Chapter Eight

The next day, nobody came, apart from one man to pick up ornately carved chairs Linney had sold to him.

“Dust catchers,” she’d called them, but the price collected paid for the plumber’s bill.

The rest of the day was just the two women. Linney wasn’t at the hospice job. First task was the stubborn wallpaper in Paige’s current room. Linney produced a magic tool with spikes, borrowed from a fellow nurse, and scratched the paper layers in swirls.

“We need the window open for this part.” Her aunt informed her.

Paige removed the paper covering the window. She screamed when she saw the bones of a tiny critter trapped between the storm window and the inner one. Her heart raced. A warm sunbeam spilled in through the window, calming her shivers. “I need to put curtains on the list of things needed.”

“Make it ear plugs for me. My ears are ringing from your scream,” her aunt said with one finger plugged in her ear and wiggling. “I found lots of cloth in a bin downstairs. For now, look through that before buying something new.”

Paige nodded while Linney took care of the window.

Paige filled a bucket of hot water as she had before. Only this time, they put in a chemical adhesive remover. They applied it and waited. They started peeling and scraping. Pieces actually came off. Tiny shreds but faster than before. Linney sat, bundled on the floor working on a corner near the open window.

“So, how’s your hospice case?” Paige asked.

Her aunt inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Something’s not right with this one. Seems to be declining much faster. They told the family a good two months.” She shook her head. “Lucky to get two weeks. Hard when that happens. Makes it hard to soften the blow.”

Paige stood up and put her hands on her aunt’s shoulder. Linney patted her hand. Paige massaged Linney’s neck and upper back.

Though she grumbled about it, Linney moaned into the touch. “Keep working girl.”

Paige moved back to her spot, scrapping off layer after layer of wallpaper. Her aunt asked her about the lay-off she had and complimented her on pursuing the recommendation. They spoke of Paige’s career, related fields, and possible positions in the area, even if it was temporary.

Then the conversation drifted to Michael. Paige stopped and stared off dreamily.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. No, make it my sake. Go ahead, call the man. Otherwise, I won’t get any work out of you.”

Paige took the portable landline phone from her aunt. She beamed and whispered a breathy hello to Michael, followed by, “I’m stripping.”

“Oh, brother.” Her aunt rose, stole the phone, and put it on speaker. “She’s stripping wallpaper, and I’m here, too.”

“Michael, help!” Paige shouted. “My aunt is asphyxiating me.”

“No, I’m not. The window’s open.”

“Isn’t it about twenty degrees out there?” came Michael’s rich voice.

“Puts hair on the chest,” Linney said. “Well, mine at least. Plucked a stray hair the other day.”

“TMI Auntie.” Paige stole back the phone. “We’re working with chemicals to get the wallpaper down.” She clicked the phone off of speaker. “When are you coming?”

“Seems like anytime you touch me.”

Paige’s blush was all that was needed for her aunt to let out a huge groan.

“That wasn’t me. That was her. I mean, I didn’t make a sound like that. Well, I do but not this time.”

Her aunt rolled her eyes and turned to her task.

Michael chuckled. “Paige?”

“Yes?”

“I can’t stay long. Hold on.”

The pause felt like an eternity. Why did she get so school-girlish with him? What did he mean he couldn’t stay long?

Aunt Linney looked over at her and smiled a cheesy grin before shaking her head and returning to the chemical peel-scrape technique. Each moment on hold made her heart race and her mind spiral. Was this handsome, incredible business man just easing into a brush-off? Why did her mind go there? No matter what, she needed to put up a brave front, didn’t she?

Just as she nearly reached a crescendo of panic, he returned to the call. “Sorry, Flee. I’m in the middle of things here.”

“Of course. Understandable. I guess I should let you get back to work.”

His voice became muffled as if he were cupping the phone. “I love hearing your voice, Paige. I miss you, and I’ll try to be over tomorrow night.”

“Oh me, too, Michael…I mean I miss you, too, not that I’m coming over.” She whapped her hand to her forehead several times for sounding so idiotic. She heard another mocking snicker from her aunt.

