Chapter 21
Chances
Est. 1843
An Establishment of Fine Food and Spirits
Emily sat in a captain’s chair at a table in the corner and read the history of the building on the front of the menu while she waited for Dorothy.
The original claim to the land on what was then known as the Pishtaka River was laid by Levi Godfrey, who built a log cabin on the site in 1836. Levi added a second story to the house and turned it into a tavern. People traveling from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River would often share meals with his family and spend the night on his dirt floor. After the log house burned down, the property was bought by Peter Campbell. In 1843, Campbell built the present brick building, then called the Union House.
Emily laid the menu on the green place mat. She glanced at the entryway to the dining room and imagined Hannah Shaw walking in. She could see her in a floor-length blue dress like the woman in the picture on the wall, her hair braided and coiled at the back of her neck, a blue velvet bag swinging from her wrist.
Hannah would glance up at the pressed-tin ceiling as she laughed at some witty comment. Her eyes would follow the rough-hewn beam that separated the dining room from the bar, which may have been the tavern back then. Would she and her beau have ordered from a menu? Maybe they’d have only a few choices—roast lamb from a local farm, or fresh venison with seasonal, locally grown vegetables.
Would she and Hannah have been friends? How different her life would have been had she been born in Hannah’s era, when women didn’t have careers, live in their own apartments, or go on unchaperoned dates. They didn’t ski, and recreational drugs were unheard of. Hannah’s letters lamented the few choices open to women of her day. If only she could have seen the other extreme. Hannah, you were so safe.
Emily thought of the women memorialized in the English Settlement Cemetery. Many had lost children. Most probably experienced more loss than she would ever know.
But not at their own hands.
Across the room, a black-and-white picture of four men sitting on what appeared to be a dam, dangling fishing lines into the river, spoke of a time when life was never easy, but so much simpler. If she’d lived here in 1852, she’d probably be married with several children. Living a hard, simple, and probably happy life.
Dorothy’s tiny frame appeared in the doorway. She waved then stopped to talk at three tables before sitting in the chair across from Emily. Her face rippled with concentric laugh lines. “Were you waiting long?”
“You’re right on time. I came early to soak up the ambience.”
“This part of the building was built a few years before your house. So Elizabeth Shaw and her daughter could have sat right in this very spot sipping tea.”
“I was actually just thinking about that.”
“We’re all connected. I always picture history like holding a mirror up to a mirror. We’re reflections of the people who came before us and the generations that follow, don’t you think?”
What happens to the people whose reflections stop here? Emily glanced up at the fishermen and made herself present in the moment. “That’s a beautiful way of putting it.”
“Makes history not so dry. I was a teacher for thirty-seven years. Always tried to help my students see the things that happened before us as still alive, just in a different time continuum.” She tapped a crooked finger on the vinyl tablecloth next to her place mat. “Like your Shaw ghosts. Still alive, just not fully.” A myriad of fine lines fanned away from twinkling gray eyes.
“Do you really believe there are spirits living there?”
“Well, I believe places hold memories, and if we know how to look and listen, we can learn magical things.” Faded eyes narrowed. “So tell me what you’ve learned.”
Emily’s fingers tightened around her water glass. She took a long, slow drink. She cleared her throat, wiped her mouth, and was saved by their waitress.
The woman refilled Emily’s cup and poured decaf for Dorothy without asking. “Ready to order, or should I come back in a few minutes?”
Emily looked at Dorothy. “You haven’t had a chance to look at—”
“Oh, I know this menu about as well as I know my own name. I’ll have the ahi tuna salad, Helen.”
“Vinegar and oil?”
“Of course.”
“Ma’am?” The server looked at Emily and for a split second she was conscious of being an outsider. There was no place in this world, not even back home, where she could walk in and order “the usual.” She turned the menu over and pointed halfway down the page. “I’d like the chef salad with French and bleu cheese on the side, please.”
The waitress headed to the kitchen, and Emily studied the scalloped edge of her place mat. In spite of all she might learn from sharing her finds with Dorothy, this wasn’t the time. She’d already planned out the “reveal.” She’d invite Blaze, Tina and Colt, and Dorothy for a preview of the cellar and the letters. She’d let Dorothy break the news to the state Historical Society and even invite reporters if she wanted. It would all play out on the day she listed the house and left.
