Two weeks following my last letter, I received one from Andrew Cordell, Esq. requesting a meeting. I took a week off. The meeting apprised me of Ginn’s death. She had previously made arrangements for no funeral and a quiet burial. I fervently wished I had broached the subject, but I had thought there were more years, more summers, more time. As I wiped my tears (tears that seemed to have no end to them), Mr. Cordell further informed me that I was the single recipient of all of Ginn’s earthly possessions. Questions swirled in my mind; questions Mr. Cordell could not answer. I signed papers he placed in front of me with barely a glance.

I’d been to Ginn’s house the past summer, of course, but this time as I crossed the threshold, I felt as I had many years before and almost expected her to peek her head out of the kitchen door with two cookies in her hand. At first I just sat at the kitchen table imagining her sitting there across from me. At last I shook myself, and began the slow process of sorting through her things. It appeared to me that she had rid herself of some things over the years, and my task wasn’t at all overwhelming. I was able to bag and box much of it within two days. I set aside a few things I recalled from my childhood; mementos of happy days.

In the evenings, I made myself a glass of lemonade and sat out on her front porch swing, reminiscing of our time together and of our conversations varying wildly from fire engines to flowers, Harpo Marx to heaven; then later conversations with so much talk of heaven; in Ginn’s words, “the restored Eden”. It gave me some comfort thinking about her exploring the truly beautiful and important things there.

I slept in her bed at night. Perhaps to some it might seem morbid. To me, it felt just right. In fact, one night I dreamed she was standing next to it, smiling at me and I awoke with tears on my face.

The day after that dream, I sorted through her desk drawers and came upon a very large envelope full of legal documents; with her name and also – surprisingly – with my name. As I read through the papers, it appeared that her parents had gotten over their disappointment of her pursuing work in the entertainment industry and left her the family wealth: stocks, bonds, several bank accounts (one overseas), and a house on the Cape. It felt a bit overwhelming and I began to understand why she embraced a common life.

I was done, actually; done with sorting and boxing and bagging, with going through the things from a life filled with experiences and stories and homespun philosophy. And as I sat on the porch swing wondering what to do with her furniture, it occurred to me I could stay. I’d missed this little town when we had moved. My eyes roamed over the house and yard (and, yes, profusion of flowers) and I thought how I would prefer a house to my apartment. I went back inside and penned my resignation that night.

The day after, I cleaned the house to within an inch of its existence. That’s when I discovered a small cubby hole in the hallway by Ginn’s bedroom. A memory tugged. Yes! I recalled loving it when I was three years old. Ginn had laughed, and said maybe I could explore it another day. But I never did. And later we’d moved. I smiled to myself at the thought it took so many years to “explore” the little thing. It was dark – I would need a flashlight – but I reached in and knocked over something inside. Tinny.

Having retrieved a flashlight, I pulled out a 7 inch cylinder. Ah! Inside were two surprisingly well-preserved sugar cookies. Dear old Ginn. And a cigar. Smoking it would’ve probably made me sick, but I resolved to keep it on display. It deserved the remembering.

There were rolled up papers, too, tied with a velvet ribbon that reminded me of the velvet ropes in a movie theater. I unrolled them and my breath caught. They were adoption papers along with a birth certificate and additional information. Ginn was listed as the mother. There was no name for the father. My parents’ names were listed as the adoptive parents. And – I read it over once, twice, ten times – the birth date was mine.

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I found her at the town’s old folks’ home. That’s what everyone called it when I was a child, and that’s what most people still called it. The large Victorian house with an abundance of rocking chairs on its wrap-around porch had a dignified sign at the front of the property reading Sunset Haven. I asked at the front desk, and was directed to room 1.

I knocked lightly and had barely set foot over the threshold, when Ginn sailed over to me and, letting her cane fall to the floor, wrapped her arms around me. Oh it was good to see her! I hadn’t guessed how good. It was beyond good. I picked up her cane, offered my arm and we soon found ourselves rocking away on the wrap-around porch.

She insisted I fill her in on my life before sharing anything herself, so I did, but not before pulling some sugar cookies from my purse. We had a good laugh over that. They were every bit as good as the ones we’d enjoyed long ago, if I do say so myself. I told her I’d sent some mail to her that unfortunately hadn’t reached her.

