Chapter 1

The ending of the school year was always a delightful time. In my very early years, it just meant freedom. Freedom from getting up early every morning and trudging off to someplace where I didn’t really want to be. In later years, high school that is, it meant being able to go someplace where I really did want to be. Aunt Natalie’s house, and in the last couple of years, the place where Granny Anna could be found also.

I’m Serena, and I grew to cherish those days of summer, away from home and the usual things that cluttered my life for nine months, to a place that was serene, and beautiful, a time of just sleeping in, walking through the beautiful woods, smelling the scent of pine as I kicked up the old needles, seeing what new flowers were growing there, what new colors were peeking out to surprise me, and taking Thurston, Aunt Natalie’s black lab, on long walks. I loved Thurston. And the walks were such a joy. There was no leash with Thurston. He just knew where to walk and seemed to be able to guess where I wanted to go. Even though Aunt Natalie hated it and Granny seemed disgusted when it happened, I felt special when he’d give me a big lick with that huge pink tongue of his. Somehow, they thought it was dirty, but I knew it was just love.

Of course, there was something else too. The something else’s name was Duane. He lived next door, if you could call it that. His was the next house up the road, around a couple of curves and so very far away that you couldn’t see one from the other. That something else had started after my freshman year, the first year I came to spend the summer with Aunt Natalie. He was two years older, but it seemed even more than two years, he was so different from the boys I was used to. Even though I had been retained in first grade, and was a year older than most just finishing freshman year, he still seemed to me to be nearly an adult.

It was hard to say that we had started dating that first year. It was hard to say that we had ever really started dating. Out here, dating wasn’t necessary. Sometimes Auntie would pop popcorn and Duane and I would watch movies on TV or we’d watch movies on the DVD player, something fairly new that Auntie had invested in. On our trips into town, we’d sometimes take Auntie’s library card and explore the small supply of available movies, quickly diminishing the small trove of unseen adventures. We watched Lord of the Rings and Blackhawk Down. I put up with that one for Duane as I could barely stomach the violence and blood. We both loved Indiana Jones but my favorite was The Lion King. Just the story, the animals, and the beauty were totally enthralling and I watched it several times, often just by myself.

We would walk and play silly games in the woods. Often, I thought he was just humoring me, playing those games. He’d let me borrow an old bicycle they had and we would ride into town and get candy, and some days, ice cream. People in the town got to know us and, at first, thought we were brother and sister, we looked so much alike. I could never quite see it. We both had blue eyes, but my hair was very blond and his, well, it wasn’t even what you’d call dirty blond. It was just a light brown, always a bit unruly but still cut neatly. He was taller, of course, and just a touch muscular, but we just seemed to fit together somehow, right from the start, despite the two years, and it, or actually he, made coming to Auntie’s to spend the summer just an extra special time that I knew I’d never forget.

Of course, each year brought changes in our activities. The silly games ended. Lots more just sitting and talking. Duane seemed like a very serious sort, unlike most of the boys in my school. I often wondered what he did during the nine months I was away, but actually found out very little. I somehow wanted to be a part of those nine months as well. Yet, not knowing I think made him that much more intriguing. I just knew that when I got to Auntie’s for the summer, Duane would be there to fill my days – and sometimes the nights as well. Not the all-nights, just the time before Auntie would call me for dessert and then bed.

Something very special happened at the end of the summer after my junior year and not too long after my eighteenth birthday. He had kissed me for the first time during that summer, but certainly not for the last time. Our walks in the woods got more and more intimate as the time for me to return for my senior year approached. Our touching began going places where none had touched before and my thoughts about Duane were changing. I had never imagined such things happening to me – but they were. At least that “none had touched before” was true for me, and I had no reason to think that was not true for him as well. Of course, I had no way of knowing. But I could imagine and I never imagined him with anyone but me. On the day before I was to leave, he led me to a little shed-like building he’d discovered in the woods. It was very dilapidated, nearly falling apart and my first thought was to wonder if it could last another year and become our very special place.

My mind was sneaking to places it dared not go, with thoughts it dared not have but was like a fox, afraid of people but unable to resist the all-possessing odor of food. And so, with all those thoughts, held within an innocent but suddenly very willing body, I had joined him and we had made love, there on the simple dirt floor amidst all the debris, the birds singing to us outside, the sun through the broken windows casting its warmth and light over us. It was so very, very difficult to leave that next day as I simply wanted that summer and what was beginning, to go on forever.

It was not to be, of course, despite those myriad thoughts churning through my mind. Senior year had begun as I felt myself beginning to bloom and finally, it had ended and mother had given me permission to take the Ford Escort to Auntie’s so I’d be free to go and come as I pleased, within reason, of course.

Maybe I’ll just fill in here a bit. My mother had come to this country from Denmark when she was two-years-old. She and my father were not yet married when I was born, but were so within a month of my birth. My father had been a salesman and quickly moved to sales manager which, in his company, at least, required quite a bit of travel. Tragically, on one of his flights on a small, feeder airline, he had been killed in a crash. Nothing replaces a husband or a father. For me, at that age, which was seven, that applied very severely. However, for my mother, there was something. Not a replacement but certainly a help. His company had a life insurance policy that guaranteed three times his annual salary, double indemnity if his death was accidental. They also carried a travel insurance policy and he automatically purchased travel insurance whenever he knew he’d be on an airplane. In summary, I knew mother had received well over one million dollars from all of that and we were able to live comfortably, if that’s possible when you’re emotionally devastated and all you want to do is crawl into a dark hole and let the earth return you to where you began.