She tried to match a bit of Dorothy’s excitement. “The booklet about the English Settlement Church says they did extensive remodeling in 1967. Do you know if any of the original pews still exist?”
“Some of the members took pews. I imagine some of them are still around. Why do you ask?”
“There’s a church pew in my attic with a carving of a cluster of grapes on the back.”
“Really?” Dorothy licked her bottom lip. “I’d love to see it. It looks old?”
“Very.”
“I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows anything. Anything else?”
“On the back of the cellar door there’s a very faint image of a basket of apples. It was hand painted and the carving on Elizabeth’s headstone is so similar.”
Dorothy leaned forward. “Doesn’t seem like it could be a coincidence. There were fruit trees all around the house when I was young. It’s very possible the Shaws planted the originals.”
A faint chill shimmied down Emily’s spine. “Jake took two layers of flooring off in the kitchen this week, down to the original wood. There are several paths worn in the wood—between the back door and the cellar and the cellar to a corner cupboard that appears as old as the house. I haven’t seen ghosts, but it’s so easy to imagine the family sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch or the women shelling peas in the kitchen.”
“Mirrors.”
Emily nodded.
“My son thinks I live in the past too much.” Dorothy traced a bead of water down the side of her glass.
A flash of reproach warmed Emily’s neck. Until this point she had looked at the woman as purely a conveyor of information. “How old is your son?”
The smile returned. “He’ll be fifty next month. He lives in Chicago. Harry is my only child and he never married.” She wiped the corners of her mouth with her thumb and index finger. “For me, the reflections in the mirror continue through my students and their children.”
Emily swallowed hard. Not a one of her preschoolers would remember her in years to come. “What an incredible legacy.”
They talked about teaching until their salads came and then Dorothy began a monologue of Rochester history. She spoke of people long buried in the Rochester or English Settlement cemeteries as if they were “alive, but not fully.”
Mr. Godfrey, who built the original tavern, had supported himself from the age of twelve. He brought his family to his little log hut in the spring of 1836 “to a humble home in a setting of surpassing beauty” along a clear stream banked with carpets of green and overflowing with wildflowers.
Before the first marriage ceremony was performed in Rochester in 1838, the groom, Philander Cole, traveled over twenty miles to Racine on foot to obtain his license. His new bride became the envy of every woman in the area for owning the first cupboards with doors.
When Mrs. Allen Stetson was thirteen years old, she rose before dawn every morning, fixed breakfast, and finished the household chores so she could accompany her father and brother to the fields. She was too fearful to remain at home alone because of the Indians.
Sunlight angled lower through the windows as Dorothy spoke. Emily slipped her hand into her purse and discreetly checked the time on her phone. An hour had passed and they hadn’t yet made it to the middle of the nineteenth century.
The first church society was organized in 1837. They sometimes met in the tavern. Mr. Taggert, the first schoolteacher, cut willow switches on his way to school. Mail was delivered only once a week in the early years. A letter could be sent for six and a half cents.
Every bit of it was fascinating, but when Dorothy began to yawn, Emily feared they’d never see 1852. Pushing her bowl aside and folding her napkin, she took advantage of a yawn and stared up at the ceiling. “I love the feel of this place.” As casually as she could manage, she added, “It mentioned on the menu that this building was a station in the Underground Railroad.”
“It may have been. We know for certain that several places in Rochester were safe havens for runaways. You know about the Ela house?”
Emily nodded. “A runaway slave and his conductor stopped there.”
A long-suffering look pinched Dorothy’s mouth. “Joshua Glover’— she formed the name as if speaking of royalty—“and his conductor, Chauncey C. Olin, got a fresh team from the Elas for five dollars and stayed for a cup of hot tea and lunch in March of 1854.”
“Fascinating.” Emily sipped her water with what she hoped was a casual air. “Do you think there’s any chance my house was involved?”
“In the Underground Railroad?” Dorothy leaned forward. In a single blink, her eyes lost their tired look. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you? That letter from Missouri. Very mysterious, isn’t it? What was the work they’d accomplished? I’d read that letter several times years ago but after meeting you I’ve been absolutely obsessed by it. Grace Ostermann was a bit of an odd duck. I asked her many times if I could go through her house looking for historical evidences and she refused every time. Almost as if she were protecting something”—her pupils widened—“or someone.”
