Hens and Chickens (34 page)

To make a long story short, I called up my grandmother and asked if I could live with her. She debated my request for about a week, and then allowed that I could move in with her, into the old brick homestead in Norway, Maine, which has housed various members of our extended family for eight generations (of which she was the fifth generation and I was the seventh). She didn’t like me very much (I was a know-it-all) and I didn’t like her very much (she was imperious and demanding), and we grated on each other like a stone in a shoe. But she needed me (she was a lonely divorcee) and I needed her (I was a lonely kid) and so we stuck it out.

She showed me where and particularly
how
the silverware was to be sorted
just so
in the tired out old pull-drawers, and I mowed the lawn, stacked the firewood and hung the clothes out on the clothesline to dry. She baked biscuits and perked coffee on the woodstove, and Gram and I would sit in the warm kitchen in quiet satisfaction in the afternoon stuffing our faces with hot Bakewell Cream biscuits smothered in cow’s butter and dripping with raspberry honey. Food prepared with love for the satisfaction of another person offers up a proof of that affection that speaks louder than any word, practically shouting “I love you!” without any need for sound to pass through the vocal chords.

Gram was wild over plants, flowers and trees. She introduced me to every one of the half dozen ancient apple trees still standing in the hillside orchard and explained how these weathered friends were started from pips – from seed – and not from grafts of proven rootstock like modern-day fruit trees. “They never knew what they were getting when they planted pips,” she said, “but they were grateful for every piece of fruit, no matter how flawed.” Gram’s affection for heritage apples rubbed off on me and living with her was when the word “pip” became incorporated into in my everyday vocabulary.

Much like the old Russell homestead, Gram’s place was also populated with other types of trees: red maples, willows and white pine. Flowering shrubs that had been planted by generations past littered the yard, serving as a living, expanding legacy of my ancestor’s love for the place. My grandmother and I cared for all of it, but my grandmother had a pet garden of her own that we added to the mix during my tenure with her. In this newly-established garden on top of the stone foundation of the old the barn (which had burned down before she was born) Gram lovingly tended several succulent flowering plants of the
Crassulaceae
family, known to all gardeners as
“Hens
and Chickens.”
This interesting and unique plant resembles a large setting hen that shortly gives birth to several smaller succulent satellites—the “chicks” of the
“Hens
and Chickens.”
The family of plants multiply over time, as the chicks grow big and become hens themselves, throwing off their own new set of
“Hens and Chickens.”

Over the 13 years that I resided with my grandmother, the families of
“Hens and
Chickens”
we planted expanded their numbers exponentially. And, in much the same exponential fashion, Gram and I came to admire, respect and love – truly
love
– one another. Even now I shake my head and marvel at how close we became over the years, much like shoes and socks. I think I knew more of Gram’s secrets than I did my own!

When I received the phone call telling me that she had suffered a stroke, I raced to the hospital, thankfully in time to find Gram conscious and talking on the gurney to the nurses. I knew she wasn’t going to die, because she had survived so many bouts with death before. “Howzit going, Gram?” I asked. “Well, to tell you the truth, my pip,” she said, affectionately; “I’ve had better days!” She fell into a coma shortly after that, from which she never awoke. Ten days later she was gone, the last of her generation to leave me.

More than 20 years have slipped away since Gram’s death, and I’m now one of the older generation myself, one of the grown-up hens with my own special chick, a daughter that I named “Nellie” after my Gram. And during this time the
“Hens and Chickens”
in my grandmother’s flower garden have increased to marvelous proportions, and many of them have made their way into my own special garden at my home on the Cross Road in Sovereign.

I love to weed my own
“Hens and Chickens,”
just like I weeded Gram’s garden 30 years ago, because with these special succulents I’ve spied so many truths about myself, about Life, and, most importantly the power of Good over Evil.  With the maturity that comes from the telescoping of time, I realize now the amazing power of Love. We need never,
ever
fear Evil, my pips, as long as we are willing to risk loving one another!

The irony of my story – and the moral of it as well – is this: had my grandfather not died young, I never would have experienced this loving relationship with Gram. After his death, I was a young chick searching for a replacement for his love, seeking a home, someplace to roost. And that urgent need I felt to love and to be loved led me to an old mother hen, worn out by time and circumstances beyond her control in life, but who saw in me a new hope rising, a new chick pushing up out of the black soil. And so the two of us hooked up, and the rest, my friends, is history.

