Chapter 1

Merry freakin’ Christmas.

There a lot of bad things that can happen in one’s life. I had one right now. My sister met me at my hotel to attend our dad’s funeral. I was three states away on a construction job when my sister called me with the tearful news. I was the road that afternoon.

Travel? I traveled. Work. The good money was somewhere out there, usually surrounded by a sea of mud on a construction site. I managed to get back home every couple of months and every one of those trips was reconnecting with Dad and Cathy, my sister. Dad was retired. Mom had succumbed to cancer five years before, and Dad chose to stay in the family home, in comfortable surroundings where he’d lived for forty years in the house he and Mom bought when she found out she was pregnant with me.

And that’s where Dad lived. And died. Frantic tearful phone call from Cathy. Aneurism hit dad while he was doing what he loved dearly, puttering in the lush greenery of his garden. Yes, on the Gulf Coast you can garden right into winter. Dad’s cabbages and greens and turnips and Brussels sprouts were healthy. We hadn’t had a frost yet, so there were even tomatoes still out there. For Dad, it was his happy place. From the condition of the garden, he probably was smiling when the event hit him.

Cathy and I walked into Dad’s house. I couldn’t keep the sobs from coming forth as for the first time I opened the door and didn’t hear his voice. She left. I was sitting on the sofa when I heard a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” I called.

The door opened to present one Miss Lena, as in “Angelina” Crosby, daughter of the neighbors next door. Lena had, for the past five years, since she was thirteen or fourteen, come over twice a week and helped Dad take care of the house, filling in the gaps that Dad couldn’t do himself and relieving Cathy from some of the chores.

“I’m so sorry, Mister Harris,” she said, real tears coursing down youthful cheeks. Her sobs didn’t help mine one bit and we hugged one another, weeping over the loss of my dad and her friend. Cathy’d told me that it was Lena who’d discovered Dad’s lifeless form in his garden. I could hardly imagine a more horrible thing.

The funeral was two days later. Sis and I stood grimly as distant relatives greeted us and the dozens of Dad’s former co-workers, some grey-headed retirees like him, others younger guys who’d worked on his crews. That is, Cathy was on one side, hands folded together. On the other side was Lena, dressed in her Sunday dress, almost incongruent in simple colors. And every time she felt me shudder as one friend after another expressed regret for Dad’s passing, Lena grasped my arm. If I sniffled, Lena sobbed.

And at the end of the day Cathy went home with her husband and kids and I went back to Dad’s house. Pulling up in the driveway in Dad’s pickup truck, I saw a familiar form crossing the yard. Lena, still in that dress.

Okay. Me. James Eric Harris. “Jay” to my friends and family. Forty. Six-one. Two hundred pounds. My hair was dark brown, but the gray was showing, too, and it was still just a tad longer than the military buzz from my service years ago. I was an engineer, well enough known in construction circles to be in somewhat of a demand. I worked when I wanted, generally ten months out of the year.

Lena, on the other hand ... Lena’s folks had moved next door to Mom and Dad when she was five. At five, Lena was a little cotton-topped thing, hair so blonde it was almost colorless. The first time I ever saw her, she came through the fence to see Dad in his garden. She was wearing a little blue cotton jumper, and I immediately tagged her with “Smurfette”, which started her giggling. Over the years, I got updates on her growth on my visits home. In the passing of twelve years, Lena grew taller to her present five-ten, but never got over the gawky legginess she acquired in puberty. The hair got several shades darker, but still blonde.

Her mom and dad had another three kids, too, and I think the oldest of those three, two years younger than Lena and as she gently said, “retarded”, before “developmentally disabled” came into vogue, was a reason that Lena was somewhat socially inept. Her parents were good people, good neighbors, and honest and hard-working, but they struggled on the poor income from the dad and the occasional work of the mom to make ends meet, leaving Lena to care for her brothers and sister.

It was that Lena who was walking towards me, her blonde hair swinging just below her jawline; short, unrestrained, unadorned, straight-cut bangs a clean line above serious blue eyes.

“Hi, Mister Harris,” she said from halfway across the yard. “Are you doing okay?”

“About as good as can be expected,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I’m gonna miss your dad, Mister Harris. He was always so nice to me.”

“Lena,” I said, “I won’t call you Smurfette if you don’t call me Mister Harris.”

“Okay, Mister Jay,” she answered.

“Closer,” I said. “How about just Jay?”

“You’re an adult, Mister Jay,” she said uncertainly.

“And you’re what, Smurfette? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Eighteen. Since last month.”

“So call me Jay, fellow adult. It streamlines conversation.”

