Chapter Three begins…

Daniel heated soup and toasted baby Swiss cheese sandwiches while Lindsay returned calls from the phone extension, which now reached the narrow enamel table in the kitchen.  She hung up with Sam’s sister just as Haidee called her back.

“Remember– “ she tried to calm Haidee before they hung up at nine o’clock, “remember bad news travels faster than good.”

“Unless,” Haidee said, “someone disappears and no one realizes.”

“Too much television drama?” Lindsay surmised.

“Crime scenes may be my scene soon.”

“So you have to think this way,” Lindsay said.  “Give silver hair to your mother who tries to never think the worst,” to which Haidee replied that the worst had already happened to her and they were all right, so that Lindsay thought, just that fast the child had forgotten about her dad.  Or she didn’t believe Sam would die.

“Good night, Haidee love, and remember to call your dad before eleven.  He’s hopefully leaving the hospital by then.”

“Short on clean dishes,” Daniel said, placing a sandwich on a paper towel in front of her, then a mug of tomato soup.  “Haidee doing okay?”

“I’m so proud of her.”

“She’ll do better now that she’s faced the merciless details of life the hard way.”

Lindsay laughed.  “Yes, yes, the hard way.”

He sat down and with his silvery-blue gaze regarded her face, then her hair.  “You don’t look too awful gray for weathering those episodes.”

“Not too.  But my heart took the beating for all the rest of me.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I want to open The Vintage Gate, LLC.”

“The Vintage Gate, sounds inviting. You really going limited liability company?”

“Umhmm, to protect myself from business problems.  I want this.  But Sam needs my time now.  And I don’t know how to coordinate all the problems of a new business with the dire necessities of a dying man.”

“One moment at a time.”

“One moment at a time,” she echoed, and Daniel sat there just smiling at her until she smiled back.

“You can do it,” he said, and she nodded, feeling she really could.  “Lindsay, you know catastrophes have a way of taking care of themselves, hey, you know that.”  She wanted to agree, but she was thinking she really didn’t know.

After their meal, she layered the dishes in the dishwasher.  There were no new additions since the meal last night.  She had given away too many sets in her need to simplify.  A detriment when she needed extra plates and bowls on days like this.  White ironstone preferred.

“You ready for bed?” Daniel asked with his hand poised over the light switch.

Shocked at the question, knowing better all the same, Lindsay nodded and avoided looking at him.

She simply said, “Good night.”  Her back felt stiff because her willful body wanted to go the other way as she passed through the shortest hall in the world to the living room.  Three steps seemed like thirty.

“See you in the morning,” he called from the back of the kitchen.  He had to turn past the refrigerator in the cubbyhole, and then she heard him climbing the steep, narrow carpeted stairs.

They made it to separate bedrooms, she thought gratefully.  So far so good.  No no, never use Gooee’s expression.

Lindsay heard the weight of his steps on the thick-carpeted floor above the living room.  He entered the large office-slash-library-slash-guest room where, along the windows, she had dressed a full-size wrought iron antique bed with a feather top mattress.  She imagined him on the white goose down comforter removing his shoes, sliding around a little bit, deciding it was all too puffy to suit him.

She went in her room and closed the door, raising the layers of sheers to cascade over the glass panes to the living room.

Itty toddled toward Lindsay, raised her tail, scooted her front feet backward, compacted herself into a square shape and gave a sharp little stomp before she ran beneath her skirt, her tail tickling bare shins.

“There you are,” she cooed, snuggling the petite round skunk.  “My Itty bitty pretty one, smelling sweet as a powder puff.  My soft sweetheart.”

Fern came skidding around the bed.  She nearly tipped onto her nose as she screeched to a halt and wheeled around, acting like she would spray.

“Fluffy Fern, I’m going to pinch your butt.”  She snuggled Itty and tousled Fern after tucking her foot into a thick slipper for something besides toes to grab.  Run away.  Stomp.  Skid back, stomp.  Give a cheerleader twist.  Wheel and pretend to spray.  Fern, named for her proud tail, was three years old and not tired of playing.  “I’m going to pinch you, I’ll pinch you,” Lindsay teased.

“Hey, Lindsay…” Daniel’s voice trailed eerily through the air vent in her ceiling.

She looked up. “Yes?”

“Pinch them for me too,” he said, and she realized he heard every move she made.

“Are you in Sam’s room?”  Sam’s was right over hers for a north lake view.

“No, but I can still hear you.”

“Goodness, thanks for letting me know.  Night then, Daniel…” and he called softly back, “Good night, Lindsay.”

Quietly she put on her nightdress then whispered her prayer for no dreams just as she had since high school, and slid between the warm jersey sheets into the promise of white calm that held her mind safe.

A vision in light came before she slept.

A vision of an old man with long hair pulled back, a fathomless spirit that spun into a younger man with blonde hair pulled back.

A man with olive eyes.  No, an owl.

But she was calm and safe.

A squeal like a teapot going off in the dawn sat her straight up for a second.  Then she dropped onto her pillow and rolled on the bed toward the skunks in their wee bedroom corner by the windows.  If one wanted to live with skunks, she thought, they must be willing to get up at four twenty-four every morning.  That was precisely when her skunks decided to go to bed and began quibbling over which den they would sleep in.

Fern was screaming in wrath today.  Itty was on her side next to Fern, back against the wall, pushing with all her legs to get Fern off the white flannel sheets.  But it was Fern’s bed. I tty’s was the plush den closest to the sweet alfalfa-filled litter pan for a reason.

Lindsay grabbed Itty and went to the mudroom to let Garth and Susanna outside.  In the kitchen, she shook a dozen hulled sunflower seeds out of a canning jar for Itty.  “You’re being a witch this morning.  You do know Great Horned Owls eat skunks?”

Then Lindsay remembered the owl from her sleep, though an owl of a different kind.  She wasn’t supposed to dream if she prayed, so what was going on?

Itty munched seeds with tail high then followed Lindsay for more.  Instead, Lindsay made coffee, dumped lentils in a crockpot for soup, checked the dogs, started dishes and laundry.  She needed breakfast, the dogs and skunks needed fed.

Oh goodness, wake up brain, Daniel was here too.

“Woo-hoo,” a woman’s voice called cheerily from the mudroom.   No, oh no no no! Gooee.  All-encompassing, abominable Gooee.

Lindsay backed toward the cubbyhole door, wanting terribly to flee.  She could hide behind Maimee’s cottage until Gooee decided she was not here.

How did Gooee know she was here?

Lindsay had purposefully not spoken to her for fourteen months.  Truly, the woman was just too out there.  Just too– too– universal-minded. Lindsay was here and now.  Earth unbound. Gooee was always projecting her thoughts into Lindsay’s brain and goodness knows how she managed that, but it worked for her.  Lindsay wanted her privacy and for life to be normal.

“Woo-hoo.  Didn’t someone need beautiful white ironstone china from England?”

This cannot be happening.  Lindsay, uncombed and in her robe, cautiously rounded the corner to face a fresh vision of brown-eyed Gooee in red lip gloss.  The shawl and long, red batik dress spoke her entitlement in the world, and though the undesired guest only had opened the door, not the screen, Lindsay felt intruded upon.

Gooee was a classic seventies Earth mother knockout in a silky gray pageboy.  When she was twenty-two, Lindsay knew, she changed her name from Lois to Gwynevere, meaning ‘fair lady.’  These days she called herself Gooee.  In Gooee’s own words, “might as well get real, darling.”  She had actually dropped down to about two hundred and eighty pounds, Lindsay realized.  Another sixty pounds lost and they would be the same size.  Only Gooee would never have full breasts like her own.  Then Lindsay acknowledged she was being more the witch than Itty.  And that was because she definitely felt put upon at the moment, ironstone dishes or not.

“Hi, darling. I helped set up at a garage sale this morning and noticed these dishes, and just had to follow my instincts and buy them for you. A house-warming gift, my dear, to go with everything, so I know these will be perfect for whatever you needed.”

Gooee stepped inside, standing beside Lindsay, eight inches taller in her wedges. She laid the cardboard box in Lindsay’s arms.

“How did you know?” Lindsay asked, genuinely wondering though pleased with the dishes.

“We just know these things.”

Gooee was often too vague on really important answers. But always cheerful. Too loud, too crude. But brutally honest about herself and what everyone else could feel, if they only wanted to feel universal. ‘The Universe,’ was Gooee’s favorite phrase, given to saying it the way a universal joint salesman says ‘universal joint’ all the livelong day.

Gooee was a contradiction unto herself. In a nutshell, Gooee was as concise as she was long-winded. And the contradictory question on the tip of Lindsay’s tongue, but she was too polite to ask. ‘Was Gooee crazy or the sanest person on the planet?’

“Well, dear, you take those dishes inside, and I’m going to go to my bus for breakfast fruits. We can nibble while we get caught up.” And she went outside.

Lindsay knew to expect the orange bowl of organic fruits with dreadful lemon-honey drizzle. Sam made awful faces. Daniel washed off the drizzle, saying students in Gooee’s high school literature class wouldn’t eat any so Lindsay ended up with theirs.

She did love the ironstone. She peeked around the box, going up the two stairs into the kitchen.

“Hey, did I hear Gooee?” Daniel asked tiredly, scratching at his beard as he walked into the kitchen from the other side.

Lindsay got an electric shock from alarm. Yes! You did. No time to say it out loud.

She practically dropped the box on the pink enamel table beside them and held her arm out, pushing against his chest.

Daniel’s astonished blue eyes registered.

Wildly, Lindsay looked over her shoulder, shoving him.

“Gooee?!” He wheezed, wheeling for the stairs.

Lindsay pushed against his back to propel him. “Go go man!” she hissed loudly. “Go- Go- Go- Go- Go!!!” She heard every step of his escape to preserve their privacy.

Gooee let herself back in, Newfs with her. “I met the puppies.”

“They’ve been here four days today,” Lindsay said calmly.

“And where is he?” The baiting question. Gooee sounded like someone’s aunt about to pinch a cheek. “I see his truck outside.”

Lindsay realized they had been caught. “Sam is using Daniel’s truck.” She never never lied. But she was lying now. “We sold our old truck.” That was true.

Gooee turned from the kitchen to the living room, depositing the plastic bowl on the table without looking, instead her entranced gaze on the cottage. “This is nice. Oh, oh, so nice. I like it. I really like it.” She wandered around the living room like she could buy the place herself. “Oh, but I should be quieter. Sam must be sleeping.” She pointed at the bedroom through the French doors. “Is that your master bedroom?” she whispered.