Michael’s warm laugh eased her. He let out a long audible breath. Her mind reeled in a different direction, one where her pulse quickened. He wrapped up the call with his repeated assurance that he would be there the next evening and through the weekend.

“Bye, Michael. I-I…” Her words faltered. “I’ll see you,” she said in a dreamy whisper and hung up. Silence hung in the air.

“Well, now, you didn’t say it,” Linney pointed out.

“Say what?” Paige straightened her posture and scraped off wallpaper. “Oh, that. Oh, Aunt Linney, it feels so right. He is coming back, isn’t he? I love the rush when he holds me or how my heart races when he’s here.” Paige smashed the sponge onto the wall, the same spot where Michael had pressed to the wall and taken her days before. She rubbed it and rubbed it.

Her aunt shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I think the cleaning fumes are getting to you.”

“Huh?” Paige shook herself from the reverie. She moved her hand from the spot and scrubbed hard all around, scraping where needed. “It’s more than the fumes. It’s the…the…”

“Nuwak.”

“New wak, old wak, whatever that is, I agree.” Paige paused. “Wait, what is that?”

“Lust.”

Paige thought and shook her head. “More than lust, don’t you think?”

“Only time will tell.”

Paige frowned.

Her aunt sighed. “Yes, more than lust. He looks at you with something way better than lust. He looks like he cares for you.”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Paige scraped with long smooth strokes. “He’s a good man. I never said that before with such conviction about someone I was seeing. There’s something in him that appreciates my achievements, not just my curves. Chemistry and… Oh Aunt Linney, could he be—”

“I know where you’re going. Hope so. Don’t rush it, Squirt…but he could be. Lord knows you deserve it.”

“We all do.” Paige inhaled with a deep sated breath. She coughed.

“Told you the fumes were getting to you. Go dump that bucket. Hot water’ll do the rest. Let’s get this done before we take a lunch break.”

The adhesive remover worked on walls, separating the paper, but had the opposite effect on them. Though one was twice the age of the other, in the hard-working chemical haze of the past few days, the two women became closer than they had in all the years before. They both knew it, but neither said it.

****

Aching from the scraping, Paige stretched and balanced in yoga poses in the kitchen while Linney whipped together a lunch. They talked, teased and laughed.

Linney tried to bend into one or two of the moves with Paige but groaned. “Paige, sorry, but I think fat women don’t do yoga. I feel like a certain doughboy, or girl in my case. Good title for a book though.”

Paige disagreed and helped her aunt stretch more, holding her in a pose. They ate and talked about the letters written to Grandma Ida and Great Aunt Amelia that Paige had skimmed.

“I thought they would be all love letters. Most were about crops or apples or weather. Amelia’s letters were a bust. I’m named after her, but the only thing I know is that she was pined after.”

“Pining’s good.”

“Yes, but no details at all. Who knows what they looked like? He could have been skinny as a rail or have thighs the size of tree trunks.”

“Worse if hers were the huge thighs.”

They both laughed but Paige stopped long enough to assess her own thighs and shook her head.

“Don’t be disappointed. People were repressed back then. Lots of babies, though, so something must have been going on.” Linney bit into a piece of non-sugared berry pie.

Paige followed suit except her pie had sugar sprinkled liberally over it. “I almost gave up on the letters until I came across one from Grandpa Benny.”

“Oh?”

“He wrote to Grandma Ida about how he was clearing stones from some blazing hot field. He described how he watched her coming to him with a thermos of water. He said he drank the whole thing, but it didn’t quench him. He said he couldn’t do what he wanted to with her with her family in the distance or something like that. I do remember this part. He said, ‘When I ask you this time, will you say yes?’”

Both women sighed and sipped from their mugs. Paige’s was coffee, Linney’s wine.

“Oh, there was another letter from Grandma Ida I liked.” Paige set down her mug. “Something like she had to love him with a name like Dornheim, and that he had to do it right and not in a letter if she were to become Ida Fetzer Dornheim.”

