Title:
Hidden Shadows
Genre:
Literary
Author:
Linda Lucretia Shuler
Publisher:
Twilight Times Books
Hidden Shadows is a
story of connection: to the land, to
our ancestors, to others, to ourselves – and to the redemptive power of love:
Cassie
Brighton, devastated by the accidental death of her husband, flees to a remote
homestead deep in the rugged Texas Hill Country. Alone in a ramshackle
farmhouse steeped in family secrets, Cassie wages a battle of mind and heart as
she struggles to overcome the sorrows of her past, begin anew, and confront the
possibility of finding love again.
Mountain
Waltz
Summer,
1996
Death waited to
dance for her through the eye of the camera. It would be a slow dance, graceful
as a waltz against a slate blue sky.
She gazed at the
view framed in the lens, unaware of danger: Colorado mountains rising all
around, glowing pink and purple in the morning sun. Her husband Thomas grinning
on the precipice of a sheer cliff, the canyon wide and deep behind him. A
golden eagle hovering above, drifting silent in the winds, wings outspread like
a dark angel descending.
All she had to
do was press her finger, one small click, and the photo would be taken. Yet she
hesitated, wanting this moment to last.
Thomas pulled a
cap from his jeans pocket and rammed it on his head. “Going to take all day?”
he teased. “C’mon, Cassie girl. Everybody’s waiting.”
The air smelled
of fecund earth and crushed leaves and coffee warming over a campfire. Cassie
glanced toward the scattered tents and the handful of friends who had traveled
with them. No one seemed in a hurry. After a long week of roughing it, they
likely welcomed the last few hours of leisure before heading separate ways, as
did she.
There was
something magical about this mountain, this breeze warm upon her skin, the
shifting colors and glowing sky, the soaring eagle. And Thomas, standing like a
young oak that had sprouted from the rock, a natural part of the elements with
wildness in his blood.
The camera was
an old Nikon with a bulky zoom, and hung from a strap around her neck. “On the
count of three,” she warned Thomas. “One, two...”
She snapped the
photo, the sound swallowed by the eagle’s cry. The bird dived into the canyon,
the shadow of its great wings sweeping across the precipice. Cassie saw it
through the camera’s eye, saw Thomas and his startled response, his head
jerking upward, his foot stepping back, the rocks beneath crumbling away.
Time and motion
slowed as if in a dream.
Thomas stretched
out his arms as though he, too, were about to lift from the ground and fly.
Then he seemed to float backward, softly slipping from the cliff edge. His cap
lifted away, light as a fallen leaf carried by the wind. He looked directly at
her, mouth agape as if wanting to speak, and dropped from sight.
Cassie ran
toward the empty space where he once stood, the camera whacking her chest,
seeing everything, seeing nothing, a
scream ripping her throat. Her red hiking boots flashed forward and back as her
feet propelled her on and on. Red boots, red as blood, red as the fear roaring
in her heart.
She teetered on
the precipice. There, far below, sprawled face upward on a jagged outcropping
as if sleeping in the sun, was Thomas, still as the stone he lay upon. Wind
touched his wheat-gold hair, lifted the hem of his shirt, tasted the blood
spreading from the back of his head like the bloom of an exotic flower. Ruby
tendrils reached for the edge and dripped into the canyon depths.
“Thomas!” Her
cry echoed among the mountains, Thomas!
Thomas! Thomas! “I’m coming down!” Coming
down! Coming down! Coming down!
She stumbled
along the rim in a frantic search for access. The mountains yawned as if cloven
with a knife, the sides shimmering, the floor sinking into shadows. Afraid of
tumbling into the vast emptiness, she dropped to her knees and crawled along
the precipice, pebbles and debris raining down from her scrabbling hands.
God
help me!
A root thrust a
gnarled arm from the wall some ten feet below. If she could somehow manage to
get to it, then to the narrow shelf below that, and then…
How far down had
Thomas fallen? Her mind couldn’t calculate. He looked so small from where she
knelt, so abandoned, like an unwanted
doll.
Oh,
God! Oh, God!
She lay flat,
the rock-strewn earth digging into her stomach and legs, and stuck her feet
over the lip. She could feel the tug of the wind as she inched downward,
fingers grabbing at the dirt, her boots seeking a hold. Grit caked her teeth.
