CHAPTER
twenty-two
When I was a young wife, I kept a journal hidden in my bedside table. Every morning after Norm went off to work, I’d scribble down a thought or two in it. Sometimes I even dared write a poem. They’d been silly little verses about being in love, nothing worth sharing at all.
It wasn’t until after our second anniversary that Norman found it, riffling in my drawer for spare change to pay a bill that had come due. He’d brought it to me, his face beaming.
I had been utterly and completely mortified.
“You didn’t read it,” I’d asked. “Did you?”
“You like to write,” he’d said by way of answering.
“That’s private, Norman.” I’d gone on tiptoe to pluck it from his hand. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be.” He let me have it. “I like what you wrote about me.”
“Don’t tease me, Norman John.”
“I’m not.” He’d put his arm around me. “You shouldn’t hide it away like that, you know. I bet you could write a whole book.”
“No, I mean it.”
And he had.
Not two weeks later he borrowed his father’s old pickup and took me for a ride to see something special, refusing to tell me what it was until we got there. When we’d rounded a corner and I’d seen the yellow castle up ahead of us, I asked him what in the world he wanted to show me that for.
“Haven’t you ever heard of James Curwood?” he asked, pulling the truck up along the side of the road.
“The author?” I’d asked.
“Yup.” He got out of his side and hustled his way around the front of the truck to get my door for me. “He’s a third or fourth cousin of mine.”
“Really?” My mouth dropped open.
“Well, twice removed or through an uncle.” He shrugged. “Something like that.”
“How about that.” I joined him on the curb, where we looked at the castle. “Anyway, what’s this?”
“It was where he wrote his books.” He extended his arm to me. “Someday I’ll make you a place where you can write.”
“Oh, Norm.”
“It might not be as fancy as this.” He nodded at the castle. “But it will be just for you.”
I never wrote a whole book, and Norm didn’t make me a place to write. It hadn’t mattered. They’d just been dreams that ended up forgotten in the everyday happenings of life.
Hugo and I leaned over a map of Michigan that I’d spread out on the dining room table, me on my feet, him kneeling on a chair beside me. I traced the triple red line that was a highway that connected to the double blue that would lead us to Owosso.
“We just go north here,” I whispered. “And that should lead us right to the spot.”
“Is it far?” he asked.
“Not too far.”
“Will we be gone long?” He rested his elbows on the table.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I peeked at him, hoping he wouldn’t lose his nerve to leave the house.
“Can Mommy go with us?”
“We can ask if she’d like to.”
Before I could stop him, Hugo had sprinted up the stairs and let himself into Clara’s room. I followed behind him, taking the steps slowly, not wanting to interrupt him.
By the time I reached the door, he was already begging her to get up, jabbering on about going on an adventure.
“Can you just let me be?” she said, her voice flat and hollow. “Can’t you see I’m not feeling good?”
“But, Mommy, I want you to come.”
“Hugo, get off my bed.”
“Please.” His little voice was full of desperation. “Don’t stay in bed anymore. Don’t be sad.”
“I said get off.”
It was when I heard the thud that I rushed into the room.
Hugo was on the floor, looking up at Clara with eyes wide, unbelieving. She looked at him from where she sat up on the bed, the very same expression on her face.
I knelt on the floor next to him, touching his face with my hands, asking if he was all right.
“I’m okay,” he said, taking his eyes off Clara. “It didn’t hurt.”
“Oh, baby,” Clara said, moving to get up off the bed. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“It didn’t hurt, Mommy,” he said. “It was an accident.”
The tears in her eyes disgusted me, and I had to look away from her.
“I’m taking Hugo on a little day trip,” I said. “We’ll be back later.”
“Birdie, I didn’t mean to.”
I didn’t respond to her and regretted it as soon as I stepped out the door.
The wind tried its very hardest to pull my umbrella inside out as Hugo and I stood on the white walkway leading up to Curwood Castle. It wasn’t raining terribly hard, but it had come down all morning, and the humidity made me feel damp through my dress, slip, and unmentionables.
But the gray and gloom just made the yellow of the castle even more brilliant. The Shiawassee River—usually so calm in that spot—caught the raindrops in a song of plinking and fizzing sounds. I breathed in the summer smells of water and trees and wildflowers added to the hard-to-identify crispness of rain.
Hugo pressed against my side.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Is it real?”
“Of course it is.”
“Does Jimmy live there?”
“Well, no. But a man named James built it a long time ago.”
Spires and turrets and stately curved windows. I wondered at the imagination of a man who would dream up such a thing to sit on land in understated Owosso. What had the neighbors thought when a thing like that was going up down the street?
“Would you like to go inside?” I asked.
“Can we?”
I answered by putting my hand on his shoulder and leading him up the path.
We didn’t stay inside Curwood Castle too long. The caretaker seemed especially vigilant, following us from place to place, clearing his throat every few minutes as if he wanted us to move along.
What I at first took as scrutiny for our dripping umbrella and squeaking shoes later occurred to me as trying to figure us out. The man made little effort to hide his looks between Hugo and me. After a little while I started to get the feeling that the man didn’t think we went together. We didn’t match. Me with my light skin and Hugo with his dark.
My temptation was to leave right away to not make the man uncomfortable.
But when, at each new corner or photograph or bookcase, Hugo stopped and asked me to read the plaques or to notice something he found wonderful, I decided the man’s discomfort wasn’t my concern.
I decided that the man would just have to buck up and deal with it.
Hugo kept his hands clasped behind his back as if needing the reminder not to touch anything. He never raised his voice above a whisper, and I had to stay very close so I could hear him say, “That’s like the fireplace where Jimmy warmed up after playing outside,” or “That’s like the chair the queen sat in when she told him stories, isn’t it?”
At the very last, I lifted Hugo, holding him just high enough to look out one of the narrow, arched windows that overlooked the river. The man once again cleared his throat. When I turned my attention to him, I saw he was checking his watch.
“We are so enjoying our time,” I said. “Thank you for being patient with us.”
If he didn’t catch the sarcasm in my voice, he truly was not as smart as he thought he was.
By the way he turned and let us be, I figured maybe he had caught it after all.
When we walked back out into the rain, I crouched down so the umbrella would cover the both of us. Hugo drew close to me, his shoulder pushing into my hip, and I dared to put my arm around him.
“I wish Mommy could’ve come,” he said.
“I know. Me too.” I sighed. “I should have brought a camera with me. I would have taken a picture of you in front of the castle so she could see it.”
“Don’t worry.” He turned his face toward me. “I’ll make a picture.”
“I would love that.”
Somewhere, not too far off, I heard the squeaky cheeping of a goldfinch, and I turned to see a dash of bright yellow in the boughs of a pine.
That tiny bird sang despite the rain.
Oh, what a beautiful song it was.