Both women laughed.

“I remember Grandma Ida.” Paige started on the dishes. “But what was Grandpa like? All I remember of him was a sort of glassy-eyed Alzheimer’s stare.”

Linney sighed. “It wasn’t all love and hugs growing up. At least not to me, being the oldest. I had to care for the others. Every family was that way to make ends meet back then, especially in farming areas. Oldest took care of youngest. Pop was religious, sort of more like congregational, his way or the highway. I kinda wonder if he picked it up from Uncle Fredrick. There was a force, the drunkard. Not big on people of any color, Native American included, the idiot. He was cuckoo for Cocoa-puffs. Old reference. I always hated it when he came over, always drunk.

“Did my Mom like him?”

“Uncle Fredrick? She didn’t know him. My Dad? Sure, he was all smiles for your mom. She was his baby girl. He had it easier by the time she was a teen. Good crops and lots of help. Oh, stop giving me puppy dog eyes. I had way more fun than your mom ever had. She never even sat on a Harley let alone poured whiskey in a bar in the Arizona desert. So, quit.” Linney smiled.

Paige followed her with a bucket filled with the chemical bottle and tools needed for the downstairs bathroom.

“Okay. Just one more. Who’s Samuel and Marilyn?

Linney stopped short and tightened her eyes. “Where did you hear those names?”

“Letters. I didn’t get a chance to read them.”

The fierce expression from her aunt hit her like a Mack truck. Linney. Her aunt’s name wasn’t from Linda. It was from Marilyn.

“Oh. I just realized you are Marilyn. They’re your letters, aren’t they?” A wave of panic washed over Paige. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I’ll get them. I honestly didn’t open them. Please forgive me.”

Her aunt just shook her head. “Nah. It’s okay. Just all this talk of Uncle Fredrick the Spiteful somehow twisted it. I’ll tell you. It’s time I told someone. Your mom doesn’t even really know.”

Paige stopped in her tracks. Her aunt, her quirky, generous aunt trusted her and needed her. She felt a rush of compassion and warmth mixed with fear at what her aunt might say.

“C’mon Squirt. We need to get this sickeningly awful wallpaper down. I’ll tell you as we go. Who puts tangerine flock wallpaper in the powder room? Oh, right, my own mom who thought it would be cheerful, years and years ago.”

As they worked, her aunt told of Samuel. She spoke of his deep chocolate skin and it being a time when multi-racial romance happened in cities but was not heard of in rural places. And how, in a farm community, people stayed with their own kind, which meant Episcopals didn’t mix with Lutherans even, let alone other intermixing.

“Oh, Paige, he was a muscular dream. I remember it like yesterday. Skin dark, smooth, and hairless. Smile so bright when I approached him. He was a good swimmer. So there goes another stereotype.”

“Nuwak?”

“Big time and caring. He was my first love. I would have married him had things worked out differently. Our family wasn’t big on him nor his on me. He left for college and took my heart with him. I broke up with John George because he was prejudiced.”

“The Wi-Fi guy? I thought—” Paige swirled the scratching tool over the flocked paper.

“No. He’s George Cedric. Not him. Who knows about him? I meant my first husband back when I was far younger than you are now. I married him because I was expected to. We both hated every minute. My divorce sent me traveling.” She poured the strong scented de-glue chemical. “I met men along the way. Roger, you know. Tom, he wasn’t bad or Big Emo. He was good at—” Redness spread to her cheeks as she applied the chemical. “Where was I?”

“Um, I thought you were telling me about Samuel, but I can roll with it.”

“Right. Samuel. Man, was he a hunk.”

Linney drank wine. In the enclosed space, the chemical fumes were strong. The draw fan barely helped.

Paige worked closer to the open the door. “Do you need a break?”