Our young heroine Lila has found a man who is steady and true; and there is not a better man in the world than Mike Hobart. However, that is not enough for her. Like me, Lila is searching to replace the love she lost as a child, the love of her father. Will she ever be able to fill this void? Will she ever find a safe and loving place to roost?

Ah! I know for a fact that finding such love is possible! For my life is proof positive that when a baby chick goes searching for love, a hen is surely somewhere to be found.

However, not everyone is blessed with visions from mountaintops, as I was in my youth. Sometimes hungry orphan chicks and tired old hens need a little help connecting with one another. That’s where the power of love comes in … that and the everyday miracle of modern communications. Where there’s a will, there’s a, well—Twitter.

So on Lila’s behalf, after the Good Lord had done her healing work, I sent a Direct Message to one of my Tweeps up in Maple Grove, in northern Maine. And now, my pips, you have your clue.

Chapter 32

“Come and Let Me Love You”

To know where our heroine has absconded to and why, we must go back—back to the snug country kitchen in the old Russell homestead, where the rain is splattering against the single-pane windows and Lila is still sitting at the table with the Organic Kidd. In order to follow Lila’s footsteps, we must pick up where the Devil leaves off …

The blood drained from Lila’s face. She felt sick to her stomach. Her world seemed to be crashing in on her.
Mike killed Tinkerbell?! How COULD he?!

Rain pelted against the kitchen window. The lights dimmed. Thunder cracked overhead.

Lila put her head in her hands. Kidd leaned closer to whisper in her ear. She smelled and felt his hot beer breath against her cheek. His thick lips brushed against her hair. She tried to pull back up, but was frozen; transfixed!
Please, God! Not NOW!

“
Lila, Lila
,” Kidd taunted softly. “Ya can ask Hobart yourself. Ya know he never lies!”

He never lies.

Something within Lila shifted. She sprung back up like a winter birch dropping a heavy load of snow. “NO!” she proclaimed, loudly and fiercely. “I don’t believe you for one minute!” She was so forceful she almost startled herself.

Tom Kidd jerked away from her as though struck by lightning. “Jesus, lady,” he said; “you don’t have to yell at me!”

“Get out! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” She was trembling now; standing and glaring at the Organic Kidd in righteous indignation. Her nostrils flared in anger.

Kidd stood up and backed slowly toward the door. “I’m going; I’m going! Jesus Christ!”

“Don’t ever come back here again! EVER!”

He turned and scrambled out the shed door, leaving his raincoat behind. Kidd jumped into his truck and roared out of the driveway. “What a wacko!” he expostulated to himself. “She’s perfect for Hobart!”

Lila slowly sank back into her seat, still trembling. Her mind quickly sifted through the facts at hand – Tinkerbell was dead and Gray Gilpin, who had been target practicing in back of the house was suddenly missing – and Lila pieced together the scenario almost exactly as it happened. When she came to the conclusion that Mike Hobart had been forced to kill the white deer from some sort of necessity, she experienced a surge of empathetic anguish for him.
What MUST he have felt?! What pain he must have suffered, pulling that trigger!

To kill again when he had sworn that he would never kill again?! Oh, Mike!  My darling!

I need to go to him now. NOW!

Lila rose up with a strangled cry.

“Lila, dear, what’s the matter?” Rebecca asked.

“I’ve got to go; I’VE GOT TO GO!” she cried.

She raced to the shed, pulled on her Muck™ boots and rain jacket, and slammed out the door. She pushed Miss Hastings’ old ’64 Pontiac LeMans harder than it had been pushed in decades as she barreled across town, over to the North Troy Road. The rain came down in buckets, but Lila didn’t notice. She peered determinedly ahead as she drove, swerving off onto the dirt drive where she knew Mike Hobart’s cabin was located. Through sheets of rain, she spotted his baby blue pickup parked beneath a towering balsam tree, near a neat-looking cabin.

He’s home!
Lila thought, in exquisite relief.

