Evenfall (7 page)

“No sense putting it off,” she’d said, stepping off the front porch and disappearing around the back of the house, leaving Andie no choice but to follow.

It’s like being fifteen again, Andie thinks, except now she’s smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She takes a deep breath, moves the box of canning jars to the spot Gert has indicated, and starts sorting through the piles of old magazines.

They work in silence for a while, each careful not to bump the other in the small space. The floor of the shed is about a third clear when Andie glances at her aunt. Gert’s face is pale despite the heat, and beads of sweat are rolling down her forehead.

“Let’s take a break,” Andie suggests, and for once Gert
doesn’t argue. They make their way past the neatly stacked piles of junk and exit the shed, blinking in the bright sun.

At the house, Andie is halfway to the kitchen before she realizes that her aunt isn’t behind her. She retraces her steps and is relieved to find Gert gently rocking on the porch swing.

“Aunt Gert?”

Gert looks up. Her cheeks look pinker, although her brow is still dotted with sweat.

“Just thought I’d ask if you wanted water or lemonade.”

“Water, please,” Gert says. A breeze brushes past Andie, lifting the stray tendrils of Gert’s hair and smoothing them off her forehead. Gert leans back and closes her eyes.

In the kitchen, Andie washes her hands, then fills a glass from the tap, gulps it down, and refills it with lemonade from a carton in the fridge. She fills another glass with water, then dampens a paper towel and drapes it over her arm.

Outside, she hands Gert the glass of water and the paper towel. “I thought you might want to clean up. It was pretty dusty in there.”

Gert wipes her hands before bringing the towel to her forehead and neck. The water seems to revive her, and she sits more erectly on the swing. She takes a deep breath before speaking.

“I had a phone call last night.”

“Who from?” Andie asks, but really she’s wondering if she should hire someone to help clean out the house. Maybe Cort knows someone, she thinks. Or she could place an ad on the church’s bulletin board, although if Gert saw it she’d
kill her. Andie’s so busy scheming ways to help her aunt rest that she almost doesn’t hear her next words.

“Richard. Your father,” Gert adds, as if there could be any doubt in Andie’s mind.

There’s a silence. Gert sips her water and looks off into the distance. The breeze has picked up, and Andie watches it swirl bits of grass and leaves near her feet. When she finally speaks, she keeps her voice carefully neutral. At thirty-three, she’s old enough to know she no longer needs a parent, but that can’t undo the years she spent wishing for one.

“What did he want?”

“He’d like to come for a visit. He’ll be passing through in a few weeks, and he asked if you would still be here.”

“He did?” It seems impossible that Gert could be talking about her father, who hasn’t visited the farm since Andie learned to drive. So far as she knows, he still lives in New Hampshire, in the same two-bedroom condo he bought when she was a child. “What did you say?”

“I told him yes, of course. No matter what his faults are, Andie, he’s still your father. And my brother, I might add. That makes him family. And as such, he’s always welcome here.” Gert puts her glass down by the side of the swing. “Now, I think I’ve sufficiently recovered to tackle the rest of the shed. Shall we?”

And with that, she stands and marches away. There’s nothing for Andie to do besides collect the empty glasses and trail behind.

She’s still thinking about the phone call three hours later, though, after they’ve called it quits for the day. Under Gert’s
direction, the dirt floor of the shed has been swept, the magazines and newspapers neatly sorted, the rubbish bagged and set aside. A shelf below the shed’s only window holds jars filled with nails and screws. And, armed with a hammer and ladder, Andie has even hung the rakes, brooms, and shovels that littered the floor. Her uncle, Andie thinks, wouldn’t recognize the place.

“Well, I believe we’re finished here.” Gert brushes her hands together to rid them of dirt. There’s a faint smudge under her left eye and a few stray bits of spiderweb in her braid, but no other signs of the afternoon’s exertions, and no trace of her earlier fatigue. “Shall I pick you up for church in the morning?”

“I don’t think so, Aunt Gert.” By contrast, Andie’s T-shirt is smeared with dust, her hair is unraveling from its ponytail, and she’s so tired she can hardly stand. Her head is throbbing, both from the heat and from thoughts of Richard’s visit, and she’s in no mood to humor Gert any further.