She was sobbing, unaware of the sound, thinking somewhere in the deep recesses
of her mind that she heard the anguished cries of a wounded animal.
Then she was
airborne, lifted by a half-dozen hands and hauled onto level ground. She
struggled against the arms that held her fast, the clamor of voices, the
contorted faces. They dragged her to safety, the precipice receding through her
tears.
She couldn’t
breathe. Her body shook and turned cold. They laid her on a sleeping bag and
wrapped her in blankets, constraining her like a mummy while the sun slid
across the sky and the eagle returned to its flight, wings glittering.
Thomas.
Her
lips formed his name. She looked up and imagined it was he who soared across
the blue, gliding in the winds as if his spirit had risen free and now gazed
down upon her. The bird dropped closer and closer still, transforming into
metal and roaring as it dipped into the canyon and disappeared. Dust whirled in
torrents from the blast of its wings.
She tore the
blankets aside and lurched upright, clinging to the hands she had once fought.
She had no sense of minutes or hours, only of an icy numbness that settled into
her bones.
Whap-whap-whap!
Propellers rose from the abyss, lifting the helicopter, lifting the basket that
swung from its belly and carried her love. Even from this distance she could
see the gold of his hair, the silken texture. The helicopter hovered like a
giant prehistoric bird, then began its journey. She stumbled after it, the
shadow slithering along the rugged mountain, until it vanished into the
horizon.
The Ghosts Are
Singing
Summer, 1999
Three years had
passed since death danced on the Colorado mountain – one thousand eighty-odd
long days of grieving.
Cassie drove
with the window down, squinting into the glare as miles slowly passed and the
Texas sun blazed hot in the noon sky. Gnarled oak, honey mesquite and cedar
crowded for room in the rocky Hill Country soil, crawled up outcroppings and
plateaus, and butted against prickly pear
cactus, purple-stemmed grass, and the occasional cow or goat. Willow City Loop,
the road was called. An odd name, since there was no city. Just a couple of
buildings missed in the blink of an eye. And the loop straggled with dozens of
turnoffs, gravel-tossed and rutted and often identical, rambling to pastures or
buildings unseen from the road. Fortunately, the one she sought was marked by
boulders tumbled in disarray like the ruins of an ancient castle, setting it
apart from the rest.
She longed to be
thirteen again, worry-free and anticipating the summer ahead in her
grandmother’s home among the hills. But here she was, old enough to be mother
to the girl she barely remembered, driving under that same sun toward the same
home, now holding only echoes of long-ago days.
The renovated Thunderbird jounced across
cattle guards, through gray-weathered wooden gates, and past split-rail cedar
fences. Little had changed since she was a girl traveling this dusty road in
her grandmother’s creaking Studebaker. She could almost smell the bitter scent
of torn leather and hear the rattling complaints uttered by the car they had
christened Methuselah since it seemed destined to live forever. Mimi would
drive it like a madwoman, stomping on the gas and grinding the clutch as if in
a battle of human against machine.
Oh,
Mimi, how I miss you!
Thoughts of her
beloved grandmother often came unbidden, and with them the memory of Mimi’s
hands clutching hers for the last time.
“Promise me!”
Mimi had sighed, pale and shrunken amid the rumpled bed sheets. “Promise!”
“I’d like to,
but…”
“Live there one
year, that’s all I ask. You’ll make the right decision after that.”
“But how?”
Something clattered in the hall beyond the door, followed by a spurt of
laughter. Cassie paused, startled. Gaiety seemed out of place in this dreary
nursing home. She squeezed Mimi’s fingers, surprised at how spindly her bones
had become. “Thomas and I just opened a boutique, remember? Spirit of the Southwest. I may be an old
lady before I have time to spare.”
“Go when you
can. The land will wait.”
Cassie nodded,
“All right, I promise,” loving this worn-out old woman who bore little
resemblance to the vibrant soul she remembered. When had her grandmother
withered into a husk? She leaned in close, her breath stirring wisps of the
silver-streaked hair. “Why me? Why not Mother?”
“She can’t… hear
them.”
“Hear what?”
Mimi closed her
eyes, her voice a mere shadow. “The ghosts are singing.”
“There are no
ghosts here, Mimi. Just me.” Cassie laughed quietly.
“They sing for
you,” she murmured, and said no more. She never opened her eyes again, nor
spoke.
There,
finally!
