One Mountain Away (27 page)

Peonies flourished along one terrace, backed by lilacs and forsythia. She remembered that her grandmother had called peonies century flowers, because once planted they needed almost nothing to keep blooming. Gran had brought some into the house each spring to sweetly perfume the air with their lemony fragrance. And here they were, blooming still, pale pink and creamy white, nodding gently in the warm spring breeze.

“Every time I see it with new eyes,” she said.

“How do you see it today?”

Charlotte liked the question. “There were good memories here for generations of Sawyers, my mother’s family. I can feel that now. Gran told me what stories she could, but my grandfather was the one who grew up here, so she didn’t know them all. I have good memories of my grandmother, too. When my father wasn’t around we worked hard, but we laughed, too.”

“I’m glad.”

“She taught me to cook and sew, neither of which stuck, and to garden, since that’s how we fed ourselves. Her tomato plants? They were ladder-worthy—tomato trees, she called them—and every single one bore enough tomatoes to feed a family of ten. She saved seeds every year. If the house had been on fire, she would have grabbed me with one hand and next year’s tomato seeds with the other. I’ve always hated that I didn’t keep them going somehow. The strain’s probably lost forever.”

“You must have had a lot of other things to think about.”

“Like how to survive. But I still wish I’d found a way.” Charlotte opened her door and stepped down. The air immediately felt familiar, crisper than in the city and, of course, cooler. She stepped out of the shade of the oak and let the sun warm her. “While we wait for my renters, let me show you the house.”

They climbed solidly anchored stone steps. Charlotte could feel the strain as she hiked the path she’d run up and down at least a dozen times a day as a child. Everything was in better repair now than it had been then. She’d had a steady succession of good tenants, all willing to make improvements for a portion of the rent. During their marriage, Ethan had made suggestions and inspections, and befriended each renter. She hadn’t been as willing, and in exchange she’d gotten less work and more rent. But the last couple had maintained the place well. She was relieved to see she had nothing to complain about, at least not outside.

“Charlotte, this is wonderful,” Analiese said. “The setting, the house.” She nodded to the right. “The outbuildings. It’s a Blue Ridge postcard.”

“I remember being jealous of a local family who had a manufactured house brought in. And all the while I couldn’t see how wonderful this place really was.”

They stepped up to the wide front porch, which housed an old metal glider with a green-and-white vinyl seat and mismatched cushions. Rockers stood against the wall, and Charlotte recognized one. “My grandfather made this.” She went over to test it, rocking it with her hand. “Made it well, apparently, because it’s still here.” She thought a moment, then she smiled. “From the pulpit tree.”

“Pulpit?”

“He made the pulpit in our church, by far the prettiest thing inside it. And this came from the same tree. I could probably still find the stump out in the woods. I’d forgotten…”

They walked into a living area, past stairs to the second story. The floor was wide plank heart pine that had been refinished a year before, and the fieldstone fireplace was scrubbed free of smoke and ash. A few pieces of furniture sat against walls, none of it familiar except a bench Charlotte remembered as one her grandmother had used at the foot of her bed to hold quilts in the winter.

They wandered the rest of the downstairs. The country kitchen was much updated from the one of Charlotte’s childhood, but Ethan had made certain all the new carpentry fit with the character of the house. Open shelves held plates and glasses; an iron rack hanging from the ceiling next to the stove held pots and pans. The appliances were stainless, Charlotte’s choice when Falconview had extras from a bulk purchase. The last tenants had painted the walls a creamy yellow, now splotched with darker areas where calendars or pictures had preserved the paint from sunlight.

“You could sit ten people in here easily,” Analiese said. “That table’s something.”

The long table consisted of polished planks topping sturdy round legs, but it had character no furniture showroom could provide. The table had been there in Charlotte’s childhood, and her grandmother had claimed it had been there during
her
grandfather’s childhood, too.

“What’s upstairs?” Analiese asked.

