In preparation for the wake, I tidied the house again. I used the sweeper on the area carpet in the living room, going over it time and again. I gave myself permission not to clean under it. I didn’t want to see those boards . . . the ones that didn’t match. So I left the rug in place and moved Gran’s rocker over to that space where her bed had been.
I wished I had more chairs. I remembered how it had been after Grand died. I’d been surprised by how many people showed up at the funeral. It had warmed my heart. Gran had invited those folks out to the house though the stress took a toll on her.
The pastor was happy to include my invitation in his eulogy. I spent a whole day cooking. Ellen was my helper. It was good to be performing these last duties in Gran’s honor.
The next day, we held Gran’s service at the Baptist church she’d attended for many years, until my mother died and Gran stopped leaving the Hollow.
The people who came to the service, and to the house after, were surprisingly familiar to me. I didn’t really know them, not as friends, but in a friendly way—faces I’d seen through the years in high school and in the community. Even Mamie Cheatham attended, the Bridger relative by marriage who’d come to stay at George Bridger’s place.
Ms. Cheatham was drawn to Ellen, and it unnerved me. Blood calling to blood perhaps? Of course not, I told myself. Half the people in the house were making over Ellen. In fact, excluding those who’d arrived in Louisa County in recent years, if we traced the family lines back a few generations, likely most of us around here would be kin to one another to some degree.
Ellen was subdued and patient at first, but the attention became a nuisance, and she was bothered, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I’d just bid the pastor and his wife good-bye and turned back to the room and realized Ellen wasn’t in sight. I dashed to look in the bedroom and the bathroom, then the kitchen.
Someone touched my shoulder. It was the sheriff. My heart yanked itself right out of my chest.
“Miss Cooper. I’m sorry about your grandmother. Miss Clara was a fine lady. It was our loss when she was no longer able to come into town.”
“Thank you.” I twisted my fingers together, anxious. “Have you seen my daughter? I can’t find her.”
He gestured toward the kitchen. “I saw her go into the log house out back.”
“Thank you. Please excuse me. I need to check on her.”
He nodded. “I think it got a little crowded in here for her.” He shook my hand. “I’ll let you see to her. I need to be leaving but wanted to express my condolences. If you and your daughter need us, call or reach out to my wife. She knew your grandmother well once upon a time.”
“Thank you,” I said again, and then slipped out the storm door.
Ellen was sitting at the potter’s wheel. She hadn’t reconnected the power and turned on the wheel, for which I was grateful. She was a small dark-haired girl sitting alone in a dim, dusty cabin surrounded by the smell of damp clay. It seemed a poor haven.
I knelt beside her, heedless of the dirty floor and the one and only dress I’d worn in years. I touched her cheek and turned her face to mine.
“My sweet Ellen.”
Her lower lip pushed out. She shook her head.
“These people will be gone soon.” I waited to see her reaction.
She wrapped her arms around me, over my shoulders, and clasped her hands behind my neck. She whispered near my ear.
“I’m sad, Mommy.”
I whispered back. “Why are you sad?”
“’Cause I’m mad. So mad. Gran said not to be mad. Angry. She said I should smile.”
“You have the prettiest, best smile in the whole world. I’m not surprised she wanted to see it often.”
“Make them go home, Mommy.”
“They will be gone soon.”
“Gran’s bed is gone.”
I nodded. “It is. She needed it when she was sick. She hurt a lot. You know that. Now she’s in heaven, my sweetest girl. She’s happy, and she understands we are missing her, but she will think we’re very silly if we are mad or if we stay sad a long time.”
“But today is OK, right?”
“Today is a good day to be sad. Tomorrow we’ll sing songs all day. Gran’s favorites. We’ll sing them loud so she can hear us.”
Ellen nodded.
“I have to go back inside because we have guests. I’d like you to come with me, but if you don’t want to be around those people, I understand. You can go into the bedroom, shut the door, and read. How would that be?”
She took my hand, and together we returned to the house my grandfather’s grandparents built. This house had sheltered many, many generations, and it was where Ellen and I would continue to live—missing Gran, yes, but together for another year and a half—until fire drove us out of our home and away from our safe world in Cooper’s Hollow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Present Day
Roger told me they would widen the dirt drive and improve the grading in order to bring in heavy equipment. It would take a day or two to make the road adequate for their needs, and they were starting that work this morning. I didn’t have to be there for the roadwork, but when the big yellow front-end loader rolled on-site to begin breaking up and hauling away the old house debris, I wanted to be there for that, no question.
“Should I come with you, Mom?” Ellen paused in the kitchen doorway where I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes.
“And ruin your perfect attendance?”
She shrugged and grinned. “After all these years, maybe I’ve earned a day off.”
Ellen wouldn’t want to mess up her record, though, so she must be worrying over me. I sought to reassure her.
“I’m meeting Roger out there. They’re working on the driveway and a parking area today. That said, if you’d like to see the old place one last time before they clear away the remains of the house, I can take you out there after school.”
Ellen set her backpack on the floor and walked over to me. She was as tall as me now, and when she hugged me, she was able to rest her face in the crook of my neck. I patted her back.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“I’m worried about you. I know you’re doing this because I’m leaving for college soon. But Mom, moving back to the Hollow . . . I kind of understand it, but you’re already going to be lonely without me. Won’t you be even more lonely out there?”
I returned her hug, whispering, “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine. I stayed in town for convenience, but it isn’t where I belong.” I smoothed her long, shiny hair. “Besides, it’s not that far out. Certainly not like when you were little, and absolutely not like it was when I was a child. There’s building going on all around the area, and you know what I’m planning for myself.”
She stepped back but didn’t break our hug. “You mean setting up your pottery studio in the cabin? I know. I can hardly wait to see it.”
“And to try it, I’ll bet. You have a lot of talent with clay.”
Instead of her usual response, her dark eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lower lip.
I pulled her back into another tight hug, then eased away so I could stare into her eyes. I touched her chin. “Are you worried about my being on my own? Or more worried about going away yourself?”
Ellen laughed as she dashed the back of her hand across her eyes to catch a few errant tears. “Both.”
“But you wouldn’t change it if you could, would you?”