Property of C. B. Conrad (cont'd part 4)

"Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't." ~Pete Seeger 

That evening, I sat numbly in the living room in a large armchair with the old journal in my lap. It was closed—I didn’t want to race through it on my first night. This was all I had left of my grandmother. Cherishing what little remains seemed the only thing to do. I traced my fingers along the embroidered floral cover, nothing really crossing my mind except the texture of the leather journal.

Suddenly, the back door slammed and I startled upright and out of my thoughtless state. Alec came into the living room and threw himself down onto the couch. I eyed him from across the large room for a moment before he said, “Does it feel cold in here to you?”

I shrugged and watched as Alec stood up again and walk out. It was not cold in the room. Perhaps when the wind blew through the windows there was a slight chill, but I felt comfortable. Alec came back in a few minutes with a long sleeved shirt on. He had another drink in his hand when he sat back down.

“So how’s the book?” he asked.

“I haven’t really read any of it yet.”

He let it drop and began staring off into the distance.

“Did you know there is supposed to be a meteor shower tonight?” I asked.

“I did not.”

“Is the area around here good for watching stars?”

“I suppose. I think your grandma has a telescope in the attic if you wanted to stay up tonight.”

“It could be fun. And if you wanted to stay up with me, I would kind of like to get to know the guy I will be spending most of summer with.”

“I’ll stay up with ya,” he laughed. “Can’t guarantee soberness or quality conversation but I’ll stay up with you.”

“Do you really drink a lot?”

“Some days I do. I did really like Charlie. She was a great woman. She was teaching me to play piano. Old people always love to pass on their skills to younger generations.”

“My other grandma was supposed to teach me to knit but she never got around to it before she passed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I think this summer I might teach myself.”

“Cool,” Alec said. “I will not be joining you on that.”

“I can teach you piano,” I told him. “I know how to play.”

Alec raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, I suppose if you want. But not tonight.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, probably a bit more sarcastically than I should have. “Do you want help getting anything from the attic?” I asked quickly.

Alec noted that I could join him, but he probably wouldn’t need help carrying anything. I decided to follow him up to the attic, one I had not known existed.

In my grandmother’s bedroom, the walls were paneled with wood. A section of the wall I hadn’t noticed before had been left bare. As if on a spring, Alec pressed against this part of the wall and the paneling here proved a door that opened to a set of stairs.

“Crafty,” I noted aloud.

“Charlie asked me once to get me something from up here. Took me a half hour to find the door,” Alec joked.

“Well it certainly is hidden well.”

The stairs creaked and there was no light switch until you reached the top, and even then it was only a light bulb with a pull string attached. The telescope rested under a sheet covered in dust and as soon as Alec pulled the sheet, the dust leapt into the air and danced about, trying to find a new place to settle which hopefully did not include my lungs. Alec and I did end up coughing a bit as the untouched dust covering all surfaces of the attic was kicked up. Alec picked up the pieces of the telescope and ventured back downstairs.

I walked over to the window that over looked the backyard. The small circular window, cloaked in grime, was difficult to see through however I could just make out the distinct areas of the yard. When I turned back around, a black and bronze trunk caught my eye. It was locked, of course, but appeared to not have been touched in years. I pondered its contents, imagining numerous possibilities but I made a mental note to ask Alec about it later. Perhaps he would know where the key was or what lay inside.

I pulled the string attached to the light bulb and carefully made my way back down the old stairs, sure to close the paneled door behind me. It occurred to me that it may be possible that my grandma had left other secrets hidden behind paneling such as this. Although, I thought it disrespectful to go tearing through the rooms searching walls, paintings and rugs, trying to investigate this house of secrets. But then again, perhaps Alec knew. After all, I had very little inclination as to how long he was employed here and how much Grandma had told him. It must have been a great deal for she seemed keen on Alec for her own reasons. She always had her own reasons for doing things, even when no one agreed with her.

In the backyard, Alec had set up the telescope and was throwing sticks and firewood into a large chiminea.

            “It might be hard to see much with a fire,” I suggested.

