The Long Road Home

“Not another house like it in the county,” Esther reported.

Nora would have traded grandeur for economy. All she saw was miles of unfinished floor and ceilings, rafters covered with thick sheets of clear plastic, and trapped under them, the carcasses of hordes of flies, ants, and wasps. There were no doors to the bedrooms, or closets for that matter, and all the walls, from the basement to the top-floor bedroom, were only roughed in. Electrical outlets hung from walls or frames where walls were supposed to be.

Nora’s critical eye took in and calculated what it would cost to complete the five-level six-bedroom house. It was enough to weaken her at the knees.

“I’m just hoping to get done what I need to survive during the winter. And at least a door on the bathroom,” she said, thinking of C.W.’s showers. “I can hold off for a while on the aesthetics.” She didn’t mention that once the house was finished, her taxes would also rise.

Esther stood in the center of the great room and craned her neck to view the vaulted ceilings. “Why don’t you just finish it all up?” she asked. “This house has been sitting up here untended for years. In fact, every year, right about February when we’re feeling pretty tight in our place, we can’t help but wonder what you started this big house for, just for you and Mike and no kids.”

Nora saw from Esther’s expression that she envied the room.

“Why be finicky now?” Esther asked, casting a testy glance Nora’s way. “Mike would finish the job in a hurry. First-class all the way.”

Nora’s back stiffened. “Frankly, I wish he had finished this house. But he didn’t.” Nora’s face was pink with indignation. “Mike left quite a few projects unfinished, and now it’s up to me to tidy up. I will get it done when I can, as I can.” She tightened her arms across her chest and her voice was more sharp than she had intended.

Esther’s eyes narrowed, studying Nora. “You really plan to live here?”

“I do.”

“Why?” She shifted her weight. “Why did you move here anyway?”

Nora expelled a long hiss of air. How often was she going to have to defend this decision? She thought a moment, trying to explain the unexplainable.

“I moved here from New York to find something beautiful again. In me and out there.” She saw Esther’s doubtful expression and coupled her hands in frustration. “I can’t put it into words.”

“When are you gonna move back?”

Esther scored a direct hit that left Nora speechless. Looking at her, Nora saw the peachy skin and sweet features of a country girl—and the brittle cool of a seasoned New York socialite. Nora’s face colored, then flushed as she watched a small smile of victory ease across Esther’s face.

“People like you come and go from New York all the time,” Esther charged. “Dreaming of the good life. Then you learn that life is life, and up here that life is pretty tough. Next thing you pack up and go. Leavin’ us behind.” She sniffed and looked away, squinting. When she turned back, her eyes were hard.

“We don’t take much to people who come and go.”

Nora stared back with eyes wide, affronted by the hostility she did nothing to inspire.

“Speaking of which,” Esther swung on her heel and grabbed her bag off the floor, “I gotta go.”

Nora counted Esther’s steps across the plywood. “It’s not like that,” Nora called to her back.

Esther turned. “We’ll see,” she said, then left.

Nora walked out onto the deck to watch Esther as she backed away in her Impala, turned, then drove out of sight.

She had remained standing on the deck; she stood there still, recalling Esther’s words as the clouds grew heavy in the heavens. Nora gripped the deck rail tightly and fought off the dark, dull cloak of depression.

“Yes, Esther,” she spoke aloud in the autumn hush. “We will see.”

6

MAY JOHNSTON STIRRED UP a potion of baking soda and warm water and set it before Seth, giving it a final spin at the table.

“Drink every drop. You need to burp.”

She stood, one hand on the back of Seth’s chair, the other on her ample hip, hovering like a hen as her brother grunted and slowly reached out for the brew.

“You know I won’t budge till it’s gone.”

Seth looked up at the formidable figure of his sister. Only her stubbornness was bigger than she was.

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. With a sigh of resignation, he took the cup and swallowed it down in three noisy gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he grimaced. Soon after, a loud raucous burp exploded from his girth.

“Good!” exclaimed May. “See, I was right. Nothin’ but indigestion.”

Seth rubbed his sore chest and smiled weakly. “Yeh-up, that’ll be it.” Another smaller burp offered him more relief.

