Chapter 2 #2
The air was stagnant—she needed to open a few windows.
She laid her purse and Lil’s box on the long Windsor bench.
Gazing at the long entry and original molding dating back to 1865, she smiled.
“I’m finally home, right where you wanted me, Lil.
” This was the only house that had ever felt like a home after her parents’ deaths.
Every summer after 2001 had been like a homecoming of sorts.
After the car accident that changed her life, she needed home like flowers needed sun and fish needed water.
But when she entered the family room, she gasped, clutching her fist to her chest. The room looked like it had been ransacked.
The linen curtains were ripped and mangled, suspended by mere threads.
The picture frames that held generations of memories were broken and scattered across the floor, the moldings mangled, and the slipcovers and rug were covered in soot.
Her heart sank like a brick to the ocean floor.
Who could have done this, and why? And were they still in the house?
“Harry,” she called again. Her body shuddered. She didn’t know who to call or what to do. She’d never felt so unsafe and alone in this house before. She needed a baseball bat … or a knife. Her heart raced like a greyhound as she rushed to the kitchen.
She heard Harry’s footsteps overhead.
“Okay, stay there, bud, while I figure out what to do.” Dahlia exhaled through her fear.
No one was home next door. Hank couldn’t help, and most of Lil’s friends were gone.
Maybe a few of Lil’s students were still around, but Dahlia didn’t remember many of them.
Her thoughts were ablaze as she shuffled through the drawer.
Then she looked down and saw a tiny flour paw print on the counter’s edge.
It wasn’t a burglar. It was an animal. Was that any better?
She quietly backed away as if any movement might prompt an attack.
Her eyes bulged as she perused the place.
“Rabies, Harry. Please stay put,” she whispered as she opened the basement door and grabbed the largest fishing net she could find. Thank God Lil had kept Pop’s nets.
She heard thuds from above. “Mother Machree, he’s up there with it.
Of course he is.” She slithered against the hallway wall that led to the staircase and barreled around the corner.
A squirrel hurled toward her, and Harry flew down after it.
All she could do was scream as loud as her air would flow.
It was a scene out of Christmas Vacation, only Dahlia wasn’t on the couch holding her stomach in laughter. Nothing about this encounter was funny.
It was too quiet. Harry sniffed around the kitchen, and Dahlia bravely peeked out from behind the hallway wall. With the net in hand, she paced the family room. Her chest tingled; she never felt this kind of rush before. She bravely pulled back the curtains, ready to catch the bugger.
The squirrel leaped past Dahlia’s face, grazing her cheek with its furry tail, and flew into the entry, all while she screamed and squealed in disgust. Dahlia thrashed the net wildly, sending Lil’s box crashing to the floor.
Dahlia spotted Harry as he brazenly headed toward the action.
“Oh no, you don’t.” She grabbed him by the collar, his nose covered in white powder.
“This is for your own good,” she said, locking him in the bathroom.
She slowly backed up toward the door and made a psst, psst sound, hoping to lure the furry creature.
And sure enough, it came barreling toward her.
She swiftly opened the back door just in time for it to exit through the hole in the screen porch.
Her limp body leaned against the wall and slid down in relief, hoping and praying he didn’t bring friends. “What a welcome, Lil.”
After letting Harry out, Dahlia checked the old faithful cream fridge that Lil and Gran had for the last thirty years.
Sure enough, her bad luck ensued. Not only was it tepid inside but it smelled of decay and mold.
With a pinched expression she pulled back, shutting it immediately.
This was now the third luckless event of the day.
There were droppings in every crevice and urine caked onto every surface.
She wondered where to even start, but then she spotted Lil’s teacup collection, still intact.
With a shaky hand, Dahlia held up a tiny pink, cream, and green rosebud cup.
She had no idea where they would end up in the move, but she was glad they were safe for now.
Dahlia swept and sifted, still in shock, grabbing garbage bags from the pantry.
On the floor, among the wreckage of her family’s story, was her grandparents’ wedding picture encased in broken glass.
She carefully lifted it from the rubble, noticing how well dressed they were in the photo, her grandmother in a two-piece light suit with a hat and her grandfather in a navy one.
Their embrace was tender but choreographed, as if they had gone to the justice of the peace, and this was the only record of it.
They were a good-looking couple, even by today’s standards.
Gran with her petite features, loose curls, and slender physique and Pop with his slicked-back dark hair and chiseled jawline.
Her nose tingled as she turned it over. It read, Lizzie and Leon 1950.
She placed it back on the weathered green nineteenth-century hutch, along with the other family relics, feeling her chin tremble.
She’d laugh about this someday, she hoped.
Just not today. She squatted to inspect the chimney and noticed sticks were covering the brick landing.
She bravely poked her head inside the opening as if she hadn’t just experienced the most terrifying animal encounter ever.
The flue was open, which was strange. She knew they’d closed it when they left.
That squirrel was probably making a nest for her babies in there.
Dahlia was grateful she’d made it out unharmed, despite the mayhem she’d caused, especially if there was a young family waiting for her.
The soot-stained cream carpet would have to wait, along with the curtains and chewed moldings.
She knelt on the dirty, wide-planked floor and slowly placed Lil’s belongings back in the box.
There were old books, art books, flower books, art projects, her watch, flip phone, glasses, seed packets, and multiple bags filled with pictures.
Dahlia paused. Did she even belong here without Lil?
Was this all a big mistake? A lonesome book caught her eye, tucked under the buffalo-check wingback in the adjoining room.
She dragged it out and smiled wide at the cover that read Simple Abundance.
She knew this book all too well. It must have fallen out of the box during Squirrelgate.
When she got to her feet and once again scanned the disaster site, she felt her arms go limp.
She had an empty tank, and it wasn’t even noon.
The book would have to wait, along with everything else.
She made a mental note to take it to look at it later, maybe for the sunset glass of wine.
“Right now, I need a shower.” She looked at Harry, still covered in flour. “And it looks like you do too.”