Nora and Liz

  “No hurry,” said Nora. “You must be anxious to get to your cabin. I don’t need them, obviously.” She cuddled Thomas, still in her arms, then put him down.

  Liz hesitated; maybe she should hold onto them for a while. The road to the cabin was bound to be in bad shape, and the spare hadn’t looked exactly new. “Thank you,” she said finally. “I could drop them off on my way back Monday night or even Sunday; I may leave then. And maybe there’s a jack at the cabin that I can take for the trip back in case another of those tires goes. We’ve got tons of old stuff in the shed, stuff we thought we might need. You know how it is.”

  “Oh, yes,” Nora said emphatically. “Indeed I do. Keep the tools as long as you like, forever if you want.” She held out her hand. “It was nice meeting you,” she said formally. “I’m glad we could help.”

  “Nice meeting you, too.” Liz lifted the bundle of tools, uncomfortable at being equally formal. “And thank you.” They stood awkwardly facing each other.

  “Well.” Liz turned, feeling she was breaking the connection again. “See you!”

  “Right,” Nora answered. “See you.” She echoed Liz awkwardly, as if she’d never used the expression.

  But she waved as Liz rounded the corner of the house. Then she picked up her cat and went inside.

  Chapter Four

  Liz felt her throat tighten as she turned down the dirt driveway that snaked through the woods toward the cabin for more than a quarter of a mile. She had changed the tire without difficulty and driven to a proper service station, where she’d had the puncture patched. Then, deciding not to count on there being a jack at the cabin after all, she’d bought a cheap one at the village hardware store along with the necessary tools.

  I will not cry, she said to herself now, ducking instinctively but unnecessarily as the car’s roof slapped low-hanging branches and bounced in and out of ruts. I will not.

  But she did anyway, a little, when she saw the old sign fastened to the big white pine where the drive curved as it approached the cabin. The words PINEY HAVEN, carved deeply into the wood by her father, were still legible, though the black paint that she and Jeff, tongues protruding between teeth and foreheads scowling in concentration, had painstakingly taken turns laying into the gouged-out letters, had largely worn away. Moss flaked onto Liz’s fingers from the edges of the sign when she gave in to an overwhelming impulse to get out of the car and touch it. Then, giving in to an even stronger impulse, she unhooked the sign from its nails.

  “Hello!”

  Liz turned, startled and angry; trespassers already?

  “Yes?” she said curtly as a snappily dressed middle-aged woman, her dyed blonde hair carefully coiffed, appeared around the curve. “May I help you? This is private property, you know.”

  The woman gave Liz a sympathetic, lipsticked smile. “Yes, I do know. I was about to say the same to you. I’m Georgia Foley, the real estate agent handling this property. That sign belongs to the owner; you need to put it back. You are…?”

  “The owner. Elizabeth Hardy,” Liz told her with a certain relish.

  The woman clapped a well-manicured hand to her head. “Oh, my God! Open mouth, insert foot, right?” She stuck her hand out. “Of course! Can you forgive me, Elizabeth?”

  “Liz.” Liz smiled thinly as she shook Georgia Foley’s hand; it was very soft, the opposite of Nora’s, she found herself thinking. “Sure. I didn’t tell you exactly when I was coming. But what…?”

  “I thought if I was going to handle the property I should take a look at it. You’ll be glad to know I already have an interested buyer! And I was curious to see at least the grounds before you came. What a lovely spot!” Georgia scanned the dense woods as if she were surveying a vast plain. “The lake fairly sparkles! I wish I’d brought my bathing suit. Of course the house does need work; I wanted to check that as well, since you said it hasn’t been used in a while.”

  “Five years,” Liz said. “Since the summer before my mother died.”

  “Oh, dear, I’m sorry. Have you not been here since? I mean, if so, then it must be difficult.”

  “It is difficult.” Liz wished she could make herself stop sounding stiff, but really, this woman was so impossibly silly it was hard to avoid. “But I might as well show you the inside, since we’re both here.” She strode to her car and opened the passenger door. “Hop in.”

  Georgia hesitated. “Oh, but there’s no need,” she said. “I mean it’s only a few steps!”