The doors were open. Empty bed unmade. Itty and Fern were staring them down, standing on the rug belligerently pointing their tails at the ceiling that hid Daniel.

“A face off with skunks,” Gooee whispered. “Universal moment.” She tilted her pretty gray head to the far left, studying them. “They’re very square, aren’t they?”

“When they’re planning to stomp and spray you.” Lindsay warily lifted her gaze to the ceiling for half a second, knowing Daniel could hear everything.

“Sam’s not in bed,” Gooee said slowly. “I was afraid I would wake him.”

“Sam’s gone fishing. Very early.” Lindsay wanted to throw herself around the living room like Ron Conrad in Pants on Fire.

Lies. Dishonesty, rudeness, ingratitude, ungracious hospitality. Oh for goodness sake, she thought, what karma was going to happen to her for this?

Gooee took a seat on the edge of the taupe sofa. “I knew you were in here somewhere. I just kept following the road, and around and around it wound until there was your car. I didn’t know if it was this house or that darling yellow one, but I noticed Daniel’s truck and said, there it is, and Daniel is there already so I won’t be waking them. But you always did get up with the skunks.” Gooee laughed at her cute word play on skunks instead of birds or chickens.

Never mind that, Lindsay thought. She remembered Gooee had her telephone number a few days ago. “How did you know we moved to Koontz Lake?”

“I went by your house yesterday, the signs were out and it was void of furnishings.”

“And you knew we moved over here to Koontz Lake?”

“We just know these things.” And Lindsay wished she would stop saying that. It was never an answer. Definitely not.

“The good thing is now you’re even closer to me.”

“Oh, okay then.” That made her so much more composed.

“I lost your other phone number,” Gooee continued, and Lindsay thought that she had actually torn Gooee’s phone number and address out of her book. Goodness, she almost said that one aloud. She had to stop thinking like this. Gooee could distinctly hear her thoughts, that she knew.

“But now you have a new number,” Gooee said.

No chance in the whole wide universe.

“Your real estate agent was very helpful,” Gooee said.

And Lindsay despaired. Gooee didn’t need the new number, and she certainly didn’t need this address. Say something nice now. “Thank you so much for the pretty dishes. I was hoping to get more, just last night.”

“And here they are darling lady.”

“Yes, and here they are. You found the perfect ones. Really, I love white ironstone.”

“Just following my instincts, darling, and keeping up with my friends, since it’s been so long… I’ve missed you terribly…. Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Gooee turned her head to the right, slightly raised her chin, poised. “Delicious is a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling.

“How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed: there is no winter and no night: all tragedies, all ennuis vanish, – all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons.

Please stop, Lindsay begged with her thoughts but Gooee wound on, “Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.”

Lindsay decided this must be the crazy lady. Maimee had a premonition and here she was, all ready to torment and tribulate Lindsay. Maimee’s wish for revenge was Gooee.

“But, darling,” Gooee said, now gazing over Lindsay’s face.  “Let’s not wait to see one another during this lifetime, we only have so long and then we’re gone, what a waste, there may be a thousand years to be apart later.”

Gooee looked like she was taking a deep breath, to see her through the next paragraph, or three, and she rushed on.  “I know I don’t have a stop button on my mouth, lucky for everyone concerned that I don’t have a rewind and play either.  We’re all better off most of the time if we just don’t remember what comes out of me.  But I want you to know that whatever I have done to offend you, I am truly sorry and wish to be forgiven because I really like you.  I love you.  You are such a wonderful person to talk to and you always listen and try to understand everyone and you are so beautiful in your heart, I miss being around someone like you. Because there aren’t too many people like you, Lindsay dear, there really aren’t.  Ralph Waldo Emerson.  ‘When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.’”

Lindsay blinked once and put her hands over her face.  Deeply remorseful, that’s what she was now.  This – this– dear dear woman.

Goodness, this was what Lindsay loved about her.  Gooee would always take the chance and open her beautiful heart to people.  Lindsay knew that she had never been as open as Gooee.  She had never in her life said anything so beautiful to anyone as Gooee just said to her.

“Oh, darling, darling, don’t cry, my apology was to make you glad,” Gooee said in singsong.  “Don’t hide your face.”

“A-shamed,” Lindsay managed, shaking her head.  “Just ashamed.”

“Why ashamed?” Gooee coaxed softly.

She uncovered her face.  “I never said anything or called for months.  I just disappeared.” Lindsay couldn’t tell her why, as some things were better left unsaid, mind reader or not.

“Well, you have a chance to do it all over again.  Right now.”

Lindsay was regaining her composure.  And wondering, just a little bit, why this was a good thing, her getting to do it over.  She met Gooee at a pottery class and, basically, was adopted by her.  But Gooee had such a precious heart that much was so apparent, regardless of her abominable presence and all-encompassing intellect.  People always wished her to go away.  But Gooee only desired to be genuine for their benefit.

Lindsay would try this friendship again.  There just were times Lindsay would have to speak up.

“There’s an upstairs too,” Gooee said, standing. “I want to see.”

Now Lindsay had to speak up.  “There’s no time for me to show you.”

“Oh?  Ohhh.”  She sounded a only little defeated.  “Okay, you have somewhere to go,” and Lindsay agreed, saying, “Yes yes, I still have to shower and dress.”

Gooee started for the kitchen.  “Where are the stairs?  Couldn’t I just take a little self-tour while you get ready?” and Lindsay said, “No-no,” like she was speaking to a toddler.

“Oh.” Gooee paused, now sounding deflated, confused and hurt.

Lindsay decided if they were starting over then she had to tell the truth.  Only some of it.  “Sam is in the hospital.”

“Oh, finally you tell me–”

“What? Finally?”

“We just know these things.”

“Oh, really, Gooee–”

“But if Sam’s in the hospital–” she paused, turning slowly to the bedroom where they could see the silver-blue extended cab pickup parked outside the white fence.  She pointed questioningly.

Goodness, just splendid.  She never could lie.  “Sam is borrowing Daniel’s truck.”  How far was she willing to take this?  Gooee would definitely be back.  She talked to everyone.  And truly, she did not have a censor device between her brain and mouth.  “Okay. Daniel is upstairs,” Lindsay admitted.  “He slept over so we can get back to the hospital early.  He was very tired after midnights.”

“Well I knew that all the time, dear, I was just wondering how long it was going to take for you to tell me.  And I assure you no one will be told so you don’t need to worry yourself over that.  Just between you, me and the lamppost up there, so far, so good.”

Sure, Lindsay thought.

“I’m coming down now,” Daniel called through the vent, true defeat in his tone being he was on the losing team this morning.

“Daniel, dear, I hope you have your clothes on,” Gooee called up the vent.

“He slept upstairs with his clothes,” Lindsay said.

“Oh, I know.”  Gooee laughed.  “I’m just tormenting him.”

“My goodness, Gooee,” she said, “I don’t know how much torment I can take.”  Lindsay went into the kitchen and scooped some of the honey-lemon drizzled fruit for Daniel into one of her own bowls.  “I’ll keep a little fruit. But thank you for bringing all this over.  It’s just that we have to get back to the hospital right away.  Sam may be released.  If not, then I want to be with him.”

“I understand fully, dear, and I’m going to go now but I’ll be back very soon to help you out and we can catch up then.”  Gooee grabbed Daniel by the hand, swinging their arms flirtatiously.  “Daniel is a good friend for you and Sam, I know that, so don’t mind my harassing.”  She hugged Daniel then Lindsay and opened the door to the mudroom.

“Oh, Lindsay,” she said, “I noticed a business for rent on the corner when I turned off the highway several times trying to find you.  And I kept saying to myself, over and over as I passed, ‘Lindsay Davinson is so creative, she could really do something universal with that place.’”

Gooee took off in her seventies white Volkswagen bus with black-and-white Woodstock scenes along both sides.  The image of a newspaper page blowing past the window at six in the morning if Lindsay didn’t know what she was seeing.

Lindsay was scowling for ten minutes after Gooee left.  She ate breakfast, avoiding the fruit.  She grunted agreement with Daniel about the weather and Garth’s soft coat until Daniel broached the Gooee subject that had Lindsay so riled.

“She’s alright, really,” he said.

“Daniel, you never liked her.”

“I never said I didn’t like Gooee.”  Daniel was at the sink rinsing the fruit.  “I don’t like sour drizzle, hey some things a person has to avoid. But Gooee, she’s got a big heart.”

“And mouth.”

“And mouth.  Unfortunately, she will mention me being here to someone she shouldn’t say anything to.  Consequently, we won’t be happy.  But we would do it again if we needed to.  Since we did nothing wrong, Lindsay.”

“Nothing.”

“We do our best to always be able to say we did nothing wrong.  We’re okay.  And Gooee will be Gooee.”

Lindsay was done thinking about Gooee.  She took a shower and Daniel went next.

Lindsay dressed in her flax-colored rustic cardigan and the black denim skirt, didn’t even put on socks with her mules.  She grabbed the Newfer-scooper, an obvious chore, and the leaf rake.  Raking dead grass from what Sam called their postage stamp lawn was the most mindless, therapeutic activity she knew.  She needed mindless.

She had dodged Gooee for fourteen months and now she was back.  Okay, Lindsay would live with that.  She could see all the admirable traits of Gooee, or Gwynevere or Lois.  Or Gougou, that legendary sea witch from Miramichi Bay.  Whoever she was in reality.

She knew she was at this place to build a new life, not leave behind her old life.

Grass sprouts rifled her senses.  Freshly mown lawn.  Rolling on spring grass with Sam.  Piling grass over their giggling girls.  When they were so newly married everything hurt, though it shouldn’t have.  Now she was so extensively married, and everything still hurt.  But she didn’t want to lose him by him dying.

A new life before he died.  That was why they were here.  Lindsay had decided on the tiny village of Koontz Lake because her husband was never planning to leave his crane job, even with two hundred and thirty-one days left.  Otherwise, they might be somewhere truly scenic.

Koontz Lake. Not so scenic.

One of those northern-like villages in the middle of everywhere such as television paradigms.  Almost no one lived here.  Just people passing through on their way to the other place, passing through as they whiled away the weekend, passing through after staying the summer.  A place where nothing changed as everything around you modified.  They needed a place where nothing would change while they went through the greatest adjustment of their middle-aged lives.

