Past Forward Volume 1 (5 page)

One couple, obviously married for many
years, ate in a rhythm almost synchronized. Each anticipated the
other’s movement and countered it with their own. They filled
unspoken requests and all without looking at one another. At one
point, the couple glanced up at each other at exactly the same time
and their faces lit up with a special understanding that seemed
particularly precious to her. She’d never seen that kind of
relationship in action. It was all so interesting and exciting.

Once Willow finished her meal, she walked up
Main Street to the convenience store and entered the restroom. As
she changed her shoes, she mused over the lunch, the menu, the
ridiculous amount of money she’d spent for a single meal and then
her heart sank.

“I forgot a tip! I knew there was something
else. In books—and Mother mentioned it too I know—they always leave
a tip for the waiter!”

She jerked off her tennis shoes, pulled
sandals back on her feet, and hurried back to the restaurant.
Outside, on the side of the building with another waiter, Brendan
sipped at a bottle of soda and puffed on a cigarette. The other
waiter nudged Brendan as she hurried toward them.

“Oh, I’m so glad I found you. I forgot to
leave a tip. You were such a good waiter too. I’m very sorry.” She
blushed, mortified at both her inexperience and her forgetfulness.
“I can’t remember what is expected—I’ve never left a tip
before…”

The other waiter grinned and quipped, “Well
for great service, you usually leave the equivalent to half of the
bill; otherwise twenty-five percent is all it’s worth.”

Brendan shoved his friend and shook his
head. “Don’t listen to him. Fifteen percent is customary. Twenty at
night with good service. But honestly—”

She thrust a few bills at him and smiled.
“Thank you. You made my first meal at a restaurant a wonderful
experience. Other waiters might not have been so kind.” She gave
the man next to Brendan a knowing look and walked away.

“Thanks!” Brendan called after her, but
Willow didn’t turn around. He counted a twenty-five percent tip and
realized as he did that she knew exactly how much she gave him.
“Wow.”

Bill Franklin caught up to Willow just as
she strolled up her driveway. He leaned over the passenger’s seat
and opened the door for her. “Hop in.” As they drove up the long
road, Bill told of the arrangements, his visit with her mother’s
lawyer, and the best pastrami on rye he’d ever had.

“Maybe I should have gone to the deli. The
line was almost out the door, so I went to a restaurant.
Marcello’s. It was very good, and I had a very nice waiter.”

“Did you and your mother eat there
often?”

“No… I’ve never been to a restaurant
before—well, not that I can remember anyway.”

At her living room table, Bill showed Willow
the cost of the funeral, the mortuary expenses, and made
suggestions for contributions to the minister for his time. He
showed her the addition he’d made to her letters with the time and
date of the funeral added—Monday at one-thirty in the afternoon—and
asked if he’d done what she wanted.

“Of course! It’s perfect. And the courthouse
approved the permit?”

“Well, not yet, but they said that since
you’re out of city limits, they can approve it as long as you own
more than ten acres and bury her at least three hundred yards from
your creek.”

“Oh, good. That is such a relief!”

Financial papers spread across the table in
rapid succession. He showed her the balance of her investments, her
bank balance, and her upcoming bills. Willow took careful notes on
everything as Bill explained the source of her income and the
projected outgo. “As you can see, your mother spent little of the
annuity she set up to live on. Living here—growing your own food
and everything—that kept costs low.”

Next, he pulled out the family records and
pointed to the notarized affidavit of birth. “This, however, is
going to be a problem. Your name is on these accounts, but only
because they’re so old. For you to access them, you’ll need either
a social security number or identification. You don’t have either,
and you can’t get either one without a state certified birth
certificate. I called your mother’s attorney, and she said she’d
file immediately for a family court hearing to establish the fact
of your birth.”

“How long will that take?”

Bill looked at her sympathetically. “I don’t
know. Hopefully, soon. Meanwhile, your lawyer says I’ve been named
executor of the will, so I can handle any financial needs until you
get identification and a social security number.”

She leaned back in her chair and watched him
for a few minutes as he made notes and gathered necessary
information. “You know, when I was fifteen, I developed an enormous
crush on you. I was positively smitten for at least a month. I
drove Mother crazy.”

“I think I remember that visit. You were
comical and I was embarrassed.” He glanced at her before adding, “I
didn’t see you much after that visit until the past few years.”

“I kept myself busy the next year. I felt
awkward after being so silly. Mother noticed I kept avoiding you
and insisted I stay inside while you were here.”

When the clock struck four, Bill stood,
gathering his papers, and shoved them into his briefcase. “I’ll
call you as soon as I have a court date, and I’ll be here on
Monday, of course. If you need anything just call. Mari knows to
patch you through immediately. Here’s my personal cell number in
case you need me after hours.” He slid a card—almost like his
business card—across the table.

She walked him to his car, waved for a
moment, and returned to the house. She pulled the chicken she’d
left cooling in the cellar icebox and took it to the barn. In the
“summer kitchen,” she chopped and diced until she had a healthy
amount of vegetables and her chicken scraps in a pot and simmering
on the stove. She turned the burner as low as it could go and
closed the window most of the way so that the breeze wouldn’t blow
out the flame.