“Someone?”
“If I lived in a house inhabited by spirits of the past, I wouldn’t too readily share them with the public, would you?”
“No. I guess I wouldn’t. But maybe she was just a private person.”
“Well, I can understand that, but since she’s gone…”
Emily was sure she was expected to finish the sentence. She drained her water glass.
“If I could just look around a bit, get some pictures—”
Swallowing wrong, Emily answered with a cough. “What would you be looking for?”
Dorothy leaned yet closer, glanced left then right. “There could be signs that aren’t obvious to the untrained eye.”
“Like what?”
“That shed behind the house has been there as long as I can remember. It’s stone, isn’t it?”
“Just the bottom half. It’s wood on top.”
“Hmm. Could be the original foundation.” Her eyes brightened. “There could be a tunnel. What if the the legendary tunnel actually existed, but on the opposite side of the river from—” She stared over Emily’s shoulder. “Oh my. Isn’t this awkward?”
“What?” Emily craned her neck. Three men and a woman followed the hostess to a table.
“You don’t know her?”
“No.”
“That’s Jacob Braden’s last girlfriend. Heidi something-or-another. They were quite the item for months.”
Emily ordered her neck not to crank to the right, but it wouldn’t obey. She stared at the woman who could have been a cover model.
“Never did hear why they broke up.They seemed happy enough—”
“Do you need more coffee? I do.” Emily felt no qualms about cutting the woman off. She was here for a lesson in history.
But not Jacob Braden’s.
Emily handed Adam a glass of lemonade and sat beside him on her front step. Upstairs, Jake and Topher taped and sanded drywall at an astounding speed.
Adam took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What if Mrs. Willett just shows up here?”
“I’ll tell her no one is allowed during remodeling.”
“Watch her come over with a shovel in the middle of the night and start digging in your shed.”
Emily laughed. “If she does, I’ll rattle chains and make howling noises.”
Adam’s eyebrows took turns arching. “Maybe you won’t have to. Maybe the real ghosts will scare her away.”
“They haven’t tried to scare us yet.”
“That’s ‘cause we’re cool.” He lifted a book from the stack on the step and pointed to a two-page spread depicting Underground Railroad quilt symbols. “We should make some of these.”
Emily scanned the page for the pattern of the quilt on her church pew. “I don’t sew. Do you?”
“Actually …” He patted both of his pant legs then unzipped a pocket and pulled out a hinged metal Altoid box.
“You piece quilts with breath mints?”
“Funny.” He opened the box and showed her two sewing machine spools of thread and three sizes of needles. “I could sew, if I had to. But I meant we should make these out of paper. They could be cards in a board game. The board could be a map with all the Underground Railroad routes.” He flipped to the beginning of the book and showed her what appeared to be a map of rivers of the eastern half of the United States.
Like veins flowing backward into arteries, several lines converged in southern Indiana and formed a thick northward line through Ohio and across Lake Erie, ending in Canada. One line verged off, following the Mississippi along the curves of Illinois then arcing northwest across Lake Michigan, Michigan state, and into Ontario.
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. The line dissected Rochester and Grand Rapids, connecting two parts of her life she was trying to separate. She turned several pages, back to brightly colored quilt blocks, and focused on their beauty and not on their hidden meanings. “I have a box marked ‘art supplies’ in the basement if you want to run down and get it.”
“Awesome.” Adam pushed the book toward her and jumped to his feet. “We should be reading these books in the secret room.”
“By kerosene lamp.”
“Yeah. Can we?”
She hated trampling his enthusiasm. “It’s too damp down there for my lungs.”
“Oh yeah. I forget you’re still sickly.” He pounded his chest and wheezed as he opened the door.
The boy was good for her soul. Emily closed her eyes and lifted her face to the midmorning sun.
“Excuse me!” The voice was breathless. Footsteps pounded. Sherry Vargas ran across the street, both boys in tow. All three were barefoot. “Is there any chance you could watch the boys for a few minutes? Somebody closed the drain in the bathroom sink to play with submarines and somebody else came along and left the water on. So we now have our very own swimming pool and—”
“Go! I’ll watch them. Adam and I were just going to do some crafts anyway.”
