felt a niggling little irritation overcome my increasing weariness as I absorbed Mother’s words.
“Ernest Dibber told you about William’s will? What does he have to do with it? Aren’t you William’s executor?”
I saw her force her lips into a smile before she answered me. In the candlelight it looked more like a grimace. Maybe it was.
“No, Paisley. William made Mr. Dibber the administrator of his estate. He also gave him his power of attorney two weeks before he died. I can only assume it was because I was not here. You and I both know William would never have given the task to Joe Tom. The poor boy has no sense of responsibility.”
I was surprised, really surprised. It never occurred to me that Mother would not be settling what little estate William had. That was what I had come for. I told my agent that I would be here at least two weeks. I dreaded the job of helping Mother clean out William’s house and sort through old papers. Now that it was not to be mine, I was angry. Who was this Ernest Dibber after all?
Chapter Three
The heart of my mother’s house was a one hundred and thirty year-old log cabin. It had originally held four large rooms, or “pens” as they were called. There were two rooms down and two up on either side of a wide central hallway. The front door was on one end and the door to the back yard, the kitchen, smokehouse, and apple cellar at the other.
For some inexplicable reason one of the previous owners had cut off the roof and turned the two upper rooms into an attic. The windows had even been boarded over. With the loss of the upstairs, succeeding residents started expanding to the sides and the back. The smokehouse and apple cellar had been torn down to make room for an indoor kitchen and a huge wrap-around screened porch. When my grandfather Sterling and my father purchased the farm they added more bedrooms. It was also thanks to them that we had electricity and indoor plumbing.
To say the result of all these architectural additions was a hodgepodge of style was a great understatement. But somehow, through it all, the house maintained a certain elegance and beauty and I dearly loved every little nook and cranny.
Certainly there were plenty of bedrooms and lots of privacy. It was a good night for privacy. We were all exhausted. Cassie was getting surly, and Mother was enunciating even more clearly. We said our goodnights and went to bed. Cassie went to her room dragging a nighty on the floor like she did when she was three. All she needed, I thought fondly, was her Pooh bear.
I was too tired to shower so I just splashed warm water over my face and brushed my hair back. I ignored the perky little toothbrush standing in my old “Wonder Woman” water glass. My stomach was totally beyond being able to handle anything as minty as toothpaste. I took off my clothes, threw them in the direction of my open suitcase, and pulled on a nightgown.
The big four-poster bed was the same one I had since my sixth birthday. It was still high off the floor but I had not used the little bed step since that first year. When I pulled the bedspread back, I had to smile. Bless Mother’s heart! “Spare no expense where comfort is involved,” is her motto. Underneath, a pretty lace trimmed plissé blanket cover protected a soft, silky Pima cotton summer blanket and luxurious four hundred thread count sheets. Everything was a lovely feminine shade of pink. I felt like I was curling up in cotton candy. I stretched and yawned and settled back.
After about twenty minutes I realized that the soft old mattress which had cradled me for so many years and the fancy new bed linens had failed to lull me to sleep. I changed positions fifty times but nothing doing. I finally got up, slipped on a light robe and padded barefoot into the library. I quietly opened the French doors, grabbed a down cushion off the sofa, and lay down on my stomach in front of the screen door. I had been very silent in all of my movements and none of the crickets or croakers stopped their songs for a moment. A big cloud covered the moon. I could hear but not see the rustling of the leaves by the soft breeze.
I thought about all of the summer nights long ago when Velvet and I had escaped through our bedroom window to run barefoot and pajama-clad in the wet grass in search of adventure. We found it in daring to be up and about when all the world was sound asleep. As children, we never gave a thought to the snakes that surely must have come out of their cold damp holes to warm themselves against the stone walk still warm from the sun. Nor did we think of the wild foxes that came down the lane to hunt for a juicy baby bunny meal in the hedges near the house. I suppose, had we not been so full of giggles, we might have heard the desperate squeal of a mouse in a nighthawk’s beak or the squeaking of bats circling the chimney. And occasionally there must have been the horrid child-like scream of a rabbit being disemboweled by a big barn owl.
But those were adult thoughts, and I remembered none of that now. I did recall vividly how the roof shingles held the warmth from the hot summer day, and I remembered how scratchy they were on bare knees as we crawled up the slope to the top where we held hands around the chimney.
I have no memory of either fear or bravado, just the pure joy and freedom of doing as we wished.
We continued our nighttime forays for several summers, never telling anyone lest they drop a word in the wrong place. Our daytime world was very small. Everyone knew all our secrets, but our nighttime world was big as the wide star-filled summer sky and extended as far as we could roam in bare, dew-wet feet.
Gradually the wooden floor’s wide hand hewn pine boards became more comfortable than any bed and I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of flying high over the roof and chimney.
In my dream there were no clouds to cover the moon. Its white light crawled lazily over the big magnolia and brightened the leaves on the crepe myrtle and the wintersweet. I moaned and tried to wake up as I saw a dark figure enter my dreamscape. I feared the menacing sound of the heavy feet crunching in the gravel of the driveway. That dream sound startled me to wakefulness. I held my breath and listened intently for the footsteps. I heard only the soothing song of small night creatures. I relaxed and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I awoke at six in the morning when Mother’s part-time housekeeper, Mabel, coaxed her noisy fourteen year-old clunker gingerly up the gravel driveway. The old engine coughed and choked, and backfired loudly as she turned it off. I forced my stiff and aching body up off the floor with enormous effort and shut the doors to keep out the noxious fumes emanating from her so-called automobile. The bed that had done nothing for me last night now beckoned with an undeniable allure. I tumbled in and soon found myself falling under the spell of soft pink.
I opened my eyes again four hours later. It did not take me any time at all to know where I was. The room was dear and familiar to me. I gazed fondly from one forever known item to another. The big bay window looked out over the front yard where my swing had been. The late morning sun filtered through the miniblinds and over a window seat that was home to a whole population of dolls and stuffed animals. The more beloved ones were missing button eyes and an arm or two. None had come through my childhood unscathed.
The bottom drawer of the tall walnut chest of drawers in the corner reportedly still held some of my baby clothes; however, since it had been stuck for decades this was impossible to prove. I harbored a secret dream that all my lost toys and comic books were in there, that they were safe and waiting for me like my favorite prom dresses which hung, sequined ghosts, in the back of the big walk-in closet.
Besides the walnut chest there were only a few other pieces of furniture in the room. The closet was fitted with shelves and drawers so not much else was needed. An old and very comfortable lady’s armchair and ottoman sat in front of the small fireplace. Bookcases on each side of the chimney reached to the ceiling and were filled with books of all my different ages.
The last piece of furniture was a small