May took the chair opposite Seth and slowly lowered herself into it. She was no stranger to ill health but always seemed to tend to others’ ills more than to her own. Diabetes had made her obese, gum disease had taken a number of her front teeth, varicose veins kept her off her feet, and every spring and fall the flowers that she adored kept her sneezing and tearing.

She cast all that off as “her ailments,” and nothing more. Just crosses to bear, time off purgatory. Nonetheless, her own ailments kept her on the alert for the ailments of others. No flu bug could creep in her family’s house without vitamin C and orange juice being rushed out. If a sore throat stung, a spoonful of honey, some lemon juice, and a splash of whisky flowed.

May had come to Seth’s house soon after his wife took sick. She bathed, fed, dressed, and nursed Liza during the final months the doctors let her stay home. Then, after cancer claimed her sister-in-law, May stayed on awhile longer to help her brother and his five motherless children. She rented a trailer, parked it across the road from Seth’s house, and in typical fashion, rolled up her sleeves and focused on “the babies.”

That was twenty-two years ago. May had long since bought the trailer, planted her beloved perennial bed, and paved a small walkway from her trailer to Seth’s back door. Her “babies” were grown up now, and “her ailments” kept her boxed up in the trailer most of the time. Still, she never let an ailment pass by without speaking on it.

“You sure that doctor came up and checked on Mrs. MacKenzie?” she asked Seth.

“Yeh-up. Saw his car come and go.”

“How big did you say that lump was?”

Seth offered as detailed a description as he could between burps, knowing his sister would settle for nothing less.

“Strange, her coming back here. Thought for sure they’d put that land up for sale once he died. The Vermont Land Trust already made inquiries, you know. Nice piece a land. You sure she ain’t selling?”

“Didn’t sound like it. She wants to live here, so she says.”

“Live in that big, unfinished house all alone? Without help?” Her meaty hand slapped the table. “That’s just crazy.”

“Don’t I know it. Told her so but she’s got her mind set. Me and the boys are gonna work on the house. They can use the work. Lamb prices are down again.”

“I just hope she don’t end up breakin’ up the land into ten-acre parcels and selling them off. Like Widow Nealy’s done.” May made loud clucking noises. “Leaving her kids with nothin’.”

“The widow’s gonna be lonely someday…real lonely.”

“MacKenzie’s got some beauty views. Them out o’ towners like the views.”

“Like I said, she ain’t selling. Not right away anyway. She’s a funny thing. Stick-to kinda person. Remember how she planted all them blueberry bushes on the slope, then came over to get fresh manure?” He chuckled and wiped his mouth.

May laughed and slapped her hand again. “Lord almighty, I do too! I about died when I saw them nylon bags full of manure hangin’ off them tiny little bushes. Bowed them right over.”

“Deer came and ate them bushes anyway.” Seth’s eyes twinkled. “But she went and planted another batch.”

“Yes, she did,” said May, remembering now. “Deer ate them too, though.”

Seth scratched his head. “Yeh-up. Hungry, ain’t they?”

May picked at a muffin, gummed it awhile, then sneaked a quick glance at her brother. He seemed comfortable enough now that the burping stopped. She decided to venture a new topic.

“How’d Esther take Mrs. MacKenzie coming back?”

Seth’s face pinched and he drummed his fingers a moment. Then his eyes met May’s. They spoke in a silent code established early in childhood and nurtured over fifty years of devotion. May interpreted his pain, his worry, and his hesitancy to discuss the subject.

Seth knew she understood. May was a good listener and an even better observer.

“She’s up there now,” Seth finally muttered. “I guess she’s all right.”

“Don’t be so sure, Seth. Esther’s all bark and no bite. She may have a hard time seeing Nora MacKenzie move in next door. She’ll have to work with her every day, too.”

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Seth’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“That’ll be the day I listen to a heathen preach the Bible at me!”

“Who you callin’ a heathen, heathen?”

May cackled loud and hearty. Neither one of them went to church, but they each considered the other the most honest, loving Christian they’d ever known.

“Well then,” May said, pushing back her chair and hoisting her largesse out of it. She, too, panted with the effort and her legs started to throb from sitting still too long. “Ain’t nothing left to do but go up and see the missus for myself. Check on her ailment. Sweet little thing, up in that big house by herself. Just hope she don’t plant no more blueberries. Don’t know I can stand the smell!”