“Thank you so much.” Sherry backed away, still talking. “I keep telling Tina I want to invite you over for dinner, but with work and the kids—”
Emily waved her away with a smile. “Go drain the lake. Maybe we can chat when you’re done.” The little voice that was supposed to remind her she wasn’t here to make friends seemed to have contracted laryngitis.
Adam returned. “Hey.” He greeted the boys. “You guys want to make some cool stuff?” He looked at Emily. “Maybe we should move to the back porch where we have more room.”
“Good thinking.”
“Always.” He tapped his temple then hoisted the plastic bin to his hip and motioned for the boys to follow.
She couldn’t explain why the craft supplies had made the trip around Lake Michigan with her. Maybe, like a pioneer woman hiding her favorite teacup in the flour barrel as she packed the Conestoga, she needed just one souvenir of her old life to take west. Glue sticks, round-tipped scissors, rulers, markers, copy paper, construction paper. The box transported her to a room with rainbow-shaped tables and miniature chairs. Primary colors, wooden blocks, puzzles, nap mats, cubbyholes filled with tambourines and maracas.
For a moment, she was Miss Em again, the teacher who made up silly songs and rhyming stories, who wore a clown suit for birthdays and danced the hokey-pokey with four-year-olds.
She’d told the other teachers she couldn’t come back because she couldn’t be the Miss Em the children were used to. They knew she couldn’t lift or bend. They didn’t know she couldn’t spend her life loving other people’s children.
As Emily walked around the side of the house, Topher waved through an open upstairs window and blew her a kiss. The boy was getting annoying. Jake had ordered her to stay out of the house while they were sanding. Whether he was more concerned for her lungs or her lips, she wasn’t sure. He’d commanded her to sit in the sun and not lift a finger, but she’d just about finished scraping the porch spindles.
Three boys sat cross-legged on the porch by the time she joined them. She offered lemonade and opened the back door. Jake stood by the sink, downing a glass of water, the front of his shirt soaked with sweat.
“I’m sorry it’s so warm in here.”
He winked at her over the rim of the glass. “It’s not all your fault.”
Her only comeback was a smile and a shake of her head.
“Do that again.”
“Do what?”
“The hair thing.”
She whipped her head to the right. Her hair splashed over her cheek. “Like this?”
“Exactly like that.” He took a step toward her and set the glass on the counter. His eyes said dangerous things.
She couldn’t listen. “Michael and Russell are here.”
“I see that.” He took another small step.
“They want lemonade.”
He brushed a rogue strand of hair from her cheek. “They won’t dehydrate in the next two minutes.”
Two minutes. If he was about to do what she thought he was about to do, two minutes could kill her. How long could a person go without oxygen before brain damage set in? Maybe it was too late. If she let him kiss her it would be proof she’d already been holding her breath too long.
Kiss and run, oh what fun.
She inched away while she still had the power to run. Any closer and she’d be rooted to the spot.
Maybe forever.
“I can’t keep them waiting.”
Jake’s chin lowered a fraction of an inch. Dust-covered arms crossed his damp shirt. “But you have no problem keeping me waiting, do you?”
His arm brushed hers as he walked past her.
“Do you know what a quilt is?”
Michael nodded. “Like on my bed?”
“Yes. Look at these pictures. Long ago people made quilts that told secret messages.”
Russell leaned over the book. “Like codes?”
“Yep.” Adam pointed to a picture. A white square in the center, surrounded by a wide red border. Triangles, pointing toward the middle, intersected each corner. “This one’s called the Monkey Wrench. It meant the slaves—do you guys know who slaves were?”
Michael shook his head. Russell nodded. “They were black people that bad white men stole and made them pick cotton all day long in bare feet.”
Eyebrows raised, Adam looked to Emily with an expression that asked for help. Emily smiled and shrugged. “Those people had to work very, very hard and they wanted to be free to choose the kind of jobs they would have and where they would live. So some of them ran away.” She turned to the map of Underground Railroad routes. “This is where Rochester is. Some slaves came from places like Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama and tried to get up here to Canada where they could be free to live the kind of lives they wanted. But there were no airplanes or cars or buses so sometimes they had to walk for miles and miles. They walked mostly at night because there were men who were looking for them and they didn’t want to get caught.”
Adam patted the porch floor and grinned. “And sometimes good people would hide them in their barns or attics or in secret rooms.”