The cabin door, knotted pine with wrought iron hardware, was open a fraction of an inch. Without stopping to knock, Lila rushed inside. “Mike, darling!” she cried. “I’m here; I’m HERE my darling!”

He was sitting in a Windsor-style rocking chair by a roaring fire in a stone hearth. He pushed himself up from the chair at the sound of her voice. Lila started toward him with a little joyful cry, hands outstretched and—stopped short.

It was Mike Hobart … but it was NOT the man she knew! It was Mike Hobart
in fifty years!

In a flash, Lila noted that the dark-blond curls through which she loved to run her fingers were now completely white; the twinkling blue eyes were wrinkled and watery; and the firm lip of the man that she loved, trembled slightly. It was Mike Hobart—but it was NOT Mike Hobart! “Oh-my-God!” she said, moving in amazed wonderment towards him across the smooth pine floor. “Mr. … Hobart?!”

He came forward to greet her, a delighted smile lighting up his blue eyes. He stooped slightly from age and from the physical labors of a long life on a potato farm in northern Maine. He held out thick-veined, curled arthritic hands. “You must be Lila!” he exclaimed. “Mikey’s told me so
much about you! I feel like I already know you, my dear. Won’t you come and sit with me?”

Mikey?

She took his outstretched hands in a daze, and allowed him to escort her back to the opposite chair by the blazing fire. She sank down onto the edge of the matching Windsor rocker, never taking her eyes from Mike’s father’s face. It was a friendly face, an honest face, a loving face.

“Where’s Mike?” she asked, completely befuddled.

“I don’t know, dear; I’ve just driven down from Maple Grove, myself. I was hoping you could tell
me
where he is. I’ve been here long enough to get the fire going.” Mr. Hobart’s bright blue eyes emanated good humor and kindness.  

Instinctively, Lila glanced around the cabin. The knotted pine dwelling with exposed posts and beams was exactly what she would have expected from Mike Hobart. His home was sparse, neat, attractive in a masculine way. Two pair of wood and leather snowshoes decorated the wall by the stone fireplace and pictures of white tail deer, black bear and moose hung on the walls. She could smell the scent of him all around her and her soul was filled with an intense, physical aching for him.

She suddenly recollected his father, and turned back to Mr. Hobart. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” she said, attempting to shake herself back to normal. “Did Mike’s Mom come down with you from Maple Grove?”

“Hasn’t Mikey told you yet?” he asked, softly. Mr. Hobart read her answer in her eyes. “His mother died from complications giving birth to him. Mikey was quite an unexpected gift! Margaret was 44 when we found out she was pregnant and I was nearly 50! The three girls were grown and almost gone, and we were thinking more of grandchildren than children at the time. But, God has a sense of humor, I guess,” he added, sadly.

“I’m so sorry!” said Lila, tears springing to her eyes. “He’s never mentioned his mother, only you. Now, I know why!”

Mr. Hobart breathed in deeply, and let out a long, tremulous sigh. A log shifted on the fire and sent up a
spritzing
spray of orange sparks. “He feels responsible, I think. He never says so, but that’s what I think. I raised him by myself. I did the best I could—the girls helped, of course, but they had lives of their own to live.”

“He’s an amazing guy. I love him!” Lila blurted out.

“I know you do, dear,” said Mr. Hobart, leaning over and patting her hand. “And I know he loves you, too. I miss him terribly, of course, but we’re still very close. I know Mikey had to move away from me, in order to become his own man. But he’s been down here a long time; a very long time! I was hoping he’d come back to Maple Grove one of these days, and bring me back a pretty little daughter to love.” The old man hesitated. His thin hand trembled. “Will you come and let me love you, Lila? Will you come to Maple Grove and be my pretty little daughter?”

Will you come and let me love you?

Lila’s parched heart responded greedily to the proffering of love from this old mother hen. “Yes!” she cried, sinking onto her knees on the braided rug in front of his chair. “YES!” She put her head on the old man’s lap and burst into tears.

“Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed, patting her back and lightly stroking her silken black hair in the familiar comforting fashion for which
he
had so longed. “Shhhh; everything’s going to be alright!” His blue eyes filled with tears, and he coughed a little to clear his throat. “We’ll be just fine now, my dear, won’t we?
All
of us!”