May rolled up the mountain in her burgundy Buick. When May turned fifty, she treated herself to her first luxury, an “almost new” new car. It was plush: wide bodied, a cushy interior, air conditioning—the works. She even got one of those vanity mirrors, though she never used it. Today, eight years later, her beloved auto had spots of rust and a crumpled left fender from when she slid on the ice and bumped a tree. These she considered her car’s mere ailments. Like her, the burgundy Buick ran rough but reliable and only clocked in at 49,241 miles.

She spotted Esther barreling toward her down the back road with dust flying at the wheels. May lay on a honk that brought Esther to a crawl at the fork. She eased to a stop beside the Buick. May made a show of blowing the dust out of her face and offered a cough for emphasis.

“We don’t need no more accidents,” May warned.

“Yes’m,” Esther replied, knowing better than to risk a fiery scolding from her aunt. Nothing Aunt May hated more than back-road speeders.

“You just leaving the MacKenzie place?”

Esther’s face clouded. “Not soon enough.”

May scrutinized Esther’s face. She was right, she decided. This move of Mrs. MacKenzie’s back to the farm was coming hard for Esther. Esther would never let on to anyone how deeply she’d been hurt by Michael MacKenzie; she was too proud, or too ornery, to show it. They all counted on Esther to be the strong one, and she never let them down. In the process, however, she never let her hurt out. May saw it, however. Saw the hurt in the spurts of anger at all the wrong places, in the many lone ventures up to the mountains with her easel. Mostly, she heard it in the way Esther pined to leave the farm but never did.

“Your pa, he wants us to be fair with her. Don’t be casting blame where it don’t belong.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Esther looked ahead out the windshield.

May knew that tight-lipped, squinty-eyed stare. Esther was simmering and ready to blow.

“I’ve got something I want to take care of,” said Esther, abruptly shifting into drive. “You be careful going up that road, hear? It’s full of rough spots. See you.”

Esther’s Impala sailed away on a cloud of dust. May clucked and wagged her head. The devil had that girl’s tail, she thought, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d have the devil to pay. Esther sure had a tongue. May remembered Nora as the kind of girl who kept her thoughts to herself.

“Poor little thing,” she murmured, thinking of what might have transpired between the two young women. That’d be like pitting a cock with a razor against a hen.

She rambled to the MacKenzie road, and remembering it, she took it in first gear all the way. The burgundy Buick had plenty of power and hummed without whining, though May did each time she spotted bare dirt on the steep incline. She veered wide, rounding the final turn, and spied the protruding deck, then the brick and the huge glass windows of the big house. It always looked to her like rock crystal jutting out of the mountain.

Getting closer she spied a slight figure standing on the deck looking out at the view. As she rolled into the drive, the figure came over to the railing and leaned over. May tried to remember how many years it had been since she’d come up here or seen Nora MacKenzie. Sure was nice, though, to see the place again and to catch up with the gossip.

She stilled the engine, took a moment to catch her breath, then pushed herself out of the car.

“Hello,” called Nora. “Can I help you?”

May took a few steps, then paused to look up at the high deck. “Hey there, Mrs. MacKenzie. It’s just me, May Johnston from down the road.”

“May Johnston!” Nora quickly climbed down the stairs and approached May, hand outstretched. “How nice to see you again, May,” she said taking her hand. “How have you been?”

May remembered how much she always liked the missus. A nice girl. Always polite. “I’m fine, except for my ailments, of course.” Her wide, bulging eyes scanned Nora’s face, resting on the purple bruise on her temple. Nora looked much the same as before. Only now she was pitiful skinny. No wider than a cattail.

“I’m here to see how you fare, Mrs. MacKenzie. Heard you took a lump.”

Nora’s hand fled to her head. “Oh, I’m fine, thank you. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health. And please, call me Nora.”

May scrunched up her lips in skepticism. “Doctors, humph. What do they know? Bend your head here and let me take a look. Hmmmm. You listen to me and take it easy for a few days. Call me if you feel at all sick or dizzy. Never can tell with a head injury.”