  Liz shrugged, then smiled again, still holding the door.

  Georgia glanced at her, and then, her manner almost frightened, got in. “I do like that sign,” she said when Liz settled beside her and turned the key in the ignition. “Original but recognizable. I mean, most people would have called it Pine Haven, you know? ‘Piney’ is a nice touch, I think. I hope I’ll be able to persuade you to leave the sign here for a while; I think it’ll help sell the place. It provides a nice rustic flavor.”

  “I doubt it,” Liz said, gritting her teeth.

  “That it’s a rustic touch? Well, the name, I mean, and the wood and all.”

  “I doubt I’ll leave it here.” Liz rounded the curve and pulled the car up behind Georgia’s, which was a red Dodge convertible. Why am I not surprised at what she drives, she thought.

  Aloud, she said stiffly, “My mother thought of the name. My father carved the sign and my brother and I painted it. He was six and I was eight. So I think I’ll be taking it with me. There may be other things I’ll take as well.” She opened her door.

  “Why, yes, of course!” Georgia scrambled out. “Sentimental value; I do understand. And it is your place, after all, isn’t it, till I sell it.”

  If you sell it, Liz thought, but did not say. As they walked, her eyes went to the roof, where she could see several loose shingles among the large moss islands that were trimmed with twigs and one or two medium-sized branches.

  “Yes, I’m afraid the roof may need a little work, beyond cleaning it up,” Georgia said, following her gaze. “The, er, siding, too.”

  Liz nodded. The brown stain on the board-and-batten outer walls could use renewing and some of the battens had pulled out; there were probably rusty nail holes.

  “I can’t decide,” Georgia said as they went up the fieldstone path to the granite slab that formed the front stoop, “if it would be better to leave these stones as is or scrub the moss off. What do you think?”

  “Leave them as is,” Liz said gruffly. “In fact”—she turned, her key already poised to open the door—“I’d like to be the one to decide what to leave and what to change.”

  “Yes, of course.” Georgia cast her eyes down, subdued. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Ms. Foley,” Liz began, “I…”

  “Georgia, please. And I am sorry. I know this must be hard for you. Why don’t I leave and come back another time? Will you be in town for a few days?”

  “Yes,” Liz said, but she realized she wanted to get showing the house to Georgia over with as soon as possible. “I will. But you might as well come in now, since you’re here. I’ll be staying on afterward by myself, though. I could call you later to discuss repairs.”

  “Certainly. But, oh, dear, I do feel I’m intruding!”

  “And,” Liz made herself admit magnanimously, “I feel I’ve been rude.” She forced a smile. “Let’s start again, shall we?” She held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Liz Hardy. It’s so nice to meet you, to put a face to the voice on the phone.”

  “Ditto, ditto!” Georgia seized Liz’s hand heartily, with more strength this time, and pumped it vigorously. “What a charming place this is! I just know someone’s going to love it and snatch it right up. In fact, as I said, someone’s already interested, a nice man, a teacher like you, as it happens.”

  Liz gave her what she hoped was a dazzling smile and unlocked the front door.

  The odor of five years’ worth of dust, mouse droppings, and cobwebs assailed her nostrils, shot through with the un
mistakable stench of decaying animal flesh. Liz, with a quick glance at the stained yellowish linoleum on the kitchen floor (for the “front” door opened into the kitchen), went rapidly through to the living room/dining room and without thinking turned to the fieldstone fireplace, for that was where the bodies usually were. Squirrels came down the chimney and then couldn’t get out again. Sometimes they chewed at the windowsills and died there, but this one hadn’t; she spotted the limp body immediately, near several small skeletons that were nestled in what was left of their rotting gray fur.

  “I’ll just clean these up,” she said, brushing back past Georgia into the kitchen, where she took the metal dustpan and its cobwebby black brush from their hook behind the door along with a plastic bag (later she was surprised there still were some) from the squeaky drawer under one end of the sink counter. Stooping, she swept up the squirrel leavings. It was only after she’d put the bag outside that she noticed Georgia hadn’t moved and that there was a look of frozen horror on her face.