She decided to come here because the town had a lake along the east.  A lake felt necessary for their life change.  They could pretend they were retired and seventy instead of Sam barely making fifty.

They always wanted a pontoon and water-faring Newfoundland.  Now they had two Newfs, the cottage she loved, and the lake.  She wanted to get the pontoon now, so Sam could go out and fish.

“I need a pontoon,” she murmured as she raked more slowly, the edge off her stress.

Gooee, the name meant stress for her.  A pontoon meant less stress.  Sam could work, then sit out there and fish.  And be with her, of course.

Read more of Chapter Three here. . . .

Begin at beginning of novel here . . .

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Chapter Two to the end…

Thirteen years ago, Daniel had met Terri.  Lindsay appreciated how the girls adored Terri, who made everything enchanting those first few weeks.  Haidee was six, Natalie seven, Melanie nine.

But Terri was never around after that and Daniel was seldom around.  Then, after almost five years of marriage, he evolved back into their lives full time. Lindsay, to this day, didn’t know what happened but, apparently, Terri walked out.

What Lindsay did know was during the period of Daniel dating Terri, then the first year of his marriage, she hauled herself through a paralyzing depression.

When Haidee was seventeen, going through the second drug rehab program, Lindsay had been around Daniel for a few hours as they painted the side of the house.  Hours later she was unsettled, aroused. She could barely breathe.

Haidee’s counselor mentioned her mood when they were reviewing the appointment schedule.  “You’ve been quiet the last few times I’ve seen you,”

“I’ve been really sad. I guess that’s what it is.”

And for once, she said it.

“A few weeks ago I got to see Daniel after he was away on vacation, and I realized something.  I remember, so easily, the first time I met him, every minute of him being around us, coming and going all these years.  I remember how peaceful he can be, how he brings rational judgment to every situation.  Talking to him about everything.  Waiting for him to show up for twenty years. Needing him to show up.”

She sighed, studying the counselor, who was listening raptly for anything to help Haidee and the family.  Was this information helpful, Lindsay wondered.  No one could hear anyway.  This didn’t count.

“I never told him,” she continued, for Haidee’s sake, if not her own.  “I believe I love him.”

“I believe you do,” the counselor said without judgment.  “Could you tell him?”

“I tried once, when he planned to marry.  He still married and my heart broke.  What could I ask, really.  He is Sam’s best friend.  I was married, we had the girls.”

“You could tell him again. Now.”

“He is Sam’s best friend.  I can’t– we can’t– we can’t hurt Sam.”  And she knew she spoke the truth for Daniel too.

They just couldn’t.  Never.

Lindsay sat on her bed at the cottage for several hours that night scribbling in the theme book.  She was still wearing her skirt and hooded sweatshirt.  The pink glow of lamps barely lit the pages she hoped she could read tomorrow.  These ideas had to be recorded.

She sketched the building dimensions and designated antique sections then those for tools and architectural salvage materials.  Booths for local artists, including in the tiny cottage.

Goodness!  She remembered, at one in the morning, she had left the vulnerable transplants in the yard and didn’t want to lose them to frost.  She slid into her mules, pulled a small flashlight from a basket by the French doors to the deck.  A full moon lit her path.  A wind gust pushed at the small of her back and reeled shadows of black branches from leafless trees over the cold ground.

The box of transplants was gone.  Oh goodness.  Stolen from here?  Lindsay felt a welt of anger raise on her forehead.  She lost her perennials, the cost of being sidetracked.

Maybe Sam moved them.  Since there wasn’t a garage, she searched along the front fence.  Near the old rusty mailbox, she discovered a plot of freshly dug earth surrounding a sheet covered with straw.  She peeked beneath to find the pale green and brown stems.  Sam.  He needed to stop overdoing.

Lindsay returned to her theme book.

She knew a folk artist creating scenes on antique windows.  Lindsay was going to invite her to rent the front of the cottage.  She planned the customer service functions.  The Wyann’s section, a tea and herb section, shelves for natural toiletries.  Chose her order of Cranberry Attic Candles.

Half past three in the morning Sam knocked on the door.  “Lindsay?”

“Hi.”  Her voice croaked.  “Come in, Sam.”

He shuffled across the room to balance on the edge of the dark sage wing chair.  “What are you doing still awake?”

She tried to smile but her face had gone to sleep without her.  “Brainstorming,” she managed.

“I need to go to the hospital.” He shook his head, not looking at her. “Maybe not.”

Lindsay scooted right onto her papers and calculator.  “Sam?”

“Blood in the urine again, too much–”

“Oh Sam, oh no Sam.”  He wouldn’t say he was in pain.  She was pulling on her robe, decided she didn’t need one and grabbed a jacket.

“You can dress, Lindsay, ‘cause I will.”

“You’re lounge pants are fine.  I’ll get your jacket, let’s just go.”

“Call your sister or Daniel to let the dogs out if we aren’t back.”

“I’ll call from Saint Andrew’s, Sam.”

They had an hour and a half drive.  She knew there was ambulance dispatch along their way, but they may not need to stop.

The drive through the dark night was almost over when Sam roused.  “I was fishing after my half-a-day turn yesterday, found a spot by this old wooden bridge, at this guy’s place by the cove.  Good fishing in the cove there, I can go out in waders.  But, you know I wouldn’t go over the bridge to get to the cove.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”  She knew Sam had a modified phobia of bridges, gephyrophobia.  He would only go under or around a wooden bridge, or through the water.

“Those waders are useless.  I slid in the mud under the bridge.  Wonder if that is what caused this,” he said grimacing as pain sliced through her own body in empathy for him.

“Or maybe digging the bed for my flowers,” she suggested but he shook his head, and said, “I didn’t dig anything.”

Goodness, well that was interesting.  Who planted the flowers?  She patted his hand, held on for a while.  “Sam, try to sleep now.  You won’t get much at the hospital.”

“You need to sleep more, Clara Rose, in case you have to play ambulance.  You need more rest, not staying up late like you just did.”

“I will, I promise. I’ll be okay.”

“Then show me,” he challenged as he dozed again. “Show me I can–” The full white moon shone on the back of his grizzly head.

Show you what, Sam, she thought.  You can leave?  Show me you can believe I’ll be all right without you?

Sometime around noon the next day, Lindsay barely steered her car over three miles an hour through the lake area.  Every bone in her body complained from weariness.  She could hardly tap energy to breathe.  She checked the sunvisor mirror for a true assessment of how she felt.  Her eyes were practically sightless with navy-blue stains beneath.  Her dark hair hung wearily along her too flat face.  But the cheeks were high and perky.  Lovely as always, she thought.  If only other parts of her middle-age physique remained so constant.

She parked the Crown Victoria on the southeast side of her house near Maimee’s front door.  And she sat there, windows up, mulling her case.

Their first night of this.  Coming home, alone, leaving him at the hospital to receive care she could not give.  Sitting here in the drive, knowing she had to sleep for both their sakes.  When all she wanted was to go back for him.

If she had gone to bed last night this wouldn’t be so difficult, she thought, angry with herself for her shortsightedness.  She had to keep a balance here.  She could have been fishing with Sam when he got off work.  She couldn’t wait another few days?  Just waited to transplant flowers and work out a business budget?

Lindsay practically crawled out of the car, trying not to notice her neighbor on the tiny front porch of her miniature bungalow flipping through a catalog, with Levis and a tucked in sweatshirt presumably keeping her warm

Newfoundlands in fiction, Garth and Susanna

“I let your dogs out a couple times this morning,” Maimee called to Lindsay, some edge off her usual tone.  “I would hope you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh?”  How?  Lindsay glanced from her cottage to Maimee.

“You wouldn’t want those two horses peeing in your house,” she said gruffly.

“Thank you, Maimee, I entirely forgot to call someone.”

“Well, you won’t ever have to as long as I’m here.”

“But… how?” Lindsay knew she locked the doors.

Maimee stood, stalking to the white door of her bungalow.  “You don’t think I’ve lived next door to that place for forty years and don’t have a key by now, do you?”

“Well, that’s– that’s–”  Nice?  Lindsay contemplated saying.  “That works,” she said instead.

Maimee scowled.  “You want it back?”

“No, no, Maimee.  It seems we’re going to need your help.  Really, thank you.”

“You’ve got it.”  She hurled her catalog inside and slammed the door then shooed Lindsay toward the white cottage, her long spindly legs piloting her down the steps without her holding onto the handrail.  “Now show me, where the dog food is and how many buckets do they eat.”

Lindsay led her into the mudroom, explaining that each dog ate two cups of food, breakfast and supper.  “Slow metabolism,” she said, and gestured to the bowls on the bench tables for tall dogs.  “There’s always water in the bowls.  Oh, and Maimee, please don’t ever let them stay out in the yard when you’re not right there.  Newfs are a favorite breed for dog ‘nappers.”

“Any other pets?”

She imagined Maimee with her other pets.  “I’ll take care of Itty and Fern,” she said, but she was too tired to explain they were skunks.  Anyway, they used a litter pan and would sleep through anything except smoke, mowers and vacuums.  All she had to do was toss raw vegetables and nuts on the floor in an emergency, lock her bedroom door and they wouldn’t miss her for half the day.

Maimee headed out the mudroom door.  “Get some sleep before you drive back to the hospital. He needs you to be rested with what he’s going through.”

Lindsay did have another question, but Maimee was gone.

Really though, how did she know about Sam at the hospital, and that the dogs even needed out?  Lindsay stood there, watching Garth and Susanna eat.  The extracurricular information line was impossibly active around Koontz Lake, she thought, remembering how Mr. Marshall knew she wanted a price on the complex.  Goodness, what if she ever really said anything to someone, or, heaven forbid, her actions were worthy of this gossip, goodness, the ideas that would come out of that information.

Maimee opened the door and stuck her springy-haired head inside.  “By the way.  There’s a crazy lady who lives here at the lake.  Have I mentioned her yet?  Don’t think so ‘cuz those dogs shook me up.  Now she is gonna be able to help you.  She will find all the artists you need for that old antique mall.  Now I know I mentioned that mall closing!”  She swirled her hand around her head.  “Don’t no one floating around here tell me I didn’t.”

Surreal, Lindsay thought, too tired to ask as she watched Maimee stalk away from the door.

