September Wind (10 page)

Before today, Francine had never told her she cared. Yet, she realized it didn’t matter any longer that for years she had to beg for help, or attention, or that her aunt had been as sour as stale milk more times than not. The important thing was she’d taken the time out of her life to do things for her.

              Now, she had come through with something that would change her life.

             
“
Thanks, Aunt Francine,” she whispered. But the woman had drifted off to sleep, thoughts of getting up to fix supper long forgotten.

CHAPTER TEN

The night Aunt Francine died, Emily tearfully pictured herself with the men in a front row pew singing
Amazing Grace
with her mother, grandmother, and her aunt’s spirits there to help mend the family. Yet, when she mentioned having the service at a nearby house of worship, Grandfather’s response was a grunt and a look of horror.

Early morning on the day of her funeral, Grandfather and Claude left for parts unknown. Expecting them to show up for the service, Emily stood at the gravesite with her uncles, clutching a basket of flowers. She looked across the way to where her mother and grandmother lay, recalling how sad Grandfather was after Grandmother died. Yet, it wasn’t until his eyes fell upon his daughter’s grave that he completely fell apart.

              “
They’re not coming,” she said to Steven.

             
“
Now how do you know that?”

             
“
I just do. They’re not coming.”

             
He stood for a moment, looked up the gravel drive and then motioned to the minister to go ahead.

             
Following the service, she walked to where her mother and grandmother lay beneath rock headstones. It felt odd being there for the first time in more than fourteen years. As she stood at their feet with a breeze gently tossing her hair about, she felt their presence press against her chest, as if they were all sharing the sound of the rustling of the leaves, the fluttering of butterfly wings, and the swaying of the grass in the wind. The whole thing was uplifting, and she hung onto the feeling for as long as she could.

             
When it passed, she knelt at each of their headstones and left a bouquet of marigolds. She stood then and turned to look about for a glimpse of where Haity lay, wondering if she was next to her father who died a few years after his daughter. She wondered if they were even buried there.

             
“
You ready to go?” Steven said, coming up beside her. He dropped his eyes to the graves of his mother and sister. They stood for a few minutes in silence, and then Emily followed him to the pickup.

             
“
I’ll ride in the back,” she said, already climbing onto the footboard. She hopped in and positioned herself in a corner between the grocery bin and the side of the pickup. Steven sped off and she lifted her face, letting the wind brush against her cheeks and through her hair with its fingertips and sighs as it swept away again. She wondered where this invisible force came from and where it went.               Whether it came back to touch those who lived as it had done so long ago tugging at her grandmother’s hair, and long before that her own mother’s. She wondered if those moments from the past were now part of her, and if their spirits were trying to tell her something by the unexpected stirring in her heart.

“When something touches you, my little Bella Bambina,” her grandmother used to say, “that’s the God of the universe trying to tell you something.” She always had those little notes of premonition. Like the casting of a shadow by a cloud over the sun, or the catch of a breath at the sight of a shooting star, or a sudden gust of wind that folds around you and then sweeps off in a hurry. She believed these things sometimes came to warn you, and other times she said,
they come to sooth your soul and bring you hope
.

Tears, warmed by the memory of those who had loved her, rolled down Emily’s cheeks. A soft wind came and whisked them away, perhaps to live in another day and another time.

                            Back at the farm, she started lunch for her two uncles. There still wasn’t a sign of Grandfather and Claude. She noticed on the way back from the funeral they weren’t at Aunt Francine’s. Though she knew, it was just a matter of time before they would go. Suddenly, she was in a hurry to head over there herself.

             
Eager for the men to finish up so she could be on her way, she cut thinner slices of bread than normal. She put less meat and lettuce onto the sandwiches. And when it was time to sit for lunch, she ate faster than usual, all in the hope that it would inspire them to do the same. Finally, she stood and started clearing the table. They didn’t seem to notice her urgency, just took their sandwiches and left.

             
After she cleaned the kitchen, she went upstairs and reached under the bed for a flashlight and a potato sack. She draped the sack around her neck and placed the flashlight into one of her skirt pockets. Then she slipped away to retrieve the legacy her grandmother left her, and to claim the gift from Aunt Francine that would buy her freedom.

             
Outside she called the cats to accompany her.

“
Kidders! Caesar!” When they didn’t respond, she tried to coax them from their hiding. “Kiideers! Caeeesaar!” Still nothing. “All right, you rascals, it’s your loss.”

             
She wasn’t exactly superstitious, but the cats liked to tag along whenever she left the yard. She kept looking back for them all the way to her aunt’s. At the same time, she listened for the sound of Grandfather’s pickup.

             
The moment she stepped inside the cottage, so quiet now, as though it had been empty for years, she imagined voices telling her to get out before the old man showed up. This strange feeling stayed like a cloud as she hurried to the bedroom and pulled a stool to the middle of the room. She climbed on top, using a rope attached to a ceiling doorway to lower a makeshift stairway.

             
Carefully making her way to the top step, she pulled out the flashlight, flipped the switch, and climbed into the attic. The beam of light was weak as she moved toward the left wall, stirring up dust and knocking down cobwebs. She sneezed a couple of times, then brushed herself off, trying not to look either way into the darkness, hoping for nothing worse than a few spiders. When she reached the wall, she pointed the flashlight to the last rafter, turned right, and then followed the beam of light.

             
As she reached the far end of the attic, she stubbed her toe on something and dropped the light to the chest Aunt Francine mentioned. Pointing the flashlight back up to the rafter, she moved the light until there before her, like two old friends patiently waiting, sat the silver bar and the box containing the necklace.