The marker she was looking for: a jumble of boulders under an arching mesquite,
a wooden plank nailed to the trunk. A sun-bleached arrow pointed toward the
hill beyond with the words, Spring Creek.
She turned and winced. Gravel pinged and splattered under her treasured
Thunderbird and exploded from the wheels as she bounced along rutted dirt hard
as concrete, winding upward until Willow City Loop became a ribbon curling far
below.
There was
something in the road, small, gray-brown, unmoving. An armadillo, she realized,
her hands already tugging at the wheel to swerve away. Cassie yelped and
swerved, bumped over jagged rocks, crashed through prickly pear, then
nose-dived into a shallow ravine. The motor sputtered and died.
She sat with
hands clenching the wheel and foot pressing the brake. After a moment, she
opened the door, almost afraid to look. Briars scratched her bare ankles as she
walked up the incline and down again, bracing her hand against the car, eyes
sweeping every inch of metal and chrome. Other than tilting thirty degrees and
settling on the rim of a flat rear tire, the Thunderbird seemed miraculously
untouched, a fine layer of dust powdering the pastel yellow finish.
“Now what?” She
groaned. No way could she change a tire at this crazy angle. There wasn’t a
soul around to help, nor a house in view. Just the armadillo lumbering along
unscathed and a couple of distant goats.
She pulled a
scrap of paper from her pocket. On it she had written the name Justin Grumm, followed by his telephone
number. Although Mr. Grumm was the caretaker of Mimi’s property and had
exchanged letters with Cassie about the estate, she had yet to meet him in
person. He and his wife lived about a half mile ahead in a white cottage on
cinder blocks that had been there ever since Cassie could remember, the
time-warped porch supported by pillars hacked from mesquite. Mr. Grumm had been
delighted to hear from her several weeks ago. “Excellent!” he declared after
Cassie explained that she was planning to move into Mimi’s home and would need
a key. She had liked his voice, warmed by the trace of a German accent.
“Good lord,
you’re going to live there a year before putting it up for sale? Why bother?”
her mother asked from somewhere in Paris with husband number four or five,
Pierre something. Tuff, or Taft. Maybe Tift. In the long-run it wouldn’t matter
since Lillian seemed intent upon changing husbands along with the seasons. “Mama’s
dead, God rest her soul, and won’t know one way or another. Just clean the
place up, throw away all that junk, and put it on the market. You could be in
and out of there in a couple of weeks.”
“I promised…”
“Promises don’t
count when the ears that heard them are buried six feet under.”
“How can you say
such an awful thing?”
“You’re throwing
a year of your life away! Let the past stay in the past and get on with living.
Why isolate yourself in the sticks? What are you running from?”
Cassie couldn’t
answer, then or now. Maybe she was
running. Maybe she just wanted some peace. Maybe she didn’t know where else to
go.
Maybe she was
hoping to pull the raveled threads of her life together.
She had tossed
luggage in the trunk and back seat, topped helter-skelter with odd items. Her
potted rosebush sat alone in the front, belted and secured, crimson blossoms
glowing. Long buried amid its roots were two treasures, one already turned to
ash and the other rendered so by time. The rose and its roots had traveled with
her from one city apartment to another, and now would be experiencing a much
different life in the country – as would she.
Telling herself
to hurry and do something, she
reached into the car for her cell phone, pausing with a start when she caught
her reflection in the side-view mirror: raven hair windblown, cheeks flushed,
eyes murky as coffee brewed too long in the pot. Tiny wrinkles creased the
corners. “Crow’s feet tapping at my door,” she groused. She’d be forty-five
soon. Forty-five! Where had the time gone?
She dialed the
phone and was met with silence.
Disgusted, she flung it onto the dashboard; it skittered off, bounced against
the gear shift, and plopped to the floor. No cell, no call to Mr. Grumm, no
rescue. She would have to walk.
The rosebush presented
a problem; she couldn’t risk leaving it in the blistering heat of a locked car.
She hoisted the heavy clay pot into her arms, struggled up the road toward a
wild black cherry tree, and dragged it the last few yards into the shade. “Take
care, my loves,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”
One more trek to
the car for her purse and keys, and she was on her way. The sky gleamed
colorless, with a scattering of clouds to break the bleached monotony.
