Mine to Tell Page 5

  Chapter 8

  “For the gate is small, and the way is narrow

  that leads to life, and few are those who find it.”

  I was indeed comfortable in Julianne’s house. Kyle was right. I lay awake listening to the background melody of rural insects, cattle, coyotes, and frogs as I stretched out on her bed, suddenly missing Trevor. In the dark I could see his face, the one that had made my heart flutter like a crazed butterfly when I’d first seen it, not the one he’d donned when I went away. I wondered what he was doing, feeling the sudden ache of having him so far away and not sharing this thing that was so important to me. Maybe I hadn’t been fair to him. Maybe I should have explained myself better. Maybe…maybe…maybe these were the thoughts my great-grandmother had had.

  This house had been designed for someone to be alone, and alone was how I should have felt in the dark bedroom, but suddenly I didn’t. Even though Trevor wasn’t with me, I was where I was supposed to be and everything left here by my great-grandmother told me she’d known I would come. It was as if my whole life had followed the course to bring me here, to finish what no one had ever let her say. I hoped Julianne was spared the loneliness Isaac had intended while she’d planned for me, conjured ways to communicate following years of uninterrupted emptiness.

  Had she lain here and longed for someone special like I did for Trevor? Had the path I’d seen around her house when I was a young girl been left over from her? Had she paced around the exterior at night when no one could see, to ease the emptiness in her heart and in her bed? Or had someone else created that path? Isaac maybe? I bunched the quilt up tight under my chin. The path hadn’t been there anymore when I’d borrowed my parents’ mower and brought it here. I’d circled the house and searched for it before I finally yanked the cord and began cutting the yard. The grass was flattened, but not worn. Whoever had made that path was gone, leaving the house, and now me, to find the invisible trail left behind.

  ****

  The small trap door lay fixed above me. Out of reach and shut tight. Had my great-grandmother been tall and agile enough to reach up and unlatch it? I was short by no measure, but I couldn’t even touch it with my fingertips. No chair was in here, nothing that told me she valued this secret alcove. Maybe it was Isaac who had put it there when he built the house, maybe some man thing about ventilation, pipes, or something else that I knew wasn’t true because the house was still without electricity, running water, or a heating system. My father was going to run an electric line to the house soon, but for now I was living in it just as Julianne had, an oil lamp yesterday evening for my first overnight stay, wood in the stove to heat water for coffee or tea, and a flashlight in my pocket for special occasions such as this.

  I retrieved the desk chair from downstairs and placed it beneath what I hoped was the portal to my great-grandmother’s secrets. It was plenty big enough to slip through comfortably, and I prayed it would yawn even wider into another world on the other side.

  Stepping gingerly onto the wood seat, I let go of the chair’s backrest and stretched upwards, my fingers craving what they would find. I touched the latch, a bolt that slid through a hoop attached to the ceiling. I forced the bolt backwards and the door dropped toward my head, I moved out of its way and let it swing loosely. I righted myself and tried to peer into the black cavern above me, my eyes barely piercing the darkness beyond the ceiling.

  It may not have been meant to be a room when Isaac built the house, but it was one now. I trained my tiny flashlight across shelves that had been built into the wall, a candle on the floor next to a stack of pillows that mice had been calling home.

  “I can do this,” I said to no one, my family’s foreboding close and threatening. I laid the flashlight on the floor above and hoisted myself upwards, hunching my top half through the hole. Balancing myself in place, I turned on the flashlight again and saw Julianne’s secret. A rope ladder lying neatly rolled at the edge of the hole. I smiled and hoisted myself the rest of the way through.

  The gabled roof kept me from standing erect, but from the way Julianne had arranged her secret hiding place, she probably never stood either. I scooted the exploded pillows aside with a toe and knelt to inspect her shelves. My circle of light illuminated a menagerie of items, pieces of her that I was too in awe of to touch with anything except its beam.