A brief impression of her great-uncle cast over her dulled senses, so much she thought he was beside her for a second.  She always thought of Uncle Herron as ancient and spry.  He had to meet Maimee Storganaff.  No no, she would chew him up.

She was in her bedroom when she felt the first breath of the day float by her.  She was too tired, feeling drafts where none should be.  The change of weather breezing through the sparsely insulated cottage, surely.  But it was as if spring just breathed.

Lindsay realized that peri-menopause coming at her entirely too soon hadn’t hit the fan as harshly as this season’s  heart-renching transformation, which was sweeping them ever closer to Sam’s death.

Calm now… breathe…

Hoping his hospital lunch tray reached him by now, she stripped to cotton briefs and fluffy socks to crawl into bed at noon, fluffing up a huge hollow beneath the blankets for herself.

Weary enough to be less wary than ever in the last three decades, she tried to pray not to dream but only fell face downward into an engulfing sleep, cringing, just waiting. . .

A wide-eyed gray seal skidded through the doorway and onto the rug making her two lounging Newfoundlands raise their great heads to grumble.  Even both her skunks lifted their tails.  The dogs, the skunks, they saw the seal!  But goodness, she was dreaming if that creature was in her bedroom.

She struggled to open her eyes but hypnotizing light suspended her.  She was surrounded with heaven thrilling tones, and to make life more dismal, outlandish women wandered through her new cottage.  One of the two in long dresses was singing… the one with turquoise eyes.  A skinny older woman wore shorts.  Another tiny one with sleeves torn off her flannel shirt was pulsing a heartbeat on a flat leather drum.

Cranky Maimee slammed in the front door and thumped through the room with the cottage key on a neck chain.  The scrawly cat on Maimee’s shoulder clung to her floppy gray hair as the old woman slammed her exit so hard Lindsay jerked awake.

Goodness.

Certain the front door slammed, she bolted off the bed landing in front of the French doors to the living room, facing only one of four cottage entrances.

Nothing, except that inexplicable cluster of light bubbles.

She crouched low and hurried to the window, screening her near nudity with the white lace sheers as she ducked behind the towering wardrobe.  No one was in the yard.

She cringed from the icy fear in her spine, waiting.

Had they even gone?

Then a breath. . .  almost a breath floated by.

It was happening all over again.  After thirty years.

She realized this was the first night since Haidee’s birth that she hadn’t slept at least four hours, though she usually slept for nine.  All Lindsay’s life she was instilled to go to sleep even when others did not.  Slumber parties when other girls were awake until dawn, she was dreaming by midnight.  The dreaming started when she was really young and she always felt like she would miss a piece of life if she didn’t sleep, not if she didn’t stay awake.

Reassuringly, two gigantic black dogs rested on the bedroom rug watching her with great interest.  Lindsay realized if someone had been in her cottage, or if a presence of someone were here now, she would be informed. But the dogs were unperturbed.

Goodness, she knew the problem. She didn’t actually pray. She went back to her room, understanding fully the expression of ‘shaking in ones own skin’.

Through the veil of life where time is an illusion, dimensions and eras of time are not differentiated….

In an Ojibwe village at Manitowik Lake, in Northern Ontario near the eastern shore of Lake Superior and Old Woman Bay… during the twilight… Cay ro say sensed the Breath of Spring arrive.  The dreaded day had come to them.

She would never allow her family to be severed again. Lifetimes from now, she knew this grief would remind her to sacrifice… to keep the family as one because this change in her life today Cay ro say could not bear.

She linked her arm more securely with Wah tay see’s.  Her younger sister sang strong for their eldest sister and brother as they retreated by the northern hemlock path into skeletons of sugar maples.  Answering Wah tay see’s song for their new life, Brown Wolf, One Who Leads the Way, faced their family, raising his arm.

Cay ro say stepped higher on the rocks for him to see her, inhaling the stinging lake wind and praying at her biting resentment.

But she could do no more, not after the days spent praying Go ee yaw’s pride away.

Turn to us, please, she pleaded tightly within her breath.  But one of eight horses gifted by their village blocked her sister’s broad back from view.  The final realization.

Go ee yaw would never turn, she knew.  Her sister would stubbornly walk away, the-teacher-who-was-not-so-wise-after-all.

Cay ro say’s expectation in the moment was so heightened she cringed, waiting as she did for a dream.

A breath, a whisper, passed by her shoulder.

She had felt the veil open many times. But not at the noonday.

And the whisper?  A whimper of fear… yes, she heard now.  Though she did not know…. whose fear?  Yet someone so near to her heart she could touch them in comfort if only she had that comfort to give in this moment.

Convulsive sobs broke Wah tay see.  Cay ro say tried to sing and burning tears silenced her too, pain stabbing her throat.

Then, from the rise, lifted ever higher the shrill voices of their grandfather and grandmother.  Tall Heron and Scolding One, mourning, singing. Unfaltering..

Why were Go ee yaw and Brown Wolf so determined to give everything for the sake of their bond?  But Cay ro say knew this departure might well have included herself and her older brother, Mo wa sah.  If they had been given a choice by the Grandmothers, would they have left to be able to stay together?

If not for the dreams.  The people valued her dreams and would not ask her to choose.  Not at this time, they would not… because of what Dreamland sent.

.

Lindsay had slept three hours, just enough to feel like she had a head full of socks.  Yawning repetitiously, Lindsay dressed without taking a shower she was in such a hurry to return to Sam.  Fresh lingerie, her charcoal boucle’ skirt and black yarn cardigan.  She rolled black stockings to her knees and slipped on the black mules.

The phone rang when she was brushing her hair, thinking she needed to warm soup, she was so famished.  She answered in her bedroom, slumping on the edge of the rumpled bed.

“Did you eat?” Daniel asked, and she told him nothing since dinner last night.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.  “I’ll have something when I get there in ten minutes.  Hey, I’ll drive you back over.  We’ll take your car to bring Sam home.”

He worked midnights last night but there he was, a few miles from Koontz Lake.  Her headache vibrated and she finally thought to agree with him and tell him good-bye.

Lindsay took the dogs outside before Daniel arrived.  She remembered the planted perennials and walked over to snoop for clues, arms folded around her, hands tucked inside the sleeves of her black cardigan.  The sheet was gone and straw lightly covered the flowerbed where plastic markers were sticking in the black earth.  She checked closer and found the flowers correctly labeled.

She heard Maimee hoarsely calling the dogs under her breath.  She tried to pretend she didn’t notice the dogs now at the south gate, watching Maimee place her scrawly gray cat on the hood of the old Buick.  Low in its throat the cat said, “Cwadow.”  Lindsay heard those distinct syllables all the way from her own yard.

“Here’s Cwadow,” Maimee encouraged Garth and Susanna.  “Get Cwadow, get him.”

Garth coiled his upper lip like he would just like to do that, his tongue slapping his nose.

“Garth–” Lindsay warned.

Maimee dropped a cardboard flat of dirt and stems over the fence.  “Here’s a bunch of achillea for your garden,” she said gruffly.  “It’s flathead yarrow, grows a foot, all colors.  Don’t have any more room for them.”

“Maimee, thank you,” Lindsay said, pleased.  She looked over at the dug earth.  “Maimee, do you know anything about these flowers being planted last night?”

“Good you got some straw on those.  They would’ve been shocked by the freeze coming.”  The old woman walked away.

Daniel brought her a sliced beef sandwich with horseradish, potato cakes and pineapple juice.  He had been to his favorite restaurant, besides Kelly’s Steak House.  She ate in the car, her life now speeding west on Highway 30.  She wadded the wrappers in the empty bag, then with one finger touched Daniel’s brown plaid jacket.

“What?” he asked, and gave her a grin that tipped sideways.

“Just checking to see if I’m awake.”

“Hey, why?”

“Today seems surreal.”  The second time she had used that word in a few hours, she thought.  “Things just keep happening without me asking.  But–” she took a deep breath, looked out the side window at flat scenery on the merely functional highway.  “But, if anything was surreal, I wouldn’t be journeying all the way back to a hospital ninety minutes away when my husband is dying.  Surreal or not, I would have had the foresight to move close to a hospital!”

“There are hospitals out here. Plymouth, South Bend, LaPorte, Valpo–”

“Sam just wants that one.  And I didn’t think beyond my needs.”

“Sure you did.  You got him to the lake to fish, didn’t you?”

“You’re right.  We need a pontoon now.  He slipped on the bank under the bridge yesterday.”

“Wooden bridge?” Daniel asked, grimacing, and Lindsay nodded, murmuring, “Mmmhmm,” so that Daniel laughed, no matter how much empathy he had for his friend.  “Big thunderhead could have stayed on the bridge.  But he would just fall off.”

“He will probably be released when we get there.”

“That’s good,” Daniel said.  “Hey, what was going on that they kept him?”

“You know,” she squeezed her eyes shut against the reality of the answer.  “They just don’t know. He won’t allow surgery.  He won’t go beyond blood work, an ultrasound or scan.  Or an MRI.  And definitely not another biopsy.  The specialists can only observe.”

Certainly, admittedly, she knew she was angry with Sam.  But she couldn’t blame him either.  “Ever since I married him, he has said he would never have chemo.  And nothing for life support.  He said it once a year, I swear, just so I wouldn’t forget.”

“He told me too. It’s been real important to him.”

“But there must be a way to help him, Daniel.”

They were told upon arriving at Saint Andrew’s that Sam was being kept over night.  He slept so soundly from the moment they got there that after five hours Lindsay and Daniel left a note for him.  So she wouldn’t disturb him, she whisper-kissed his cheek without touching him, and they left.

The Crown Victoria streaked the dark highway home.  Lindsay realized her inane chattering was getting on her own nerves.  She drifted into silence and rested her head on the seat to watch the lights of homes vanish behind them.

Daniel’s warm hand gently circled hers, offering support.  No words compared as he held her hand like he had so often over the years.  His energy pounded into her.

Almost forty minutes of screaming silence passed.  If she touched his face?

Wondering was pointless.  Daniel would pull back, he would be the strong one for them tonight, he would give them another day or year to contemplate choices.  ‘We’ll know when we’re right,’ he had told her nine years ago.

“Lindsay, if it’s all right, I’ll sleep upstairs in that extra bedroom.”

“Poor Daniel, you probably got less sleep than I did and you’re driving me.”

“I caught a few naps at work.  A few hours this morning before I came over.  I’m fine–”

“But too tired to persevere,” she filled in for him, and he patted her hand saying, “Absolutely fine, but too tired to persevere.”