“Naw. Just started.” Linney’s words slurred a bit. They both sponged on the chemical. “Do you know we once did it right there in the creek?” She pointed to an east facing wall. “A mile thataway. We were kissing and swimming in our underwear. That rope swing was a blast, all the splashing.” She waved her arm for effect. “Did I say underwear? No bra even. You have to try it. So freeing.”

Linney’s arms were waving still. Paige stopped scraping and stared, completely drawn in. The chemical needed more time and so did the story.

“Samuel wasn’t ashamed of his body. He taught me to appreciate my own form. Not that I didn’t look as good as you do, kiddo. I was the package just like you.”

“Now I know you need some water. Come with me.” Paige gave her a hand up.

Her aunt complied and kept talking as she followed, “I swung so high and flew off that rope. And when I was climbing up that muddy bank, he just turned me around and kissed me and pressed me into the mud…”

Paige poured water into a glass while her aunt continued, “And then, oh, that was the first time. Mud all over me, squishing against him.”

Her aunt motioned while Paige plunked ice in the glass one at a time.

“D’you know, it didn’t hurt. It was heaven, Paige. I rode him for hours. Soft mud, hot air, water lapping. The memory’s so real.”

Paige had poured her aunt a huge glass of water, but drank it all herself. Both women stared into the void, thinking about the story.

Paige snapped out of her trance and gave her aunt water, pouring herself another. She raised her glass to her aunt. “Here’s to mud in your eye.”

****

After Linney’s stirring tales and much more water, she and Paige returned to wallpaper stripping in the powder room. The fumes had slightly disseminated. Peeled pieces lay in twisted piles on the powder room floor. Lower layers peeled back with a struggle.

“Why didn’t you look for Samuel?” Paige asked.

“I dunno. Figured it would have happened. He could have found me.”

“Really? Think about it. Marilyn Dornheim. But you are now Linney Smith. Hmm. Nearly the same.”

“I tried once on Facebook. Too many Samuel Jackson’s. Not to mention Samuel L. It wasn’t him by the way.”

“Do you have any lead? Any reunion?”

“Hmm. Someone said he had gone out west. Maybe Utah or Colorado?”

“Okay, that helps. Anything else?”

“Are you trying to fix me up?”

“No. I’m trying to get you to reconnect so you can move on.” Her aunt sneered when she’d said that. “Okay, okay. But wouldn’t it be cool to talk to him?”

“He did have such a dreamy voice. He would whisper my name in my ear. Do you know what that’s like? It felt like my clothes would fall off me.” She ripped off a big chunk of wallpaper.

Paige nodded and ripped. “Flea.”

“Yes, I know Michael calls you that.”

“No. Flea or tick, or some dead thing stuck inside this wallpaper. Eww.”

They both laughed.

“Seriously, Aunt Linney…”

“Just, please call me Linney at this point.”

“Okay, Linney at this point.” That got another glare. “Okay, Linney. Did Samuel have a middle name?”

“Sure.”

“And it was…”

“Shh…I’m thinking.” She scraped and ripped off wallpaper for another minute and stopped. “Reuben!”

“Please tell me that is his name and you aren’t hungry.”

“It is his name, but I’m also getting hungry. Wish pizza got delivered out this way.”

The third miracle of the day happened. The first was removing wallpaper from Paige’s room. Second was stripping the powder room walls. The third came with getting a pizza delivered. It was only lukewarm but delicious. The chemical fumes mixed with the pizza scent and permeated the house. Though the temperature dipped far below freezing, the women opened the windows, and ate pizza, all in a happy haze.

Then Paige did something even more amazing. She found a phone number for a Samuel Reuben Jackson…in Colorado.

****

It wasn’t that it was late. It was that they were exhausted. Paige let Linney shower first again, thinking it might be sobering. By the time Paige toweled her hair and walked to the stairs to head to the kitchen for tea, she heard her aunt’s voice through her open bedroom door and dashed downstairs. Uncharacteristic though it was, she quietly picked up the kitchen extension and was rewarded for her eavesdropping.

“Hello?” came a deep voice.

“Is this Samuel? Samuel Reuben Jackson?” her aunt asked.