The pupils of Michael’s dark eyes seemed to widen. “I would let somebody stay in my room if bad guys were after them, and I would give them my Crocs and all my shoes.”
“Me, too.” Russell was not to be outdone. “And Mom would cook for them, and we would buy them clothes and maybe umbrellas and mittens. And guns so they could shoot the bad guys.”
Clearing his throat, Adam drew their attention back to the Monkey Wrench square. “If the slaves saw this picture on a quilt they knew it was time to get their tools together and get ready to leave to go to Canada. They needed hammers and nails to build shelters along the way.”
“And drills and saws,” Michael added.
Russell punched his arm. “They didn’t have ‘lectricity in the old days.”
It took every ounce of Emily’s self-control not to scoop Michael in her arms and banish the embarrassed look on his face. “Actually, they probably did bring the nonelectric kind of saws and drills if they had them.”
“See?” Michael stuck his tongue out.
“Adam, tell us about the other quilt pictures. Quickly,” she whispered.
“This is a Wagon Wheel. It told them to pack all the stuff they would need on their trip. They couldn’t bring a lot because most of the time they had to carry it on their backs.”
Deep grooves creased Russell’s forehead. “I would bring my basketball and my pillow and my boots.”
Michael appeared deep in thought. “I would bring a sleeping bag and a flashlight and peanuhbutter cookies.” His eyes widened. “I got an idea. We could really put stuff in our backpacks and pretend we were running away from bad guys and hide and everything.”
“That’d be fun.” Adam held out a fist and tapped knuckles with Michael. “And I know just the place we could hide.” He responded to Emily’s warning look with a deliberately blank look.
“Awesome.” Big brown eyes turned on Emily. “Did you make cookies again?”
Her throat tightened, but only momentarily. She ruffled Michael’s hair. “As soon as Jake’s done making a mess in my house, I’ll bake peanut butter cookies from scratch and you guys can help.”
“Awesome.”
Emily turned away. Her gaze followed the outline of the trapdoor and she smiled at the squabbling coming from the blue spruce. “Yeah. Awesome.”
“The guy you met in the kitchen earlier? That was the old me.”
Jake folded onto the floor of the now empty porch and picked up a glue stick. He didn’t seem capable of eye contact.
“The old you told me about Jesus.”
“Right. The guy in the kitchen was the guy I became after that, that I’m trying not to be anymore.”
In spite of the twisted sentence, she had no problem deciphering. There were strange parallels in their lives.
He picked at a flap of peeling paint. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since the cemetery, and I have no idea how you’re doing about that or where your head’s at about me, us, and besides that I was covered with drywall dust, and then I go and… It’s just that you looked so amazing when you flipped you hair like that. That’s not the only reason, I mean I don’t come on to every beautiful woman, but you and I—” He groaned and ran both hands over his face. “I’m sorry.”
How long could she stay angry at a guy for thinking she was beautiful? “All’s forgiven.”
“Does that mean…?” His eyes sparked.
“No.”
“Fine.” His sigh was probably heard in Burlington. “Does it mean I can take you to dinner?”
“Jake, I—”
“I know. We’ve had this conversation a few times now. Let me take you to Chances. For research.
She sucked in her bottom lip. “That’s a line for the books.”
“Did it work?”
“No. I was there with Dorothy yesterday.”
“Great. How’s this one? I need to take you out for your health. You shouldn’t be breathing all this junk. Actually”—the wink made a reprise—“you should be living with me. It’s not healthy here now that we’re sanding.”
A full-blown laugh shook her. “Your house is no longer a safe place. Besides, there’s no room for me there anymore. I don’t think Lexi’d jump at the chance for a roommate.”
“Duh.” His face sobered. “I feel really dumb that I didn’t think of this before.”
“Think of what?”
“We need to trade places. You take my room and I’ll take yours. It makes perfect sense. I’ll be here to work as late as I want and you’ll be there to breathe clean air and help my mom with the kids.”
His last few words closed her mouth on her protests. “There is some sense in that.”
“I do, occasionally, make a little. So we agree?”
She shrugged. “We agree. If Lexi doesn’t have a cow.”
“Then I’ll be back here at seven to pick you up for dinner and move your things when we’re done. Feel up to walking?”
