ON THE FLIGHT from Boston to Denver, Winna thought hard about the fact that she no longer knew what she wanted. All of a sudden, she had too many choices. Or were they problems? She was obsessed by the past. She had two houses she loved and two men on her mind—one whom she had just forgiven. She had become a wealthy woman, but it had not been enjoyable because she thought someone wished her harm. Questions, fears, and wild suppositions never let up during the whole flight. She wished that while she was in Portsmouth she had gone to talk to her priest about all her fears. She dreaded her return to the town where she was born.
In Denver, she boarded one of the small planes that flew west over the mountains. Even though she knew what to expect, she prayed, trying to make bargains with God. The plane rattled and shook as it flew through crosswinds and down drafts off the mountains. At one point, she looked out the window. The aircraft’s wings were shuddering. She held on, wondering if she would survive to find the answers to her questions. By the time the plane bounced onto the runway, Winna was relieved to be back in Grand Junction.
Unsteady as a landlubber just in from the sea, she found her car in the parking lot and drove to the house on Seventh Street. Once inside, she called John.
“I’m home. I’m exhausted and still airsick and, after a bath and a scotch, I’m going straight to bed to nurse my wounds.”
“What wounds? Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I just feel damn silly. I flew all that way to sell a house I can’t sell.”
“Nobody says you have to sell your house, Winna.”
He was right. It had been her idea. Winna’s mind was too unsettled for any further conversation. They signed off with a promise to talk tomorrow. They had agreed to get together soon—he wanted to cook dinner for her again, up on Little Park Road.
Once she had dragged in her suitcase and camera equipment, she realized that she would not rest until she went over her list. She poured herself a scotch and pulled out the list she had made on her way from Providence to New Castle.
With a quick snap of the mind, it occurred to her that if it meant driving down that road again at night, she did not want to go to dinner at John’s. She didn’t care how silly he thought she was.
Winna read the through her list. One thing needed immediate attention—to check the details in Juliana’s story, making sure to read between the lines. The search was on. She must find the notebook. After looking in every room, every drawer in the library and kitchen, Winna knew it wasn’t there. The thief had it.
IN THE MORNING, Winna felt nauseated again, as if she was still on the plane. After a cup of tea and dry toast, she fled the house. She had to get away—get some groceries. Feeling angry, but unable to assign the emotion to anyone or anything specific, she drove to City Market’s crowded parking lot where she had to park all the way over in front of Herb’s Pet Ranch. On a whim, she wandered in.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Feeling aimless, Winna browsed for a while through the dog toys, fondling a stuffed chipmunk guaranteed to stand up to dog play. She heard canaries chirruping and followed the call past aquariums full of darting neon lights. Suddenly, she burst into tears, glad that no one was around to see her shudder as she tried to regain her composure. Turning away, she found herself standing in front of a glass enclosure full of puppies in wire crates stacked one on top of the other. She walked along the glass looking at their eager faces; tails wagged, some yelped, others seemed to cry with joy at the sight of her. They were all adorable. Winna wanted one. She looked at the puppies with purpose, as if she was going to make a purchase.
I don’t have time to raise a puppy. They are as much work as a baby. Having gotten a grip on reality, she turned and walked toward the exit. As she pushed the door open, she came face to face with a homemade sign advertising two-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgis, fully pedigreed, fully housebroken, and free to good homes. A phone number was hand-printed on tags across the bottom of the sign. Wondering why the offer was free, Winna tore off a number and slipped it into her pocket. Here’s an alarm system I can love.
THE MOMENT SHE stepped through the kitchen door with her groceries, Winna’s dread returned. She didn’t know why. The sky wasn’t falling, the world wasn’t coming to an end. It made no sense to her. She unpacked her purchases, put everything away, and picked up the phone to call Emily.
“Something’s wrong with me,” she said. “All of a sudden I feel awful in this house.”
“No kidding,” her daughter said. “It’s about time. You’ve been blithely walking around on a cloud all this time. It’s about time you woke up.”
“What would you think if I got a dog?”
Emily said nothing for a moment. “Well, that’s a step in the right direction. Dogs bark. They let you know when you are no longer alone on your property.”
“I thought of that.”
“Look, Mom, you’ve been through a lot. Get away from the house for a day, even a few hours would help.”
“I just got home from a trip.”
“Go out for lunch, think seriously about a dog. Go for a long drive. Come up here if you want. You can help me fold laundry.”
“So you think what I’m feeling is normal?”
“Yes. Think about it.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Mom, you are a riot. Call me tonight. I’ll want to hear how you spent your day and I’ll expect it to be good. Hey, it just occurred to me—we’re going up to Hanging Lake tomorrow and you’re coming with us.”
WINNA WALKED TOWARD Main Street, taking in deep breaths of air, just like her mother had when she was out for exercise. Nora would throw her head back, inhale deeply, and command to her daughter: “Breathe, Winna, breathe,” as if Winna had never taken a deep breath before. Swinging her arms in time with her long strides, Nora would stir up the dust on the canal road.
Remembering the fabric store where she had seen the tempting drapery material, Winna set off in search of it. She looked across the street at the Cooper Theatre and realized she was only a couple of blocks from the old Grumman’s department store.
The impressive three-story edifice still occupied half a block on Main Street. Constructed of red brick and sandstone from the Colorado mountains, Grumman’s was still an imposing building. Grumman’s est. 1882 was still proudly carved over the entrance.
She stopped on the sidewalk and looked through the store windows. The first floor of the old department store had been divided up into smaller stores: a weight-loss clinic, a consignment shop full of used clothing, and a senior center which took up the greater portion of the space. Through the windows, she could see what looked like perfectly functional people gathered around craft tables, playing cards and checkers at tables for two and four. Some were clustered in front of a TV set ringed with over-stuffed chairs. The second floor held a furniture outlet where one could rent-to-own a whole living room suite for seventy-nine dollars a month.
Once, these windows featured the latest things people wanted to own. Mr. Dinkins, Grumman’s window dresser, had put on the best show in town when he provocatively disrobed mannequins for people watching on the street. No longer did her grandfather’s polished sales personnel wait on thickly carpeted floors for customers interested in the latest styles, fine linens, furniture, and rugs. Very few people can make a living in a place like this anymore, only in big cities like New York, Winna mused. What had happened to people like Miss Ethel Conrad, head of the women’s department, who fit Winna for her first bra, sensitive to both the excitement and trepidation a young girl feels at a time like that? And Mr. G. Percy Hampton who, as far as Winna knew, had traveled the Eastern deserts on camelback buying rugs from weavers. He always had time to read her the stories woven into her grandfather’s collection of oriental rugs. And what about Jack Talbot, in the shoe department, who measured her feet, pressing his thumb down at the tip of her toes, and teased, “How many hearts have you broken this week, Winna?”
Now, if you want to make a decent living, you have to go to college and become a rocket scientist. Something significant has been lost, she thought. While she’d watched, the world had changed at the speed of light. She looked at the able-bodied old people playing cards. Why are these people idle? Don’t they have vegetable gardens to tend, or grandchildren to chase? Maybe old ladies don’t make jam anymore; it’s cheaper to buy it. Who is making soup, bread, and heirloom quilts? She knew they didn’t sew anymore, neither did she. It’s too expensive. Yes, the world has changed. Price is everything. She turned away without discovering who occupied the third floor. All of a sudden, Winna knew that, because of her age, she had become a resident of a foreign country.