“I will. Please,” Nora said, extending her hand to the house. “Come in. I don’t have much to offer, but I’m sure I can at least provide a glass of water.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

The two women went indoors, May catching every detail of the house as she passed. The house structure seemed pretty sound, considering it’d been neglected for so many years. Few slates missing from the roof, a bit of wood rotted on the stairs. The inside’s condition, however, caught her by surprise.

“My, my, but you have a lot to get done. Frank and Junior will have to work fast to finish it up by the first snow.”

When they finished the quick tour, they stood before the plate glass in the great room, surveying the mountain view.

May found the view as spectacular as she remembered. The grandeur of her beloved mountain range still had the power to take her breath away. She stood beside Nora for a few moments just soaking it in. For her, the sensation was akin to a religious experience.

“The nice thing about getting old,” she said, “is understanding how young we all are compared to nature. Even old May. Looking out at all this, it’s plain I’m less than a twinkle in God’s eye.”

“I understand,” said Nora, coming nearer and looking out. “Everything seems insignificant compared to all that. That’s one of the things I love most about being here. It keeps me in my place.” Sadness flittered across her features. “If this is my place.”

“If it ain’t yours, it ain’t nobody’s.”

Nora’s face lightened.

“I suspect my niece was rude.”

Nora pinkened. It was obvious that straight talk was a Johnston trait. “Not rude, exactly. Maybe just honest.”

“What’d she say?”

“Let’s just say she has her doubts about my sticking around.” Nora looked around the room, and once again May spotted the uncertainty. “You can tell her this for me, though. I’m going to give it my best effort.”

May smiled, remembering the berry bushes.

“Glad to hear it. Well,” she said turning from the windows and taking a step forward. “I’d best be going before it gets too dark.” It took several plodding steps for her to cross the big room and several more to descend the steps to her car. She stopped at the door to catch her breath.

“Come down and visit sometime. I’m that blue-and-white trailer ’cross from Seth’s. We’ll have some coffee and we can plan a garden. Nothing like a garden to make a home permanent, I always say. That pasture up here would be perfect. Get some manure, some hay, throw some black plastic over it and wait till spring. Then we’ll put in the seeds. Put some perennials in, too. Nice showy ones, like hollyhock, rosy daisies, and lilies. They’ll give you pleasure and make you feel more at home way up here.”

Her eyes softened when she saw the eagerness in Nora’s expression. “Come on down, honey, and we’ll talk.”

Their eyes met and searched out what that innocuous invitation might mean to each of them.

To Nora, it meant a mentor. Someone who’d show her the ropes, the tricks of a woman living alone in the mountains. She was also deeply grateful to May for her first real welcome. No warnings, no threats. This invitation was as ingenuous and warm as the woman who extended it.

To May, it meant she’d found a possible ally in her campaign to heal Esther. God works in mysterious ways, she thought. Maybe he sent a MacKenzie to heal a wound a MacKenzie started.

“I will come, soon. I promise.” Nora fairly beamed.

Nora waved good-bye to May and watched the older woman rumble down the mountain out of view.

The nighthawk cried and Nora entered her home just as the sun set and a deep blue blanket covered the mountains.

7

NORA WOKE TO THE persistent cry of a finch outside her window. She yawned wide then allowed a sleepy smile to cross her face as she listened to the chirps. It seemed birds were to be her only friends up here.

Bringing her knees to her chest, she looked out the far window at the morning sky. The sun shone over the fog-laden mountains, the cool green rusting to orange red. On the grass, frost sparkled like diamonds as it caught shards of the morning light. She sighed and stretched her toes against the crisp old cotton sheets. The mountain had worked its magic. Observing the power of the surrounding nature, her problems seemed somehow lessened.

Nora peered at her bedroom. This was her favorite room. Like Heidi’s mountain loft, the ceiling was all angles that pitched dramatically beside long windows. Her big double bed, laden with down, was tucked in under one angle, making it cozy in the vast room. The other three fireplaces in the house were large and angular. Here, the fireplace was small, rosy bricked, and arched. A feminine touch in a masculine house. Everything about this room was charming rather than imposing; more a Swiss chalet in the mountains than a castle in the sky.