So, I had the Escort and a nice balance in my bank account as I was anticipating a wonderful summer prior to embarking on the beginning of the rest of my life. Plus, I could hardly wait to see Duane again after the marvelous way the previous summer had ended. There were very few cell phones then and there were expensive long-distance charges for regular phone calls. We had written a couple of letters in the past but we hadn’t during that last school year. It just seemed that I couldn’t get there fast enough. The old and familiar roads seemed longer than they used to be, as though they’d grown with age, and with my obscene anxiety and anticipation.

At last, I could see the old house – it was beautiful. The dark red bricks nearly matching the color of the giant tree trunks that surrounded it, seemingly caring for it as animals surround a young one to protect it. The green roof, weathered and darkened, was dappled with the shadows from the leaves it so nearly matched. Those fresh leaves of spring. It was a sight I’d longed for and that had finally arrived. I pulled into the driveway and swung open the door just in time, as a black ball of fur launched itself into my lap. It was Thurston, of course, and I was always a little amazed that he never forgot who I was over those nine months of my absence. And, on the porch, stood Auntie Natalie, and just coming through the door was Granny Anna. I couldn’t help but wonder how long these “first days of summer” could go on. Somehow, with a young girl’s naivete, I foolishly hoped they’d never end. In the back of my mind, hidden away where it wouldn’t distract me from life, was a voice that would very occasionally chastise me for that, admonishing me silently that life moves on, things change, not always to our liking, regardless of our selfish wishes and desires. I never imagined how shrill that voice would become nor how quickly it would emerge once again.

I remember running to the porch and getting those hugs that were so treasured due to their long absence. Auntie had her usual huge smile and, even though it was nearly summer and much warmer, her lavender cardigan sweater that seemed to be a part of her, like the uniforms at the girl’s school I passed on the way to my school. It seemed a sign of order, of regularity, of constancy that I somehow needed. A simple sweater, but so much more. Granny seemed just a bit more feeble than I had remembered and I could feel a hint of, what, despair ... disappointment ... dread? I hoped that it was rather my memory that had failed, but still, the dire thought that she was getting to where ... Such unpleasantry had no place on this wonderful day and I was surprised at myself for feeling that way. I managed to drag my several suitcases into the house and upstairs to my room. It was not my house but it was certainly my room. I was fairly sure the two ladies closed the door to that room when I left to go back home and only opened it again the day before I arrived in order to clean it a bit for me. Not that I would have minded the touches of dust that might have gathered. It was just a ritual that had been followed for these few years.

For a quick moment, I sat on the bed and looked at what surrounded me, that I had longed for these many months. Sometimes, during the winter, as I sat thinking about this house, about Auntie and Granny ... and yes, about Duane sometimes as well, darts of guilt would prick me, that I was longing to go to a place where my mother was not. I would press myself, fraught with doubts about who and what I was that those far-away things pulled at me so resolutely. Mother always refused to go – she had things to do, her work wouldn’t allow her to be away for long, and other vagaries that left me totally unsatisfied. Yes, she worked, even though she didn’t need to. She felt it completed her somehow. And she volunteered, endlessly it seemed, for the homeless, at hospitals, at places that I was not concerned about in the least. Was this a shallowness in me that made me somewhat incomplete. Was I somehow less than my mother because I longed to be here, in this place, in this house with these two women who seemed to mean so much to me?

Such thoughts tormented me on occasion, but usually, I was able to think them through, or perhaps more aptly, push them aside until, like ants, they crept through the cracks and under the doors of my mind, daring me to step on them, crush them, sweep them away with finality like the dust of so many other discarded thoughts. Which of course, I was unable to do.

I loved this house, just the sight and the feel of it, and the smell of it. It was the smell of age, of times somehow past that lingered, of wood and old curtains and carpets that had experienced the trampling of who-knows-how-many feet. There was the fragile hint of mustiness here in my room but it would be dispelled quickly by the fresh air that would invade when I opened my two windows.

There were no sharp corners here. They had all been worn smooth by hundreds of passing hands, and an equal number of loving touches from dust cloths and scrub rags. My initials were carved in both window sills of this room. I had been scolded severely by Aunt Natalie when I had done it, surprising me as I thought only mothers were allowed to scold. But, in this short time, they had become treasures for both Auntie and Granny and they would do whatever was required to preserve them. And there was the back stairway. It was beyond my imagination, having been brought up in the city, that a house would have two stairways. But this one did and the back one was mine – I had claimed it from the first day I began my sojourns here. It led directly up to my room and the treads were wooden – no carpet to allay the wear that all those years had left there.

Over time I had explored each tread, sensing the indentations with my hand, wondering who and how many had left their marks there. From the very first I was determined to leave my own mark there in a unique way. When I went up the stairs, I began with my right foot, each time. I lamented that the builder was obviously not superstitious, as there were 13 treads. To keep things the same, I had to start with my left foot when coming down. I hoped that would wear the treads unevenly, that unevenness being my lasting mark on the house. It was a game I had developed, trying to hit the steps properly without changing my stride. So many things I clung to, strings that tied my world together, tenuous as they were.

I was feeling a little guilty as I knew Auntie and Granny were anxious to talk to me and to get whatever updates I was able to provide. Auntie was mother’s much-older sister and had lost any hint of a Danish accent that might have existed in past years. Not so with Granny who still retained just a touch of V’s mixing with W’s and a certain, well, sing-song would be stretching it a bit, but the lilt was still there. I loved to hear it though.