A Bridge of Years (25 page)

The
funeral director at Carstairs turned out not to be the unctuous
vulture Catherine was expecting; he was a big-shouldered man who
looked a little like a football coach. He handed Catherine the bronze
urn containing Gram Peggy's ashes in a gesture that was almost
apologetic. "This is the way your grandmother wanted it, Miss
Simmons. No ceremony, nothing solemn. She arranged all this in
advance."

"Gram
Peggy was very practical," Catherine said.

"That
she was." He managed a sympathetic smile. "Everything's
been paid for through her lawyer. I hope we've been of some small
help?"

"You
did fine," Catherine said. "Thank you."

There
was a woman in the lobby as Catherine left, a gray-haired woman
roughly Gram Peggy's age; she stepped forward and said, "I'm
Nancy Horton—a friend of your grandmother's. I just want to
say how sorry I am."

"Thank
you," Catherine said. Apparently death involved thanking people
a lot.

"I
knew Peggy from the shopping trips we took. She still drove, you see.
I don't drive if I can help it. She used to drive me down to the mall
on the highway, Wednesday mornings usually. We'd talk. Though she was
never a big talker. I liked her a lot, though. You must be
Catherine."

"Yes."

"Are
you going to be staying in the house?" "Gram's house? For a
little while. Maybe for the summer." "Well, I'm not far
away if you need anything." She glanced at the urn in
Catherine's hand. "I don't know about cremation. It
seems—oh, I'm sorry! I shouldn't be saying this, should I? But it
seems like so little to leave behind."

"That's
okay," Catherine said. "This isn't Gram Peggy. We talked
about that before she died. These are just some ashes."

"Of
course," Nancy Horton said. "Will you keep them? Oh, my
curiosity! I'm sorry—"

"Gram
loved the forest out in back of her property," Catherine
said. "She once asked me to scatter her ashes there." She
took the urn protectively into the crook of her left arm. "That's
what I'll do."

Of
course, she couldn't keep the house. It was a big old house up along
the Post Road and a long way from anywhere Catherine wanted to
live, as much as she sometimes liked Belltower. Once the will was
probated, she would probably try to sell the property. She had said
as much to Dick Parsons, who had given her the number of the
local realty company. One of their agents was supposed to meet
her outside the funeral home.

The
agent turned out to be the man lounging against a mailbox by the
front steps—he straightened up and announced himself as Doug
Archer. Catherine smiled and shook his hand. "Everybody's
running against type," she said. I m sorry?

"The
funeral director doesn't look like a funeral director. You don't look
much like a real estate agent."

"I'll
take that as flattery," Archer said.

But
it was true, Catherine thought. He was a little too young, a little
too careless about his clothes. He wore floppy high-top Reeboks tied
too low, and he grinned like an eight-year-old. He said, "Are
you still thinking about putting the house on the market?"

"It's
a firm decision," Catherine said. "I'm just not sure about
when. I'm thinking of spending the rest of the summer here."

"It
may not be a quick sale in any case. The market's a little slow, and
those houses out on the Post Road are kind of lonely. But I'm sure we
can find a buyer for it."

"I'm
in no hurry. Dick Parsons said you'd probably want to look at the
house?"

"It'll
help when we're thinking about setting a price. If you want to make
an appointment? Or I can drive out today—"

"Today
is fine. I have to stop by Mr. Parsons' office and pick up the keys,
but you can come by later if you like."

"If
that's all right." He looked at his watch. "Around three?"
Sure.

"I'm
sorry about your grandmother, Miss Simmons. I handle a lot of
those houses up the Post Road, so I had the occasion to meet her once
or twice. She was a unique woman."

Catherine
smiled. "I don't imagine she had much patience with real estate
agents." "Not too damn much patience at all," Doug
Archer said.

Catherine
picked up the keys, signed papers, said another round of thanks, then
braced herself for the drive to Gram Peggy's house.

The
word "holiday," in Catherine's memory, was associated
with this road. When she was little they would drive down from
Bellingham in her father's station wagon, circle through Belltower to
the bottom of the Post Road hill, then up a long corridor of fragrant
pines to the door of Gram Peggy's house. Gram Peggy who cooked
wonderful meals, who said wonderful and irreverent things, and whose
presence imposed a magical truce between Catherine's mother and
father. At Gram Peggy's house, nobody was allowed to smoke and nobody
was allowed to fight. "Everything else is permitted. But I
will
not
have
the house stinking of tobacco smoke and I
will
not
allow
bickering—both of which poison the air. Isn't that right,
Catherine?"

The
Post Road hadn't changed much. It was still this green, dark, faintly
magical corridor—the highway and the malls might have been a
thousand miles away. Houses on the Post Road were barely more than
outposts in the wilderness, Catherine thought, set in their little
plots of landscape, some grand and many humble, but always
overshadowed by the lush Douglas firs.

Gram
Peggy's house, at the crest of the hill, was the only one of these
homes with a view. The house was an old and grandly Victorian wood
frame structure, two stories high with a gabled attic above that.
Gram Peggy had always been meticulous about having it painted and
touched up; otherwise, she said, the weeds would think they had
an open invitation. The house had been built by Gram Peggy's
father, a piano maker, whom Catherine had never met. The idea of
selling the property—of never coming back here—felt like the
worst kind of sacrilege. But of course she'd be lost in it herself.

