter if you’re three hundred miles away, or three thousand. You’re under my skin.”
His eyes dart over my face, like he’s trying to memorize every detail.
“I knew that I’d made the wrong decision as soon as I left this morning,” he says.
“I can’t handle not knowing when I’ll see you again.
” Each word is more breathless than the last, like he’s forcing them all out before he has a chance to second-guess them.
“So, the truth is that I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you, Lenore.
I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. ”
My heart feels like it’s going to burst. “What about—”
“We’ll figure it out as we go along,” he says, thumb catching a tear that snakes down my cheek. I didn’t even realize that I’d been crying. “I’ll figure something out with my dad, maybe drive up once a month to help him around the house, or I don’t know, maybe he could—”
Someone clears their throat. Noisily. We both turn to see Thomas standing in the doorway to the kitchen, ceramic mug in hand.
Only then does Cal really take in the scene around us. His eyes flit from the open trunk, to the letter in my hand, and then—finally—back to his father in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“It’s— Something came up,” I sputter, “with the house, and then—”
“We’ve found your artist,” Thomas says, pausing on his way through the room to hand me a piping-hot mug of black coffee.
Cal casts a dubious look between the pair of us, waiting for a better explanation. Words seem to have failed me, so I hand over the letter for him to read. A groove appears between his eyebrows, deepening as his eyes dart back and forth until he reaches the bottom of the page.
At last, he looks up. “I’m lost.”
“This is her,” I say, tapping the letter in his hands. “Abigail Dutton.”
“No, not—” Cal addresses his father: “You never let anyone look inside that trunk. The historical society has only asked about a hundred times.”
“These letters were private,” Thomas says. “Not meant for everyone to read.”
Callan exchanges a bemused look with me. “Hard to imagine they care, when they’ve been dead for two hundred years.”
Thomas makes a caveman noise in the back of his throat. “Well, I care. And some things are only meant to be remembered by the few who care.” He sifts through the trunk and unearths more letters. “There are others. Here,” he says, handing them to us.
Cal unfurls the next letter. “Who was she, anyway?”
“Abigail Dutton was engaged to James Bradford.” With a pointed look, Thomas adds, “Your several times great-grandfather.”
“All right,” Cal says, eyes flicking to me. “So, then, what were our ancestor’s paintings doing in the farmhouse?”
“Abigail Dutton wasn’t our ancestor,” Thomas says simply. Almost simultaneously, two sets of dark blue eyes turn toward me. I look back and forth between both Bradfords, already reaching the conclusion before Thomas has a chance to say it. “She was yours.”