  “It’s all right,” Liz said, suddenly sorry for her. “After spending every summer here as a kid I’m kind of used to country messes. My dad used to pay me and my brother a quarter for each mouse body and fifty cents for each squirrel every spring when we opened up. Well,” she went on, throwing her arms expansively out from her sides, surprised to find that cleaning up the squirrel bodies had cheered her, “this is it!”

  Georgia swallowed hard, as if fighting nausea, and moved quickly to the bank of windows that lined the wall facing the lake. “What a marvelous view!”

  “Yes, isn’t it? Although it needs clearing, a bit.” Every year she and Dad, and later Jeff as well, had snipped and pruned and trimmed while Mom watched from inside the house, directing them, warning them not to cut too much, battling good-naturedly with Dad’s desire to have a clear, unobstructed view to the lake. Mom wanted the cabin to remain “nestled in the trees,” as she put it, “camouflaged by them. Our own tree house.” That had been Dad’s suggestion for a name: The Tree House. But Liz and Jeff had held out for Mom’s suggestion of Piney Haven, and Dad had agreed, saying that way, if he carved the sign and Liz and Jeff did the painting, they’d each have had a share in it.

  “There are three more rooms off this one,” Liz said, turning abruptly away from the windows and opening the doors that led off the big central room where she’d spent the rainy summer days of her childhood, building castles and railroad stations with the blocks that were still in their box in the corner by the fireplace, drawing or coloring, working endless picture puzzles, playing Monopoly with Jeff, and reading all of Nancy Drew and every baseball book she could find in the small library in the village. “They’re small, but there are a couple of rooms upstairs as well. I guess the house would be good for a fairly big family or for people who have a lot of guests. Or maybe for someone who wants a small playroom and a downstairs study or computer room or something.”

  Nodding palely, Georgia peered into each of the three rooms, Liz’s room, Jeff’s, and the guest room, while Liz made mental notes of the acorn shells on the window sills and bureaus, the mouse droppings on the yellowed newspapers that covered the bare mattresses, the grime and cobwebs clinging to the brightly painted chairs. Mom had decorated most of the cabin’s simple wooden furniture, painting one downstairs room’s yellow, another’s blue, and the third one’s green.

  “Charming furniture,” said Georgia, and Liz, sad again and aching for her parents, replied simply, “Thank you. Come on upstairs. Watch your head as we go up. The ceiling’s low on the landing.”

  The two rooms above were larger. A ceramic vase that Jeff had made in middle school, still sporting a dusty bouquet of faded dried flowers, graced the large lavender bureau in their parents’ room. And in the other room, Dad’s huge desk, stripped at the end of the last summer they were there of the papers and books with which it had usually been strewn, sat regally in its place under the window—which, Liz saw, had somehow cracked open. A large water stain discolored the wall nearby. Liz tugged the window closed, trying not to picture her father slumped at his desk back in New York, ten blocks from her own apartment, where she’d found him after his heart attack.

  “It’s a shame about that stain,” Georgia said softly.

  “Yes. The window needs fixing.”

  “I know a good carpenter.” Georgia rummaged in her large handbag. She held out a card. “Here.”

  “Thank you,” Liz said, pocketing it. “I guess I may need one.” But she’d already decided to tackle the window herself.

  “And of course,” Georgia went on as Liz led her to the bathroom, “you can add the cost of any repairs to your asking price. Nice big bathroom,” she said approvingly, looking in. “I do so like a sunny one. That makes all the difference, sometimes. Clients are fussy about kitchens and baths especially, you know. And what a quaint tub!”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Liz remembered their deciding, the summer before Mom’s cancer diagnosis, to redo the bath. Mom insisted on buying an old-fashioned tub. “With claw feet,” she’d said, “like a big friendly hippo one can bathe in.”

  “Hippos don’t have claw feet,” Jeff had said, and Mom had winked at Liz, saying, “My hippos do.” The hand-painted sign, “MOM’S HIPPO,” still hung over the tub. Georgia looked at it curiously, but didn’t mention it.

  “Well, that’s about it,” Liz said briskly. “I’d offer you coffee or something but I doubt there’s any here. And if there is, it’ll be five years old. Besides, even though I’ve had the pump re-installed, the water’s not on yet.”

