Farthest House (27 page)

Mémé had also said a person needed to become rooted to a place before the land spoke to him. Surely now, trees whispered to Tory.

Decades ago, I’d given Tory a three-legged sewing basket. Now, she pulled a doll leg from it. With mesmerizing movements and tiny gold, pelican-shaped scissors, she snipped a length of white thread, moistened one end on her tongue, and threaded the strand into a long silver needle. The needle dipped and rose, making two, three, four small stitches before Tory’s hand lifted, and she drew the thread through all the stitches at once.

“You must have made hundreds of dolls by now,” Willow said.

“I’ve no idea how many. Do you think Prairie would enjoy one?” Before Willow could answer, Tory continued on, as if she didn’t expect an answer or hadn’t heard herself ask the question. “I can’t offer you a permanent place,” she said. “When I die, Greenburr inherits all this. You do remember hearing Mom’s will read?”

A vision of Papa’s casket suspended over the inky outline of the grave below made Willow shudder. “Let’s not talk about dying.”

“Well, shall we talk about you?” Tory sipped her tea, and her eyes lowered again to her sewing. “Tell me more about your life.”

Willow toyed with Prairie’s hair, winding curls behind her daughter’s ears and considered what she could handle telling and what she best avoid. “I’d love to stay here. The thought of going back to my apartment, standing at the window, and not seeing Papa’s roof creeps me out. Without him there,” she took a breath and some time, “we have nothing left in Omaha.”
And so many reasons to get as far away as possible.
“I’m afraid, though, that after a couple of days we’ll wear out our welcome.”

“Nonsense.”

“You and I are just getting reacquainted. I’d like us to become close, not enemies. Then, there’s my apartment and classes.” She slowed considering school, “I’ve missed a paper and a test.” A deeper realization struck her. Even if her instructors let her make up what she missed, dropping Prairie off at a sitter’s now was unthinkable. Not with Mary out there. She and Prairie needed allies. With Tory, Mable, Jonah, and the solid security and distance of Farthest House from Omaha, Prairie
would
be safer.

Tory lowered the doll leg onto her lap. “We’ll do fine.” The petite scissors opened, flashed, and snipped thread. “It takes years to get over a death, and I’ve lived alone too long. If I’m ever going to have something of a family again, it’s time now.”

Prairie finished her last Cheerio and squirmed to get down. Willow sat her on the floor and watched her crawl for the kitchen and Mable, as though she already knew and felt comfortable at Farthest House. Mrs. Crat’s words rang in her head:
Oh heavens, haven’t you any family.
“I paint,” she said after a moment. “The oils smell.”

Tory looked up from her work. “You still paint, then? My aunt used to paint in the attic. You could work there.”

With so little sleep over the last several days, Willow’s body felt like a folding-chair collapsing on itself. She struggled to focus. The attic would mean a full-sized studio, her own space to work nights and during Prairie’s naps, and where her supplies could be spread out, not piled into a playpen. A dream come true, but the only thing that mattered at the moment was having Prairie in the safest possible place.

“Good,” Tory said.

“With his house burned down, Farthest House is the only other place Papa ever lived.”

“You don’t really believe someone set fire to his house?”

Willow leaned back and looked through the doorway to Prairie on Mable’s hip. On the day they buried Papa, Prairie was happy. Farthest House, Mable, Tory, Jonah, they’d all be gifts to Prairie. “There’s this crazy person named Mary. She threatened. For Papa to die like he did, because of a fire, and for it to be a coincidence, hardly.”

“But wasn’t he a heavy smoker? Didn’t the fire start with a cigarette?” And then, almost reverently, “There was his drinking, too.”

Papa had been lax about burning cigarettes; she couldn’t forget the one he left burning in the kitchen, its smoke curling up. “He didn’t drink anymore,” she said. “I don’t understand those bottles.”

“Willow, really? He was just a man.”

For a few minutes, they sat without speaking. Willow didn’t want to hear how Papa had been ‘just a man.’ She wanted to excuse herself, get an ice pack for her head and sleep, but Tory’s long-fingered, masculine-looking hands lifted the cozy off the teapot and poured again. “Who is this Mary?”

There were volumes Willow wouldn’t tell. “A blonde, too perfect on the outside, tormented on the inside. She drives a yellow TR6.”

Tory’s penciled brows rose. She set the doll leg on the table, a needle jutting out. “Yesterday, just before you arrived, I drove down to have my teeth cleaned, and when I came out of the dentist’s office, a small yellow car, I might have said gold, was driving very slowly down Main Street, right past me. An unusual, bright color. A roadster type, I don’t know models.”

Willow’s stomach clenched. Had Mary come to check out Greenburr? The location of Farthest House?