  The first thing under my light’s glow was a stack of dusty folded papers. I blew the dust away from the top one and saw fine artwork with scriptive writing. Playbills. She must have gone to the theatre. Odd around here, I thought, unless there had been a playhouse eons ago. I didn’t touch them. I left them just as they were as I slid my beam to the right and saw a small folded fan. Lace, paper, and fine fabric hid whatever history lay within its folds, secrets that would stay there until I had seen everything as it was when she left them behind. Next was a stack of postcards, the top one beautiful artwork of a man and woman underneath a trellis of flowers. Again, I let it lie, waiting to see who had written on it and what they had said. Next was a funeral notice, a name, a date, a brief sentiment. Below these things was an array of dried flowers strewn across another shelf, some with stems, some without. On a small tray at the very bottom was a dried container of ink, two pens, flint, and paper. A stack of handkerchiefs next to it, a hairbrush, and an atomizer at their side.

  I dropped back onto the floor, taking in the mysterious essence of Julianne, a farm wife scorned, and her confounding secret trove. Her private passions and sorrows lay catalogued before me like pieces of a puzzle. What I didn’t know was whether she left them in this order intentionally or if each one meant something and how they were organized meant nothing. I moved my light away from her treasures and let it drift across the walls, the rafters above me, and the boards beneath me that lay across the ceiling studs to create a false floor. It was cozy, it was private, it was sacred.

  As the light’s beam played across the native lumber making up the studs and rafters, I marveled at the strength this old building had. It had begun as a shed, probably crudely built, yet now it was solid and fine like a house should be. Line after line of studs marched around the area, none of them smooth or straight, but all of them correctly placed as if Isaac had secretly cared. I studied the boards I was sitting on. Julianne must have brought them up here and laid them across the studs to make her own floor. I scooted to the one nearest the wall and slid the one farthest from it aside a few inches. I did that to the next one and the next, for no reason other than to know this woman better. When I reached the center boards, the emptiness that had been beneath the others was filled, the long hollow cavern between studs interrupted by a tin box. I set my light aside and lifted the box from its tomb, then laid it on the floor boards next to me. There was nothing spectacular about it. In fact it was disappointingly plain.

  Holding my flashlight under my chin so I could see, I worked the top off and looked inside. A large, leather-bound book lay in its center. I curled my fingertips beneath it and lifted it carefully from the tin. I shone my light on its cover. “The Holy Bible.” I stared. A Bible? Surely this wasn’t a woman who’d run amok. Or was it?

  Chapter 9

  “Say to those with anxious heart,

  take courage, fear not.”

  “Hi,” Trevor said, fidgeting with his hands at my door.

  It was his first visit here, the first time we’d seen each other since I loaded my car and left him standing in a parking lot in Cincinnati. My heart pounded, the old pitter-patter returning the moment I saw his face. “Hello.” I smiled. “Welcome to Julianne’s. Please come in.” I swept my arm toward the inside of her house, excited for what he’d see, relieved he was finally going to see it and understand how important this was to me.

  He nodded and slipped around the arc of my hand, bowing slightly as he slid past, his gaze pinned to the floor and then rising to meet mine. Julianne’s house looked homey with the extra furniture I’d added. It wasn’t much, just enough for a guest or two, but it still s
poke of her and the essence I wanted him to feel. I ushered Trevor to the sofa and waited for him to comment on the beautiful maroon crushed-velvet upholstery and walnut frame. He sat without saying a thing. He watched me as I took the rocker.

  “You look good,” he said as if he was disappointed. I hadn’t thought what it would mean to him if I looked gaunt and forlorn instead of content. It would have been a relief to him, maybe, to think I’d missed him so much that I was sorry I’d left and was suffering for placing our wedding second to my own needs.

  “Thank you,” I said with less smile and more contrition. “You too. You look good.” He didn’t, actually. He’d lost weight, his eyes were full of questions and his voice weak, his hair a mess. He ran a hand through his tangles as I looked at it.

  “Would you like some water?” I asked. “I don’t have much else. My father ran an electric line to the house yesterday and I haven’t adjusted to it. Don’t have a refrigerator yet…”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You what? You don’t have a refrigerator?”