Blackbirds spiraled overhead, satin feathers glinting. Cassie imagined what
they saw from their avian drafts, looking down – a lone woman, soft summer
skirt brushing her legs as she trudged uphill along a rock-strewn roadway. A
bare wind breathed upon her face as the earth fell away behind her, and when
she looked over her shoulder she could see an eruption of vegetation-furred
plateaus on the horizon, their tops so flat and defined it looked as though God
had skimmed them with a buzz saw, while up ahead the hills leaped from the
earth rounded and full.
The dry air
tasted like scorched weeds. Her feet moved on, their beaded sandals soon
swallowed by dust. “Idiotic,” she grumbled. Why hadn’t she worn something more
practical, such as… what? Her hiking boots came to mind, red with black laces
wide as ribbons, boxed somewhere among her other belongings stored in Houston.
Although she had worn the boots only briefly, she was loath to do so again and
equally loath to throw them away. So she hid them from sight and from the
memories they evoked.
Those memories
tugged at her now, pulling her heart along with them.
She had met
Thomas Brighton at an outdoor music festival in Colorado. Tall and blond and
wide-shouldered, he sat on the sun-warmed Vail slope, eyes closed while the
sound of fiddles shimmered among the aspen. As she approached, his eyes opened,
vivid blue, and she felt as though she had come face to face with a Viking from
ages past somehow hurled into the present. He smiled and motioned for her to
join him, offering his hand. She settled next to him, trusting the inner voice
that whispered, “Yes.”
Ten years later,
while celebrating their wedding anniversary among those very same mountains, it
all came to an abrupt, horrifying end.
She buried his
ashes in the roots of the rosebush he had planted beneath the bedroom window.
When she could stand to live there no longer, when phantoms prowled among the
darkened corners and empty rooms, she dug up the bush, put it in a clay pot
with as much of the dirt and ashes as it could contain, and left. The roses
were the only constant in her life as the years passed, the one thing she
treasured above all else, protecting the dust of her youth.
Stop
thinking about it! she scolded herself. That was another
time, another world, another self. “Don’t dwell on sadness,” Mimi had
often told her. “Lift your eyes to the heavens and your spirit will follow.” As
much as she loved her grandmother, Cassie knew from experience that the only
thing you got from looking upward was a stiff neck.
I’m
like a dog with a chewed-up bone, gnawing on old grief.
A train whistle
shrieked faintly across the miles. She turned and looked back at the slope she
had climbed, the massive stretch of sky. A splotch of yellow marked the
presence of her car below, tipped and waiting on three solid wheels. The
whistle echoed once again, as if lonely and weeping for something lost.
She shook the
dust from her sandals and continued onward, one step following another, the air
glistening with heat mirages. Her mind quieted and she fell into an easy
rhythm, feet moving steadily, arms swinging. It was almost a surprise when she
saw the caretaker’s cottage standing as she remembered – except for one thing.
Or many things.
Perched on the fence and crowding the yard were multitudes of angels in all
sizes and shapes, constructed out of metal scrap – wings of rusty tractor
seats, halos of wagon wheels, billowing skirts of chicken wire, trumpets and
harps from shovels or hoes, scissors or hedge clippers. Mobiles of angel forks
and spoons dangled from the porch overhang, and several angelic giants with
bodies made of barrel hoops appeared ready to launch themselves from the
rooftop.
She walked up
the steps onto the porch and peered through the screen door. The room beyond,
bright with splatters of blues and yellows, resonated with the sound of clocks.
“Hello?” she called over the barrage of tick-tocks. A fat white cat, face round
as a stuffed pillow, appeared from inside and looked up at her with cobalt
eyes. “Hi,” Cassie said. “Is your mommy or daddy home?” She knocked on the
door, the frame rattling under her knuckles.
“Ja, I’m coming!” A woman approached,
almost a perfect match to the cat – small and plump and silver-haired, with
lively hazel eyes magnified behind thick, gold-framed glasses. She smiled at
Cassie through the screen.
“Mrs. Grumm? I’m
Cassie Brighton, and I…”
“Mrs. Brighton, gut, gut! Justin has been expecting
you.” She opened the door, its hinges protesting, and glanced at the road.
“Where’s your car?”
“Somewhere at
the bottom of the hill. I drove into a ditch and got a flat tire. So I walked.”
“In this heat?
Oh, my dear girl, sit down this minute. Let me get you something to drink.” She
led Cassie toward an overstuffed chair draped with a floral shawl and scurried
away.
