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WILL THOUGHT HE SMELLED the faint odor of something burning as soon as he opened his truck door. By the time he got to the front porch of Lacewood, he was sure of it. Bursting through the door without bothering to knock, he followed the scent down the hallway to the back of the house.
In the kitchen, he found Katie standing beside the old cook stove, waving a towel in the air to clear the smoke.
“What are you doing?” He checked the stove to make sure nothing still burned and then opened the back door and the window over the sink.
“Cooking.” Katie coughed as Will picked up a nearby towel and helped to clear the air.
“Are you crazy? That stove probably hasn’t been used for a hundred years.”
“I thought it would be fun to cook breakfast on it.” Katie stood near the door taking deep breaths of the fresh, outdoor air while Will continued fanning the smoke toward the window.
“You don’t even know how to cook on a real stove,” he stated with brutal simplicity. “What made you think you could do it on this one without burning the house down?”
Katie shot him a look of annoyance. “There was no fire. Only smoke.”
“What a relief. But no more attempts to build a fire anywhere until someone checks out the chimneys. Okay?”
“Deal.”
As Will walked around the house, opening more windows and propping them up with whatever he could find, he heard Katie banging around trying to set up an old fan.
“That should help air it out a little,” Will said when he returned to the kitchen. “I’m surprised you didn’t have all the windows open before now.”
“I tried,” she answered, staring at his forearms as she talked. “I thought they were painted shut or something. They wouldn’t budge for me.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” He squatted down and double-checked the stove.
“I didn’t want to bother you.” She shrugged. “You’ve done enough.”
Will shook his head. Yes, he’d done little jobs here and there, but nothing of great significance. If he noticed a leaky faucet, he fixed it. If he heard a creaking floorboard or discovered a broken door handle, he took care of it. They were partners of sorts.
The partner thought made him suddenly uncomfortable, so he decided to change the subject. “I’m going up to the supply warehouse in Seneca to get some things. Care to ride along? Give the smoke time to clear?”
Katie blinked at him, then tipped her head with a small frown.
“If you don’t want to, it’s fine.” Will turned to leave.
“No, wait. I’d like to go. I’ve never been to Seneca.”
“It’s not really a town. It’s a little crossroads community that shot up about ten years ago.” Will found one more window to open as they made their way through the house and out the front door. “They have a huge warehouse contractors like to use. It’s worth the trip when you need a lot of supplies.”
“And you need a lot of supplies?” Katie opened the door to his truck and attempted to climb in.
Will quickly leaned in through his open window and pointed to the back seat. “Get in the back.” Zeke obediently hopped over the console—but not before swiping his tongue across Katie’s face in greeting. The amusement and delight on her face when his eyes met hers made him forget the question.
“And you need a lot of supplies?” she repeated when they were both in the truck.
“I want to rebuild the steps on the front porch, and patch some of the walls,” Will said. “And I need some stuff for Rosie.”
He heard a loud exhalation from the seat beside him. “What does Miss Rosie need? Some new jewelry or something?”
Will shot her a sideways glance. “No. She has some linkage issues and needs a new three-point hitch so I can mow with her.”
“Ooooo. Sounds serious.”
“Not really.”
She put her hand on her heart dramatically. “Good. You scared me. I thought something terrible had happened to poor Rosie.” She rolled her eyes for added effect.
“What’s your hang-up about that tractor?”
“My hang-up?” She laughed. “You’re the one who named a tractor.”
“She’s red, like a rose,” he said defensively. “Rosie is a perfectly logical name. Anyway, Old Joe named her, not me.”
“I don’t see anything logical about naming a tractor—or the amount of time you spend with her.”
“Really? You have a problem with it?” He accelerated and shifted gears.
“No, I don’t have a problem with it. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
* * *
KATIE WANTED TO TAKE the words back as soon as she said them. She saw Will cast another sideways glance toward her before concentrating on driving again.
“Where is this place, anyway?” She hurriedly changed the subject.
“You ever heard of Conway?”
Katie closed her eyes as she thought about it. “Yes, I’ve heard of it.” She tried to peel back the layers of her memory as a recollection began to float to the surface. Conway...Oh, yeah. That was where her grandmother used to go for groceries the first Saturday of every month. She said it had the best butcher shop in the county.