“Yes.” The man’s smoky voice hung on the word.

Her aunt let out a puff of breath and went silent.

“Look, if you’re calling me,” he said, “and you don’t even have your script down, there’s no way I’m buying whatever you’re selling, so maybe we should cut this call short and you should go on to the next one on your list.”

“No, wait, please. I’m not selling anything. I wanted to speak with you,” Linney said.

“Who is this?” the voice rumbled.

“I…I waited so long to talk to you, and now I don’t know what to say.”

“Who is this?” the voice asked softer this time.

“Sam?”

“Your voice sounds familiar.”

“It’s me.”

“Marilyn?”

Paige nearly gasped into the extension at his recognition of her aunt’s voice.

“Yes.”

“Pennsylvania Marilyn? Pennsylvania Marylin who’s supposed to be dead?”

“Pennsylvania Marilyn who is very much alive, and for a multitude of complicated reasons I’m back in Pennsylvania right now. And no one calls me Marilyn anymore, not since…well, for a long time.”

Silence.

“Is it really you, Samuel?”

“Yes. So, what are they calling you now?”

“Linney. Linney Smith actually. I married a Smith, and then I divorced the Smith, among other things. What about you?”

“Name’s the same as you can tell. Married and divorced. Never really stuck… This is so unbelievable Marilyn. My Marilyn. Any chance we can do this on video chat?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I’m barely used to the thought it’s you and I’m hearing your voice again.” She had a softness to her voice. “Besides, I don’t look like I did in high school.”

“Does anybody? I, for one, am bald and a bit rounder.” They both said rounder at the same time, then gave a nervous laugh.

Paige didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself as she listened on the extension, thankful that her grandma had a home with old school phones with old fashioned portable extensions. Her toes wiggled at the laugh the two had just shared. The two past lovers got more and more comfortable as the call went on.

He spoke of the shade of an oak tree down by some stone fence and how he lifted her up on the wall. “Do you remember how you got me so worked up kissing that I just pushed your underwear aside and…”

“I remember like it was yesterday. Sometimes, I wonder if only it could have been different. I would have loved to have stayed with you. Then…”

“College happened. Life happened for us both, Marilyn. Oops, Linney.”

“Please call me Marilyn. Seems right somehow. I miss your voice. Remember how we used to sneak into the closet to talk? You in yours, and me in mine. Hey, this closet right here as a matter of fact.”

A door creaked open.

“Only there is no chord being stretched on this wireless phone.” She sighed. “I came back to help my mom in the end. Both my parents died. The house fell apart even before probate and the squatters. I’m renovating it now with my niece’s help. You wouldn’t believe it, but she found your letters this week.”

“Oh, those. Not much of writer back then. Or now for that matter.”

“I wish I could have found you sooner.”

“I did look for you, too, Marilyn,” Samuel said with a murmured sigh.

“Actually, you’re my early Valentine present from my detective of a niece.”

Paige inhaled, hoping they didn’t hear her. She really did need to hang up but was addicted to eavesdropping.

“Are you still there, Sam?”

“Yes. Just lighting up something.”

“You smoke now?”

“Only the good stuff, but I prefer it in cookies.”

“Where do you live now? The phone number says some kind of Colorado number, but it could be anywhere.”

“It is Colorado. I have an idea. How about this? I’ll look you up in Facebook, and you look me up?”

They did just that. They scrolled through each other’s photos and told stories. Neither had kids but had nieces and nephews. He had pets.

Paige hung up the extension quietly. Step one done. Make that two. Old flame and possible new flame with Wi-Fi man. The rest was up to her aunt.

Paige’s room was chilly, though the window had been long since closed. She added an extra blanket and draped Michael’s shirt over her new pillow. It still had the vaguest scent of him or at least so her mind told her as she curled up clutching it. He would be back in her arms tomorrow.

In her exhaustion, she didn’t see his text until the next morning.

“Coming back to you is like wanting to rush back home. It should have been sooner. Sleep well, my sweet Flee.”