Chapter 14
If Grace’s little house is a cacophony of color on the outside, the interior is a more muted, old-fashioned collection of plums, beiges, and warm greens.
The furniture is old but has aged well, and seems to have been chosen by pulling different shades from the wallpapers that cover each room.
None of it is my personal taste—and in fact Mabel’s place comes a lot closer to appealing to me in a country-cottage way, even if one sorely in need of updating.
But Grace’s home has a certain comfort about it, a yesteryear warmth that cocoons you when you walk in the door.
I can feel that it’s been her home for a very long time—she belongs here.
And if her colorful metal backyard is Grace’s happy side, the inside of the house is the more serene her.
The fluffy black-and-white cat curled up on the dark sofa seems completely undisturbed by my arrival—still as a knickknack. “Oh, who’s this?” I ask. Though I’ve always been too busy for a pet, my family had a cat when I was growing up.
“That there’s Ophelia. Came to me as a stray about five years back.”
“She’s gorgeous,” I say. “Will she let me pet her?”
Grace nods. “She’s a good lap cat, likes that kinda attention.”
I sit down next to Ophelia and stroke her fur, and her quick, easy purring makes me feel appreciated. Until, that is, she suddenly lets out a very loud meow for no particular reason.
“Loudmouth, though,” Grace adds. “But I still like her.”
I continue petting the cat. I guess I do, too.
“I don’t get a lotta comp’ny these days, so thought we’d use the good dishes,” Grace tells me cheerfully, and I follow her gaze to a small oval dining table in the next room, covered with a lace cloth and set with white bowls and plates rimmed in gold.
I tell her they’re lovely just as a timer goes off and sends her moving slowly back to the kitchen.
Leaving the cat, I head into the cozy dining room, where old wallpaper peels in spots but is mostly covered with lots of family photos as well as a ticking cuckoo clock.
“Bring our bowls in, honey,” Grace calls, so I grab them both up and join her near the stove.
The kitchen is a sunnier place with old wooden cabinets painted pale yellow, an old enamel sink like my grandma had back in Wisconsin when I was little, and what appear to be original Formica countertops that any retro-style hipster would die for.
Brown pinto beans and chunks of ham float in a creamy brown broth in a big pot on the stove, and next to it rests a black cast iron skillet of cornbread just taken from the oven judging by the warm, sweet aroma and steam wafting from it.
I didn’t know I liked country food so much, but my mouth is practically watering as Grace uses a large ladle to carefully scoop beans and ham and juice into the two bowls I’m holding.
She follows me back to the dining room toting the skillet, the handle covered by a special potholder-type thing clearly made specially to fit a frying pan, and an old metal spatula for cutting and scooping, I presume.
The meal is scrumptious, and I can’t stop raving about it as I butter my second piece of cornbread.
As I sit there soaking up the mood of her home and taking in the pictures on the walls, I want to know more about her.
“How old were you there?” I ask, using my butter knife to gesture to a photo of a much-younger Grace and her husband, their apparel rocking a ’70s vibe.
She glances up at it and smiles softly. “Thirty-somethin’, I reckon. Me and Walter both.”
“You look beautiful,” I tell her. In the photo, her eyes shine bright, and the vibrant blue of her dress contrasts beautifully with her dark, smooth skin. She looks happy.
“Well, that’s sweet of ya,” she says. “That was back afore age got ahold o’ Walter and me.”
“You made a handsome couple.” If I’m really analyzing it, Walter is not an overly handsome man, but they look good together somehow—right—and I can tell he treasures her just from the expression on his face. “Were you and Walter raised here?”
Grace spoons a few beans into her mouth and swallows before answering. “No, honey. We moved up from Mississippi.” She says it easily, but then gets a faraway look in her eyes.
“What brought you to Kentucky?” I ask. “A job? Family?”
“Guess there’s a little o’ both in why we come to this particular spot on the map.
” She takes a sip of sweet tea from a tall glass, then swipes a napkin across her mouth.
“We was both raised poor—both our families was sharecroppers. We didn’t know each other until one day Daddy brought home one Walter Whitcomb.
Not the most good-lookin’ fella, not the most confident or slick.
