LITMIR.BIZ

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      Getting closer she spied a slight figure standing on the deck looking out at the view. As she rolled into the drive, the figure came over to the railing and leaned over. May tried to remember how many years it had been since she’d come up here or seen Nora MacKenzie. Sure was nice, though, to see the place again and to catch up with the gossip.

      She stilled the engine, took a moment to catch her breath, then pushed herself out of the car.

      “Hello,” called Nora. “Can I help you?”

      May took a few steps, then paused to look up at the high deck. “Hey there, Mrs. MacKenzie. It’s just me, May Johnston from down the road.”

      “May Johnston!” Nora quickly climbed down the stairs and approached May, hand outstretched. “How nice to see you again, May,” she said taking her hand. “How have you been?”

      May remembered how much she always liked the missus. A nice girl. Always polite. “I’m fine, except for my ailments, of course.” Her wide, bulging eyes scanned Nora’s face, resting on the purple bruise on her temple. Nora looked much the same as before. Only now she was pitiful skinny. No wider than a cattail.

      “I’m here to see how you fare, Mrs. MacKenzie. Heard you took a lump.”

      Nora’s hand fled to her head. “Oh, I’m fine, thank you. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health. And please, call me Nora.”

      May scrunched up her lips in skepticism. “Doctors, humph. What do they know? Bend your head here and let me take a look. Hmmmm. You listen to me and take it easy for a few days. Call me if you feel at all sick or dizzy. Never can tell with a head injury.”

      “I will. Please,” Nora said, extending her hand to the house. “Come in. I don’t have much to offer, but I’m sure I can at least provide a glass of water.”

      “Don’t mind if I do.”

      The two women went indoors, May catching every detail of the house as she passed. The house structure seemed pretty sound, considering it’d been neglected for so many years. Few slates missing from the roof, a bit of wood rotted on the stairs. The inside’s condition, however, caught her by surprise.

      “My, my, but you have a lot to get done. Frank and Junior will have to work fast to finish it up by the first snow.”

      When they finished the quick tour, they stood before the plate glass in the great room, surveying the mountain view.

      May found the view as spectacular as she remembered. The grandeur of her beloved mountain range still had the power to take her breath away. She stood beside Nora for a few moments just soaking it in. For her, the sensation was akin to a religious experience.

      “The nice thing about getting old,” she said, “is understanding how young we all are compared to nature. Even old May. Looking out at all this, it’s plain I’m less than a twinkle in God’s eye.”

      “I understand,” said Nora, coming nearer and looking out. “Everything seems insignificant compared to all that. That’s one of the things I love most about being here. It keeps me in my place.” Sadness flittered across her features. “If this is my place.”

      “If it ain’t yours, it ain’t nobody’s.”

      Nora’s face lightened.

      “I suspect my niece was rude.”

      Nora pinkened. It was obvious that straight talk was a Johnston trait. “Not rude, exactly. Maybe just honest.”

      “What’d she say?”

      “Let’s just say she has her doubts about my sticking around.” Nora looked around the room, and once again May spotted the uncertainty. “You can tell her this for me, though. I’m going to give it my best effort.”

      May smiled, remembering the berry bushes.

      “Glad to hear it. Well,” she said turning from the windows and taking a step forward. “I’d best be going before it gets too dark.” It took several plodding steps for her to cross the big room and several more to descend the steps to her car. She stopped at the door to catch her breath.

      “Come down and visit sometime. I’m that blue-and-white trailer ’cross from Seth’s. We’ll have some coffee and we can plan a garden. Nothing like a garden to make a home permanent, I always say. That pasture up here would be perfect. Get some manure, some hay, throw some black plastic over it and wait till spring. Then we’ll put in the seeds. Put some perennials in, too. Nice showy ones, like hollyhock, rosy daisies, and lilies. They’ll give you pleasure and make you feel more at home way up here.”

      Her eyes softened when she saw the eagerness in Nora’s expression. “Come on down, honey, and we’ll talk.”

      Their eyes met and searched out what that innocuous invitation might mean to each of them.

      To Nora, it meant a mentor. Someone who’d show her the ropes, the tricks of a woman living alone in the mountains. She was also deeply grateful to May for her first real welcome. No warnings, no threats. This invitation was as ingenuous and warm as the woman who extended it.

      To May, it meant she’d found a possible ally in her campaign to heal Esther. God works in mysterious ways, she thought. Maybe he sent a MacKenzie to heal a wound a MacKenzie started.

      “I will come, soon. I promise.” Nora fairly beamed.

      Nora waved good-bye to May and watched the older woman rumble down the mountain out of view.

      The nighthawk cried and Nora entered her home just as the sun set and a deep blue blanket covered the mountains.

      7

      NORA WOKE TO THE persistent cry of a finch outside her window. She yawned wide then allowed a sleepy smile to cross her face as she listened to the chirps. It seemed birds were to be her only friends up here.

      Bringing her knees to her chest, she looked out the far window at the morning sky. The sun shone over the fog-laden mountains, the cool green rusting to orange red. On the grass, frost sparkled like diamonds as it caught shards of the morning light. She sighed and stretched her toes against the crisp old cotton sheets. The mountain had worked its magic. Observing the power of the surrounding nature, her problems seemed somehow lessened.

      Nora peered at her bedroom. This was her favorite room. Like Heidi’s mountain loft, the ceiling was all angles that pitched dramatically beside long windows. Her big double bed, laden with down, was tucked in under one angle, making it cozy in the vast room. The other three fireplaces in the house were large and angular. Here, the fireplace was small, rosy bricked, and arched. A feminine touch in a masculine house. Everything about this room was charming rather than imposing; more a Swiss chalet in the mountains than a castle in the sky.

      She slipped from her warm bed and walked to the window, opening it just a crack to let in the morning. The air was crisp, even cold, and carried the faint scent of pine. How she loved this view of the valley. The Danby mountain range rolled rather than jutted upward, so instead of a majestic feeling, the view was pastoral, calming. Across this valley she could see a red barn and silo, and black-and-white cows grazing in the vertical field. It reminded her of her childhood home in Wisconsin.

      How long had it been since she felt this peaceful?

      Three years. Yet she remembered, like yesterday, the evening she’d driven up here to surprise Mike, hoping to patch up a particularly nasty quarrel. In the backseat she’d packed a bottle of French brut champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates, very dark. She’d even brought a new nightgown of peach silk, the blatantly sexy kind that Mike liked but embarrassed her.

      That warm June night three years ago, Nora had been determined to save her marriage. She had dreamed that maybe on this land that they had walked together, at this house that they had happily designed and worked on together, he’d remember, notice her, perhaps love her once again.

      That dream fizzled as abruptly

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