They climbed the steps and walked down the hall, peeking into three bedrooms and ending up at the largest one at the end, with large windows looking east to yet another mountain.

“This was my grandmother’s.” Charlotte stepped inside the room, which was empty of furniture. The heirloom sleigh bed was gone. She knew from Bill Johnston that Hearty had chopped it up for firewood one cold February. That he hadn’t destroyed everything was a miracle.

Analiese joined her at the window. “She must have loved this view.”

“At the end of Gran’s life she lay in bed all day and looked out this window. Once I asked her what she was looking at. She said everybody has mountains they have to pass over in life, and death is waiting over the very last one. She told me she was just one mountain away.”

“What do you think her final mountain was?”

“Me. She wanted to be sure I finished high school. All she could give me was my education and what little money she’d been able to keep out of Hearty’s hands. She held on for that, I think, but death wasn’t an enemy. She was looking forward to climbing that final mountain, and being with my grandfather and her own family.”

“Her faith must have been a powerful influence on you.”

“Not as much as her life was.” Charlotte heard a car outside. “Let’s go meet the renters.”

As Analiese wandered the grounds, Charlotte chatted with the young couple, who were clearly thrilled to have bought their first home. She gave them back their deposit, and they gave her keys and a short list of repairs that needed a professional’s touch.

After they drove away she saw Analiese standing up the hill at the edge of the family cemetery. She joined her there.

“Some of my family’s here, including my mother and grandparents.” Charlotte hesitated, then added. “I think whenever I die I’d like to have my ashes placed here with them.”

“Have you left instructions?”

“Not yet, but soon.”

“It’s a good idea for anybody.”

“On my first morning in the hospital for chemo, the social worker gave me material on things I should consider. That was the moment I realized everybody thought my survival was up for grabs. Until then leukemia was just another unfortunate challenge I had to get through so I could work harder. But that revelation was the high point of that day. In the afternoon I had a severe reaction to one of the drugs they were using and nearly died. I was rushed into the ICU and didn’t come out again for a week, but I don’t remember too many details except that my whole life changed.”

“I imagine it did.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“Not at all?”

“Well, given a choice I’d like to be thirty years younger, healthy as a horse and well acquainted with the things I know now. But seeing as that’s impossible, I’ll take where I am over where I was when I went into the hospital.”

“What will happen to the cemetery if you sell the land?”

“I think by law they have to leave it here, but that’s not going to be a problem.”

“Then you’re not going to sell?”

“Let me show you something on the way home. It’s the best explanation I can think of, something I sold for the wrong reasons. I don’t want to do that again.”

They picnicked on the lunch Charlotte had bought at her favorite deli before leaving Asheville. Then, after checking the outbuildings and admiring what remained of last year’s flourishing vegetable garden, they started back. They were comfortable together now. Analiese had obviously loved the Sawyer farm, not just the house but the land around it. She chatted, occasionally asking questions about the property.

Charlotte knew they weren’t idle questions. “Do you have an idea for using it?”

“Inspiration comes from knowledge. I’m just putting it all together.”

Charlotte didn’t take the direct route back. They had time, and she was enjoying Analiese’s company. By the time she turned off on a paved road lined with carefully spaced rhododendrons in riotous shades of fuchsia and purple, she had steeled herself for another encounter with her past.

They arrived at an unmanned security booth and a large carved sign announcing that they were entering Falcon View. Charlotte continued on, up and down familiar hills, past expensive but not ostentatious homes, and land still rich in native shrubbery and trees.

She parked at last, on a hill that had a view for miles and miles, and offered a glimpse of Asheville in the distance.

She got out, and without asking why, Analiese followed suit. They leaned against the hood of the Cherokee, and Charlotte folded her arms. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“This land belonged to my father. When he died, I realized it could be worth a fortune. I knew if I simply sold it the way it was, I would be a little wealthier, but someone else would be a lot more so after it was developed. So over a period of months I hatched a plan—without telling my husband, who wouldn’t have approved for a number of reasons.