  “Well, no, I moved in with everything just the way Julianne left it. No one has touched it until now.” I stopped. He was looking at me as if I’d slapped him. “You okay?”

  He ran a hand over his face, but it didn’t erase the hurt I saw. He shook his head.

  “Anyway, it’s come a long way. I unboarded the windows, cleaned, fixed some old mouse holes…”

  “Annabelle.” His voice was low, but it broke into my description like a sledge. “Is this all there is?” He waved an arm around the room. I followed its arc, taking in the beauty of Julianne’s home.

  “No…” I hesitated. “There’s a kitchen and two rooms upstairs. I can’t wait to show you what I found in her…”

  “Not that, Annabelle, I mean is this what you traded us for? I expected more, that’s all. More than an empty, powerless pile of boards with a few sticks of furniture in it.” With those few sentences he shattered my excitement and worked himself into a rant. He rose to his feet, his eyes flashing with tears that made the fire within them glassy. I jumped up, rushed to his side, and grabbed his arm with both of my hands.

  “Trevor, please. This didn’t replace you or us. This is just the beginning, it goes so much deeper than what you see. It’s pieces of me and my family. It’s the story I’m writing for the newspaper.” It sounded weak, it sounded like a lie, and again, I felt like it was under the scrutiny of his glare. The serenity that had become a part of me while I’d scrubbed Julianne’s home and discovered her hidden treasures wavered. His exasperation made it all seem so silly and futile.

  He stared down at me. I could see him teetering between the decision to stay or flee, his heart on one side and his mind on the other.

  “Trevor, please, sit down. Let’s start again.”

  He swayed as he looked at me, the fury easing, and he sat, fell onto my sofa and pulled me down with him. “I’m sorry, Anna,” he said, drawing me into his chest. He pressed my face against his jacket, the smell of his apartment and skin awakening old memories that I once again realized how much I’d missed. I relaxed into his hold, turned off Julianne’s house, her secrets I wanted to explore with him, and my confusion. I let myself be the city Annabelle again, the working Annabelle, the engaged Annabelle. His head rested on top of mine, his breathing was hard, his heart thumping.

  “I’m glad you came,” I said, my voice muffled in his jacket. I felt him nod.

  We sat that way forever. At least we turned it into a forever, each of us either worried or wondering if it was the only forever we’d ever have.

  “When are you coming back?” he asked above me.

  “Sometime,” I answered quietly. Even though seeing him made me realize I missed him more than I had known, could what I was doing be put on a timeline? Could Julianne, who’d waited for nearly sixty years to be understood, finish showing me herself in a matter of days? Weeks? Hours? If he helped, maybe she could.

  He straightened and grasped my shoulders and sat me up to look him in the eye. “Sometime soon? I mean, I don’t want to rush you, but if I just knew if this project would end… I mean, when it would end, I could relax.”

  “Of course it will end,” I answered. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how. But it had to end naturally, not under compulsion, not just because he needed it to. Or should it? He looked so sad. I was supposed to keep him happy. But I’d hurt him. I’d toppled his world from the way he’d arranged it. Just like Julianne had upset Isaac’s… “Maybe soon,” I whispered.

  “Good.” He looked relieved. “We could still have the wedding as planned. It’s five months away. That’s enough time to pick up where we left off.”

  His eyes were large, full of a strained gaiety, a fragile relief that was propelling him forward, trying to catch me in its wake. I wanted to stop him, tell him to hold on, not to do this to me, but I couldn’t. I sat there and listened, watched him take my life and run with it. He was a boy and I was a kite. I was flying upward attached to a string he controlled. It was making me dizzy to feel the wind carry me and then be yanked downward, pulling me back into line where he wanted me to be.

  “Hey, Trevor!” My door flew open and Paul Junior bounded across the room. His eyes were on his friend; he didn’t even look at me.

  “Paul!” Trevor was off the sofa, grasping Paul Junior’s hand in a sweeping handshake, the two like brothers, doing everything except hugging each other.