Then she told me about a pretty bad fall which had landed her in the hospital for a hip replacement. The hospital had insisted she stay somewhere before she went home, so here she was and had been ever since. In the name of care, some institutions – even families, I suppose – deny a person’s own desires. And the efforts given and the decisions made are not as much for the person as for the person making them. She knew it and I knew it and the hospital and nursing home knew it. It was one of those things everyone knows and no one admits. We sat in silence for awhile. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I was pondering over why people think it’s better to be safe and sad than to live a life of contentment with some risk. All she said was,  “I want to go home.”

Then, in a moment of wild abandon, we told the person at the desk we were going on an outing.

Ginn’s house was just as I remembered. What an afternoon we had! Well, it was actually more than an afternoon. We managed to get permission for an overnight, then two, then a week, and eventually got the permission she needed to move back home.

I stayed the summer, making sugar cookies from her hand-written recipe card and eating beef stew that no one made like Ginn. She regaled me with stories from her time in the entertainment business and I told her stories of the children in my kindergarten classes. We planted a profuse garden with more flowers than vegetables, and I began to understand why those conversations of long ago included flowers. I understood, too, why she hadn’t minded a weathered house. She’d grown up wanting for nothing, left her two disappointed parents to pursue something as frivolous as entertainment, and had discovered the common life was the best kind of life.

“Oh how we all yearn,” she said. “We want what is pretty and what makes us feel important. But it seems to me that in doing so, we miss what is truly beautiful and important.”

She didn’t elaborate. I painted her house anyway.

I asked her why she smoked one cigar every evening. All she would say is that it was her special time for memories. So I gave her that and pulled weeds in the garden while her mind drifted to people and places all her own.

We spent some time every day on the porch swing and talked of everything from flowers to fire engines and Harpo Marx to heaven. Only now she spoke less of Harpo and more of heaven or, in her words, “the restored Eden”. Our descriptions impressed even ourselves and there was never too much in the describing because, we concluded, heaven is so expansive our words were only like a single droplet in an ocean.

The summer went too fast, and soon it was time for me to attend school meetings and parent meetings and student meetings. We promised each other to keep in touch. And we did through long, newsy letters. Then one spring day her letters stopped coming and I discovered some things Ginn had left unsaid.

to be continued . . .

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I sat back on my knees and thought, tinny. That was the best I could come up with. My mind was so muddled from the recent state of affairs that clear thinking, much less accurate description was a degree of okay at best.

For the better part of a week I’d been going through a house that suddenly belonged to me. It was someone’s will – a neighbor who I affectionately remembered from my very young childhood – that bequeathed me her house. She, as I recalled, wore what they used to call a house dress every single day. Never pants, but in that time no self-respecting woman ever did wear pants. I looked down at my by now filthy jeans and thought an apology to her. Her name was Virginia, though she had allowed me to call her Ginn because at age three one syllable was easier for me than three.

She was short and wrinkled and smoked one cigar every evening. She always had sugar cookies in a jar on her kitchen counter. Her house was, even then, weathered: a white clapboard with green trim and a front porch with a swing that held two or three depending on the size of a person.

I wandered over most days, walked in uninvited, and she would peek her head out of the kitchen door with two cookies in her hand (one for me and one for herself) and a small glass of lemonade like she’d been expecting me. We would enjoy the snack at the kitchen table, then move outside and sit on the porch swing.

Our topics of conversation varied wildly from fire engines to flowers, Harpo Marx to heaven. Harpo, Ginn had commented, wasn’t as quiet as everyone thought. She’d met him when she was a performer within the entertainment community. When she talked about him, my three-year old self wondered if he might have been an unrequited crush, but all she would conclude is that after he died, his wife had donated his harps to Israel. Anytime conversation wandered to Harpo, we’d sit in silence for awhile so she could, I suppose, let memory have its way. Or maybe not. My three-year-old self knew less than nothing about such things. Maybe she was waiting for me to leave so she could eat another cookie.

But besides harps and fire engines, we did, I think, have some philosophical heart-to-hearts. For instance, one time I’d been recounting a disappointment and seemingly out of the blue Ginn had remarked, “Sometimes a person would rather hide who she is. It’s easier.” She bit her lip, then looked down at me, “But easier isn’t necessarily the best choice. You understand?” I’d nodded, though my comprehension of her comment was surface at best.

My family had moved when I was six. I’d gone next door for one more wild chat and stayed until sunset. I’d hugged her tight and she’d hugged me tighter. That was the last I saw of her. I’d asked my mother one time if we could go back to visit Ginn, but she said she couldn’t imagine why and that was that. I did not argue because arguments with my mother always ended in me losing and feeling as though I should apologize, though to this day, I don’t know why. So I chose what was easier and didn’t argue.

