One of the barn cats came running toward her, and though it wasn’t one she recognized, she welcomed it, enough to offer entrance to the house, but the cat declined after Lorna’d scratched it behind the ears for a minute or two. She brought her bags in and dropped them all in the foyer, then went back to the car and returned with the staples she’d picked up at the new supermarket ten minutes down the road, and spent the next half hour putting things away and making iced tea. She wanted to sit on one of the old rocking chairs that used to line the front porch, but they’d been stored someplace, so she had to content herself with a seat on the front steps. Tomorrow she’d look for the rockers.
The air was heavy with moisture and the smell of steamy August. Nostalgia washed over her and she ached with the need to cry, but no tears came. She drank her tea and watched the occasional car pass by. When her stomach told her it was time for dinner, she went inside and settled on the rest of the sandwich she’d picked up at a deli earlier in the day. She had bought lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers from a Mennonite farm she’d passed on the way into Callen, but was too weary to make a salad. She poured another glass of iced tea and ate the sandwich standing up, looking out the kitchen window.
When she finished, she went back outside, the local phone book under her arm. She thought of looking up some high school classmates, but decided against it after locating several names. She’d lost track of so many people over the years, she felt foolish just calling out of the blue.
Hi, I’m home for a while… No, don’t know how long, probably not too, though. I’m only here because my mother wanted her ashes divided between the family plot, her garden, and the pond on the other side of the woods.
In typical Mary Beth fashion, she had wanted to be everywhere.
“You want a third here, a third there…?” Lorna had asked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not kidding.” Her mother had smiled weakly. “You can divide them up any way you want, doesn’t have to be in thirds. And if you want to keep some, you know, a tiny bit in a cute little box, that’s okay, too. I think in the cartons we brought from Callen there are a few of those Limoge boxes that Gran used to collect.”
“I’ll do the pond and the garden and the plot,” Lorna had replied, forcing herself to smile back, as if they were discussing nothing more important than what stores to stop at on their next shopping trip. “We’ll hold off on the Limoges.”
“It’s up to you, sweetheart.” Mary Beth had closed her eyes and added, as she nodded off, “But we used to have a porcelain box shaped like a fancy little shoe. I think that would be highly appropriate, don’t you?”
Lorna had smiled in spite of herself. Her mother’s love of shoes was legendary.
The phone rang, startling her. She went inside and picked up the kitchen extension, but by the time she got there, the caller had hung up.
“Probably a wrong number, anyway,” she muttered as she replaced the receiver.
She walked from room to room, wondering what to do with herself. The television she’d brought with her was in the back of her SUV, but there was nothing she felt like watching. She’d been debating whether to go to the expense of having the cable connected, since she wasn’t sure how long she’d be staying, but decided that was just one more decision to put off until tomorrow.
In the meantime, she’d bring in her laptop, check her email to make sure there was nothing from a client that needed to be handled immediately, and then she’d turn in early. She was tired from driving and from the emotional ordeal of coming home for the first time since her mother had moved in with her. So far she’d been okay-a little unsettled, but okay. She wasn’t sure how the rest of the night would play out, though. She’d never slept alone in this house that she and her siblings had long ago accepted as having unseen occupants.
“You still here, Uncle Will?” Lorna called from the front hall. “ ’Cause I’m going to be around for a while and I’d appreciate you letting me get some sleep, okay? I’ll mind my business if you mind yours…”
She was grinning as she went outside to bring in her computer and a few other items, the television included, just in case she was unable to sleep and needed an electronic diversion. The entire family had long recognized that her great-uncle Will Palmer had remained in the house since his passing in the 1940s. His was a benign if sometimes disconcerting spirit, and over the years they’d all come to accept his presence. Actually, for the most part, they ignored it. Though it had been such fun as a teenager to tell the stories about his sightings. Invitations to sleepovers at the Stiles’ house were prized by Lorna’s and Andrea’s friends-especially slumber parties where there was safety in numbers. There were those who even today would swear to having encountered Uncle Will in the upstairs hall or in one of the bedrooms, but whether such sightings had really taken place had not seemed to matter. Uncle Will’s ghost had found a place in local legend.
The phone started to ring again while Lorna was setting the television onto a kitchen counter, and she grabbed it on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“So how is it?” True to form, Lorna’s sister, Andrea, didn’t bother to identify herself, but jumped immediately into conversation. “What’s it like there?”
“Quiet.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Still in the back of the car.”
“You haven’t scattered the ashes yet?”
“Christ, Andi, I’ve only been here a few hours.” Lorna was grateful that her sister couldn’t see her face at that moment. “Let me get unpacked, okay?”
“Well, I’d have thought that would have been the priority.”
Easy for you to say, since you’re there and I’m here.
“My priority was unlocking the front door, getting something to eat and something cold to drink. There’s no air-conditioning here, you might recall, and the temperature is-”
“Okay, okay, so you’ll take care of it tomorrow. I don’t know how you can stand having them just sit there. The whole idea makes my skin crawl. I wish she had wanted to be buried, like Dad did.”
“Well, she didn’t, so we have to respect that, don’t we?” Lorna replied tersely.
“I suppose.” Andrea sighed as if somehow she’d made a huge concession on Lorna’s behalf. “Where are you sleeping tonight?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Is Uncle Will still there?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been here long enough to find out.”
“Let me know if he prowls around tonight. He might not like anyone being in the house, now that he’s had it to himself all this time.”
“I doubt he’ll notice.”
“Are you all right there by yourself?”
“Sure. I’ll be fine.”
“Is there anything I can do for you while you’re there?”
“I don’t know what you could do from Oklahoma, Andi.”