“Sunday is the Lord’s day, Andie.”

“Yes, and on the seventh day even He rested. That’s what I’m planning on doing tomorrow.”

Gert’s nostrils flare slightly, but whether in anger or amusement Andie can’t tell. “Very well. Perhaps next week.”

“Perhaps.” And perhaps pigs will fly, Andie thinks but does not say.

She sees Gert off along the path that leads to the cottage, then heads around the corner of the house. All Andie wants to do is sink into a cool tub of water. She’s concentrating so hard she can almost smell the bubble bath, which must
be why she doesn’t notice Cort until she’s just about to trip over him.

“Hey, there.” He stands up from his seat on the front steps and stretches. Nina, sprawled in the house’s shadow, wags her tail but doesn’t get up. From the wary look in her eyes, it’s clear she hasn’t quite forgotten her own experience with water last night.

“Hey, yourself.” A trickle of sweat runs down the side of Andie’s nose. She swipes it away with her thumb, and when she glances at her hand, she’s mortified to see a smear of dirt.

“Nope—you missed.” Cort shakes his head. Before Andie can protest, he carefully wipes her face with the bottom of his T-shirt. He’s standing so near, Andie can feel the heat radiating from his body.

“There. Got it.” He smiles, and suddenly all Andie can think about is how bad she must smell.

“Wow, I guess it’s time for me to hit the tub. Thanks for dropping off Nina,” she says, and tries to squeeze by him without actually getting any closer.

“Nah, don’t go yet.” He bends down and fishes a beer out from the tangle of grass beside the steps. “Here.” He holds the bottle up invitingly. “I’ve got a couple of cold ones in the truck—I thought maybe we could drink them down by the creek.”

“Well…” There are beads of moisture on the glass, and as Andie watches, one slides down the bottle, leaving a tiny, slick trail. Nothing, she thinks, could possibly taste as good as a cold beer right now. Smell be damned.

“Sure.”

Cort’s pickup is parked at the far side of the drive, close against the house. He reaches over the truck’s tailgate and pulls up four beers. Andie glances in and sees that the cooler is filled with slushy water.

“Been waiting long?” she asks.

“Kinda.” As they walk toward the woods, Cort holds the beer bottles two in each hand, his long fingers hooked around the glass necks. “To tell the truth, I saw the two of you working back there, but you both seemed a little tense. I didn’t want to interfere with anything.” He grins. “Plus, Miss Gert looked like she was in a mood to call the cops on me again.”

“For stealing Nina this morning? Next time just knock, would you?”

His voice turns serious. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that. I know this isn’t the big city or anything, but you should still lock the doors at night, just to be safe.”

She starts to protest, but they’ve reached the woods and are walking single file along the trail that leads to the creek, so she can’t see Cort’s face. She lets the subject drop, for now.

The path is overgrown, and as they walk she’s busy fending off the pricker bushes, saplings, and branches that reach out to snag her clothes. Ahead of her, Cort’s back is tall and straight. He’s had a haircut recently, she notices, and the skin at the base of his skull is pink.

“So what’s bothering Gert?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Oh, I don’t know. Seems like everything does these days.” Andie considers telling Cort about her father, but it sounds silly to say she’s upset because he’s visiting. “I think
maybe the whole idea of selling the house is starting to get to her.”

“Makes sense.” He seems about to say something else, but Andie catches sight of sunlight sparkling on water.

“The creek!”

The trail ends abruptly. There’s a small clearing on the creek’s bank, a place where the trees give way to a smooth shoulder of rocks, moss, and fern, and Andie pushes past Cort to reach it.

At its deepest point, this bend of the creek approaches three feet. As a child, Andie loved to paddle in its shallow water. The memory of mud squelching between her toes causes an involuntary shudder down her spine. She slips off her shoes and settles onto a rock warmed by the small patch of late afternoon sun that has managed to filter its way through the branches above.

Cort nestles two of the bottles into the side of the bank and sits beside her, their feet dangling companionably into the cool green water below. He palms the top off a bottle, hands it to her, then does the same to his own.

The beer is colder than the creek water, and the first, icy swallow satisfies something deeper than thirst as it rushes down Andie’s throat.

“This is just what I needed,” she says, leaning back and closing her eyes. She can feel Cort shifting beside her, searching for a comfortable position.

