Brad paced laps around the kitchen island, barking instructions into his phone and muttering curses at the end of each call.
Kathryn cooked Brad’s favorite dinner, pot roast from his mother’s recipe. She held him close in the night but lay awake sad and frustrated when she wasn’t able to penetrate his angry preoccupation.
When the town plow finally ground its way up their street late the next day, she was glad to see Brad roar out of the driveway. Once he resolved all the construction crises, maybe she could talk him into a brief getaway, a few days on Cape Cod or at an inn on the Maine coast. She laughed at her fantasy—she wouldn’t be able to pry him loose until construction wound down in late fall.
She saw little of Brad during the next week. He left the house early and returned late, usually eating dinner somewhere between job sites and falling into bed with only a few words to her.
She filled her days with sorting through the contents of her mother’s house. The work might seem a sad occupation, but she rediscovered forgotten memories, taking comfort that her mother’s suffering was over.
Kathryn’s last chore was rearranging the top floor of her grandparents’ Victorian to accommodate any furniture Greg and his wife Allie might want to store there to make room for their own possessions. The attic had always been a magical place for her. When she was very small, she had played with her dolls under the south-facing window while her mother hung bundles of herbs to dry under the rafters. On Kathryn’s sixth birthday, her mother had placed an old bridge lamp and a bookcase beside a shabby wing chair to create a private reading nook. From her aerie, Kathryn could look out into the top of the copper beech in the backyard. Now in early spring the budding branches framed a view of the old carriage house still holding her mother’s gardening tools and where her father had restored a succession of antique autos and refinished secondhand furniture.
She began sorting through the trunks and boxes shoved under the eaves. In a camel-back trunk she found a white tin bread box decorated with red and yellow tulip decals. Inside were letters tied in bundles with the gardener’s twine from long-ago herb swags. Arranged in chronological order beginning nearly twenty years earlier, each bore the letterhead Cameron’s Pride, Hesperus, Colorado and were signed by Annie Cameron.
Kathryn began reading the earliest one.
Dear Elizabeth,
Too bad we met under such sorry circumstances, but I’m glad you felt well enough to travel to the Grand Canyon. Like you, I’m always grateful when the Red Wolf lets me do something I’ve looked forward to. Thanks for letting me know what a great time you and your husband had the rest of your trip.
She laid the letter down. Her parents had taken a driving trip to the Southwest her freshman year in college. Her mother’s lupus had flared up, landing her in the hospital in Albuquerque, but a simple adjustment in medication had solved the problem. She must have met Annie Cameron there. Her mother often spoke of her struggle with lupus erythematosus as “fighting off the Red Wolf.” Had she thought up the expression or adopted it from Annie?
The afternoon sunlight was beginning to fade, so Kathryn switched on the old lamp and continued reading. Annie’s letters carried her into a foreign world of cattle and horses, mountains and desert, introducing her husband, Jake, their young daughter, Lucy, and their sons, Luke and Tom, both involved with the sport of bull riding. Annie hadn’t written much about her illness except in one of the last letters, telling Kathryn’s mother the disease had damaged her kidneys to the point she needed a transplant.
My sons are mad at me because I won’t accept a kidney from either of them. I don’t know whose job is more dangerous, Tom riding bulls or Luke fighting them, but I can’t leave either of them with only one kidney in case they get injured. Luckily my Jake is a good match, so he draws the short straw—he would move heaven and earth to help me.
The sun had almost set by the time Kathryn unfolded the last letter, dated more than ten years ago. Jake Cameron had written a brief note saying his wife had died from complications following the kidney transplant. Tears filled Kathryn’s eyes for Annie, for her own mother’s long decline and for the suffering both women had endured.
Kathryn wondered if Annie’s family would like to have these letters, this wonderful chronicle of their lives, but she didn’t recall seeing the name Cameron in her mother’s address book. Then she remembered she had given her mother a new book five Christmases ago; inactive addresses wouldn’t have been transferred. Maybe she could call the post office in Hesperus, Colorado, for an exact mailing address or check online. She carried the letters downstairs, thinking to show them to Brad.
The attic had been warm enough as heat rose from the lower floors, but the kitchen seemed unnaturally chilly. She turned up the thermostat and heard no answering hum from the cellar. Frowning, she peered down the stairs. She’d had the furnace serviced in the fall, but it was almost twenty years old. A quick inspection showed no flicker of flame from the boiler.
She sighed and dialed the heating contractor’s number.
“Not till tomorrow morning?” she said after describing the problem. “I guess that’s no big deal—the temperature won’t drop enough for the pipes to freeze.”
Next she called Brad. “The furnace just quit,” she said. “Someone’s coming over first thing in the morning. I don’t know how early that might be, so I guess I’ll sleep here. I’m sorry—I had a nice dinner planned.”
“Don’t worry about it. Looks like we might have a thunderstorm, and I know you don’t like to drive in the rain. I’ll grab something to eat and put in a couple more hours at work. You sure you’ll be warm enough?”
“I’ll be fine. I bought an electric heater for Mom’s room.” She’d always felt cold. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
“I may be late,” he said. “The Springfield project has turned into a hairball. I’ll be there all day, maybe into the evening.”
“Just don’t drive too tired,” she said. “I’ll have supper waiting.”
She ended the call and took a can of chili from the pantry. While it heated, she finished the list she’d been compiling for her cousin—whom to call for plumbing and electrical problems, who delivered oil and repaired the furnace, how to jiggle the light switch beside the front door to turn on the porch light. Greg could call her with questions, of course, but she wanted to make his occupancy go as smoothly as possible.
She finished her meal and was peering into the freezer in search of ice cream when a knock sounded at the back door. She switched on the porch light and recognized Frank Dutton, who had serviced the furnace ever since its installation.
“I saw Gabriel on my work order for tomorrow,” he said. “I figured I’d stop on my way home and see if this might be an easy fix—I didn’t want to leave you ladies in the cold overnight.”
“Bless you, Frank,” Kathryn said. “Although there’s just me here—Mom died a few weeks ago.”
His face screwed up in distress. “Say, I didn’t hear about that. I’m sure sorry—she was a nice lady, always sent me off with a piece of her applesauce cake.”
He hefted his tool bag. “Let’s take a look at that furnace. It’s got some years on it, but you’ve always kept it serviced—should be good for a while longer.”
He clumped down the stairs, and soon Kathryn heard clanking and banging. A short time later the whoosh
