Heather bustled in, pushing a woman in a wheelchair, and half a dozen other folks trailed in after her, and I settled down to read about the doings of the day in Mitford.
But even as I read, my mind kept circling around what I’d learned.
So Paul noticed things.
Interesting.
* * *
After I finished reading, leaving the group—and myself—a little on edge on how Father Tim was going to fix things in Mitford, I got back onto my bicycle and headed over to see what Aunt Frances was doing. The traffic was heavy, which, outside of downtown, meant I had to wait for cars at stop signs and had cars passing me on a regular basis. It seemed that one particular sedan passed me more than once, but since I hadn’t been paying that much attention, I couldn’t have sworn to it. But the third time it passed me, I was sure it was the same one. Unfortunately, the windows were tinted and the license plate was covered with mud.
Though there was undoubtedly a reasonable explanation for that, I cut down a side street, then went through an alley and rolled up to my aunt’s place a little out of breath. I leaned my bike up against a handy tree. “Hey, there. Do you want some help?”
My aunt was half buried in the boardinghouse’s foundation shrubs, her front end working hard at pulling out leaves and sticks and who knew what else. I called again, and again she didn’t hear me, so I walked up next to her and tapped the small of her back.
“Yahh!”
She erupted from the bush, eyes wild and arms flailing. It was then that I noticed the earbuds inserted into her ears and the iPod tucked into the pocket of her oversized gardening shirt.
“Minnie!” She pulled the buds from her ears. “You scared me!”
“Sorry,” I said. And I was. It was also a little funny, but I knew how it felt to be startled like that and it wasn’t much fun. “I didn’t realize you were wired up.” I touched my ears.
“Oh. Yes.” Aunt Frances poked at the iPod, turning it off. “It’s Otto’s. Did you know you can download audio books from the library on these things? It’s wonderful! Like having someone read you a story. I don’t know that I’ll ever wash windows again without this little gadget. Talk about taking away the tedium.”
I laughed. “Audio books as an aid to housework. I’ll have to spread the word.”
My aunt smiled. “Of course you know about borrowing audio books. What was I thinking? You have a silly old woman for an aunt.”
“Don’t you talk that way about her,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “She’s the best.”
“And you’re a silly girl.” She returned my hug briefly, then eased away. “Getting this close to someone who’s been doing yard work all afternoon isn’t the best way to keep your clothes clean.”
I looked down at myself. Small clods of dirt and specks of leaves covered my front. “Not only is my aunt the best aunt in the world, but she might also be the dirtiest aunt ever.”
“Not anymore.” She grinned. “I transferred half of it. Now you can’t say I never gave you anything.”
As I did my best to brush off my clothes, I gave Aunt Frances a thorough but secret visual examination. Fatigue was making her shoulders sag and adding some vertical lines around her mouth.
“Say, what do you think about hiring some help?” I asked. “I bet you could get a high school kid. I could ask Thessie to recommend someone.” Thessie, just graduated from high school, had volunteered on the bookmobile last summer. “You don’t need to work so hard.”
“Minerva Joy Hamilton, you are the best niece in the world, but please do not presume to tell me what to do. I am almost double your age, and I know what’s best for me.”
Knocking off the last of the dirt from my shirt, I said, “I was just trying to help.” It came out sounding sulky, so I added, “And you’re not double my age. Just almost.”
“I rounded up.”
For some reason, I found her firm statement funny enough that, despite my best efforts to stay serious, laughter burbled up and out of me. “You’re horrible. Does Otto know what he’s getting into?”
“Probably not.” The expression on my aunt’s face, which had been a smile, faded into a wistful glance across the street. “I just wish . . .”
“What do you wish?” I asked, oh, so gently.
She shook her head. “Nothing. You know what they say about wishes.”
“Beggars and horses?”
“Bingo. And if everyone had a horse, how would all the manure ever get cleaned up?”
I thought about Mackinac Island, where, outside of winter, the only motorized vehicles allowed were emergency types. There were lots of horses and the island cleanup crews took their jobs very seriously, but even still, pedestrians spent a fair amount of time watching where their feet went.
Then again, if everyone had a horse, would there even be pedestrians?
I started to puzzle out the problem to my aunt, but she was headed back into the shrubbery. “You sure I can’t help?” I asked.
“Go play,” she said. “Have fun. Ride your bike along a road you haven’t been down all summer.”
That sounded like an excellent idea, but still I hesitated. “I can stay.”
“Go!”
And so, grinning, I went.
* * *
It was a beautiful evening, and if I went home I would feel compelled to clean the bathroom, so I decided to take my aunt’s advice and ride aimlessly around town. Off in the distance, I heard the tower clock of the Catholic church chime once. Eight thirty, then. At this time of year there was another hour of daylight left, if not an hour and a half, so I had plenty of time to both bike and clean, if I wanted.
Which I didn’t, but if the bathroom went uncleaned for much longer, the ghost of my maternal grandmother would haunt my dreams until I took care of what needed to be done.
But it was hard to care about the cleanliness of bathrooms when the evening sun was golden, when backyards were full of children shrieking with laughter as they played the games children had always played, and when the warmth of summer felt as if it would last forever.
A deep sense of contentment filled me as I cruised the streets of my adopted town. Life was good, would continue to be good, would always be—
“Watch out!”
I braked hard, skidding sideways with a shuddering screech of my tires, trying to avoid hitting the soccer ball that had rolled in front of me.
“Sorry!” A young boy scurried out, snatched up the ball, and ran back to his house. “That wouldn’t have happened,” he called, “if you’d been paying attention!”
Though this was undoubtedly true, his ire seemed a little harsh. After all, I’d never met him.
“I told you I didn’t want to play.”
Ah. The kid was yelling at a girl, who looked about seven years old. I hadn’t noticed her until now because she was standing in the middle of a lovely country flower garden. The garden almost filled the space between two Victorian-era homes and was bursting with blooms, none of which I could identify except for the daisies the girl was clutching in her hand.
“Better not let Mom catch you picking stuff from there,” her brother said.
The girl ignored him and plucked off another white-petaled flower. “It’s Mrs. Talia’s garden, and she told me I could pick any flower I wanted any time I wanted.”
I blinked. Blinked again as I looked at the house next door. Yes, there was the L-shaped front porch. There were the ornamental cornices, fish-scale gable siding, stained-glass windows, and complicated brickwork foundation that Barb and Cade had mentioned. And, if I remembered correctly, Rianne and her family lived in the house now, keeping it in the family for at least another generation.