“That sounds nice.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
She walked him to the front door, listened to the truck’s engine start, sputter, stop, and rev again. He waved as he pulled away. She turned and leaned against the door frame, surveying what Jake referred to as the wreckage of her main floor. From the front door, she could see straight into the kitchen. The dining room wall was gone and the narrow kitchen door had been widened to an eight-foot opening. The decision to cave on keeping the original woodwork had been a smart one. The house kept its old-fashioned charm but was now entertainment-friendly. “You and I make a pretty good team, Mr. Braden.”
As soon as her lungs were good, she’d be rolling up her sleeves, sanding, staining, and painting. She liked the idea of working next to and learning from Jake. Learning, so at the next house she could tackle more of the work herself. The thought did things to her stomach that she shouldn’t allow an hour before he was picking her up for dinner. She walked out onto the back porch and put away tape and scissors. She leafed through a pile of construction paper quilt squares. Time with the boys had gone fast. Too fast. She’d slid into teacher mode as if she hadn’t missed a beat, as if that chapter of her life weren’t closed forever.
Even if she could handle it emotionally and physically, there wasn’t enough money in it. She needed to make fifty thousand dollars a year for the next four years. After she’d made restitution, she’d have the luxury of choice.
As she closed the craft box, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her back pocket and stared at the screen. Speaking of making money. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Cara’s first syllable was loud but slightly garbled.
“Not a great connection. Maybe you should call me back when you get to a better—”
“Is this better? I was lying down.”
“A little. You sound funny. Are you sick?”
Cara answered with a deep laugh. “Not the contagious kind. Went to a gallery opening last night. I’m sleeping it off.”
Two years ago that would have produced a laugh and a round of Can You Top This? But not a single morning-after story came to mind. That was the old me. She looked at the clock on the microwave and subtracted two hours. “It’s four o’clock. Did you stay home from work?”
“Yeah. Not a problem. That’s what I’m calling about. Work, I mean. Are you ready for this?”
Doubt it. “What?”
“I found you a job. A crazy-paying job that’s, like, made just for you.”
Emily’s spine straightened. Was this Destiny disguised as a hung-over friend? “I’m listening.”
“The gallery owner—did I mention she owns three others? Freaky successful. She has three kids under five and she’s interviewing nannies. But she doesn’t really want a nanny, she wants like a substitute mom, you know? And she’s paying eleven hundred dollars a week and room and board is included. I told her to stop looking. She’s never home so she wouldn’t be interfering with anything. Her house sounds insane—built into the side of a hill in Sausalito. Can you imagine? You could play with kids all day long. All the good stuff of being a mom, but they wouldn’t be yours. How cool is—”
It wasn’t the first time she’d hung up on Cara.
Upset as she was, she did the math.
Lifting her top layer of hair with a round brush, she spritzed it with hair spray and calculated the numbers one more time. Eleven hundred dollars a week times four was forty-four hundred a month.
With money like that she could even provide an expense card.
And all she’d have to do for it was play a role she’d never fill in real life.
If she’d wanted to take care of little kids she would have stayed right where she was.
But if she took the job she wouldn’t have to gamble on the housing market, on making enough money on this house and the next.
She couldn’t turn it down.
But what if there was a future for her right here?
She’d know by the end of the night. She would not say good night to Jake without telling him everything he needed to know to decide if there’d be a second date. Even the slightest hesitation on his part and she’d know. And she’d program her GPS for Sausalito.
As she rolled another swath of hair onto her brush, her phone rang. She answered it without looking at it. If it was Cara, first she’d say “Sorry” then she’d say “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
“Emily? It’s Blaze. I’m calling for Jake. He’s on his way out the door and he couldn’t find his phone. Evidently he double-booked without realizing it. Lexi has a ballet rehearsal tonight, and I guess he promised to take her and a couple of friends out afterward. With all that’s been going on lately, it’s no wonder he can’t keep things straight. Anyway, I’m so glad you’re coming here. I know I’m a really poor alternative, but I was wondering if you’d like to come over early and hang out with me tonight. I’m looking for a reason to laugh and can’t seem to come up with one.”
“I’d love that.”
“Good. I’ll set out a picture of Jake and you can pretend you’re with him.”
With a hollow laugh, Emily said good-bye. Blaze was one sweet but pushy mama.
Maybe she’d have an extra picture she wouldn’t mind Emily keeping.
She could pack it away in the Conestoga.