Simon had gone through hell when we were in high school, losing both his parents in a car accident only a few months before graduation. As a result, he’d left Philadelphia and never looked back. I was glad he had someone as great as Caroline seemed to be, especially after bouncing around from woman to woman for years. She seemed to keep him on his toes.
And speaking of toes, I was ready to get off mine and have some dinner. Awhile after Jessica had left, I’d headed into town to grab some things from the grocery store. I’d shopped in a frenzy, still worked up after the Battle of the Balustrade. As a result I came home with things like three jars of peanut butter, but no jelly. But I did have salad fixings, so I used those to compose my dinner. I ate on the back porch, watching the waves roll in. They calmed me down: the tension that had been in my body since this afternoon all began to leak out as I relaxed while I ate. I could see the chickens still pecking about in the yard, not yet ready to head into their coop for bed. I knew literally nothing about chickens. Except that I liked to eat them. And eggs. Hey, did I have access to fresh eggs now?
I was going to have a chat with Hank the next time I saw him about what exactly he did and what exactly he was being paid to do. Wait, was I paying him? I added it to my mental list of things to talk to Mr. Montgomery about. I’d called him after getting off the phone with Simon earlier, and he’d agreed to meet me in town tomorrow to go over a few more things.
In no particular hurry after dinner to head inside, I wandered around a bit in the backyard. Staying away from the barn, in case Hank was right and I was in fact spooking the animals, I poked around in the old kitchen garden. I had very clear memories of when I’d visited before and seen row after row of raised beds, just off the side of the house beyond the kitchen. Aunt Maude was big into home remedies, the more natural the better. She always had beds filled with lavender, comfrey, calendula, echinacea. If you could find it at a health food store, you could also find it in her backyard. Of course all your better herbs were represented: You had your parsley, your sage, your rosemary, and several varieties of thyme, the lemon scented being my favorite. And the most gorgeous and well-tended vegetable garden I’ve ever seen. Before growing heirlooms was something everyone was talking about, she had her seeds she’d saved year after year. Carrots, tomatoes, poles of bean runners that I swear grew fast enough you could see them move, and blackberry bushes thick with purply fruit.
Now? It was a mess of weeds. The occasional volunteer carrot poked through here and there, but mostly it was an overgrown mess. That was something I was going to have to remedy. Might not be able to get it done right away, but it would be nice to have some growing going on back there again. I gazed out over the pasture on the other side of the barn, thinking back to how much land used to belong to this plot. Sold off in parcels over the years, it was still a nice spread, and the pasture still stretched over the hill. But so much less than it used to be. I sighed as I shuffled through the dusty soil, turning back toward the house. Lots of work to do. But no more tonight.
I spent the rest of the evening sprawled out in front of the old television, watching the one channel I could get with the rabbit ears. Honest-to-god rabbit ears. The TV was one of those old box ones, with the wood veneer surround and actual legs. The rabbit ears were made out of a wire hanger wrapped in aluminum. I was too tired to care, and I dozed in front of it watching Lawrence Welk on PBS. I began to doze off before he could get through the a-one-and-a-two.
Sometime after midnight, I headed up to my bedroom, automatically dodging the stacks and piles that littered the floor. Falling into the soft bed, I wrapped myself in the cozy blankets and fell asleep once more to the sound of waves crashing.
The next morning I slept in until 5:30 a.m.! Considering that was eight thirty back home, I pronounced it a triumph. I was planning on staying in this morning, having some cereal and getting a jump on the day, but then I remembered how antiquated the coffeepot was. Technically, it might even be a percolator. Technically, I wasn’t messing with it. I put “coffeepot” on my list of things to buy, and got dressed to head into town.
Deciding to walk again this morning, I said hello to the Bel Air in the garage. I needed to find the key to that beauty. There were several junk drawers in the kitchen that it could be in, to say nothing of the thousand other crazy places it could be in that house.