Finally a Family

Was she sure she didn’t want to see the place where Sam grew up?

A niggling curiosity had her putting one foot on the clutch, the other on the brake and her hand on the signal light.

What if he’s not going to the farm?

She had little else to do today. She geared down and turned onto the gravel road, following the dust from Ethan’s truck.

She passed a dairy farm and a few other yards. Some neat, some messy. Some of the houses were newer, some old. She passed an abandoned farm site, the graying timbers of the house sagging sadly toward the earth as if missing its previous owners.

And space and space and more space.

She came to the next crossroad and slowed down. A faint cloud of dust hung over the road going left. South of the road, she thought she saw a yard. She caught the glimpse of a house roof tucked against a clump of trees and beyond that, a hip roof barn painted green.

And parked by the barn, a red pickup truck. Ethan’s truck.

Hannah put the car in gear, spun the wheel and almost popped the clutch as she gunned the car around the corner, stilling the second thoughts spinning through her head as her tires spun on the gravel.

The sign at the end of the driveway, an exact replica of the one at the entrance to Dan and Tilly’s place, assured her that this indeed was Sam’s place.

Doubts immediately assailed Hannah. What was she doing here? She had no intention of sticking around; why check the place out?

But Sam had come from and had returned to this place. Why not discover more about the place the man she once loved had spent much of his life? Why not find out what she was turning down, just so she’d know for sure she had made the right decision?

Sam’s place had the same treed driveway. But as she came closer to the house, her heart lightened.

Where Dan and Tilly’s house clearly said no money had been spared, this place created an entirely different ambience.

The house was a simple cottage style, with a covered veranda, two bay windows flanking a main door. Above the veranda, two dormer windows broke the steeply pitched roof. The house was perched on a hill and, behind and below it, Hannah caught the glint of sunshine bouncing off a small lake.

The place was like a tiny jewel. The classic country house in the classic country setting.

So this is what I’m turning down. Hannah rested her hands on the steering wheel, her eyes taking in the flow of the land, the way the house was set so perfectly on the low rise above the lake. And above it all, a deep blue sky, broken only by faint wisps of cloud.

Was she crazy?

The Westervelds wouldn’t want her intruding into their memory of Sam. She and her mother were an anomaly in Sam’s life.

She should go.

Not yet, she thought, putting the car in gear and turning off the key. She wanted to have another look at Sam’s place and imagine him here. She wanted to fill in the blank spot of the “before us and after us,” the part of Sam’s life that had called him back.

As Hannah stepped out of her car she heard the sound of a door slamming shut. She turned in time to see Ethan charge out of the house, buttoning his shirt as he ran.

He slowed down as he saw her, then walked her way, tucking the faded plaid shirt into old, worn jeans.

“Hey, there,” he said as he came nearer. “Come to check the place out after all?”

“I was just going for a drive.”

He stopped on the other side of her car and leaned on the roof. “You want a tour?”

“No. It looks like you’re busy. I was just…” She lifted her chin. “Just curious.”

Ethan nodded, drumming his fingers on the roof.

Hannah looked past him to the house with the lake shining in the background. “It’s a beautiful spot,” she said quietly.

Ethan glanced back in the same direction she’d been looking. “That it is,” he agreed. “I spent a lot of hours on that lake. I think I know every drop of water it holds.”

“Does the lake have fish?”

“Uncle Sam and I have been trying for the past couple of years to stock it with trout. My cousins and I used to fish on it.”

“Cousins.” She digested that thought a moment. “How many are there of you?”

“I was blessed with two parents, Morris and Dot, one sister, Francine, a bunch of girl cousins and two male cousins. Sam, of course, had no kids.”

And there it came again. The faint backward slap of dismissal. She and her mother were never a legal part of the Westerveld clan, hence they didn’t count.

Did the whole family see her and her mother this way? Some shadowy interlude? A mistake rectified only when Sam returned to the Westerveld bosom and all that messy business back East was cleared out of his life so he could move on?

Did they even think about her and her mother and what had happened to them when Sam left?

Hannah looked back at the house again and an old yearning trembled awake. She remembered Sam talking about the farm. About the garden he used to grow.

One spring, when she was eight, they bought some potting soil, a huge planter and some bedding plants. They planted and watered them. June and July their balcony was a cornucopia of flowers and scents. But best of all, in August, they plucked sun-warmed tomatoes for their salad. Sam made BLTs every night for a week. Hannah easily remembered the sweet tang of those tomatoes.

And she remembered the wistful look on Sam’s face when they pulled the dead plant up and took the pot to the Dumpster in the parking lot of the apartment.

This was what he’d been missing. Hannah surveyed the yard, the house, and that perfect little lake behind. Was this why he had stayed away from her and her mother?

To her surprise and dismay, tears pricked her eyes. She turned away, pretending to look at another part of the yard while she swiped the tears from her cheek.

“Did Sam have a garden here?” she asked, trying to sound normal and contained.

“Yeah. Behind the house. But the past couple of years, he didn’t do much gardening. Do you want to see it?”

“Look, you have work to do and I’d better get back to town. Thanks for the offer though.” She gave him a quick smile and ducked into the car.

But before she put the car in Reverse, she looked at the house again, trying to imagine Sam sitting on the porch, looking out over the lake.

Well, this was it. Her last look at the place he’d come to. She’d probably never see it again.

Hannah sat bolt upright in the bed, pulling herself out of a busy, fretful dream. She blinked as she looked around, her mind trying to make sense of where she was. The light coming into the room was all wrong.

Cheap prints on the wall, thin curtains at the window.

Hannah rubbed her eyes. The motel in Riverbend.