“S’pose I LIKE being called Smurfette?”

“Okay, then. I promise to call you Smurfette on happy occasions.”

A vestigial smile passed across her lips. “I used to come over almost every afternoon and sit on the porch and talk with your dad, Jay. I’m gonna miss that.”

“I know, Lena. I’m gonna miss the phone calls and the visits. This was home, Lena.” I caught another sob.

“I’m still not over Denny dying yet. This is too many, Jay.” She looked at me with wet eyes. Her little brother had other problems besides mental development and they resulted in his passing away four months ago. Dad had told me the sad story. I was on the wrong side of the country for that funeral. Dad was there.

“I’m sorry, Lena. I know it’s tough. I should’ve been ready. Dad was seventy-four. But he was Dad. He was supposed to live forever.”

“I know,” she said. “And he was so healthy. At least we thought so. It was horrible.” She looked at me, eyes reddened. “His truck was here, so I knew he was home. I knocked, because that was the day I come over to clean and do the laundry for him. And he didn’t answer, so I walked around back ... And he was in his garden.”

“In his garden. You know, Lena, I think that’s as good a place as any for his last day.” I sighed.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “His place. Oh, Mom’s got dinner ready if you want a plate. I can bring you one.”

“Nah,” I said, “Thanks, but I think I’m just gonna go get something.”

“Jay,” she said softly, “By yourself? Let me bring us a plate, okay?”

I looked at those blue eyes. “Okay, Smurfette.”

She smiled as she walked away.

A few minutes later she was back, carrying a tray with two plates. We went inside and sat at Dad’s table, eating, the meal punctuated by sighs and short sentences.

“So what happens now, Jay? I mean ... this is his house...”

“I know, Lena. Cathy and I will start going through his stuff tomorrow. It’s just me and her, so it won’t take long to divide stuff up.” I looked at her. “You know, he talked about how good you were, helping him. He probably wants you to have something. If there’s anything...”

“Your dad was like my grandpa, Jay. I don’t know what I’d want. Do you have any pictures of him?”

“On my laptop,” I said. “And some DVDs. I spent a long time scanning everything. Wanna see?”

“Sure,” she said.

I fired up the laptop and started through the directory of Dad.

“That one!” she said. “That’s HIM! In his garden.”

“I’ll get it printed for you tomorrow, Lena.”

“Thank you, Jay,” she said. She picked up a DVD. “Are these private?”

“No,” I said. “Just old pictures. Every family has ‘em.”

“Show me,” she said simply. Her chair was scooted up next to mine, but I was getting uncomfortable sitting on the hard kitchen chairs.

“Wanna go sit on the sofa? It’s more comfortable.”

“Sure,” she answered.

We sat on the sofa as I worked through some pictures.

“Wait!” she said, “THAT folder...”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one that says “Jay in the army”,” she answered.

“Oh, that’s just pictures from...”

“When you were in the army. I remember your dad talking about that. He was proud of you.”

“He told me I was crazy. I told him ROTC would help me through college. Then I ended up in the war.” I showed her pictures of a younger me in the company of other young men, another place, another life.

“That’s YOU?” she squealed.

“Yeah, amazing what a decade and a half will do.”

She looked at me with those cool blue eyes.

We spent another hour looking at pictures, her questioning, me commenting, her arm against mine. Finally it was getting late. She retrieved the two plates and I opened the door for her.

“You don’t mind me being here with you and Mizz Cathy? You’re sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” I said.

The next three days were alternately happy and sad as my sister and I went through the closets and cabinets. Goodwill got a big pile of clothing and I promised them furniture in the near future.

And there was the will. Dad’s retirement account, pretty flush. Life insurance. Savings accounts. The house was bought and paid for. There was twenty-five acres on a hill in the middle of the state. I knew the place. A quick discussion and I traded my share of the house for her share of that land. I’m thinking –long forest road, then through the woods to an overgrown old homestead – security and privacy. I don’t really need the quick cash that selling Dad’s house would give me, not in the interest of a future cabin in the woods.

We pretty much figured the rest out. Somewhat surprising, though, was a codicil delivering the sum of ten thousand dollars to one Miss Angelina Crosby. I looked at Cathy. Cathy looked at me. The attorney looked at the two of us.

I spoke first. “College money, Lena?”

“I never expected that, guys,” she said. “He gave me money every week for helping out around the house. That was more than enough...”

“Darlin’, Dad wanted to help you, that’s all,” Cathy said.

Tears filled Lena’s eyes.

The rest of the meeting was filled with signing papers and handing over addresses and bank account information to facilitate transfers of funds.