Tomorrow's Sun (2 page)

With her heart choosing a tempo to rival Big Jim’s fiddle, she nodded. Emotions clashed inside her. The risk was great for all of them, but fear mingled with joy. Tonight they would have guests, which meant tomorrow night she would see Liam. “How many rugs?”

“Two.” He turned away and stared through the lace on the north window.

Hannah followed his gaze to the river.
Tomorrow night
.

“Hang two rugs. And pray, my dear.”

W
hat do you call the place you live if it isn’t home?

Emily Foster blew her bangs off her forehead and tapped the steering wheel to “Haven’t Met You Yet” as she searched the afternoon shadows for a street sign, and the house she wouldn’t call home. For the next few months. Or weeks, if she was lucky.

Rochester, Wisconsin, population 1100. She’d have eleven hundred neighbors—and she’d try to get to know as few of them as possible. Michael Bublé said it would all work out. Emily turned at the corner, hoping he was right.

The old, white clapboard house framed in her windshield had shrunk in nineteen years. Or maybe the rest of her world had gotten too big since that innocent summer. She parked in a short strip of gravel that pointed toward the river. Opening the car door, she stared at the house across the street. It occupied the spot where she’d found God, and almost missed her first kiss. A long, measured sigh bowed her cheeks. With deep, controlled breaths, she swiveled in the seat then eased her feet to the ground. Moving like a woman three times her age, she unloaded the car and hobbled up the stone walk to the paneled door. The lock complained at the twist of the key.

In the front parlor, the plank floor groaned beneath her feet. With nothing to absorb the sound of her intrusion, each tap of her paisley-covered cane echoed off the peeling plaster.

The house was as hollow and weary as its new owner.

“Counter with a positive.” The
ever-nagging voice of Vanessa, her therapist—the one who therapied her mind, not the one who pummeled the rest of her—whispered a warning.
“Counter with a positive thought before you teeter off the brittle edge.”

Dropping her sleeping bag and air mattress in the middle of the room, Emily turned in a slow circle.
First positive Wisconsin thought: Empty is not always bad. This place is full of potential
.

Am I?

The front parlor was no larger than a hospital room. A poor excuse for sunlight struggled through warped glass in the nine-pane windows. Pale ovals patchworked dingy beige walls where long-dead faces had once kept watch, and spider-vein cracks trailed like quilt stitching between the phantom frames.

Emily closed her eyes, envisioning the space as it would soon be. Sans claustrophobia. By knocking out the walls that divided the main floor into five rooms, she’d create an open floor plan. New windows, gleaming floors, rich colors. Modern. Roomy. Sellable.

In the dining room, she unzipped her fleece jacket and yanked open a window. Storm-scrubbed air transfused the staleness with hints of apple blossom and made her hungry for more. On her way to the back door, she checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to kill until the first contractor arrived. Fifteen minutes best spent without walls. She hung the key ring on a black hook by the door. Kicking off her shoes, she stepped onto the porch.

The swollen Fox River bursting the hem of her temporary backyard rushed through Rochester on its way from Menominee Falls to northern Illinois. It bubbled over a massive limb hanging at a grotesque angle from a fresh gash in an oak tree. All that anchored the limb to the trunk was a narrow strip of twisted bark.

She hadn’t thought about lawn care or tree trimming. She hadn’t thought about much, other than putting Lake Michigan between her and the eggshell walkers.

A flash of red drew her attention from the water to a solitary pine on the north side of the yard. A male cardinal landed on a low bough. His mate called down from the top of the tree.

Emily imagined a hammock next to the pine. Maybe the white noise of the river would muffle the specters in her head.

A child’s high-pitched wail caused her pulse to stumble. Laughter followed the squeal, and Emily breathed a sigh. She walked to the end of the porch and bent over the railing. Two young boys wrestled over a basketball in her side yard. On the ground beside them, a circus-colored beach ball rocked in the breeze.

Some things she wouldn’t get away from, no matter how far she moved.

Turning back to the pine tree, Emily tried to conjure her imaginary hammock, but it wouldn’t return. She opened the screechy screen door and stepped into the kitchen.

The floor sloped toward the back of the house. In front of the sink, a layer of pink-and-gray-flowered linoleum showed through a hole in the brick-patterned vinyl. She padded across the uneven surface to a white corner cupboard. Resting her cane against the windowsill, she unlatched a tall door, releasing memories mingled with cloves, cinnamon, and coriander. She’d been fifteen when she spent the summer visiting her best friend’s great-grandmother. Cara’s Nana Grace was the quintessential grandma. Memories of that magical summer and the big white house in Rochester chronicled all five senses—violets, fireflies, apple crisp, a cobwebby cellar, and the trill of tree frogs. Exploring the town on Nana Grace’s wobbly old Schwinn bikes, giggling about the bare-chested guy washing his car down the street, dangling their feet in the river, talking for hours about that clumsy, dream-spinning kiss. Carefree.

The way young girls should be.

Her shoulders shuddered, an invisible weight constricting her lungs. Closing her eyes, she repeated the words branded in her brain. “Release…relax…let it go.” With a fierce exhale, she tugged on the window next to the cupboard. It stuck. She banged on the frame with the heel of her hand and tried again. The sash gave way, sliding up so quickly she almost lost her balance.

Sweet spring air thwarted panic.
Be present in the moment
. The cardinals still sang. In the distance, the metered cadence of the basketball on cement joined the rhythm of the afternoon. She concentrated on the steady
slap, slap, slap
as she labeled the smells. Wet leaves. River mud. Charcoal smoke. Violets.