After a swift clean up, she hurried inside
to change. The cow seemed to sense that something was off and lowed
mournfully as though asking for her friend Kari. “She’s not coming
back, old girl. She won’t be here when you become dinner either.
Lazy woman.”

Chad tossed his cell phone down on the seat
and punched his foot more solidly on the gas as his truck tore down
the highway. He’d been calling since noon. When Willow answered and
then disconnected, he’d been mildly amused. After all, she hadn’t
grown accustomed to using it yet. However, when future rings went
unanswered, he grew irritated. A call to the mortuary revealed that
she’d arrived with a William Franklin and left without him,
apparently just before he’d called.

“Six hours. It’s been about six hours.
Anything could happen especially all alone and grieving…” he
muttered to himself as he tore into her driveway. He ignored the
fishtailing of his truck bed and bounced along the ruts at forty
miles an hour.

Othello didn’t meet him. That seemed
strange, but Chad assumed the animal was out chasing rabbits or
squirrels. He knocked on the front door but Willow didn’t answer.
Around the back, he pounded on the back door but received nothing
but silence as a reply. Throwing courtesy out the door, he entered
the house and hurried in and out of every room. There was no sign
of her.

He jogged to the barn, and once inside,
found chicken soup simmering on the stove. It smelled wonderful.
Without realizing he’d done it, he gave it a stir and put the lid
back on the pot before he hurried up into the loft and then out the
doors again.

He started to call out for her, to ask where
she was, when a gunshot rang out from behind the barn. Chad froze.
Torn for a moment between retrieving his own weapon from his truck
and rushing to her aid, he opted for the latter and raced to the
corner of the barn. His movements, thought patterns, reactions—all
became automatic as his training overtook him. He peeked around the
barn and saw nothing.

Another shot rang out, this time closer. It
sounded like a twenty-two rifle. Debating whether to call out, he
crept toward a line of trees. Another shot fired. Chad threw
caution to the wind and pounded a path through the trees. Willow
whirled at the sound of his footsteps throwing the barrel of the
gun in the air.

“What are you doing? You scared me! I could
have shot you.”

Chad, ignoring her questions, began a tirade
of excessive proportions. “Me? Excuse me? I’ve been calling you all
day! First, you answer and hang up on me, and then nothing. I
imagined you out here lonely, grieving, and then heard gunshots and
assumed—”

He stopped short. Willow’s hands covered her
face as her shoulders shook. Remorseful, he gently pulled the gun
from the crook of her arm, the end of the barrel being too close to
her head for his comfort, and leaned it against a tree. His
compassion battled with the pent up fear and anger of the day,
leaving him unsettled as to what to do.

Just as he decided he should try to comfort
her, Chad realized that her “sobs” sounded suspiciously like
giggles. “Are you laughing at me?”

Willow pulled her hands from her face and
nodded. “Mmm hmm.” A fresh wave of laughter engulfed her. “You
sounded like Mother when she thought I’d drowned in the creek.”

“What did she do after she read you the riot
act?”

“Well she scolded me at first—is that what
you mean by riot act?” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Well, after
that, she gave me a sound spanking. I remember sitting right back
in the creek to cool my backside.” Chad smirked in his attempt to
hide smile. Willow’s expression was priceless. “That’s exactly the
face Mother made. Exactly.”

“So what are you doing out here?”

She pointed at the gun. “Mother was the
markswoman. She kept in practice for self-defense. I had to shoot
enough that I could at least hit a dog if I had to. Mother
insisted. Now that she’s gone, there isn’t someone else to rely on
if I need protection.”

The hollow tone in her voice belied the
matter-of-fact attitude. Chad took the gun and started to empty the
chamber, but Willow stopped him. “No. We leave it loaded. It’ll
stand behind my bed now like it used to stand behind Mother’s.”

“You shouldn’t leave it loaded—”

She jerked the gun from him, grabbed the box
of ammunition, and marched into the trees. “A gun does no good as
protection if you have to stop and find the ammunition and then
load it. By that point, an intruder could have killed you.” She
hesitated and then added, “Well, unless you’re good at clobbering
them with it.”

“But—”

She whirled unexpectedly in mid stride
causing Chad to bump into her, nearly knocking her down. As he
grabbed her arms to steady her, Willow stepped back exasperated.
“Who is going to get hurt in my house? Who? How is that gun going
to harm me if I am not behind it? I’m the only one here. Even if
you visit or Mr. Franklin or Mr. and Mrs. Varney, are you or they
going to go upstairs, behind my bed, and play with my loaded
gun?”

Forced to concede that she had a point, Chad
sighed. “Ok, but do me a favor. If a child ever comes here, promise
me you’ll hide it in a locked room and remove the ammo until they
leave.”

“Promise.” She marched toward the house
again. “Now, are you hungry?”

“I can’t believe your mother took pictures.
She took lots of pictures, of both of you. It’s amazing.”

Willow glanced at Chad’s bewildered face.
“Why is that so amazing?”

“Well, you live without electricity, grow
your own food—live like Laura Ingalls in a lot of ways—but you guys
take pictures. How did you get them developed?”

Willow pulled a small picnic basket from the
shelf next to the scrapbooks. Inside was a camera, several rolls of
unused film, and a stack of prepaid envelopes to a mega
photo-development house. “We just pop the film in one of these with
a check and put it out at the mail box. About two weeks later it
comes back with more film and mailers.”