Read Chapter Three here. . . .

Begin at beginning of novel here . . .

Order an ebook for easier reading. . .

Lindsay opened the mudroom door for Garth and Susanna to thunder outside on their second morning excursion, then she lifted the chest freezer lid to pile in breakfast leftovers.

An ungodly scream from the yard made her bash her head inside the freezer.

The scream fizzled to frail screeching as Lindsay ran, tangling in her swooping skirt and baker apron strings to trip around the corner and face the spy.

The dogs hadn’t even barked but the elderly lady standing in the street outside the front gate was waving her long arms at them. “That’s it! Thought I saw bears over here yesterday!! But they’re dogs!! Huge dogs!!”

Lindsay faced the extreme woman, tall, thin, barely bent except so she could see where her feet were headed in their canvas summer shoes. She wore skinny Levis with a sweatshirt tucked in, and wide man’s belt holding the jeans on her hipbones. Her grassroots hair did a wild reversal. Pale yellow roots and a gray moppet top. Worse for Lindsay, whose funny bone was tickled by the scolding, the woman’s hair sprang out in all directions as she regarded the benevolent Newfie faces with no-nonsense hostility.

“What did you doooo?!?!” she hollered at Lindsay with a courageous frail voice. Her eyes agitated, vibrating blue stars like she expected an answer. “Did you actually search the world over for the greatest dogs you could find!?!! To bring them here?!! And tribulate me?!”

“I’m so sorry they startled you.”

Lindsay herded the dogs back from the fence where they huddled only ten yards from where the woman seemed to have been clearing leaves from a still barren flower garden. Lindsay could understand why the woman was frightened. Garth’s head came right over the fence so he could pant at her, he was that tall. “They’re harmless, really,” she said when they were in less startling proximity.

“I have a cat!” the woman exclaimed, body stiffening, narrowing her eyes at the Newfs. “If those dogs eat my cat I will eat those dogs!”

Lindsay was sure she would. “It would serve them right. Eating a poor cat.” Please, do not be my new neighbor, she thought.

“They’d better not!” the woman scolded. She turned and crossed the few steps into the neighboring yard.

“They won’t.” Lindsay called to her back. “I assure you, they love cats.” But she could only hope since they loved her pet skunks, very cat-like in size.

“I didn’t get to ninety-two knowing nothin’. And my name is Maimee by the way,” the woman hurled viciously over her shoulder as she headed toward her skinny yellow cottage. “M-a-i-m-e-e. Storganaff. S-t-o-r-g-a-n-a-f-f. Two e’s. Two f’s.”

Newfoundlands in fiction, Garth and Susanna

Lindsay shook back incredulous tears and gurgled down a rude, imminent expulsion of laughter. “My great-aunt’s name was Mamie,” she called, loud enough to be heard by ninety-two-year-old ears. “Mamie, with an i-e.”

The woman surprised her by wheeling back to the fence. She banged the hood of the topaz Buick classic parked south of Lindsay’s car. A scrawly gray cat jumped skyward and bounded off. “What was your great-aunt’s last name,” Maimee demanded.

“Well, goodness, it was actually Vye, her maiden name. And she married a man named Sprague Ross. Mamie Ross.”

“I’ve known a lot of Mamies in my time. But I don’t know her.” Maimee looked her square in the eye. “She dead now?”

“Yes, and so is my grandmother. Her sister.” And all the other sisters and daughters and aunts, Lindsay thought, realizing she was forty-four. Death was bound to happen to some people, but apparently not to this woman anytime soon.

“You have a lot more paternal women relation. More than the maternal ones who are gone,” she said, which was so certainly the truth that Lindsay just blinked at her. “Now, I have to go in for my heart pill. After that spell,” Maimee scolded, “I can’t wait any longer.” She turned back to her cottage, weaving through springtime skeletons of shrubbery. “When Stella and Sybil hear about this! Oh my god,” she grumbled. “Lucky me, come home to this. Should have stayed in my stifling trailer in Florida.”

She stopped and headed back a few feet, shaking a knobby finger at Lindsay. “But I had to tell you about the business on the corner right away. Just don’t stare at me like I’m crazy. I assure you that your dismay is much less than mine. Remember the business, that one on Kanney and the highway. I’m here early in order to tell you it’s closed down.”

“Yes, yes, I noticed.” But she was more concerned over Maimee’s heart. And Lindsay wanted to dissuade their new neighbor from hating her dogs. “You can tell your friends,” she called hopefully, “that the male weighs all of one hundred and forty pounds, the female almost as much. Quite a shock you had then, wasn’t it?”

Maimee spun around from amazement and malicious laughter cragged grin lines on her waxy, tan face. “Oh hell! Weigh a lot more than me! I will have fun with that tidbit!” And she was off.

Lindsay’s entire system was reeling from the exchange. Unbelievable. Maimee was like Haidee when her daughter went through rehab the third time.

Goodness, she could only imagine this summer with the cantankerous spy next door. The cell phone rang from the pocket of her baker’s apron. She plopped down on the side of the deck, deciding to plant some of the tall blue campanula and white foxglove into the fresh spring earth like she had at home. She could bring back the still-dormant transplants today after Sam came home from work.

Garth leaned against her side, breathing heavy. Newfs preferred lounging on ice piles in February over breezy March mornings. She wondered how amused they were with Maimee, their neighborhood Spy.

“Garth, don’t mess with her cat, she means it,” she told him sternly. He lapped at his nose and rolled his small brown eyes up at her innocently, then to her pocket where the phone buzzed a sixth time, and she finally answered.

“Mrs. Davinson, this is Mr. Burt Marshall,” said an earnestly polite voice. “I’m from Plymouth. I understand you are interested in purchasing my property.”

Lindsay looked back at the cottage. She and Sam had made a down payment to the owners from Culver. The land contract was signed. “I don’t understand?”

“On Highway 23 and Kanney.”

“The antique mall complex.”

“It’s not an antique mall any longer, but you can make it whatever you like when you buy.”

“But I– where did you get the idea I want to buy the property from you?”

“You won’t be able to buy it from anyone else.”

“I realize that, Mr. Marshall.” Breathe out. She stopped talking, forcing him to explain or just hang up. She had learned to disengage through Haidee’s rehab program. Breathe in. And out.

“I just received a call though I don’t care to say who,” he said, “but they heard at Koontz Lake Realty that you were asking around about the price.”

“I assure you, I wasn’t the person asking, Mr. Marshall. But, I will admit I am interested in information now.” She wasn’t about to admit that calling him was the very next thing on her to-do list.

“You would not want to wait to contact me if you knew how many people have telephoned to lease or buy the place.”

“My husband and I have a philosophy that if something is meant for us, it will be there no matter what.” Not what she believed, but Sam did. “But please, tell me whatever I would want to know.”

The problem was not the contracted lease-purchase option, giving the buyer three years to rent then take a loan for a balloon payment. Fine. The problem was Mr. Marshall wanted two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Not an option. Who was encouraging him to sell for such a price on a highway in Koontz Lake?

But then again. She swooped back to the manic side, deciding she needed to find the way in.

“When would you like to meet me?” he asked. “You will see how well the inside will work for any business you could think to begin.”

She would walk over. “Mr. Marshall, could you be there in half an hour?” And when he said he would arrive sooner, she hurried the Newfs inside, tossed her apron after them and headed up the road.

What was she thinking? Really?

The price was all wrong. Lindsay dug through her perennial bed in Crown Point, mentally reviewing the buildings, the office in back, the pretty cottage. Central air, fans, washrooms. Wide doors, flat entry, no need for handicap access. First business from the north, right across from the restaurant.

She sat on the cold new grass to pull the now grubby theme book out of her jacket pocket and calculated again, shaking her head for the tenth time.

That was where Daniel found her, by the enormously square, white California Craftsman bungalow, not having a clue in the world how she would pull this off when facing an overhead of thirty-nine hundred dollars a month, rapidly estimated of course, which included a much needed advertising budget. She wasn’t willing to pencil in other expenses yet.

She watched Daniel cross the lawn, his limp hardly noticeable from the long ago broken left foot repaired with a pin implant. His hair shone rich mahogany with the late afternoon sun. He arranged himself next to her on the grass and gazed into her face.

“Hey, hi. What are you figuring now?”

“I looked at the complex a few hours ago. The man wants two hundred and fifteen thousand.”

He frowned. “Hey, does he have an agent to talk sense into him?”

“He has an appraisal from several years ago.”

“Based on a business with rents, or the property alone?”

“He says it’s the property alone, but I think it’s considering rental income. And there are none now, it’s closed and papered. His loss.”

Daniel nodded. “Even if there was income, you need high customer traffic to warrant that price. Not some village highway.”

“And the economy–”

“The drop in property values the last few years–”

“And there are less than four thousand square feet,” she told him.

“Really? Also, I was mistaken about auctions unless the back yard is raised–”

“That would cost. Goodness.” She wound down dismally.

Daniel was silent for a few minutes. “Tell me, what does this mean to you?”

“My new life.” No question.

He tried to read her face and she unwillingly smiled just from the intimacy. “Your new life… how?”

“Daniel, I have to get ready, you know.” She couldn’t even pretend she would be with Daniel when Sam passed on. That would be wrong.

“You have time,” he said, not looking to their future either. “Hey, focus on Sam now.”

“We’re not ready.”

“No one is ever ready, Lindsay, even when they don’t know…” He spoke from experience, she knew. His first wife died in an auto accident when he was twenty-two.

But she could tell Daniel didn’t understand what she meant about their finances. “We’re not okay, not ready with finances.”

“Hey, Sam thinks you are,” he said gently, and she shook her head seriously. “But Lindsay, his life insurance. . . ”

“Living off the income then paying taxes amounts to nine hundred dollars a month in reality. I’m figuring outlandishly high.”

“That’s it?”

“Spending a life insurance premium is ridiculous. I have to go by the interest income. At my age, I need to be preparing for serious retirement, especially since I’m going to be a widow. Sam and I haven’t been able to hang on to our investments, Daniel. You know, everything kept tearing it up. The rehab program– three times. Always LMC with Sam out of a job for months, year after year.

“Sam laid off before Haidee was born C-section and no insurance,” Daniel reminded her.

“Natalie’s surgeries with no insurance,” she said, remembering her middle daughter’s compound fractured leg, but more vividly five-year-old Haidee’s gleeful expression as she pushed her sister off the tree fort and steady-handed Daniel calling the ambulance.