            “Meteor showers can’t be seen much before midnight anyway,” Alec said, lighting a match. He touched the match to some newspaper and threw it into the pile of wood. “I figured a fire might be nice.”

            Wishing I had bit my tongue, I said “It is nice, thanks.”

            Alec said nothing to this but went back to his small house. He opened the door, gave a whistle and his dog pranced out the front door. After doing its business, the dog—careful to avoid the fire—curled up near my feet as I sat on a bench in the garden. I scratched her ears and then looked to Alec who was lighting a cigarette. I supposed that I shouldn’t judge, given I’d just met the guy, but smoking had always seemed to me a nasty habit. My grandfather had smoked, along with other things, but in the end it was the smoke that killed him.

            Granddad had picked up the habit while at war. Stress and combat took its toll so to cope, Granddad turned to smoking and alcohol. I knew my grandma was never thrilled but we all have our burdens to bear and Granddad was never one for sharing. So I bit my tongue and said nothing about how smoking had killed my grandfather and that Alec should take better care of his health. I’m sure, like so many others, he had his reasons.

            As if reading my mind, Alec looked over at me and said “Smoking kills, don’t ever start.”

            I chuckled. “Never. They’re too much money anyway.”

            “Truth.”

            I leaned forward on the bench, closer to the fire, loving how fire pits smelled and reminded me of the summers when my dad would set up a fire pit in our backyard and let me invite friends over. Alec stretched out in the grass and started staring at the sky. There was little to see yet, so I moved over to the telescope. Naturally, I pointed it to the moon first and then began to scan the stars aimlessly, looking for nothing in particular other than something I could use to strike up conversation. Then again, Alec had yet to strike me as a conversationalist.

            Alec knew little about the sky, even though he had either visited or lived in many areas where he could see it clearly every night. I found out he traveled a lot. He lived in Colorado and Florida, visited Arizona and Vermont and had family in Chicago. He liked Canada but couldn’t stay there. When he moved to North Carolina, he met my grandmother and this is where he had been for a year. Even with all this moving around, he had a nursing degree and had managed a fiancé. I did not learn her name or how they ended it. He was too drunk. Instead, I learned how they were to be married and have kids, until he lost everything, and moved to this little town. Then he fell asleep in the grass.

            I let the fire die but pushed the embers around until late into the night. When the meteor shower began, I was far too cold and lonely to enjoy it. They stars shot across the sky in brief beautiful bursts and arched as if they would wrap around the Earth and come back again. When it became half past one, I moved over to Alec and sat in the grass next to him. Rubbing his arm gently, I tried to wake him up.

            He didn’t move.

            I grabbed his wrist and tried to get a pulse. His skin was soft and my fingers sunk into it more than they should have. I couldn’t feel a heartbeat. I grabbed his scotch glass and dumped the contents into the grass. I put it under his nose. The slightest bit of condensation formed on the glass. I reached for my cell and called 9-1-1.

            There were soon sirens and lights in the driveway and EMTs rushed with a stretcher into the backyard. Alec was soon hoisted into the van and I followed them to the hospital. They stopped me at the double doors and I waited in the reception room. An hour passed. Then another. Soon it was five in the morning and my eyes were blinking open and closed in the waiting room chair. Finally, someone in in scrubs came out to me. They told me that it would still be some time before I would be allowed to see Alec. They didn’t tell me anything, other than it would be in my interest to go home and get some rest. When I returned home, the sun was just about coming up and my father’s car was resting in the driveway. There was one light on in the living room and I could see his silhouette reading a newspaper. He was going to kill me.

            The door creaked open as I stepped into the house and I could hear the paper rustling as my father folded it back up and put it down. I trudged slowly to where he was seated with his hands folded and stern countenance facing the frame of the entryway. He removed his reading glass when I entered the room and placed them on the table next to him.

            “Where have you been, Liz?” he said calmly

            “Dad, I’m sorry but-”

            “Answer the question!” he snapped, shattering the silence of the house.

            “I was at the hospital.”