After high school, I took a filing job at the courthouse downtown. Then I moved, went to college, and became a kindergarten teacher. Sometimes I thought about Ginn and how small I must have seemed to her even up until the time my family moved away. I sent a few cards to her address, but they were returned. Then one summer, I decided to find out why my cards had been returned and what had happened to Ginn.

to be continued . . .

Image: considerate-agency-Mb1wyoOquSg-unsplash-scaled.jpg; pexels-kate-l-2149358429-31116128-1-scaled.jpg; any; this story is fictional and any resemblance to an even or character living or dead is coincidental.

I don’t normally call woodpeckers stupid. I don’t. But the incessant ringing of my doorbell for more days than I care to admit had me on the verge of either name-calling or digging my Daisy BB gun out of the bin under my bed where I keep my winter sweaters.

I figured out the inconvenient bell wasn’t a mischievous sixth grader when I detected a small hole in the push button. The next time I examined it, the hole had grown along with the ding dong ding dong ding dong which stopped every time I placed my hand on the doorknob. Of course it did. Any movement on my part probably sounded like it was coming through a bullhorn to the bird who could hear the little sounds of insects

To be fair, the few glimpses I caught of it showed that it was a cute little thing – not one of those huge woodpeckers, but a respectable bird. Still. One cannot hear a doorbell ring throughout the day without being set on edge. My eye was beginning to twitch.

I gave the situation plenty of thought. I had plenty of time because I work remotely – unfortunately in the current situation. Although I wasn’t ready to become a falconer, (which, what would they do, anyway, bring me a mouse?) I knew a hawk might go to war for me. But I had no idea how to attract a hawk to dispense of my doorbell nemesis. I was reticent to use my aforementioned BB gun because of my sign neighbor. I call her that due to the always present signs she has in her yard letting the neighborhood know what we should or shouldn’t think. The woman loved a good cause whether the rest of us did or not. And I was pretty sure my use of BBs would lead to her posting another sign and maybe having heart palpitations which I didn’t want to be responsible for. If only the woodpecker had chosen her doorbell!

Wait-a-minute! The idea that popped into my mind could lead to trouble or it could lead to peace and quiet. I chose to believe what I wanted to believe.

That afternoon I took a walk around the neighborhood and nonchalantly (and in my mind surreptitiously) tossed some blueberries toward my neighbor’s latest sign. When I got back home I made a little trail of berries from below my doorbell over as far as I dared to my neighbor’s yard. I thought maybe I spied Woody (as I’d begun to think of him) hopping around them, but I couldn’t be certain. The bird seemed to make a game of evading me.

I picked up stray pinecones here and there and smeared some peanut butter and birdseed on one. If I was a sports announcer, I would’ve called my pitch high and wide; but I got better with each toss. Don’t judge. It isn’t littering when it’s nature.

Maybe it was my imagination or perhaps I was learning to tune them out, but the ringing of the doorbell seemed to be decreasing. And in a month’s time Woody had discovered a new favorite, I bought a new doorbell, and my neighbor? Well let’s just say she’s found a new cause.

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Spring was just on the other side of the threshold: icy rain on this side and sudden sun with warm petrichor on the other. He thought, as he clicked the fob of his Subaru, that his impatience for indifferent weather – weather without event – had reached its peak in the last week. Maybe it wasn’t just the weather. And it was due to his restiveness that he had decided to drive out (way out) into the country on roads that would take him out of the city’s dirty curbs and unshoveled slush.

A couple of hours led him to a small cemetery with not quite twenty gravestones showing varying degrees of weathering. But it was through the quiet site to the hill beyond it that he ventured. He descended a steep embankment and came to a stream recently released from the restrictions of ice and snow as it rushed and gurgled over cold rocks and downed branches.

Released! What a good, good word. He reached down and splashed the cold water with his hand, then yanked it out

quickly. It was freezing cold, yet pure and clear; and he supposed that’s what release from whatever burden or chain one wore, would feel like: bracing, maybe not even appealing at first, but then? Then the purity of freedom would race through his veins and into his very soul.

The afternoon spent itself as he thought over what that meant. He had a vague awareness of shemita, and, of course, a closer understanding of his own burdens and unmet desires and asked Almighty God above for such a release from something he couldn’t even name.