“Anyway, Seneca is right on the other side,” Will said, interrupting her musings.
Katie jerked around to look out the window. She scanned the road ahead and out the windows to her left and right, hoping to recognize something. Maybe she was close to her grandmother’s house. She had to be.
“It’s only a little farther.” Will slowed down and put on his turn signal near a narrow country road.
“There’s a store back here?”
“Yep. This is kind of the back way in. We’ll use a different route to get home.”
Sure enough, after a few more miles the road widened and an enormous warehouse, large enough to cover several city blocks, appeared. “Holy cow.”
“I told you it was worth the drive.” Will pulled into a parking space and turned to Katie. “They have a little bit of everything, so feel free to look around. I’ll text you when I’m done.”
Katie had never seen anything this big in New York...or anywhere else. Stoves, refrigerators, lighting, flooring, outdoor furniture, garden supplies, seeds by the sack, flowers, plywood, wire, nuts and bolts. She walked around and took pictures of items she wanted to investigate further, like reproduction antique plumbing fixtures she’d assumed would have to be bought online. When she was ready, she’d be able to come here, and see and touch them.
Before she knew it, her phone buzzed with a text: Meet me outside the main door. Katie texted back, OK, but it took a few minutes for her to find her way back to the entrance. She heard the deep rumble of a diesel engine before she even saw Will’s fully loaded truck. He pulled right up to the door.
“Did you find everything you needed?”
He nodded as he put the truck into first gear. “Yes, and then some.”
“Me too. I think I could spend all day in there.”
He was already pulling out of the parking lot, but put his foot on the brake. “You want to go back?”
Katie shook her head. “No. I have too much to do to get sidetracked with a new project. You know how I am.”
Will shot her a knowing a glance but didn’t comment.
Zeke stuck his head between the seats for some attention, so Katie patted his nose and rubbed his ears. “He’s a great dog. You have him a long time?”
Will didn’t answer at first, but when he did, his demeanor seemed to change...back to the detached, aloof man Katie knew so well. “Only about nine months.”
“I can tell he’s really attached to you.” Since she was turned in her seat, Katie noticed a box in the truck’s bed, with a bag of charcoal beside it. “You bought a grill?” She didn’t really expect Will to answer, since she was stating the obvious.
“Yes. For you.”
Katie twisted her head toward him. “For me? Do you know how it works?”
“It’s a grill,” he said, sounding a little confused, while turning onto another road. “It uses charcoal.”
“Duh. I know that.” Katie exhaled with exasperation. “But it comes with the instructions, I hope. Right?”
Will’s brow creased as he studied her, as if trying to figure out whether or not she was kidding. “It’s. A. Grill.” He said the words slowly, as if it might help her understand, while shooting her a sidelong glance of utter disbelief.
“I know.” She shook her head impatiently. “How. Does. It. Work?”
“Wait.” He laughed. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Sorry.” He lifted his hands off the steering wheel for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who hasn’t cooked on a grill before.”
“Okay, have your fun. Ha-ha.” Katie turned to look out the window.
“I mean, I know you’re not exactly an expert on a wood cook stove...”
“Stop.”
Will apparently thought Katie was telling him to stop making fun of her. “Or a regular stove, for that matter.”
She said it again, much louder this time. “Stop! I mean it. Pull over. Stop!”
Will jerked the wheel and pulled into the parking lot of a small church. As soon as the truck stopped moving, Katie jumped out and ran the short distance back to the cemetery they just passed. She wandered around a few minutes, trying to get her bearings, straining to see through a mist of tears.
This was the place she’d spent the past twenty years trying to forget. Most of the town had attended the funeral. Right here. She remembered the day as a blur of murky images and tears.
After a few minutes, Katie spotted the familiar headstone she’d placed flowers on many times with her grandmother. Back then her grandfather’s gravesite was easy to find by its location near an old oak. The landmark tree was now an isolated stump.
She read the name while some distance away.
Edward John Bennett
May 4, 1907 – December 2, 1984
And located next to him:
Esther Ann Bennett
August 6, 1910 – June 2, 1999
To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.
Katie read the words on the tombstone and then fell to her knees. Crashing, crushing grief swept through her as images and feelings skidded and then froze in her mind—like she was reliving the entire scene.