“One day I walked into the offices of Whitestone Development Properties and asked to see the founder and president, George Whitestone. I handed the woman at the desk a portfolio I’d made that included photographs and a description of every foot of this land. Elevation, water sources, costs, transcripts of conversations with the local utility company. People from Charlotte and Atlanta were hungry for mountain homes for weekends and summers. I thought the time had come to do something about it.”

“Did you have any experience?”

“I’d been studying local developers for years, and I had a degree in business management. So I knew a lot, but not enough, of course, to do anything on my own. I must have had fortune on my side. I knew just enough to intrigue George and not enough to scare him off. We sat together in his office as he looked through the portfolio. Then I pulled a folder out of my handbag and gave it to him. It contained all the research I’d done into Whitestone Development and similar firms, graphs and lists and, finally, my analysis, which showed that they were the top candidate to develop my land.”

“That’s extraordinary. What did he say?”

Charlotte pushed away from the car and began to walk. Analiese joined her. “I was so scared. I remember putting my hands in my pockets so he wouldn’t see they were shaking. I told him what I thought the land was worth then, and what it would be worth once it was developed in two or three years. I told him that I knew Whitestone Development was working on several major projects at the present and, if my research was correct, had extended themselves financially as far as it would be wise to.

“Then I made my offer. I told him I wanted a job more than I wanted to sell the land. I wanted to work in real estate development, and I wanted to learn
everything
. I thought Whitestone Development could use a new face, someone with energy and commitment and the desire to move up the ladder. I didn’t want to start at the top. I was willing to start close to the bottom as long as it was clear to everyone I was climbing steadily.

“When the time came for Whitestone to develop my land, I would sell it to the company at a bargain, as long as I was involved in every step of development. And as long as my husband, a talented young architect, would be strongly considered to help develop the site.”

The view here was even better, and they stopped to admire it. “I’m sure Mr. Whitestone was impressed,” Analiese said. “Not just with you, but with this land.”

“By the end he agreed to consider my offer, and I gave him everything I had with me so he could explore my proposal with his team.” Charlotte faced Analiese and smiled a little. “My knees were knocking so hard by the time I got to my car, I had to sit and breathe deeply for ten minutes before I thought it might be safe to drive.”

“What did your husband say? You hadn’t told him a thing?”

“Ethan was against planned communities and probably still is. The density’s usually too high, the attention to the environment is lip service, the architecture’s cookie-cutter and there’s little attempt to blend into the surroundings. When we’d talked about my father’s land, Ethan had envisioned dividing it into, at most, four parcels, each with a house designed to disappear into the mountainside, a residence that would be off the grid and no threat to the fragile environment that my father had already spoiled.”

“Not good. Sounds like getting him to see it your way took some convincing.”

“I waited until my next meeting with George Whitestone. He tried to convince me again just to sell for a nice little profit, but I knew what I wanted. A career. He agreed reluctantly, but he agreed. So then I finally told Ethan what I was up to. He was stunned. He couldn’t really see I wanted to be God, to change the city and the surrounding countryside to suit my own design. I never wanted to be a poor powerless country bumpkin again.”

She felt as if she had just emptied her heart, but she trusted that she’d emptied it to the right person. And she was right.

“I’m not sure what’s more interesting,” Analiese said. “That you did all this and worked so hard, or that you see your own motivations so clearly now.”

“They’re darker than I’ve just told you.” Charlotte looked out at the view that was her father’s legacy. “I think I hoped that people would fear me. I think I’d given up hope by then that they would ever love me. What was there to love, after all? So I sold this land and myself to get what I wanted. And from that moment on, my life was never the same.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

THE TELEPHONE RANG just as Taylor put the final stitches in the hem of the skirt Maddie wanted to wear to school that morning. Today was Maddie’s first day back, and Taylor understood her desire to look good, although not so much the need to pull out every single item in her closet. Of course the skirt she
had
to wear was the only one that needed repair.