A cold raindrop fell, then another and another. He rubbed his arms and slipped on some gloves from his jacket pocket, then scrambled up the hill to his car. The rain changed from polite drops to the splat of threatening snow, and as he drove back to the bleakness of the city, he pondered the amount of time it took the stream to move from restriction to release.

The afternoon had done something to his tired spirit and somehow  rubbed away a little of clouded vision that had been his uninvited companion for too long. A muted future lost just a bit of its indifference. Burdens? Chains? Unseen restrictions? They would be gone! He didn’t know when or how long it would take, but he could even now feel the excitement of the early spring stream. And life again would see cleansing. Freedom. Release!

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Boy, this was going to be good. He’d thought it over for years. It would be the home of a lifetime! He had begun with the foundation – solid and broad enough to hold whatever he dreamed up. And dream he did. Along the top of the foundation, he engraved a logo he used in his business; a mark of ownership consisting of interlocking half-circles.

Eight steps led up to the portico (portico!), and he made sure the first story had a stone-look design. Three arched windows were placed on either side of the arched entry door. They were perfect for letting in sunlight and sparkles. For years, he’d admired the porte-cocheres off mansions on Summit Avenue. His house must have one, so he added one at the side of the house.

The second story was peppered with windows: Six on each side of the building – twenty-four in all. Next came an outdoor winding staircase. How he’d thought of it, he couldn’t say, but he prided himself on the creativity he’d used in its design.

At one point – as he munched on a grilled cheese and red pepper sandwich – he decided his house (house? In his heart he began thinking of it as a castle! Didn’t they say a man’s home was his castle?) needed a third story. He made certain the exterior matched the second story, and it did with precision.

He had thought it was complete, but as he observed it from a distance, he decided it needed turrets. So what if such things were from another era? He would have them! And he did, placing one at each corner of the structure. They would be perfect for looking at things going on outside. He imagined a window seat or low desk would be just the thing for doing so.

Finally it was complete. His gaze followed every inch of the structure. He recalled the initial foundation and how excited he’d been with engravings along the top of the base. And he loved the arches on the first story! He’d always been partial to them and was glad they could be included. His eyes moved to the very top. No, not the roofline, although its asymmetrical silhouette made him smile. Sometimes it was brilliant to go against expectation, and this was one of those times. But the top – the points of the turrets . . . Well, the depth of his satisfaction could not be described.

He sat in a chair, soaking in the design with admiration. It was everything he’d ever imagined and more. He was tempted to say it was the accomplishment of a lifetime!

And just after the sun had set in a brilliant blaze of oranges, pinks, and gold until the sky faded to dusky blue, the ocean’s waves which kept time with  their soothing sound rose to high tide and washed it all away.

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The darkness was suffocating; the kind that made you feel as though it was something almost living and surrounding you, waiting to pounce. If I hadn’t stumbled – and when I say stumbled, please take me literally – on the poor soul in front of me, I would’ve been out of here.

But there he was – lying in a heap on the sidewalk about four blocks from my house. And what had started out as a pleasant evening walk on a late fall day had turned as quickly as had the sudden mist dropped the temperature and the light dimmed. By the time I’d turned the last corner, it was uncomfortably dark. And then I nearly tripped over the man I hadn’t seen.

“Sir?” I whispered. Then more loudly, “Sir!”

I touched him, then poked him. I leaned closer to see whether he was pale (Pale? In the dark? I don’t know what I was thinking.), shook him slightly, then pushed him from his lumpy state onto his back. There was no response. I checked for a bump (none) and bodily fluids in the vicinity (none, to my great relief – so much of a relief, I felt like dancing except for the unfortunate situation). I looked around at the empty street for help, at the houses; their cheery lights reaching into their yards, but no farther. I didn’t blame them. If I were a cheery light, I’d prefer the familiarity of my own yard, too.

“Help! Someone! Someone needs help here!”

Nothing. I reached for my phone before recalling I’d left it at the house, thinking (at the time) how much I needed the quiet of nature as I walked. Oh, I’d gotten some quiet alright; just not the kind I needed.

As I pressed on his neck and wrist, yes, feeling a faint pulse, I noticed headlights in the distance and (praise be!) growing nearer. I ran as far as I dared into the street and waved and shouted. The car pulled over and stopped, and a tired-looking man got out.

“What’s your problem, Miss?”