             
She positioned the flashlight face-up inside her right skirt pocket, and then pushed the chest closer to the beam. Her heart thumped as she stepped on top of the old brown trunk and gently reached for the box that held her necklace. Wiping it off with her skirt, she slipped it into her left pocket, and then gingerly lifted the silver bar. It was larger than she expected, almost half the size of a loaf of bread. She brushed away dust revealing its rich color and a one hundred-ounce marking.

             
“
Oh, my word,” she whispered, “I’ll bet its worth at least fifty bucks.” She took the potato sack from around her neck and placed the bar inside, finding it hard to believe it belonged to her.

             
She stepped from the chest and was about to head back down, when her curiosity got the best of her. She set the sack on the floor and lifted the trunk lid. There she found old documents and a couple of large envelopes, a pile of funny looking pictures of people she never knew existed, and a stack of letters mostly from her uncle, Carl McTune. Her great uncle’s letters were from Italy and Germany, dated back as far as 1910. Although, the letter that really caught her attention was the one wedged beneath the flap of one of the large brown envelopes sitting on top of the pile. It was addressed to Francine from a man named Samuel Dimsmoore. The return address was a Post Office Box number in San Francisco, dated September 1941.

She was tempted to rummage around more. But her time was short. She placed the letter next to the necklace, along with a package of stamps she found wrapped in clear plastic. Then she picked up the potato sack and set back across the room.

              After only a few steps down the ladder, the kitchen door creaked opened. She moved quickly, planning to toss the sack out the window once she got down. But then her skirt caught onto something. She grabbed a chunk of fabric, giving it a sharp tug. The skirt ripped, but she still couldn’t move. Tightening her fist around the cloth, she yanked again. There was another ripping sound then she was free.

She tried to keep her balance, but the sack slipped out of her hand, the flashlight fell from her pocket, and they both bounced off the steps and landed next to her aunt’s bed. She came right behind them, her fanny bouncing down the steps all the way to the bottom where she lay sprawled on the floor.

              Flat on her back and stunned, she looked up to see Kidders and Caesar in the doorway. “Now you show up.” She scrambled to her feet, brushed herself off, and then returned the room to its original state. Gathering up the flashlight and potato sack, she headed out the door with the cats by her side.

             
On her way home, she looked down at her skirt. It was ripped right on the Poodle imprint. “Look, my favorite skirt is ruined,” she said to the cats. They rubbed up against her legs for a moment, and then disappeared into the field. “Oh, like either of you care.”

             
As excited as she was about her new possessions, and as disappointed as she was about her ripped skirt, her mind kept wondering back to the letter in her pocket. The minute she reached the house, she hurried upstairs to the safety of her bedroom where she peeled it open.

              September 21, 1941

              Francine,

             
My hope is that my friendship with Rachael would at least be worth a response from you. I haven’t heard from her since I arrived in San Francisco and am wondering if she’s moved, or if she married that guy she was seeing. If nothing else comes of this, I’d just like to know how she is doing and that she’s okay. I’ll wait to hear from you or her.

             
Samuel P Dimsmoore

She fell back on the bed and read the letter again. Just the idea that this stranger had been friends with her mother fascinated her. She was intrigued that they must have gone to school together. It sounded as if he really cared about her.

              She thought of Daniel, how close they were before he moved, and wondered what had become of him now that he was grown. And though she probably would never see him again, she knew there would always be a place in her heart for him.

             
Judging by the letter, it was apparent that her mother and Samuel had been close, maybe not in the same way she’d been with Daniel, but at least best friends like Haity had been to her. Whatever the circumstance, this was big news. To make it even more exciting, her mother had actually known someone who now lived in San Francisco, the city by the Bay and the Pacific Ocean, as her teacher used to say in geography.

             
Miss Tucker had led the children outside to the water pump. Each of them took turns putting their heads inside one of the buckets of water with their hands tightly cupping their ears while she used different effects to create the sounds of water in motion. Emily knew back then that she wanted to go to San Francisco one day, not only to see the ocean, but the cable cars, the tall buildings and experience all of the other sounds and effects that had been described that day. Now she had a reason to go. She wondered if her aunt in all of her pride, and in her own odd way, had wanted her to find the letter.

             
“
That’s it,” she said, sitting bolt upright. “I’m going to San Francisco to find Samuel.” She imagined with great expectation that since Samuel cared enough about her mother to write the letter, he would be willing to tell her all that he knew about her. Maybe some of that caring would rub off on her.

             
All at once, something so alarming struck her that she gasped and nearly fainted from shock.

             
“
Oh, my goodness,” she said when she could think clear again. The man in the letter – the one Samuel guessed was seeing her mother – had to be her father. Samuel must have at least known who he was. Suddenly, a sense of longing filled her with such passion that it warmed her insides and gave her real hope for once.

             
Grandfather was wrong, they were all wrong. She did have a right to know what happened to her mother, and her father. She had family somewhere, maybe just up the road, possibly even a sister or brother who didn’t even know she existed. She decided, right then, that when she found out for sure who her family was, she would come back, and confront them.

             
Feeling exhilarated, she picked up the letter again. But, all too soon, her spirits dropped when she heard the familiar sound of her grandfather’s pickup rattle and clank into the yard. When another vehicle tore in right behind him, she jumped from her bed and rushed to the window.               Grandfather had already climbed from his pickup along with Claude who was wandering off toward home when a long brown car pulled up. The driver jammed on his brakes, bolted from his car, and the two began a fist-flinging brawl. Emily saw it was the father of Claude’s red-haired woman friend. By the time she opened the window, he’d gotten back into his car.