Before Cassie
could protest, Mrs. Grumm had gone and the chair beckoned. She sank into it and
rested her feet on a needlepoint stool, the shredded fabric testament to its
daily use. A replica of the cat smiled at her through the worn threading along
with the name, Strudel. “How did you
rate your own portrait?” she asked as the cat brushed against her legs. Perhaps
thinking this an invitation, Strudel leaped upon the arm of the chair and
stretched its head toward her lips as if wanting a kiss. Cassie had never been
fond of cats but didn’t protest when it curled into her lap and began to purr.
“Like a miniature lawn mower,” she murmured, and closed her eyes.
Bong!
Tweetle-too! Cuckoo-cuckoo!
Cassie jolted
out of her chair, tumbling a disgruntled cat to the floor. From every room in
the house clocks clanged, sang, or rang the hour. There must have been two
dozen – no, surely more. Cassie spun around, delighted. A tall grandfather
clock with a huge round head atop a narrow body chimed in a stately fashion, a
minuscule sailing ship tick-tick-whistled, and an intricately carved village
with costumed folk danced around a well and tinkled “Edelweiss,” each telling her it was four o’clock
in the afternoon.
“Are you
rested?” This spoken behind her, the voice deep and obviously amused.
Cassie turned to
face an impossibly tall man, all bones and joints, with a toothy smile spread
in a wrinkle-grooved face.
“Yes, thank you,
but I… was I… Did I fall asleep?”
“Thoroughly.
Snoring is healthy, by the way. Clears the lungs.”
“I’m so sorry,
I…” Cassie stammered.
“Justin!” Mrs.
Grumm scolded. “Enough teasing.” She smiled at Cassie. “Pay no mind to this old
man. You napped very lady-like. Now come, I have something for you.”
Justin ran a
hand through his fluff of sparse hair as Cassie, pulled along by Mrs. Grumm,
entered the kitchen. It was a cheerful place, decorated with crisp white
curtains and a blue tablecloth. A pottery jar filled with sunflowers graced the
windowsill.
Cassie soon
found herself sitting at the table, enjoying a glass of iced tea garnished with
mint. “Delicious. It’s been years since I tasted fresh mint.”
“It came from my
mother’s garden long ago, in Villach. Every spring it sprouts up more, like
weeds.”
“Can’t kill the
stuff.” Justin pulled out a chair and sat at an angle, long legs half under the
table and half out.
Mrs. Grumm
opened the refrigerator and reached for an ice tray. “You want to give her the
key, or do you expect her to kick the door down?”
“Stop fussing, Schatzi. I didn’t forget.”
“You left it in
the freezer, next to the ice cream.”
“Well, hand it
over then.” Justin grinned at Cassie. “That house will be happy to see you.
It’s been empty too long.”
“Cold as the
devil.” Mrs. Grumm wiped the key with a dishtowel and laid it beside Cassie’s
plate. “Sometimes this man of mine is so forgetful I wonder he can find his own
head,”
Forged from iron
and tipped by an ornate heart bound in vines, the key was longer than Cassie’s
hand. “How beautiful!” she exclaimed. “I wonder how old it is.”
Justin shrugged.
“As far as I can figure, the olden part of your house – the one in the back
that the rest was added onto – was built sometime in the mid 1800’s. So close
to a hundred sixty years, give or take a few.”
“I didn’t expect
a key like this.”
“You’ve not seen
it before?”
Cassie shook her
head. “Mimi never locked her doors. She said the spirits in the woods would
watch over things. I gave up trying to talk sense into her head.”
“Now don’t you
worry about bad spooks. Only good ones fly around over there.”
“There you go
again, giving the girl a hard time.” Mrs. Grumm patted Cassie’s shoulder.
“We’re surely happy to meet you at last.”
Justin nodded.
“What took you so long?”
“Well, I…”
Cassie floundered. How could she tell them? What
could she tell them? Her troubles were hers alone: the emptiness that faced
her, the dreams that plagued her.
“Justin, enough
for today. Let the girl tell us all about herself later, when she’s rested.”
“All right, all
right. I know I’m a nosy buzzard.”
Relieved, Cassie
nibbled on a ginger snap. “These are wonderful.”
“Berta isn’t too
bad with the sweets. Except for her grebbel.”