            “For what?”

            “Grandma’s live-in help passed out last night I couldn’t wake him up,” I tried to explain.

            “Yes, I see the scotch has been drained since last I was here. Your grandmother didn’t drink it.”

            “I didn’t either, Dad.”                                               

            “Clearly someone else did.”

            “I’m not lying.”

            “No?” he said. “How can I trust the daughter who takes off in the early morning to drive hours out of her way, to a state she doesn’t know, to a house where a man lives, whom she doesn’t know? Elizabeth, I’m disappointed in you. Not only have you broken my trust but you broke my heart not going to your grandmother’s service.”

            “I couldn’t be there.”

            “No, you couldn’t because you were already hours away.”

            “Dad you have to understand that-”

            “No, Elizabeth, I don’t have to understand. What does have to happen right this moment is you packing up and getting back in your car and coming home.”

            “Dad I’m not leaving.”

            “Oh yes you are.”

            “No. Look, I have this summer to grow up before I go to college. I want to grow up without you hovering over my shoulder telling me how.”

            “You want to be a big girl who makes her own decisions?” My father said sarcastically. “Maybe you should have thought about that before running away. Now pack your things, let’s go.”

            “I’m staying. Grandma left me a letter saying there is something about this house that she wants me to discover and I have to honor her by doing it. She left the note with her care-taker because she must have known I would come down here alone to grieve. Dad, I’m not coming home yet. I have to do what Grandma has asked me to do as her final wish. You owe it to her as well as me.”

            My father, angry, stood and walked out the door into the backyard to fume and think it all over. It would be, of course, bad parenting to allow me to stay, yet he knew I was responsible enough. If he needed further proof, I took Alec to the hospital instead of just dragging him to bed last night. But I would not tell my father that Alec was a twenty-two year old nicotine-addicted alcoholic living in the guest house for the summer. It would not be one of my stronger arguments for my case.

I crawled my way sleepily into the kitchen and made toast while my dad kicked around the backyard. After nearly fifteen minutes, he returned inside. Sitting across from me at the table, he said, “I will let you stay on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You will show to me just how much staying here means to you by trading this for school. You come home at the end of the summer and do a year at Community College under the major of Criminal Justice. There will be no going away and no writing program until the following year if you find you truly hate Criminal Justice by next May.”

He was trying to call my bluff. And then, I was trying to call his. In trying to convince me that what I have stumbled upon here was so insignificant, he was willing to forcefully make me quit my dreams of being a writer. He knew how much writing meant to me and was trying to test me to see if I really had my priorities straight. But then, I r wait a year and take all the necessary classes like math or history at Community and switch before even reaching the courses for my major. I wondered if he knew this.

“I know you think you know what’s best for me,” I began, “But the fact of the matter is, I have gotten to an age where what you think my future should be doesn’t matter. I’m not about to go waste my life doing drugs and partying. What grandma left here for me means more than I know yet and I want to figure it out. I will come home at the end of the summer and curtail my plans for the future if that is what you want.”

My father was turning red in the face. “No,” he said. “You’re coming home right now.”

“Why?” I yelled. “Why do you think you always have control over what I do? You gave me a choice and I chose what you didn’t want to hear. What don’t you want me to find in this house?”

 And for some reason, that struck a chord with my dad. He slammed his hand on the table top and said, “Fine, stay here. But if you unearth the devil don’t come to me asking for redemption.”

My father stormed back outside to the backyard and I went to the bedroom to sleep. I tossed and turned for hours trying to fall asleep, but I was angry and confused. Was there something he didn’t want me to find in this house? Did he know what was contained within the pages of the journal? He had to. There was no way he would be so aversive to me staying here without knowing something I didn’t.

Before finally passing out, I remembered still not hearing his car pull from the driveway. I wondered whether he was going to stay with me in this house or try to hide whatever evidence he could find of what happened by the fountain in the yard. So just before slipping into subconscious, I grabbed the journal and placed it beneath my pillow so that my father would not be able to take it from me. 

(to be continued)