But Daddy was schemin’ to make sure I got a good husband, and I’ve always been grateful for that.
And like I say, he wasn’t the most excitin’ man .
..” She stops to chuckle. “But there was a sweetness to him, and he seemed to want nothin’ more than to please me, and that made me fall in love with him.
He also wanted to head someplace new, where he could build a better life than he could in Mississippi in them days, and afore I knew it, we was married and headed for Kentucky.
Walter had cousins over to Pikeville. In fact, got most of my good recipes, like my beans, from his Aunt Philomena.
“Walter got a job in the mines, but he was so smart he eventually got put in management, which kept him aboveground and probably gave him a lot more years than he mighta had otherwise. We found this little ol’ house here in the valley and had us a good life.
We raised us a son here.” She points to a faded photo on the wall of a young man in a high school football uniform.
“That’s our Daniel. And we found us a nice little community to be a part of.
Back then the town was ... more of a town.
Ya wouldn’t know it now, but Lost and Found was once a busy little place. ”
I can’t help thinking about how much courage it must have taken to leave the only life she’d ever known at such a young age, and yet she tells the story as if it were easy. Having heard the pride in her voice when she mentioned her son, I say, “Tell me about Daniel.”
The question sends a big smile unfurling across her face. “He’s the best thing Walter and me ever done—we always said that. Good, smart boy. Nearly sixty now, which tells you I’m almost as old as these hills round about us.” She stops, laughs. “He’s done real well for him and his family.”
Grace goes on to tell me about her grown granddaughters, and her one great-grandchild so far.
“They use to come for Christmas and a week every summer, and some of ’em still make it for Christmas, bless their hearts, but they’re all awantin’ to move me to Saint Louis, into Daniel’s finished basement.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s real nice there—but I like my little house.
I like my life. I like my backyard with Walter’s art.
So I ain’t aleavin’ until I cain’t take care of myself no more.
And with any luck, I’ll be like Mabel and just pass on quick-like some night in my sleep, without bein’ no trouble to nobody. ”
Then she grins over at me, dropping her glance to my empty bowl. “Want more?”
I feel sheepish when I reply, “Yes—but I’m afraid I won’t have room for cheesecake.”
Yet another broad smile tells me how much pride she takes in her cooking. “Tell ya what. I’ll grab ya just a dab more, and then after we have our cheesecake, we’ll fix up some for ya to take home.”
The sun has sunk low and the air grown cool enough that Grace suggests we eat our dessert in the backyard. I’m stuffed, but the cheesecake is worth cramming a little more in.
I inquire further about Walter and his metal menagerie, and when I finish my pie, she encourages me to walk around the yard to study it from all angles.
It’s like strolling through a Willy Wonka world of metal and paint.
“What a playground this was for my granddaughters when they was youngins,” she says.
I find myself a little envious of such a place to play as I examine pieces of metal that form a large yellow-and-orange sun, then make my way between zigzagging pastel pipes that create a path to a hand-crafted fountain. Walter was an artist. I wonder if Grace was his muse.
“We’ve talked and talked about me,” she says then, “when I’m just a boring old lady. Tell me what you been doin’ with your time over to Mabel’s.”
And that’s when it hits me. “Oh my gosh, Grace. I can’t believe I never told you what I found at the end of the treasure map!”
Her eyes light up. “Did it lead to somethin’ good?”
I nod, then fill her in about the lost and found. She laughs upon hearing how Mabel secretly moved everything into her garage, remarking with wonder, “And she never told anybody, not even me.”
I feel bad for not remembering to fill her in before now, but I end up spending the whole evening with her, regaling her first by dusk and then moonlight about the countless treasures hidden away in Mabel’s garage.
And the longer I look at Grace, the more I realize she wasn’t just beautiful as a woman in her thirties, but that she retains beauty still.
I notice the joy in her eyes, the freckles that cross her nose.
I take in the way the wrinkles in her face show me how much she’s lived.
I bask in the richness of her laugh. And I think again of how brave she must have been as a young girl, the struggles she’s likely come through that I know nothing about, and how she’s ended up mostly alone now but still finds reason after reason to smile.
Every time she does, it lights up my soul.