As her pulse reclaimed a normal pace, another shrill scream pierced her quiet and she slid the window down. It banged shut but didn’t block the noise. The scream grew louder. Closer.

No laughter followed.

“Let it go!”

Strange to hear her therapist’s advice yelled from a child’s lips.

“Michael! Stop!”

The beach ball bounced toward the river, propelled by the wind. And followed by a barefoot boy. A gust whipped it against the crippled oak. The ball shot into the water.

Lord God, no
. Caught in a whirlpool, the ball swirled in a tight circle. Red…white…yellow…blue…

The boy grabbed onto the broken limb with one hand and reached for the ball with the other.

Emily’s pulse thundered in her ears. Her breath rasped, fast and shallow. Black walls pushed in, narrowing her vision.

The limb swayed. A
crack
split the air. “Michael!” A man’s voice. “I’ll get the ball. Come here.
Now.”

The boy stopped and waved toward the voice, then glanced up at her and waved again.

The room tilted. Emily closed her eyes.
Release. Relax. Let it go
.

Her legs gave way. She slid to the floor, biting her lip against the stab of pain in her right hip. Knees to chest, arms encircling her legs, she folded. Making herself small.

A heavy knock shook the screen door. She shrank against the cupboard.

The door rattled again. “I don’t think she’s home.”

A lighter, quieter knock followed. “I just sawed her,” a small voice insisted. “Just now in the window.”

“Miss Foster? Jacob Braden, Braden Improvements.”

Emily rubbed her eyes with both hands.
Go away
. She’d call the contractor tomorrow, make up some excuse. A headache or phone call. Tomorrow she’d be rested, calmer, able to think.

“Go in,” the small voice whispered.

“We can’t just walk in. That’s rude.” Footsteps retreated. “Come on.”

“Nuh-uh. Nana Grace lets us.”

“Nana Grace is—
Michael! You
can’t—”

Hinges whined. Emily raised her head from her cocoon.

Bare feet. Red shorts. Huge brown eyes. “I’m Michael.”

Breathe
. Emily clenched and unclenched tingling fingers.
Live in the now
. “Hi, Michael. I’m Emily.” She smiled. It felt almost natural.

“Nana Grace gived us
peanuhbutter
cookies.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had time to bake.”

The door opened again. A man: dusty work boots, one lace untied and trailing; faded jeans, hole on the right knee; snug, heather-blue shirt; sun-lightened brown hair curling over his collar. Eyebrows rose above inquisitive eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She was sitting on the floor, half-curled in a ball. Not a chance he’d believe her. “Just…trying to get a feel for the place.”

He nodded and a chunk of gold-licked hair swung over his forehead. He looked toward the window and Emily witnessed a split-second startle. He’d seen the cane. He wiped his palms on his jeans and cleared his throat. “Can I give you a hand?”

There was only one way she could get to her feet from where she was now, and Jacob Braden’s hand wouldn’t help. “Why don’t you go ahead and look around and I’ll join you in—”

The back door moaned once again. The older boy bounded in. “Michael, Mom said you gotta get home.” Eyes almost identical to his little brother’s jerked to Emily then up to the man beside him. “Why is she sitting on the floor?” he asked in a hushed tone, as if she couldn’t hear.

“Russell, say hi to Miss Foster. She’s going to be your new neighbor. She’s sitting on the floor because she’s tired. Miss Foster just drove all the way from…Minnesota?”

“Michigan. Traverse City.”

“That’s a long drive.” He nudged the boy.

“Hi. I’m Russell. It’s nice to meet you.” The words came out stilted, rehearsed. Precious. “Did you see the ghost yet?”

A chill shimmied up her spine. “Ghost?”

Jacob Braden put a hand on Russell’s head. “Local legend. In a town with this much history, people mix a little truth with a lot of fantasy. This house has been around a long time.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Say good-bye, boys.”

Michael took one last look at the empty counter, waved, and ran out. Russell said good-bye, turned toward the door then stopped. “My mom says maybe you will babysit us. Do you have any boys?”

Emily shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

No cookies. No little boys.

Not this side of heaven
.

The soles of Jake’s boots whispered in the worn depressions in the steps.
If these stairs could talk…
A century and a half of footfalls. Newlyweds slipping off to bed…a worried mother walking her feverish baby… children’s voices echoing in the steep, narrow stairwell… The stories this house could tell. He reached the top and ran his hand over the newel post. Smooth. Polished by countless hands.

He smiled as he walked into a bedroom. What a sentimental schmuck he was.

Looking down at the river through wavy blown glass, he listened for footsteps. Then it hit him—maybe the lady couldn’t climb stairs. What was wrong with her anyway? The multicolored cane could have been left by the old woman who’d died right there in that kitchen a few months back, but he doubted it. And something about the wary look in Emily’s wide-set eyes told him her problems weren’t just physical. But in that area he was out of his element. Houses he could read. Women he almost always misinterpreted. He still hadn’t recovered from the last mistake.

With dark blond hair pulled straight back and no makeup, he’d guess her to be an accountant or lawyer. Something dry and bookish. She’d told him on the phone this was her first house flip. He didn’t like the way she’d said it. But then, he didn’t like the term
flip
anyway. It sounded like something fast, cheap. Flippant. She wouldn’t get fast or cheap out of him if he took the job.