She
parked and unlocked the big front door. For now, she left her paints
and supplies in the trunk of the Civic. If she stayed for the
summer—the idea was steadily more attractive —she could set up a
studio in the sunny room facing the woods out back. Or in the guest
room, where the bay window allowed glimpses of the distant ocean.

But
for now it was still Gram Peggy's house, left untidied at the end of
what must have been a tiring day. Crumbs on the kitchen counter, the
ficus wilting in a dry pot. Catherine wandered aimlessly through some
of these rooms, then dropped into the overstuffed sofa in front of
the TV set. Gram Peggy's
TV
Guide
was
splayed open on the side table —a week out of date.

Of
course
I'll
be here all summer, Catherine thought; it would take that long to
sort out Gram Peggy's possessions and arrange to have them sold. None
of this had occurred to her. She had assumed, by some wordless logic,
that Gram Peggy's things would have vanished like Gram Peggy herself,
into the urn now resting by the front door. But maybe this was where
the real mourning started: the disposition of these letters, clocks,
clothes, dentures—a last, brutal intimacy.

Catherine
slipped off her shoes, reclined on the sofa, and napped until Doug
Archer knocked at the door.

Before
he left, Doug Archer said a strange thing.

His
visit went well, otherwise. He was friendly and his interest seemed
genuine, more than just businesslike. He asked about her work.
Catherine was shy about her painting even though she had begun to
earn some money through a couple of small Seattle galleries. She'd
taken fine arts courses at college, but the work she produced was
mainly intuitive, personal, meticulous. She worked with acrylics and
sometimes with montage. Her subjects were usually small—a
leaf, a water drop, a ladybug—but her canvases were large,
impressionistic, and layered with bright acrylic washes. After
her last show a Seattle newspaper critic said she "seemed to
coax light out of paint," which had pleased her. But she didn't
tell Archer that; only that she painted and that she was thinking of
doing some work here during the summer. He said he'd love to see some
of her work sometime. Catherine said she was flattered but there was
nothing to show right now.

He
was thorough about the house. He inspected the basement, the
water heater and the furnace, the fuseboard and the window casements.
Upstairs, he made a note about the oak floors and moldings. Lastly,
he went outside and gazed up at the eaves. Catherine told him Gram
Peggy had had the roof inspected every year.

She
walked him to his car. "I suppose we'll have to put it on the
market pretty soon. I don't even know what that involves. I
guess people come to see it?"

"We
don't have to hurry. You must be upset by all this."

"Dazed.
I think I'm dazed."

"Take
as long as you need. Call me when you're ready to talk about it."

"I
appreciate that," Catherine said.

Archer
put his hand on the door of the car, then seemed to hesitate. "Do
you mind if I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Did
your grandmother ever talk much about her neighbors?"

"Not
that I remember. I did meet Mrs. Horton from around the corner.
Apparently they used to drive to the mall together."

"How
about the house down the other direction—the man who lived there?
She ever mention him? This would have been ten or more years ago."

"I
don't remember anything like that. Why?"

"No
real reason." Something personal, she guessed. He was obviously
embarrassed to have asked. "Will you do me one favor, Catherine?
If you notice anything strange happening, will you give me a
call? My number's on the card. You can reach me pretty much anytime."

"What
do you mean, anything strange?"

"Odd
occurrences," Archer said unhappily.

"Like
what? Ghosts, flying saucers, that kind of thing? Is there a lot of
that around here?" She couldn't help smiling.

"Nothing
like that. No, look, forget I asked, okay? It's nothing important.
Just kind of a hobby with me."

He
thanked her, she thanked him, he drove away. How odd, Catherine
thought as his car vanished into the tree shadows along the Post
Road. What an unusual man. What a strange thing to ask.

She
didn't think more about it. A bank of clouds moved in and a steady,
sullen rain fell without interruption for most of a week. Catherine
stayed in the house and began to itemize some of Gram Peggy's
possessions, room by room. It was depressing weather and depressing
work. She felt lost in this big old house, but the rhythms of it—the
ticking of the mantel clock and the morning and evening light
through the high dusty windows—were familiar and in their own way
reassuring.

Still,
she was glad when the sun came out. After a couple of warm days the
ground had dried and she was able to move around the big back lawn
and some distance down a trail into the woods. She remembered taking
some of these walks with Gram Peggy and how intimidating the forest
had seemed— still seemed, in fact. There was enough red cedar
behind the house to make her feel very small, as if she'd shrunk,
Alice-style, to the size of a caterpillar. The trail was narrow,
probably a deer trail; the forest was cool and silent.

She
took these walks almost every day and before long she began to feel a
little braver. She ranged farther than Gram Peggy had ever taken her.
Some of this woodland was municipal property, and farther east
it had been staked out by the timber interests, but nobody up along
the Post Road cared too much about property lines and Catherine was
able to wander fairly freely. Most days she hiked south down the
slope of the hill, keeping east of the road and the houses.

She
bought a guidebook and taught herself to identify some of the
wildlife. She had seen a salamander, a thrush, and something she
believed was a "pileated woodpecker." There was the
tantalizing possibility of encountering a black bear, though that
hadn't happened yet. Sometimes she brought her lunch with her;
sometimes she carried a sketchbook.