“Actually, I was wondering if I could buy a pie to take out.”
“Just a pie? Baked some fresh last night. I think we have a cherry and an apple that haven’t been nibbled at yet. Let me get you a little slice of each so you can make an educated decision.”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary.”
“Be my pleasure,” she said, heading back to the kitchen. “And if you like both of them, that’ll be a good excuse to visit again, won’t it?”
She was back a minute later with a full plate and a can of whipped cream. The cherries’ crimson juice slid toward him when she placed the plate on the table.
“Can’t eat whip myself,” Lisbeth told him. “I’m a bit of a health fiend, as you can see.” She clutched her bulging stomach and laughed.
Lisbeth slid into the bench across from Ben and asked how he’d decided to move to Swannhaven. Between mouthfuls, Ben performed the sanitized version of the story. In this fiction, Ben explained how he and his family been visiting the farmhouse that he’d inherited from his grandmother when they first learned that the Crofts was for sale. The thought of buying the place had occurred to him and his supremely dependable and entirely well-balanced wife at once. They’d set it aside at first, thinking it sheer lunacy, but it hadn’t gone away. It hadn’t gone away, and now here they were.
Without all the mental illness, bullying, and economic Armageddon, the whole thing sounded rather romantic.
“Now, why are you on your own?” she asked him. “Where’s your beautiful family? And I already know they’re beautiful, because you’re a handsome man, and in my experience, pretty people tend to stick together.”
“Oh.” Ben felt his face warm. “They’re back at the house. I’ve just been running some errands.”
“You lot must be busy up there, with that big house to whip into shape. They say you’re turning the Crofts into an inn?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Be nice to see it fixed up, that’s for sure. Some around here aren’t too happy about it. But houses are meant to be lived in, aren’t they? And in its day, that was one fine house. Who better than you to restore it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“You’re the Lowells’ kin, aren’t you?”
“My grandmother was a Lowell.”
“Then so are you,” she said. “Names are nice, but people around here know better than most that it’s the blood that matters. Lowells were one of the first to settle here, with my kin right alongside them. You know that?”
Ben shook his head.
“Then you’ve got some catching up to do. The Lowells were one of the Winter Families. And the Winter Families have done their living and dying together for the better part of three hundred years.”
“Winter Families?”
“Your grandmother never told you anything at all?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Well, it’s a long story. Probably better for another time.”
“You can’t tease me like that,” Ben said. Both pies had been good. Nothing remained on his plate but a trough of livid juice that thickened along the rim.
“Hard to know just how to tell it right. It’s the kinda thing that if you look at it straight on you may miss something. But once a month, me and a bunch of the other old biddies from the village meet at the church to talk about the village history and keep the flame of it bright and burning. We call it the Preservation Society. Truth is, half the time we spend chatting about whose cows are with calf and which teenage lovebirds have most lately been caught tumbling in a barn. If you’re there, maybe we’ll have an easier time keeping to the matter at hand. Your family has long been an important part of Swannhaven, and now you’re back. Lost and now returned.”
“I’d love to learn more about the village,” Ben said. And it was true. At the very least, he wanted to learn more about the history of the Crofts.
“Well, sure you would,” Lisbeth said. “This is where your people are from.” She stood and smiled at him. “And, God willing, this is where your people will be from again.”
7
Ben had bought a book for everyone.
“Is this the one where she goes to India?” Caroline asked. She squinted at the back-cover copy.
“Look, there are boats, too,” Charlie said. He hefted his copy of The Book of Secrets over his head to show Ben the schematics of small floating platforms made from sticks and bark.
“We can play with them in one of the streams near the lake,” Ben said.
“For meditation and yoga or something?”
“I know where we can find bark like this, too,” Charlie said. “It’s like paper; Heck uses it to write his journal.”
“Everyone else seemed to like it, Cee,” Ben said. Bub was in his exersaucer, sucking on the corner of a board book about caterpillars. “I think Bub likes his.”
“What did you get for yourself?” Caroline asked Ben.
“Couple of things,” Ben said. “Picked up a copy of Connor’s new book.”
“For the uneven nightstand in Charlie’s room?” she asked.
The kettle clicked, and Ben seized the opportunity to turn away from her. She’d always had a problem with his friends. She thought they were snobs, and the feeling had been reciprocated. Most of them dated people in media or the arts, and at their dinner parties Caroline inevitably had been the only finance person in attendance. Everyone talked about the Observer and the Times; she read the Journal. Their coffee tables held copies of New York and Vanity Fair instead of The Economist. At first they’d treated Caroline politely and then like a curiosity, but things had gone south at about the same time as the economy.
“I read the most entertaining review of his new one on Amazon. I almost forwarded it to you,” she said.
“I appreciate the restraint. Did you get much done while I was out?”