“There are real reasons for you two to not be ready. I only had a couple years on him and that made all the difference for my seniority and retirement.”

“And you didn’t have three daughters,” she mentioned.

“Hey, no, I didn’t. That’s a lot right there.”

“This was the time for us to get ready now – Sam and I – but Sam is leaving. I have to do this on my own.”

She wouldn’t admit that, if Sam weren’t dying, she would still be facing financial instability and preparing for retirement on her own. She had known for some time she needed to be on her own. But now she didn’t have a decision to make when it came to leaving Sam and she was more concerned about her heart than her finances.

She didn’t have right to speak to Daniel about how she felt about him or what she and Daniel might consider after Sam was gone. She could only go on assumptions based on his actions after he knew Sam’s health situation.

For her, their two kisses all those years ago held enough insinuation for a lifetime, though maybe not for him.

Maybe he really didn’t know how she felt about him. The few times he reached out to her, she had said she couldn’t. Thousands of other moments when she felt the same need, but didn’t give him a clue. She would have thought he knew, but now he brought Margaret around. Now?

“Lindsay,” Daniel said, “you don’t have to do it all right now.”

No, no, she knew she did, no matter what the situation. She watched Daniel lean his freckled face up to the nearly setting sun, realized the cold had seeped into her hips and back. She was too old for pining after a man. Either it was, or it was not. Period.

“It takes years to develop a business,” she said, pulling up to her knees to arrange plants in the cardboard box. “That business has customers expecting to shop, especially May through summer. To remain viable, it has to be reopened before word is out that it closed.

“You know, Daniel, when I saw that closed sign I felt something click. Like an answer I wasn’t even looking for magically appeared. Like a knowing, really deep.” She felt there was more to this business than cash flow, but couldn’t even explain to herself. Compelled was her word, urgently compelled.

Daniel was looking at her. “Like someone knowing when they found real love?”

Lindsay ducked to conceal a tingeing blush. “I suppose.”

But no, she thought, no, the manic planning since she noticed the closed complex was not even close to how alive she felt when thirty-one-year-old Daniel Gordon Pumeroy walked into the restaurant to meet her. Unfortunately, that was eight months after she married Sam.

Daniel had been away for almost two years when she and Sam met and married. The Army during the aftermath of Vietnam. He was able to rehire at LMC where he was reunited with Sam through the Local Operating Engineers 597 Union. Lindsay was pregnant with Melanie Vye. Though she could hardly fathom how she got pregnant within two months of marriage since sex was practically nonexistent. In fact, there was one time only and not even on their honeymoon. But their ‘miracle’ baby was due in three months. She was not open for complications or hurting Sam, though she had been forever grateful Daniel was in their lives.

She wanted to ask to hold his hand now, but didn’t. “What are you doing over here anyway,” she asked, digging the last foxglove, which was not as dormant as she had imagined. “How did you know I was going to be here?”

“I didn’t. I’m on my way down to the auction at Niehers in Lowell.” And Lindsay thought, Margaret again. “I stopped here on the way, just to see that your real estate signs were all in place, hey, things like that. I’m going to borrow the welding torch.” Daniel had a key to Sam’s three-car garage and workshop. Sharing that man-space made them closer than brothers, Lindsay reasoned.

“Thanks for checking. You’re always so good to us,” she told him. “Sam came home from work two hours early to fish, already talking about needing a pontoon, believe that! So I was free to drive over for flowers.”

“Will you be digging long?”

“Nope. Almost done.” She checked her terse tone but all the spring green and sunset gold just as soon be mud. What was he doing with a springtime romance now, and when Sam was not well? Lindsay packed wadded newspaper around the campanula and foxglove roots to soak before she left, careful not to break the two-inch green growth ready for April showers. “Then Margaret is in the truck?” she asked, as distractedly as she could pretend.

Daniel reached over and patted her on the shoulder like she was a big old dog. “No, hey… no, Margaret isn’t in the truck. She needs her truck and trailer at the auction.”

Wrong answer, Danny, Lindsay thought. She felt positively juvenile. She grinned at him, trying to add about thirty years to her maturity level. “Well, I’m headed home to brainstorm.”

Ten minutes later, she parked the Crown Victoria on Pettibone Street on the way out of Crown Point. She took a deep breath for control but lost, leaning her forehead on the steering wheel and sobbing, never so overwhelmed in her life, never so alone, so afraid of dying of a broken heart again. Daniel being married, now that, that she could take only once a lifetime.

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BEGINNING ::: Prologue. Excerpts. Past life poem that inspired the novel

CHAPTER ONE

• Chapter One ::: Section One

• Chapter One ::: Section Two

• Chapter One ::: Section Three

CHAPTER TWO

• Chapter Two ::: Section One

• Chapter Two ::: Section Two

CHAPTER THREE

• Chapter Three ::: Section One

• Chapter Three ::: Section Two published late March

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Reincarnation poem and two excerpts from reincarnation book…..

The Twilight

James Russell Lowell, 1819 – 1891

Sometimes a breath floats by me

An odor from Dreamland sent,

Which makes the ghost seem nigh me

Of a something that came and went,

Of a life lived somewhere, I know not

In what diviner sphere.

A something too vague, could I name it,

For others to know:

As though I had lived it and dreamed it,

As though I had acted and schemed it

Long ago…..

Prologue – A Reincarnation Characterization

From Jesus’ time to the Druid universities of Britain,

from an Ojibwe village near Lake Superior and lifetimes between.

One soul group emerges in the Midwest with differences to resolve.

Heartbreaks to attend.

Another dimension or another era?  The Circle of Time?

What is time but an illusion? And life, the illusion for the soul.

I often see all of us, the women, standing in the tunnels waiting to be helped into the boats,” said Heather Laurel, glancing at Clara Rose.  “You were there, love.”

“I don’t remember,” said Clara Rose.

“You don’t want to remember,” Maimee stated.

“We were a team,” Sam said.

“Hey, not actually meant to be with one another, as couples?” Daniel pondered.

“Will anyone ever get it?”  Thoroughly exasperated, Gooee turned away.

Excerpt CHAPTER TWO

Sometimes a breath floats by me… An odor from Dreamland sent… Goodness! Certain the front door slammed, she bolted off the bed landing in front of the French doors to the living room. Nothing, except that inexplicable cluster of light bubbles.

She crouched low and hurried to the window, screening her near nudity with the white lace sheers as she ducked behind the towering wardrobe. No one was in the yard.

She cringed from the icy fear in her spine, waiting.

Had they even gone?

Then a breath… almost a breath floated by.

Excerpt CHAPTER FIVE

A life lived somewhere… As though I had lived it and dreamed it… Lindsay marched back into the living room to face a growing wall of light bubbles hovering in golden sunrays. They had to go. She opened her mouth–

A flash of a huge cast iron pot slammed her. A hissing fire-red vessel of water. Heart hammering, backing out too terrified to blink, her hip hit the doorframe. Yelling from the fires. Her own screaming? Fighting futilely at bruising hands hauling her toward a net. Screaming at the angry crowd intent on dipping her. She bit cloth and arm. Her gums ripped. Emptiness, floating. The lights carried her. A breath on a night wind.

Sobbing, she fell to her knees on the hardwood floor. The golden lights in her living room came closer.  Lindsay bowed her head.

Reincarnation Stories Online

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Part One

Which Makes the Ghost Seem Nigh Me….
Of A Something That Came and Went

CHAPTER ONE CONTINUED (second section)

The phone rang as she returned to the living room, pulling wavy dark hair into a loose knot with a gray hair looper. She checked caller identification then answered her daughter’s call, finding out about Haidee’s new job and that now all their girls wouldn’t be far across Indiana state line, just into southwest Michigan. Life did work out.

Lindsay was still smiling from Haidee’s call as she took the leftovers into the white wainscoted backroom she and Sam dubbed the mudroom.

A scowling woman with floppy gray hair stood outside the back door. Lindsay gaped at her through the glass pane. The woman didn’t look at her, she just walked away. Now that certainly was spying. Shocked at the nerve, Lindsay checked the door. Locked.

The instant Lindsay read the real estate description that just hit the Internet’s multiple listing service, she sensed this was exactly what Sam needed. Towering oaks and a place to fish. A miniature farmhouse-like cottage that truly infatuated her. White with a picket fence. Goodness, what were the chances to find a place with a mother-in-law rental where finances were manageable.

When she told Sam, he said, ‘Whatever you decide.’ So they placed their house on the market and purchased on land contract. Time felt like oxygen now. Time, a precious energy.

They were stuck here, awaiting the first real breath of spring. And the last breath of life.

Only Sam was familiar, especially the morning they finished unpacking and sat by the east window.

The corners of Sam’s small brown eyes crinkled both from smiling and concentration. His grizzly crew cut and eiderdown fur made him brown bear cuddly with a tee shirt over his soft tummy. Only the softening of his square jaw dated him. The brown wolf tattoo on his forearm, which he chose at sixteen after dreaming of a village, was more sacred to him than she could understand.

“When I’m gone, you can use the insurance money to buy a house right on the lake,” he said.

“When you’re gone, I will be content right here where you were.” But she was more likely to move soon after he passed. No need to worry him. She was worried enough for the both of them.

“Plant an English rose garden,” he said as she stood, picking up his mug. “Clara Rose.” He used her given name. “Clara Rose in a rose garden.” 

She smiled. “Now hon, just worry about how we’re going to fit our grown Newfie rescue in a Crown Victoria tomorrow.” She remembered their first Newfoundland puppy and reminded Sam. “When we drove to Michigan to pick up Jonah, we took that box he was three times too big for. I hope Rex won’t be too big for the back seat,” and they laughed, excited as two kids, then he stared out the window again.

In the quiet, their new archaic furnace sounded off like popcorn in a kettle, steaming away the last of the morning chill.

“Hon–” she had said, and he took her hand. “Sam, you realize I’m going to be just fine, don’t you?” She had to tell him that a lot.

“No,” he had said.

Next morning, headed for the rescue, Lindsay noticed pines and oaks embroidered against the white morning sky.

Then the antique mall complex and adorable attached cottage on the highway with newspaper on the windows. As Sam pulled to the stop sign, she leaned past his shoulder. “Closed?” she said, wondering what happened between Saturday and Sunday. “Look, Sam. ‘For Sale’ bulletins.” He drove on and, if she could maneuver that well, she would have been on her knees to see. “It was open over twenty years.”