When her dad came home unexpectedly from being out of the country, Katie thought he’d come to take her to Grammy’s a week early. She could not have been more wrong. He’d come home to break the news to her that Grammy was dead. A neighbor found her unconscious in the kitchen, and she died on the way to the hospital.
No. Impossible! Katie’s bags were already packed to go to Virginia. She’d been counting down the days for months. Katie pounded out her pain and disbelief on her father’s chest while he stood stoically, accepting the assault. He of all people understood the agony and depth of her loss.
Then he’d wrapped his strong arms around her, rubbing her back and telling her everything was going to be okay. Katie remembered that most of all...because she knew he was lying. Neither one of them would ever be the same.
When the funeral was over, Katie’s father returned to his job, and her mother never so much as mentioned Grammy again. Perhaps she believed if no one talked about her, Katie would forget.
As she took a long deep breath, Katie felt Will kneel down next to her. He didn’t say a word. He must have known instinctively there was nothing he could say. He simply put his arm around her to let her know he was there.
When she began to straighten back up, he gave her a squeeze. “Want to tell me about it?”
How? How do I explain that the fabric of my life was shredded when I was a kid? That the hole in my heart never mended? And all the years that followed are nothing but a smear of pain?
“My grandmother,” she finally choked out. “I n-never got to say goodbye.” Katie said the first words that came to her mind, but there was a lot more to it than that. Her grandmother had been the one to teach her some of the most valuable lessons of her life. The impact she made—even after she was gone—was profound. Esther Bennett was the kind of woman Katie wanted to emulate and be. Strong. Independent. Fearless.
The intensity of Will’s grasp increased. “Sometimes we don’t get the luxury of closure,” he finally said. “It doesn’t mean we stop living.”
Katie held her breath. Not because of what he said, but the way his voice trembled. He sounded like he was repeating words spoken to him—and that he didn’t necessarily believe them. At last she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I think I can find her house from here. Will you take me?”
“She lived close by? Are you sure?”
Katie nodded and walked back to the road, forcing her memory to release its secrets. She’d attended this church with her grandmother. Could she remember the way home?
No words were spoken once they got back in the truck, except for directions. “Here.” Katie pointed. “Turn right here.”
Moments later Will hit the brakes and pulled off the road, as if he recognized the property by Katie’s reaction to it. She opened the door and stepped out, then didn’t move anything but her eyes. The abandoned house was almost completely hidden behind trees and thick hedges. What was once a barn in the back lay in a heap of timber and debris. The fence and the gate in the side yard were pulled almost to the ground by vines.
“So many memories here,” Katie said as she stared at the front door. She could almost see her grandmother standing on the porch in her apron, waving her in. She inhaled deeply and imagined the smell of freshly baked cookies.
“No one can take those away from you.”
Will’s voice came from right beside her again, so soft and gentle, it gave Katie pause. But he was right. Her grandmother was gone, but the memories were still with her, some of them as vivid and intense as if they’d happened yesterday. Her gaze drifted to the front porch, where they used to sit and shell buckets of beans from the garden. Sometimes they’d listen to bluegrass, and sometimes they would simply enjoy the songs of birds and the chorus of nature.
Katie knelt down and placed her hand flat on the grass, needing to feel it again. She pictured the innocent girl of twenty years earlier, skipping through this yard in her bare feet without a care in the world. So simple. So childlike. So naïve.
Standing again, she let her breath out slowly, releasing the years of pain and lack of closure. She’d found the old farmhouse—probably less than twenty miles from where she now called home. Relief washed through her that the place hadn’t been bulldozed or turned into a parking lot. Perhaps she could buy the property and preserve the space—if not the structures themselves.
Katie felt Will’s hand on her arm again and turned toward him.
“You don’t ever get over something like this,” he said. “You get through it.” He placed his hands on her shoulders studying her with tenderness and concern. “Understand?”
As she nodded, he pulled her against him, and whispered in her ear. “I bet she’s smiling right now. Happy you’re here.”
A single tear slipped down Katie’s cheek, yet her heart was grateful and full. No words could have meant more than those. She’d arrived at a place where she could look back on the memories and smile. She knew in her heart Grammy was at peace—and now maybe she could be, too.