“Did you miss it much when you were away?”

At first, Andie thinks he’s talking about the beer. When she realizes he means the creek, she opens her eyes and considers.

“I don’t think I thought much about it—I just kind of assumed it would always be here.” She props herself up with an elbow and looks at him. “How about you?”

“I went to school out West for a couple of years. I loved it there, too, but I think I just have New England in my bones. I can live other places and be happy, but no place else feels like home, you know?” He glances sideways at her. “Especially here. I try not to take it for granted.”

Andie leans back again and shuts her eyes. There was a time when to live at Evenfall—to be claimed by Frank and Clara—was all she wanted. To be claimed by anyone, really. Even Richard. She remembers the mornings before she’d leave for boarding school. Always, she’d spend those early hours walking the meadows and the woods. She’d carved her initials in the bark of more than one tree, desperate to leave some sign that she’d existed here, that she’d belonged. But she’s an adult now, she reminds herself. She’s built her own life, one far from here. There’s no point in going over the past. Instead, she concentrates on feeling the shadows of the leaves move across her face, the puffs of breeze against her skin. She can hear the water, and if she listens carefully she can just make out Cort’s slow, quiet breathing. It’s peaceful, and she feels herself getting sleepy. She’s on the verge of dozing off when she hears Cort’s voice.

“So what was Italy like?” he asks. “Tell me about it.”

“What do you want to know?” She doesn’t open her eyes, just lets herself drift with the sound of the water.

“You were a student, right? So you took art classes?”

“Not exactly,” Andie says. “My concentration was on
architecture, which means I focused on buildings. One building, really, for my thesis.”

“But you were always drawing and stuff—I thought you wanted to be an artist.”

Andie gives up on resting. She’d forgotten how inquisitive Cort was as a child. Apparently, he hasn’t outgrown the trait. She sits up and drains the rest of her beer.

“I thought so, too. But my college advisor pointed out that art majors are a dime a dozen, and if I wanted to support myself, my paintings weren’t going to do it.” She recalls, with a shiver of distaste, the dismissive wave of her advisor’s hand over her midyear portfolio. “So I switched to art history, with a focus on architecture, and then I liked it so much I kept going. I just finished my PhD. That’s why I was in Italy.”

“Congratulations,” Cort says. He’s in the middle of opening another beer, and he raises it in a toast. Andie nudges him with her foot, and he twists off the cap and hands her the bottle.

“Thanks.” She takes a long pull of the beer. “Now if I could only get a job.”

“Sounds like we have something in common.” He clinks his bottle against hers. “So, tell me about this building. What’s it like?”

“Amazing. It’s a palace—a fort, really—built in the fifteenth century. It belonged to one family for almost three hundred years, and they just kept adding to it. I studied how it was built, who lived there, and how they used the space.”

If she closes her eyes, Andie can see the palazzo, centuries-old
dust motes drifting through its dark, cool halls. She’s sketched its exterior so many times she can feel its shape beneath her fingertips: the slim Doric columns; the vaulted entrance; the grand courtyard. Births and deaths, marriages and affairs, have all taken place between its massive walls. Yet only the stone remains.

“Huh.” Cort’s quiet for a moment, considering. “So you basically wrote your thesis on what home meant to this one family.”

It’s an oversimplification, but close enough to the truth that she opens her eyes and nods. “Pretty much. But it took me two years and three hundred pages,” she says.

He flicks a beer cap at her knee. It bounces off, coming to rest in the moss, and Andie picks it up, runs her finger along its sharp edges.

“So what did you do in your time off?” he says. “You did have time off, right?”

“Not much,” she says, still thinking of the cool, silent space of the palazzo, the way the outside looked in the predawn air. “I hung out with friends, mostly. Shopped some, ate a lot. It’s kind of a different pace there.”
Sensual
is the word she thinks of, like the memory of a fat, ripe tomato in her hand. Because she’s with Cort she amends it. “It’s slower, more of the moment. You can’t find that here.”

“Depends on where you look.” He reaches up and breaks off a long, slender switch from a volunteer sapling, then idly brushes its tip through the creek. “So, you do all this by yourself, or are you with somebody over there? Some eye-talian stallion?”