“The only real shopping in town,” he said.

All the way to northeastern Indiana her mind rambled over what would have brought more traffic through the antique mall. Briefly browsing an antique shop near the rescue rewarded her another broken clock. Pale gray crocks for shelves by the phone. Five large, softly grayed baskets of flat, woven New England ash for the shelves and floor beneath.

And thirty business cards of antique dealers from her area so she might find booth consigners.

What was she thinking?

The lanky man at the rescue led them to a run where a rippling furred, blue-black Newfoundland giant intelligently beheld them. No threat, no question. As if he knew.

“This one’s owner died, like I told you” He opened the gate.

He’s a Garth, Lindsay thought. Broad shouldered, well-mannered. She held out her hands for him, eager to comb his feathery fur. The dog stayed inside, with his giant head nudging the smaller Newfie beside him.

“Who’s that?” Sam asked.

“A female. She was in a supposed animal shelter in Ohio. They were going to put her down. She was lost, maybe stolen. No chip to trace.”

“She have a home yet?” Sam asked as Lindsay thought she looked like a Susanna. She took Sam’s hand when the rescuer shook his head, saying, “Nope, not yet,” and Sam looked at Lindsay and she grinned at him. “Well hell,” Sam said. “She does now.”

That evening, Lindsay and Garth had walked the half-mile to see the antique mall. She had left Sam curled up on the living room floor, his head on Susanna’s side. He was extremely tired lately. Stubborn man. ‘This is it,’ he had told her. ‘When it’s done it’s done, and I seem to be done.’ That’s what he said even before there were two hundred and forty-four days left. If Dr. Schalen was exactly accurate.

A lady straddling a Harley was in the parking lot so Lindsay nonchalantly strolled past, avoiding the woman’s stare, then moving deeper into the dusk where she checked every detail of the three long buildings. Brown brick to the bottom of four wide windows. Double doors useful when moving larger furniture.

Nothing ever had been so clear.

Sam was sitting with his back against the sofa when Garth and Lindsay slipped in the front door, so she spent an hour outlining convincing ideas on how to bring customers all year long. Birdseed, Wyann’s cocoa, vanilla and seasonings, natural products. Antiques. Used and new furniture. Cottage, cabin, camp, rustic and vintage. Attracting retreat dwellers in summer, regional customers the rest of the year. Internet customers across North America.

“Great ideas,” he admitted. “But the house hasn’t sold.”

The million-dollar question. “Goodness, I just don’t know about the financing.”

Sam yawned, scratching Susanna’s head. “But if it’s supposed to happen, it will.”

“Will it?” She felt surprised, nervous. A unique way to support herself, better than being on a systematic payroll when she didn’t hold a degree worth a serious wage. She kissed Sam on the cheek and headed for bed.

Garth lumbered after her to massively thud onto the ivory wool rug. Lindsay closed the door, cringing at images of endless black fur, but the dog harummed a bass-tone that pleased her heart.

“You can shed all you want.” Lindsay happily stretched out beside Garth with a blanket from the closet and her head on a pillow. His shampoo scent reminded her of the meadow near Miramichi Bay, sun on wild raspberries… Uncle Herron. Itty snuggled Lindsay’s neck. Fern burrowed under her skirt.

She fell asleep, wishing she’d been home when Daniel called during her walk. She heard a high-pitched bark, decided it was Susanna. She hadn’t heard the sound again, so prayed. No dreaming. But as she drifted into deep sleep, she had known a seal was on her bed. A seal.

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An eternal romance novel. Within this timely, gentle love story of lifetimes anew

A Breath Floats By Novel Online

in the Great Lakes Region, a swirling spiritually-charged world is exposed.

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What if you realize you married your best friend’s soul mate?

If your sacred work petrifies you with glimpses of tortured deaths in past lives?

What becomes of your soul group if you do not keep your promise this lifetime?

Lindsay Davinson’s husband, Sam, has months to live. While she works to secure her family and career, she realizes one woman who supports her is vying for Sam’s heart.  Through it all, Lindsay becomes aware that her soul group needs her more than she needs them, especially Daniel.

Lindsay, Heather Laurel and Gooee deal with divorce, security, forgiveness, faith and death by using a highly unconventional interpretation.  However, their greatest challenge is the raw honesty required in facing the complexity of their love affairs.

An eternal romance novel.   Within  this timely, gentle love story of lifetimes anew in the Great Lakes Region, a swirling spiritually-charged world is exposed.

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Part One

Which Makes the Ghost Seem Nigh Me….
Of A Something That Came and Went

CHAPTER ONE CONTINUED (third section)

Daniel was on his way and Lindsay was smiling as she restacked the freezer. When Sam came in the mudroom door, she followed to the living room. Pretty Susanna eased down by Garth and he gave her a long kiss.

“Was an elderly lady outside?” she asked Sam, and he shook his head. “A spy then?”

“No spy either. Daniel call?”

Lindsay peered outside, checking for the spy. “Just after you left. He’s coming by after work.”

“Yeah, last night he told me. Just wondered if he called again.”

“You didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“You know he’s always coming over. What’s to tell, when he’s always going to be here.” Sam spoke about his best friend without judgment, malice or frustration. Just the way it was. But she still wanted to know because knowing he was on his way was a balm to pacify this endless longing.

“I go back to work tomorrow,” Sam told her. “If you need to go anywhere I’ll have the car.”

“No. I’ll just be here.”

“Cause if you do need something, then I thought Daniel would stay over tonight and help you out tomorrow. Since he’s off.”

“Stay over?” Why was Sam always suggesting this?

“Stay upstairs. Or on the sofa.” He shrugged, patting the seat.

“Why stay over? If I need something–”

“–it’s a long drive. We moved.”

“We did.” Irritated, Lindsay patted the plump ruby-colored cushions. “We didn’t move that far.”

“Far enough with gas prices.”

“But I don’t need anything, so Daniel wouldn’t need to stay.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

An erotic pulse ebbed through her as she recalled nine years ago when Daniel had stayed over. The girls were visiting Sam’s parents. Sam left for work before dawn and she went into the room where Daniel slept to remove Haidee’s yowling cat. Daniel sleepily regarded her from the bed then held out his arm for her to come to him. No words. Just his need.

She had passed by him, cat in her arms. “I can’t, we can’t,” she whispered.

Her wish. One lifetime where she would be able to go back to every chance when one of them had reached out to the other. And in that long lifetime they would be able to say yes.

Her yearning for innocence.

So far they had managed to deny their needs, one being strong for the other. She had known him twenty-four years. The years that passed since he reached out from the bed represented their strength. Holding hands or arms barely touching in a crowded auto were all they allowed.

One of them had to stay strong in those moments when the other needed just one touch. The silent agreement between them for always.

Lindsay sat on the cushioned bench at the harvest table and scribbled ideas in her theme book. The most important book in the world today.

She sketched signs with tall wooden legs, listed placement corners for maximum exposure. She drew a lofty pine and a rustic gate. A long-legged moose looking over the gate, kind of a goofy face. Next markers and behold. The letters are red, the gate is red, edges on the sign are holly berry red. The business name is The Vintage Gate.
This is insanity. She was powerless over her insanity. She was powerless over a business plan.

She studiously kept working when Daniel’s silvery-blue Chevy pickup eased past the cottage, turned the corner to park alongside the north fence. She had the impression through her eyelashes, the truck that matched his eyes. But she obviously couldn’t care so much that he was here and get up to greet him.

She tried hard to ignore her impression of Uncle Herron standing by the tree swing. What was with him? Curious about her new home? Or had he passed on and no one knew.

Stay in the moment. This moose looked pretty good but her sister would do a more professional sign, if she asked.

Sam was watching over her shoulder, while with her head down she was watching Daniel. “Did Daniel say he was bringing anyone along?” Sam asked.

“No.” Did Sam see Uncle Herron too? But Lindsay could only see Daniel now, the rich sheen of his auburn-brown hair in the late sun. Plaid flannel jacket loose around narrow hips in faded jeans. “Why, Sam?”

“Because there’s someone along, Clara Rose,” he said gently, placing a big hand on her shoulder. She tensed. Sam only called her that when he felt protective.

The metal gate clanked shut. Through the living room French doors, aligned with French doors that went outside, Lindsay saw Daniel pass by. Then a woman with brown hair who was an inch short of Daniel’s six foot. She was built like a feminine, leggy, short-waisted moose with no neck. Lindsay meant that in the nicest way.

The storm door opened with great creaking. Both dogs woofed deeply then were silent.
Daniel’s sure double knock hit the wooden door then he cracked it a few inches. “Hey,” he called from habit. “Brought company!”

He pushed the door with the toe of his tan hiker. Wide freckles held onto his cheeks. His winter beard shone deep brown. His eyes met Lindsay’s and he just grinned.

He met the dogs who stood in his way to enter. “Hey– look who was waiting for me when went I went home to pick up the chair.”

“Who’d you find?” Sam asked enthusiastically.

Daniel moved aside and the smiling woman stood closer to him. A plain woman, but Lindsay was not relieved, unless she was a long lost cousin. Instead, Daniel introduced Margaret.

“She knew I got home around three. She’s never been to Koontz Lake so, hey, she convinced me to bring her over.”

“Well, good,” Sam said, shaking Margaret’s hand. “Only been here three times myself, before we bought this place.”

Daniel grinned, youthful, oval face flustered as he gestured to Sam and Lindsay. “Lindsay thinks Sam needs to fish–”

“–hello you two. You told me about them last week at the livestock auction, Danny.” Margaret said, as Lindsay decided, plain, sweet, confident, always Daniel’s type.

Lindsay was sitting on the bench, red marker suspended stupidly from her fingertips, first impression, zero stars. Worse, she was giving away her private thoughts, and only Gooee stole those.

Why was Gooee thinking about her anyway? She had her mind today.

And how dismayed and angry did she look right this moment? Lindsay half stood to lean across the table and shake hands, nodding absurdly as Sam repeated, “Glad you came over.”

“I want to check out the lake since it’s almost dark,” Margaret said, beaming. “Danny can visit like I know he always does.”

“We’ll catch up with you later then,” Daniel said, opening the door and closing it after her. “Hi,” he said to them again.

“Just a new house, buddy,” Sam invited. “Stop standing like you don’t know what to do.”