I pointed. “There’s a man passed out on the sidewalk. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I can’t rouse him.”

As an afterthought I added, “I can’t just leave him, you know?”

The driver looked at the man, then at me, and answered, “Oh. I know.”

I thought to myself he must wish he was home even more than I was wishing it. But he had a car and I didn’t. He was stronger than I was. And though we both seemed to feel some sort of obligation, neither of us was glad of it.

He pulled his phone from a jacket pocket and talked as he walked to the stranger on the sidewalk, checking for a pulse, sniffing his breath, and looking up at me.

“Help me get him into my car. I’ll drive him back to the hospital.”

“Back?”

“I just got off a twelve-hour shift.”

We half lifted and half pulled until the man was slumped into his backseat.

Back in my little house, I double-checked the lock, took a quick shower, and put tea on to brew. And as I made sure the cheery lights from my house reached all the way to the street, I sat in a cozy chair and thought about pleasant evening walks, the quiet of nature, and unsettling situations. I thought of strangers who make bad decisions and cause those who make good decisions unmitigated trouble. I wondered which type of stranger the driver thought I was. I sipped my tea, loving how it’s warmth traveled from first sip deep into my veins. And I thought about the kindness of strangers.

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I had a knock knock joke all prepared for when we met with Birch and Aldo; this time at a park on the east side of town. The whole cloak and dagger realm tired me no end and I had to tell a joke before I went nuts; not really nuts, just sliding into a slightly discombobulated sense of unwellness.

And I did. I told my joke. They didn’t laugh. Those guys had no sense of humor. Ava handed them the notes we had taken from the party and they told us to forget everything and walked away.

Well! said Ava in a huffy voice.

They just wanted information from strangers who they thought could get it for them without anyone noticing. We were as useful as a chocolate wrapper.

I thought Birch was . . .

Ah ah ah. No cute comments allowed. No nothing. They said forget everything, remember?

For someone who remembers quite a lot that’s going to be hard.

For both of us.

And it was hard, because the thing about memory is the triggers. You can think you’ve forgotten something, but maybe a scent or event or sound or phrase . . . well I could go on and on. But that’s the thing. Memories might be dismissed, but they’re usually floating around somewhere in your brain. What they should have said is keep it a secret. That would’ve been a truer request. Still, both of us did. Not a word to a soul. It’s too bad Birch and Aldo didn’t honor their own advice. They remembered plenty, because it wasn’t the last we saw of them.

Anyway, that’s how we accidentally became NOCS. That one night turned into a year and then two of assignments slipped to us on scraps of paper or whispered during an innocent trip to the coffee shop, and every time – every time – we were promised was the last time. We lost something dear to both of us: some, not all, but some of our trust – in others and in ourselves. And we wanted it back. We’d become adept at little white lies, both telling them and identifying them. The first one was uncomfortable, the last one made us numb. That was the day we looked at each other with identical understandings. We figured out that our lives were becoming as expendable as the chocolate wrapper I mentioned earlier and that the near misses – starting with the semi that crossed the center line that first night – were just threats. Or maybe not. Maybe the people given harm and maim assignments were just as inept as others thought we were at being sophisticated. And we weren’t, you know. We would never be fancy folk because we didn’t care to be. We just wanted to be ourselves.

We were DONE. We made it clear in no uncertain terms that we would NOT be NOCS, we had never wanted in and we wanted out pronto and no one was going to decide that for us. We’d already decided it for ourselves, and any threats coming our way would be shared with the nearest barista. They tried to strong arm us like the first time (we were in a parking lot), but we were at a point where causing a ruckus was preferred to staying quiet and not attracting attention. We didn’t hear from them again.

Life is regaining some of its simple delight. Slowly. Knock knock jokes still don’t hold the same carefree abandon for me as they once did, although -c’mon – the one about the interrupting cow will never not be funny.

With some of the money that found its way to us during the last couple of years, we’ve begun taking a few classes learning classical antiquity; which looks like it’s going to take up the time Ava would have spent watching mindless T.V. Unlike some of our former forays, we haven’t had any scrapes or cuts, though eyestrain isn’t off the table yet. Some days when we grow tired of it, we play Rummy Roots, which helps our Greek and Latin and during which we are unspeakably unsophisticated. Ava’s begun carrying her mini backpack again – the orange and pink one with the poodle pin. And I couldn’t care less; because in the grand scheme of things, unhidden plain truth is better than a million sophisticated lies.

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