She slipped from her warm bed and walked to the window, opening it just a crack to let in the morning. The air was crisp, even cold, and carried the faint scent of pine. How she loved this view of the valley. The Danby mountain range rolled rather than jutted upward, so instead of a majestic feeling, the view was pastoral, calming. Across this valley she could see a red barn and silo, and black-and-white cows grazing in the vertical field. It reminded her of her childhood home in Wisconsin.

How long had it been since she felt this peaceful?

Three years. Yet she remembered, like yesterday, the evening she’d driven up here to surprise Mike, hoping to patch up a particularly nasty quarrel. In the backseat she’d packed a bottle of French brut champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates, very dark. She’d even brought a new nightgown of peach silk, the blatantly sexy kind that Mike liked but embarrassed her.

That warm June night three years ago, Nora had been determined to save her marriage. She had dreamed that maybe on this land that they had walked together, at this house that they had happily designed and worked on together, he’d remember, notice her, perhaps love her once again.

That dream fizzled as abruptly as the uncorked champagne. A surprise was what she had planned, and it was exactly what she got when she found Mike in the arms of another woman. In their home. In their bed.

He never even said hello. She never said good-bye.

Neither had ever returned. It was as though this house represented all that they once had valued and lost—or perhaps thrown away. This house that was filled with their heartiest laughs, their silliest dreams, their most precious confessions, and beloved possessions stood as a barren monument to their failed marriage.

She couldn’t come back—until now. And now she never wanted to leave.

Nora shivered and wrapped her arms tighter across her thin cotton gown. The cool air was moist and laden with dew. She leaned her head against the windowpane. Its touch was icy and seemed to pierce a third eye into the middle of her forehead. Dear God, she prayed as she closed the other two tightly, help me to forget. Help me to get past my anger and let me heal.

From the valley she heard the broken call of sheep, then from the road came the faint sound of crunching gravel. She craned her neck to peer at the winding drive, and soon she saw the figure of C.W. emerge from the tunnel of foliage. He was trudging up the hill at a steady pace. Gasping, she quickly checked the time: nine o’clock already. She wasn’t even dressed—this was hardly the impression she wanted to give.

Nora rushed across the cold plank floor to the antique cherry dresser and pulled open the heavy drawers. They creaked as they revealed their treasure of old sweaters and rolled wool socks. Most of them dated from her college days. She grabbed a pair of faded jeans and an old handknit sweater, scowling at the two small holes in the sleeve. Buy mothballs, she told herself as she pulled it over her head.

On her way to the bathroom, she slipped her feet into worn loafers and peeked out the window. He was almost at the house now. She splashed freezing tap water on her face and ran a brush through her thick hair, wincing when she grazed the purpling bump along her hairline. With a groan of frustration she set down the brush and in minutes, braided her hair with practiced hands. A final check in the mirror reflected an aura of organization.

“Looks can be deceiving,” she told herself as she flicked off the light.

She reached the kitchen as C.W. walked in. His tall frame filled the doorway as he scraped his muddy boots upon the mat. In the morning light, his handsome features were staggering. Perhaps it was the layers of shirts and jacket he wore against the changing fall temperatures that gave him a broad profile. Yet underneath the layers she guessed the muscles were as solid as the mountain. Instinctively her hand went to smooth her hair.

Nora always liked the look of a man in jeans. Men in well-tailored suits evoked an image of an intellectual power. Wealth. Theirs was a seductive lure, the hint of romantic dinners and intimate talk.

Men in jeans evoked the image of a physical power. Raw and earthy. Like the jeans, they were tough, rugged—roughriders. C.W.’s jeans stretched taut from hip to hip, and she could follow the curved line of his thigh muscle up to the groin.

He straightened, stretching his shoulders wide, and met her gaze. Nora blushed and looked down, wildly wondering if he’d caught her perusal.

“Glad to see that you’re on your feet,” he said. “I was worried about you and wanted to be sure you’re all right.” His voice was low and he spoke with deliberate slowness.

“I’m perfectly all right. Thanks for checking on me. I’m fine, really.” She felt ridiculous, stammering like a schoolgirl and rubbing her hands.