Lindsay knew exactly why Daniel was grinning like a boy who just stabbed the last steak away from several adult males.

“Look at this,” Sam said, bracing against the table. “Lindsay got this idea she might open that corner antique mall as a country store and furniture shop.”

“We noticed closed signs just yesterday,” Lindsay told him. “It was open Saturday.”

“She’s already named it,” Sam said.

“You’re serious?” Daniel asked, looking earnestly at Lindsay.

“Goodness, I think I am,” she admitted.

“Come on,” Daniel said to Sam. “I’m going to move the chair in then we’ll walk down, take a look, if you feel up to a walk.”

Lindsay sat there. Margaret, huh.

The highback chair was doe-colored leather. They faced it to the stone fireplace and she plopped on English floral and sage pillows, layered on a heathered throw. There, no one would know what the new recliner represented. Not until Sam was wasting away.

There must be a way to stop this, Lindsay thought.

“Are you dressed warm enough for a walk down the way, Clara Rose?” Sam asked.

Lindsay grabbed her quilted jacket and the three headed out with the Newfs. Just as many times on evenings the guys were both off work on the same day. Except when Daniel was married to Terri for five years. Lindsay kicked a stone with her leather mule. And now, Margaret.

Daniel paced his stride slower for them, his limp from a pin in his foot barely apparent. “Best way to spend an evening.”

“What do you need a livestock auction for?” Sam asked.

“I’m not buying, it’s practical auctioneer training. Hey, I figure the more I know the better for when I go.” Daniel had been talking about auctioneer training for a few years. Something to kick into when he got kicked out of the next mill. “I’ll train in Nashville, Indiana.”

“When do you go?” Sam asked.

“Not for a long time yet,” Daniel said. They knew he wouldn’t leave for one day when it was possible Sam would need anything.

“There’s plenty of room for auctions here too,” she said as the building came in sight.

“Auctions? No kidding?” Daniel grinned. “Hey, need an auctioneer?” and they laughed, inspected the buildings and wandered home, talking about business, steelmills, the elderly spy, Gooee’s calls, and Uncle Herron’s first mystical visit.

The old woman with floppy hair was by the cottage. She stepped into the shadows before Lindsay could point. Goodness, she was nosey.

They found Margaret in Daniel’s pickup reading. She waved goodbye with the interior light on so Lindsay could see details of Daniel driving away with another woman while Brookstone sang Shenandoah from the stereo.

Margaret was oblivious.

Sam was oblivious.

Lindsay was not. What was Daniel doing? Why now?

They went into the toasty cottage and Sam heaved the door shut in a fury, the slam shying Lindsay around. The dogs ducked too, protectively curling their tails.

Sam strode through a billow of miniature light bubbles toward the kitchen. “Samhell, just what the samhell was that about?” he growled too loudly for under his breath.
“What?” she asked, frozen, staring into Uncle Herron’s eyes as he stood at the bedroom’s glass doors. The skunks on the other side were stomping him. Her Newfoundlands sat politely before him. She was not insane. “What’s all of what about, Sam?”

Sam turned and looked right at her, not the old man in the room. “What Daniel is pulling, Clara Rose.”

There it was again today, Sam’s protective name. Just why was he so angry with Daniel? She was afraid to ask.

At least she understood the aching turmoil of her offended, worried body. What she needed to understand was why Daniel was with that woman.
And goodness, what did Uncle Herron need from her?

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Part One

Which Makes the Ghost Seem Nigh Me….
Of A Something That Came and Went

CHAPTER ONE – SECTION ONE

Change of life hitting the fan makes time a precious energy. Now Sam’s terminal cancer wound the clock tighter.  Lindsay decided the lunch leftovers would save time when he needed her most.

As she opened the cottage’s vintage cabinet for a freezer container, a shadow made her turn to the back stairway.  A spring breeze tickled through her and, seeing her great-uncle, she jumped.

“Uncle Herron!”   She started toward him.  Did he come in the side door?  “I must not have heard you–”  She stopped, realizing he wasn’t really there.  Gray eyes dark as hers.  Black hair pulled back, and for him, still not a gray hair at eighty-three.  Could he hear her?

The new phone trilled.  She squealed and he was gone.

Caller identification listed the steel mill.  “Daniel?” she said, shrill as the phone, then frowned, shaking her head.  She forgot to censor.  What if this was Sam’s foreman?

“It’s just me, Lindsay.”  Daniel’s voice was so near she was calm again.  She pulled her dark hair to the nape of her neck, keeping vigil on Uncle Herron’s corner.

“There you are, Daniel.  Sam’s going to be back from the video store soon.  He returned a movie and…”  But she cut herself from sharing more useless information, considering that for almost twenty years what she needed to say wasn’t best for anyone.

She pictured him in the mill office, smudged hands, mahogany hair barely visible under the hardhat, bronze freckles streaked with crane grease.  She knew the strong line of his back, like a tall logger just past fifty.  Goodness.   “Do you need Sam?” she asked abruptly.

“You’ll do,” he said, and she knew he was smiling.

She tried not to grin as she rubbed her chilly forearms, exposed by the brown dress.  That draft was winter whistling through barely open windows. She glanced into the living room to witness someone with floppy gray hair duck from the window.  Withholding a curse, she gawked. A spy.

“I have that lift chair for Sam,” Daniel was telling her, “So hey, if you two are going to be around tonight?”

Hoping to see the spy, she leaned forward then attempted jumping for height but had none, so she vaulted as far as the phone cord allowed and gagged herself.  “We’ll be home, Daniel,” she promised, circling to get out of the cord, knowing he would be disappointed if she wasn’t home. He admitted so nine years ago. Nothing changed.

They hung up and she checked where Uncle Herron had stood, then strolled to the front window, nonchalantly looking for the gray-headed spy. No one was outside except a little woman on a Harley taking the corner very slow. When she gave the thumbs up sign Lindsay raised a hand to acknowledge then closed the windows and layers of lace and sheers.

She covered her two skunks with crib quilts. Itty wiggled off her back to see if Lindsay had seeds, but got a pet instead. “Sleep now,” she said, patting Fern too.

One more time she checked Uncle Herron’s corner of the kitchen by a never used outside door and narrow stairway. She was being ridiculous, but he had visited other times just this way.

The phone rang. She recognized the number of a past acquaintance she didn’t want to see ever again. Gooee, who she met in pottery class and avoided for several months, thank goodness. But how did that woman get her new unlisted number? She reminded herself to tell Sam and Daniel not to answer anytime Gooee called. Gooee took too much time.

Her caution of Gooee aside, Lindsay needed time to organize. What to do for them when Sam couldn’t work. What to do for her living when he was gone. She always had ideas about promotional work but was too expended between everyone else. Their finances were in brittle shape after first one steelmill going bankrupt, then the next. Now his health.

She returned to the linen white living room to primp for Daniel’s visit, plumping layers of pillows in vintage floral, pink and brown. Though the room was new to her she felt nostalgic, probably from her patriarchal clock collection and this clutter. She started stuffing large baskets, drawers of the old white hutch and dark wardrobe near the east window, then the drawer on the walnut buffet behind the gray sofa. She solemnly maneuvered a quiet push broom over the enormous braided rug, around the massive black canine heartily snoring before the sofa, their newly adopted Newfoundland, Garth.

So far, so good. She practically rolled her eyes. She didn’t like that expression anymore. Gooee said it too often. “So far so good, darling.” Imagine looking up during pottery class and being adopted by your own personal psychic. Thank you, but no.

She had to stop rolling her eyes, little light bubbles clustered in front of her. She tried swishing them and decided she needed glasses.

She wandered through the French doors into her bedroom. Through matching French doors to the outside deck, she noticed a woman with long blonde hair stroll along the lake lane.

Gooee always wears long skirts like hers. Stop that! Stop thinking about Gooee.
As she closed another window, she could hear the woman singing a hypnotic tune that swelled on the stinging lake wind. She almost expected something to happen, felt a surge into an anticipated moment. A familiar moment. A dream… from long ago? No. Oh no.

Lindsay dressed as if Daniel was not on his way. Fluffy cream-colored socks. Matching cardigan buttoned to her chin, long French jersey skirt in stormy gray. Her thick, rounded figure was warmly shrouded, nothing visible but her solid fingers and indistinct, flat-planed face. Gray eyes with charcoal lashes blinked in the reflection of the white chifforobe mirror as she studied a new scar under her right jaw, another tiny mishap from misjudging the car door corner.

A wrinkled woman with copper hair glided behind her reflection, bicycling while wearing bifocals.

How does one ride a bike with bifocals? And the woman looked Lindsay right in the eye, right into her reflection, as if she heard the question, proving more chilling than Uncle Herron standing in her kitchen when he really wasn’t.

‘The woman did not hear the question, Clara Rose,’ she reasoned, using her given name, like her husband did too often. ‘No, only Gooee is capable of adept invasions of privacy even at long distances.’ And though Lindsay could feel Gooee out there tracking her like the robust polar after the wayward seal, she lied to herself. She told herself she was secure in a new home. She was, definitely.

Calm now. But what was there to be calm about. She tried detangling her hair with her fingers then gave up, touching the rounded cheeks dolloped too high on broad, flat cheekbones. Was it the new mirror, or did her cheeks seem pinker, too healthy, too happy when her husband was dying.

She smoothed the silken bedspread. Before long Sam would be sleeping here instead of upstairs. She knew he would gripe, but the steep climb hurt him. He could see their view of the sliver of lake from her bed just as well.

Sam knew he had prostate cancer a few months before he went to the doctor and hadn’t told her. He had decided not to do anything. The disease, taking three of Sam’s relatives before age fifty, terrorized him, mostly after witnessing their medical treatments.

Movers and friends brought the furniture Lindsay found at antique shops and settled them for the long wait. Just this morning they unpacked the last treasures. Then Sam hung their new slate plaque with a lake and moose etching, and their name, ‘The Davinsons.’

Lindsay had fortressed them to get through the next two-hundred and forty-four days. Eight months broken down without being outrageous, like hours or minutes.
Only, now, two hundred and thirty-four days.

No panicking, she cautioned herself. He needed her to get them through financially and emotionally. Then panic, then dying.

Or was it dying then panic? Priorities.

Spirituality fiction book by Essa Adams.

Continue reading Chapter One – Next Scenes… link

Order A BREATH FLOATS BY – ebook, KINDLE, paperback….

Order an eBook now for easier reading…. link

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