  “That’s all right.” Georgia started down the stairs. “You’ll be turning the water on soon, though, won’t you, if you’re staying here? And cleaning? Or having someone clean? I can recommend someone.” She fished in her bag again, but Liz stopped her.

  “No, that’s okay. I’d just as soon see to that myself.”

  Georgia nodded. “Maybe you could leave the water on after you leave, so it’ll be on when I come back with clients? People want to see the oddest things. In summer camps especially.” They were at the foot of the stairs now. “Is the phone working?” she asked. “I’ll just give my office a call if it is, tell them I’m on my way. I’ve got a showing in about half an hour. I forgot my cell phone, stupidly.”

  Without reason or warning, Liz felt overwhelmed with sadness. “It should be,” she managed to answer. “I called the phone company from New York and asked to have it turned on.” She went to the wall phone in the kitchen, lifted it, then handed it to Georgia. “Yes.”

  While Georgia was chirping into the phone, Liz went into the living room and leaned her head against the cold stone of the fireplace. “Mom,” she whispered. “Dad. How can I sell our Piney Haven?”

  Chapter Five

  Noontime rain sluiced past the kitchen window and spattered on the sill, splashing drops against the glass. It was dark enough for a lamp, and Nora, reading poetry earlier—she was taking a correspondence course in writing it—had huddled close to the kerosene lamp, but had blown it out when she’d finished making lunch and before she’d helped her parents to the table. “Waste of good kerosene,” her father would have barked if he’d seen that she’d lit a lamp during the day; the light wasn’t worth his anger.

  Now his soup bowl was nearly empty; as soon as she’d seen the rain, Nora had thought clam chowder would be a good idea for lunch. That was one of Ralph’s favorites as long as it wasn’t tomato-based, and he’d slurped it eagerly, ignoring the milky liquid that dribbled down his chin, while Nora spooned chowder carefully into her mother’s mouth. Corinne seemed vague today, more so than usual, and although she often wanted to feed herself, today she sat slumped docilely in her wheelchair, both arms instead of just the one hanging uselessly by her side.

  “You’ve got dribbles,” Nora said to her father when he’d taken the last spoonful.

  Grunting, he dabbed ineffectively at his chin.

  “No, down more,” she told him, and then, laughing,
took the napkin from him and mopped up the mess. Quickly finishing her own chowder, she took the bowls to the sink and removed the shopping list from its place on the bulletin board over the table.

  “Let me see that,” her father said.

  She handed it to him and he peered at it in the dim light while she pumped water into the bowls. Corinne began humming tunelessly.

  “What’re you singing, Mama?” Nora asked fondly, returning to the table. “‘Alice Blue Gown’ or ‘Down By the Old Mill Stream’?” Both were songs Nora knew Ralph had often sung to her; lately, Corinne had been reminiscing about the early days of their marriage. She and Ralph had both been in their forties when they’d met and married, but according to Corinne, Ralph had courted her as ardently as any twenty-year-old. He was still affectionate to her, inadvertently reminding Nora that he’d often been loving and fun to be with when she herself had been a small child, before whatever disappointment, fear, or anger that had changed him had taken over. Nora had always meant to ask her mother if she knew what had embittered him, but hadn’t wanted to open old wounds, if wounds there were. And now, of course, it was too late.

  “‘Millstream’,” Corinne mumbled with a crooked smile that sent a slow string of spittle down her chin.

  “‘Down by the old mill stream,’” Nora sang softly, carefully wiping her mother’s mouth, “‘where I first met you…’”

  “‘With your eyes of blue,’” Ralph joined in noisily, “‘dressed in gingham too…’” Here he reached out, smiling, toward his wife, whose hands, however, were still at her sides. He patted the table in front of her instead, keeping time. “‘It was there I knew, that you loved me true…’”

  They all three sang the rest of the song, more or less lustily, and after the last line, Ralph, with a rare burst of his former spark, grinned mischievously as he used to do and added under his breath, “Without a shirt.”

  Nora laughed.

  But Ralph turned back to the shopping list. “Don’t need butter, do we?” he asked.