“My dentist was surprised to see me, Julian not yet buried,” Tory explained, “but I made that appointment months ago, and I’ve never in my life missed an appointment.” She picked up her sewing again, a purposeful set to her lips. “Anyway, a pretty girl sat behind the wheel, and a car that color is not the sort of thing an observant person misses. I didn’t recognize her.” Tory went on, “I mean she wasn’t one of our local girls. I don’t know the college students, of course. Briarwood draws them from all over the country.”

“Did the car have Omaha plates?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I’m scared,” Willow’s voice lowered to a whisper, “for Prairie. I half expect a court order to come any day, forcing me into joint custody with Derrick.”

“She’ll be a year old this summer. If Derrick hasn’t cared yet, why would he now?”

“Because Papa is gone. Because now it’s safe. Because Mary has resurfaced, and she’d push him into it just to hurt me. And then, on a day he has her, an accident. Texas is not far enough away.” She felt the threat of tears again, and she looked over Tory’s shoulder and out to the drive and the canopy of trees beginning to bud. “Please, let’s talk about something else.”

The doll leg in Tory’s hand looked bloodless. “All right, dear.”

“It’s weird being here, weird that I was born here. Why not a hospital in Omaha?”

“Who can remember so long ago? Was it ’59, ’60? Just out of the 50’s at any rate. Home-births were common. If I remember, Julian was doing a lot of undercover work, spending many nights away, and Jeannie didn’t want to be so alone her last trimester. She loved Farthest House and the roses. She even enjoyed Mom. Julian came every chance he got.

“Dr. Mahoney,” Tory gave a tiny shake of her head, “what would this town do without him? He preferred home deliveries. Likely still does. With no hospital nearby, he’d waste a lot of time driving back and forth to Omaha, and that distance, especially if you were in heavy labor, with sometimes just awful roads? Who would want to risk having a baby while stuck in a ditch in a snowstorm? His wife always hung out her sheets the day after her babies were born, already bleached and white as snow. She’s an admirable woman.”

“That’s admirable? Who wanted those sheets out? Her, or him?”

Tory was still remembering. “Twenty years ago, doctors didn’t have to worry about lawsuits for every little thing. Death was seen as God’s will, and women often died in childbirth. Even in hospitals.”

The pounding in Willow’s head had risen to a crescendo. “I’m sorry. Would you mind if I went upstairs to lie down for just a bit?”

Tory went on. “Having you here will do us all good. You’re more stressed than you know, but we won’t make any far-reaching plans. Spend the summer, in the fall you can decide if it still suits you.”

I wasn’t surprised by Willow’s relief. She watched her aunt’s hands, the thin needle suturing. Each stitch seeming to punctuate the benefits of staying: no rent, food, and childcare expenses. Relief from those, for even a couple of months, would help her pay off some bills. Prairie remained the biggest concern, though, and Willow’s mind kept circling around that. Even if Mary had driven to Greenburr to gloat over the impending funeral, she wasn’t likely to come every day, cruising by as she’d started doing in Omaha. “You’re sure? Maybe over the summer, Red will find proof that Mary killed Papa, and she’ll be locked away for good.”

“I’ll call movers,” Tory said. “My expense. And in the fall, if you decide to stay, Briarwood is an excellent university.”

Sleep,
Willow thought, but after Tory’s kindness, movers doing the work, and Tory paying the bills, how could she get up and leave the table? “Dr. Hartford seems nice.”

With a practiced motion, Tory rolled the end of her thread between her thumb and index finger, snagging it into a knot. “You’ll see plenty of him this summer, he’s going to be working here in the library.”

“Here?”

“Is there a better place to write Mom’s biography? The journals and notes are here. I’ve never let anyone cart off artifacts, and I won’t start now. Those papers are likely worth money. I hope, when his book comes out, the university will want to buy them. I’ve told him none of Mom’s papers are to leave the premises, under any circumstances.”

“I’m glad I’m staying.” Dr. Hartford would be another, younger set of eyes to warn of Mary.

Tory’s stitches slowed and then stopped as she rounded a muslin toe. “He’s seven or eight years older than you and already through all his schooling.”

“I didn’t mean I was looking for a man.” The age difference didn’t bother her, though. She fingered the handle of her pansy cup. She was sick of boys with shiny faces, errant pimples, and in stupors over what puberty had done to their penises. “I’ve escaped earning one PHT. I’m not looking to earn another.”

“A PHT?”

She sipped her tea, Jonah’s honey sweet on her tongue. “A ‘Put Husband Through’ college.” Still, she had no interest in someone like Clay Hartford. Beautiful people like him, like Derrick, were of one world, she another. Though she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone, raising Prairie the way she’d been raised—with only a single parent—at the moment, she didn’t need to add a male to her list of troubles. “Actually,” she said, “when the day comes, if it ever comes, I’ll be looking for a mud face. Much less trouble. I just want to steal long looks at the guy, material for fantasies when I can’t sleep.”

