After the first anniversary, and especially once spring began to peek in on us, life began to feel normal again. Not as it had been before our loss, but survivable.
Over the years, when Gran had been in a baking mood, I’d take a walk up the hill and deliver a pie to Mr. Bridger. I decided it was overdue. Gran wasn’t up to baking, but she supervised while I put together a cobbler with the peaches Eva’s son had delivered in the grocery box. When the cobbler was done baking and cool enough to carry, I took a walk up and over Elk Ridge. It was already September. I’d survived the anniversary of Ellen’s birth in February and also the anniversary of us losing her, and I could see promise ahead, distantly, barely present on the horizon but there. That had to be enough for right now. I crossed the high point of the ridge and came out of the woods and emerged in Bridger’s old fields. I followed the overgrown farm road through the fields. He rarely farmed anymore, but stuff grew anyway—stuff the butterflies liked. As I walked, a bunch of them rose in an orange cloud. I paused and watched them flutter around me. A couple came close to my face and hair. One landed on the top of the dish I was holding. I stood still, waiting, then blew on it softly. The butterfly fluttered its wings and floated away. But it had lifted my spirits.
I found Mr. Bridger sitting on his porch in a cane chair. He’d rocked it back onto its hind legs and balanced with his boots propped on a box. His firearm was set alongside the chair. He was sipping tea with perhaps a little extra in it and smoking a cigar. The left side of the porch was loaded with boxes and all manner of stuff, including some tools, and had a noticeable sag at that end. Above us, though, the Bridger house rose two stories and had once been known for its beauty. Not a huge house but a substantial one, and not kept up. It was slowly disintegrating.
“You look peaceful, Mr. Bridger.”
“I am. You’ve brought me something, I see.”
“Peach cobbler.”
He dropped his feet to the porch, and the chair clunked forward. “That’s real nice of you. Tell Clara I appreciate it.”
“I did the cooking. Gran’s recipe, of course.”
“Double thanks to you, then.” He stubbed out his cigar. “Maybe my boy, Liam, will be here in time to have some.”
“You heard from Liam? That’s good.”
Mr. Bridger was an odd character, even with my limited knowledge of human beings. He wasn’t natural with people. His son was older than me and had rarely been around when I was growing up. I’d seen him a few times, of course, being neighbors of sorts, and he was a good-looking guy, as I recalled. Rough but handsome with a bad-boy reputation. He’d left the area long ago, and no one had seen him around here in years. It was hard on old Mr. Bridger, but I didn’t doubt it must’ve been hard on his son, too, growing up with him, and that likely accounted for his decision to make himself scarce as soon as he was old enough.
“Is he coming to stay or just for a visit?”
“Stay awhile, I reckon. It was his wife who called. She rang me on the phone and said they were coming.”
I couldn’t imagine what they’d think of this house. I’d heard it was a beauty years ago, one of the nicest in this area back when his great-grands had built it. When I was a child, I’d been fascinated with the gingerbread fretwork on the porch, the fancy woodworked door, but most of all by the stained glass windows on the second floor. Butterfly panels, Gran called them, because of the side panels. I learned in high school art history that the set of three panels was called a triptych. In the last several years, the house had continued to go down, and that was from the vantage point of the outside. I’d never been inside.
Did Mr. Bridger realize how this place would look to an outsider? One thing I’d learned when I started going to school in town, especially by the time I hit middle school, was that a person’s brain grew used to seeing their surroundings in a certain way and didn’t realize how it looked to others. That front window upstairs, stained glass panels with lilies and butterflies in pieces of glass in brown and blue and gold and red, was a marvel. I would’ve loved to see it from the inside, so it might be worth the price of offering my help. Gran always said he had lots of money but you’d never know it, and he wouldn’t be likely to pay me for the work. Still, he was a neighbor.
“You need any help getting things ready?” I asked. “I could give you a hand.”
His expression was scornful. He probably picked up on my lack of sincerity.
I looked down and shuffled my feet, then reminded myself I was an adult. “Shall I put the cobbler in the kitchen?”
“You can set it right there on that box. I’ll enjoy smelling it. I’ll take it in when I go.”
“All right, then.” I set the dish on the upturned crate he’d been using as a footrest.
“How’s Clara doing?” he asked.
“Well enough, considering. She’s got the sniffles, though. I hope it doesn’t settle into a cold.” It nagged at me, my own hard-heartedness toward this old man. “Are you sure you’re good here getting ready for company and all? I can spare some time.”
“I’m fine. I can manage on my own, no problem. Give Clara my regards.”
Sometimes people dwelled on things, especially if they were alone too much. I suspected George Bridger couldn’t get past that one rebuff when he’d asked about my Ellen, and he held it against me. Or maybe he tried to steer clear of emotional women, especially those who’d proven themselves to be predisposed to rude and emotional reactions.
“You take care, Mr. Bridger. Have a good visit with your family.”
I didn’t give Mr. Bridger another thought. Gran was having a lot of troubles. Mildred had been wiser than I knew. Herbal teas, warm poultices on her legs—I tried everything I could think of to help her, but when I mentioned seeing a doctor, she’d get mulish and wouldn’t discuss it. A new visiting nurse came by, and I let her in, but she was a stranger, and Gran was grumpy. We were both missing Mildred.
Suddenly, it was November and snow was falling. It didn’t linger on the ground too long, but it heralded a snowy winter, and I rarely left our cozy Hollow. I kept the fire burning in the woodstove, and the propane kept the kitchen stove operating. Even if we lost the electricity, we’d be able to manage—not preferred but doable.
I brought my good clay inside lest it freeze and did some sculpting on the kitchen table. Gran liked to watch. I was sculpting another child. This one, I thought, would be better than the first that still sat, unfinished, on a shelf in the cabin. I pressed a sliver of clay onto the shoulder and smoothed the edges in carefully. When I was satisfied, I sat back and met Gran’s eyes.
“Sure you don’t want to take a turn at it?”
She laughed softly. “Me? Been much too long. Lost the knack of it many years ago. Besides, it was always the wheel for me anyway.”
“You taught me.”
“My mama taught me. One of these days I’m going to take a walk out back to the old cabin and see their pieces again. That pottery is the work of three generations of hands.”