“So you’re
complaining about my doughnuts now?” Berta smacked him with the dishtowel. “You
ate three this morning, silly old fool.”
“Had to force
down each bite. Pure torture.”
Cassie watched
the Grumms grinning at one another and something twisted inside – a longing, a
regret. She drained her glass and set it aside. “Thanks for your hospitality,
but I really must be going. Do you know who I could call to upright my car and
fix the flat? Is there a gas station nearby?”
“I reckon so, if
by ‘nearby’ you mean within twenty miles or thereabouts,” Justin said with a
chuckle. “Guy’s Auto is closer in, but he doesn’t work on Thursdays. Today is
Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Yesterday was
Wednesday and tomorrow’s Friday,” Berta said, “so unless the world has turned
upside down, yes.”
“That settles
that, then.”
Cassie’s heart
plummeted. “Surely there’s someone around who could help. I’d hate to leave my
car and everything in it until tomorrow.”
“Guy may not
work on Thursdays, but this man does.” Justin stood and adjusted the pants at
his narrow waist. “Come on, then. Let’s get the job done.”
“Stay and have
dinner with us afterward,” Berta said. “There’s not enough in your refrigerator
for a good meal tonight – just eggs and such. We didn’t know what you might
need.”
“How kind of
you. I didn’t expect anything at all.”
“Drive straight
here once the tire is fixed and I should have something nice and hot for you
both.”
“Oh, but I
couldn’t. I mean I shouldn’t. I have too much to do. You’ve both been so lovely
to me, but I haven’t been to the house yet and…” Several clocks chimed the
quarter hour. “And it’s already four-fifteen.”
“It doesn’t get
dark until after eight. Please, we’d love to have you.” Berta nudged Justin.
“Isn’t that right?”
“Right as
blueberry pie – which we’ll have a good portion of tonight, fresh-made.”
Cassie was
tempted, but she still had a long day ahead of her, a car to upright and a tire
to change, luggage to unload, a house to inspect. “May I have a rain check?”
“Of course! How
about tomorrow at lunch?”
“That sounds
delightful.”
“Good! I’ll see
you at noon. Fix that car good, Justin. And try not getting your shirt dirty. I
just washed it.”
“Stop fussing, Schatzi. You’ve scrubbed this shirt so
much there’s hardly a thread left.” He leaned to Cassie and muttered, “Berta
goes into fits when she sees dirt anywhere except on the ground, and even then
it better be clean dirt.”
The roses,
secured once again in the passenger seat, filled the car with their heady scent
as Cassie followed Justin’s blue pickup truck. A sign with red and white
letters was painted neatly on its door: Grumm
Clockworks and below, J. Grumm,
Master Clocksmith. They parted at the cottage; Justin stuck his long-boned
arm out the truck window and waved as Cassie passed by. She continued along the
high-rising hill before turning into a rough weed-choked drive. Following its
wanderings, she arrived at a wooden gate so old the earth had swallowed part of
the supporting frame. Scattered posts leaned into each other, vague remnants of
the proud fence that might have been built by her great-great grandfather.
She had always
been curious as a child about her ancestors, but Lillian refused to speak about
them, saying, “They’re all dead and gone. Let them stay there.” Mimi, who
normally talked a blue streak, remained strangely mute – with a single
exception. One evening, while the two of them were swapping tales on the porch
swing, Mimi let slip that their ancestors had come from Germany long years ago,
sailing over a troublesome sea then traveling in an ox cart along the Guadalupe
River and upland until they arrived at this very place. “Someday I’ll tell
more,” she had promised.
But the day
never came.
Cassie got out
of the car and pushed the gate. It opened easily enough, although the bottom
edge dragged along the ground. The hinges made a low creaking sound, a
three-syllable whine, as if saying, come
on innnnnn. She gripped the dry wood, suddenly transported to the past, a
girl in shorts with her hair in a ponytail opening the gate so Mimi could drive
through. Turning, she half-expected to see a ghostly Studebaker swimming in the
heat behind her.
She returned to
the car and sat, looking through the windshield at the hills humped beyond the
fence, the slope on her right shadowed by trees, the driveway snaking around
the juniper on her left, and the great spread of land between them. The house,
windmill, and barn waited for her around the bend and out of sight, their
images hovering behind her eyes, dim and quiet as old photographs in a family
album.
“Oh, Mimi,” she
whispered, and drove through the gate.