Tory’s needle bobbed. When she spoke again, Willow was surprised by the turn of her thoughts. “I’m not sure why Mom left you so little. Maybe she thought by the time I died, Farthest House would be an albatross.”

33

Willow tossed most of the night and rose in the morning with her head still pounding and her stomach rolling. She thought it odd to still be sick, because she was seldom ever ill. She took two aspirin, dressed Prairie, and they went down to the kitchen. By midmorning, she felt no better, and sitting where Mable rattled pans and cracked eggs by whacking them on the rim of her glass bowl wasn’t helping. Fresh air might. More urgently, she’d yet to see Jonah.

With Prairie in her arms, she started across the yard. The bright sunlight and even Prairie’s eighteen pounds made her doubt her decision, but Jonah was working to clear a raised flowerbed toward the back of the yard. She hurried.

He didn’t see their approach, and when they’d come to within ten yards, Willow stopped to watch. She noticed his slumped posture at the funeral, but only in passing. Grief kept her focused on the casket. Now, she saw his back had become a bow, and his forward lean made his overalls hang from his chest, creating a sling, a place she wished she could crawl into, close to his heart.

“Poor old fool,” Mable had said in the kitchen. “That man sees about as much as this egg in my hand.”

The emotion in Mable’s voice, a cross between frustration and kindness, had made Willow smile. The way Mable kept looking up from her work to glance out the window, her hands going still while her gaze followed Jonah, made Willow feel hope. They were family here.

“Jonah?” Willow said coming up on him, “hello.”

He stopped raking and at the edge of the bed turned slowly, using the rake for support and cranking his stiff body around to face her. He’d spent her years away working in the sun and hilltop wind. He looked even more the basset hound, and she imagined one day, his rheumy eyes would not open at all, and he’d simply dream his way into eternity.

He wore three shirts under his work-worn Key overalls, each adding a different color of frayed thread to hang at his wrists. “Willow,” he said, one tremulous hand reaching out for her.

She grabbed his knotty hand as Prairie in her arms tipped her head away from Jonah into Willow’s neck. “This is my little girl, Prairie. Papa’s dead,” she heard herself say, the words sounding shamefully like
help me.

Jonah nodded. “Yup. Your daddy was a good man. Your grandmother was always proud of that one.”

“Thanks for coming to the funeral. I don’t know how we’ll get along without him.” A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach, and she hoped she wasn’t going to be sick in front of him. “Tory’s asked me to live here for a while, and I’ve accepted her offer.”

Jonah’s gaze lowered, and he looked down to his shoes or the tines of the rake. He lifted the tool an inch off the ground and punched it back down.

His reaction surprised her. Was his hearing as bad as his sight? Had he misunderstood?

A bee buzzed by her ear and landed on Jonah’s hand. Looking like a drop of gold, the insect moved, dipping the upper part of its body into the shadow between two of Jonah’s thick black fingers. It walked across the bridge of one finger and dipped again.

“I see you’re still keeping as many bees,” she said.

“Can’t say for certain. Counting ‘em is hard. Tory asked you to stay here?”

He had heard correctly. “Does that surprise you? It did me at first.”

“Why you want to be here?”

His attitude felt bruising. “I love Farthest House.”

“No reason you need to be here.”

He only reached her shoulders, but his words felt towering. “I have reasons.”

“You best go back home.”

On Willow’s hip, Prairie was growing heavy. “Tory has more than enough room, and she’s family. Right now, Prairie and I need—”

“Ain’t you got a job? Ain’t no work around here for young folks.”

What could she say? He’d been glad to see her, and now he was telling her to pack her bags. She watched the bee on his hand.

“That baby too?” he asked. “She staying?”

She shifted Prairie to her other hip, her eyes narrowing. How could he even ask that?

“Ain’t no reason to have a baby here. Just us old fools here.”

There was no point in continuing the conversation. He didn’t want them there, and because he was half the magic of Farthest House, half her reason for staying felt gone. The other half wasn’t: she needed to stay where Prairie was safest. She glanced back at the house and the cobblestone walk she had to travel to get there. If she could just get back inside and lie down, then later, with a cleared head, she’d try and make sense of Jonah’s rejection. “Give us a few weeks, at least, and don’t worry, we’ll try and stay out of your way.”

She shifted Prairie again, not realizing a bee had landed in the crook of her arm. With a yelp, she flung the free arm down, and the bee dropped and spun in the grass. She felt doubly betrayed. During the four years she spent weekends at Farthest House, often helping with the hives, she was never stung. Didn’t she have a special relationship with the bees? She’d thought the same of her relationship with Jonah, too, but she was wrong.