  “Come on over to the house. There’s a ballgame on. This old place doesn’t have television or radio. It’s zombie-land.” This time Paul Junior caught my gaze. Not caught it, really, more like wrested it from me and wrangled it to the ground with a “gotcha” sort of triumph.

  Trevor looked down at me, his eyes telling me I should come too, now that things were okay again.

  “I kind of hoped…” I began. I’d kind of hoped he’d crawl into the attic with me and explore Julianne’s treasures. I’d saved them when he’d called my parents to say he was coming.

  “This is the Reds game, isn’t it?” Trevor turned to Paul Junior.

  “Three games to seven already,” Paul Junior said in man talk.

  “It’s okay. You go on, I’ll catch up with you,” I said to Trevor, holding back tears.

  He leaned over and kissed me, then hurried out the door with my brother, the string yanking me suddenly, making me nauseous as he ran, forgetting I was attached to him. He was tugging me from Julianne’s house, from her Bible and her postcards, from simple things like holding hands when we told my family we were getting married, from shopping together even after we were married someday. I grabbed the line and gave it a yank to see if I could bring him back. But the string snapped and I floated free while he ran farther away with my brother. I grasped around me and thought I would fall, but I didn’t. The air in Julianne’s house buoyed me until I settled down, back to her sofa and out of Trevor’s reach.

  Chapter 10

  “A man brings from his storehouse

  things old and new.”

  I told no one of the attic treasures I’d found, not even Trevor during his brief visit, even though I had intended to. It was supposed to have been a bonding time, a time for him to see me in a new way and realize the importance of what I was doing. But he hadn’t come for excavations or sharing. He’d come to feel optimistic about us again, hopeful I’d give in so things could return to his kind of normal. I smiled on the outside while he visited. I smiled for him, smiled for my parents, and even smiled to placate my brother. But I cried when he left, sad that he was so happy over what was nothing more than a weak pretense on my part, and sadder yet because I missed him so. Missed him on the inside, in the places where he’d never, ever, been and where I feared he never would be.

  The day after he left I climbed into the attic alone, thinking of my great-grandmother and the discontent she and I surely shared. I dragged up an electric cord with a light at one end and laid it on the floorboards, directing it toward her shelves. I sat cro
ss-legged and began with the playbills. I blew the dust from the top one and read each word, each name, each title throughout the whole stack. They were from several different theatres. Not small-bit places but ones that must have been remarkable in their day. As I laid the bills side by side, I searched for their common denominator, the thread that had meant something to Julianne. Most were dramas: The Woman and the Sea, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Romeo and Juliet. Love interest tales, a murder or two, and tragedies. I checked names again. Who were the actors and who were the actresses? It was like a puzzle, a process of elimination until I narrowed it down. Finally I found it. Oliver William Carmichael and Bridgett J. Haynes, the stars in key roles in the playbills she kept. Oliver was in every play, Bridgett in most. I stared at their names like I stared at the family photos on my parents’ wall. I knew nothing about them, and they divulged nothing in return. I stacked the playbills back together and returned them to the shelf.

  Next I dusted off the fan. I eyed it from every direction before I pulled it open. Gently I unraveled its kinks, unbent its folds, and let it spread before me like a peacock’s tail. It was beautiful. More gorgeous than a farm wife would own. Delicate lace ran across the top, rimming pink satiny fabric on which was the scene of a woman lounging near a stream, a swan floating nearby. I fell into the scene, sharing her tranquility, wishing it were mine and praying it was my great-grandmother’s.

  I refolded the fan and picked up the stack of postcards to gaze at the top one of the man and woman beneath the trellis of flowers. I dusted away the layer of dirt that had covered them for years and turned the card over, holding my breath, looking to see who had sent it, who had received it, and what they had said.

  “My dearest, I remember when…”

  Lines had been drawn through the names, obscuring forever the sender and the receiver, only the beginning of the sentiment intact. I looked at the next card and the next, a series of cards of fondness and holidays, best wishes and kindness. Who? I wondered. And why? Why had she crossed out most of the words?