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  "The very berry color room with white furniture in it?" Mary asked as the still silent though abundantly polite and very conscientious title company employee handed her two bulging folders with her copies of the massive amount of paperwork that went with her purchases along with a slim envelope that the woman shook to demonstrate its contents. A key, she explained briefly, to the house on Cedar Street. She would receive the key for the other house within the week.

  "Yes," Pete continued as if nothing had interrupted him. "I'm not certain about the furniture, but she'd love the colors. I'm going to get my brother to help me out on that, she can pick out the new furniture for the room and then she can do it all up with whatever else just as she wants." He followed her out of the small office, to the busy downtown street beyond. "So, I know why you wanted these places but I just have to ask. What are you going to do with them now that you do?"

  "I honestly don't know," she laughed at the expression that evoked. "I had only planned on the one," she explained realizing how she must have sounded. "I know exactly what I'm going to do with it, the other..." she raised her hands palm up, "I don't have a clue." She thought back to the conversation with her husband the night before. "I've been told I'll come up with something and not to sweat it too much."

  "Okay." He stared at her, not quite speechless but close. The lady had just dropped more money than he made in a good year, a really good year.

  Mary laughed. She couldn't help it. His thoughts were all over his face. She'd never been careless with money, had never been thoughtless with it either. She and Daniel had been fortunate, both in their chosen careers and in how their lives had turned out in so many ways not the least of which financially. But she easily remembered what it was like before when things had been tighter than tight, had sworn to never forget. She didn't dwell on it but hoped it would always keep her humble. But she couldn't help laughing at his expression. She missed her kids and promised herself that the evening would be spent finding out what each were up to.

  "Mrs. Lane," he began.

  "Mary," she corrected, she'd stopped counting how many times she had.

  "Mary," he agreed with a slight nod. Their business was concluded and he figured even his mother would allow for first names at this point in her staunchly rigid book of manners that were never ever to be forgotten. "Mary, how would you like to have dinner with me and mine?" He rushed the words out quickly, not completely certain what he'd seen in her face moments earlier but it looked a lot like something he was familiar with. It looked a lot like lonely, "I'm not certain what's planned but I can promise a half decent meal." He hoped Polly had kept her word about cooking up her specialty. "And maybe we can throw around what it is you might want to do with the house you hadn't planned on."

  Mary wondered if she was that easy to read. She normally wasn't but neither was she normally surrounded by childhood memories that had tugged at her for a lifetime and a growing sense of something else tied to returning to Burlington she couldn't seem to shake no matter how she tried over the last weeks and longer. Sighing, her kids were typically up late, night-owls that they were, and if not she could always wake them. "I'd love to."

  

  Much later that night Mary drove slowly through the dark streets of Burlington. She was familiar with parts of the city but Pete and his family lived in a newer suburb she'd never been to. The Burlington she knew was slowly sprawling out into its rural areas, long a stronghold of the family farm. The land that had once been the site of her father's family farm dating back to the earliest years of the city had spread across thousands of acres and was now occupied by new housing developments. The homestead was still there tucked away unobtrusively between the newer homes. Only a fraction of the land remained in family hands and always would since her many times great-grandfather was buried near the old family place. One of the earliest settlers to the community along the vast Mississippi River, he had died young. Not at the hands of the natives of the area who were understandably resistant to the newcomers, but to disease. Typhoid had run rampant in the 1830s. It was both merciless and non-discriminatory taking young and old alike. Several times Great-Grandfather Sean had little time to learn the land he'd chosen to settle. But it had forever remained as he had called it, the family place. Mary sighed inwardly. She knew little of her father's history in this city, even less of his family who had remained in Burlington or what had become of them.

  Turning her attention back to where she was going, instead of taking the turn towards the hotel she'd been staying at, Mary continued on down the street. She drove past the quiet serenity of the cemetery where generations of her family were buried. All but Sean and his youngest daughter Rachel who had also died of the fever in the 1830s. Instead they had been buried side by side on the land he'd travelled hundreds of miles to homestead. She wondered if there would come a time when they were forced by progress to move them from their resting place to lay among the rest of the family.

  Within minutes she pulled along the curb in front of the small house. The street lights and those of nearby homes illuminated it slightly. In the darkness she could barely make out the porch that ran across two thirds of the house. There had once been a swing from which she'd fallen off numerous times. But she'd also spent countless hours on it with a book in one hand and a cool drink in the other. And never alone she remembered. There had always been someone else there, her mother, sometimes her grandmother, an aunt if they were around and as many as there had been it seemed like someone always was.

  The family had been close. Tightly knit much like the sweaters she could still remember her mother working on late into the night. Not like today when no one knew where the other was. Sighing at what couldn't be changed, she quietly closed the car door behind her. She was crazy for coming out here this late. But it drew her. It had drawn her for years as it had her mother before her. No, she thought, it hadn't been this house that had drawn her mother. It had been the one around the corner. And the town, she thought. Mama had lived to come back here. There was nothing she wanted more. No matter where they had lived this had been home to her. She just hadn't lived long enough to make it happen. Something Mary had learned to live with but would always regret.

  Regrets. She sighed wistfully at the thought of them. They'd always be there. There were few things her mother had asked of her. She would have given all she had and what they didn't to have been able to bring her back here. She stood on the porch and looked out over the neighborhood her mother had loved so much and for so long. "I'm so sorry, Mama." She spoke the words softly into the night, for the first time voicing the regret she so often thought and held hidden deep in her heart.

  Slipping the old key into the front door of the house that held a vast armory of memories, she walked into the small front room. Letting the door close quietly behind her, she made a mental note to send a thank you to the listing realtor for keeping the power hooked up, grateful for the ceiling light that came on as she flipped the switch. She did the same in the even smaller dining room at the back of the house. She simply stood for a moment in the wide archway between the two rooms staring at the back wall where her grandmother's day bed had allowed her to gaze out the huge back window. Chairs on each side had allowed for easy conversation in this room which had been dominated by the huge dining table that Nanno, her grandmother, had brought with her when she'd sold the Marshall Street house. Mary closed her eyes on the memories painful that they were, but even then she could see her mother seated in the corner chair, laughing with joy at all that went on around her.

  As she walked through the dining room and into the kitchen she thought about the evening spent with Pete and his children. It was easy to see how the three children kept their father busy. Especially, as she had learned tonight, since he was a widower, a single father determined that his children live a happy life despite the loss that had shaken their very young lives. She'd seen the determination to hold close the memories in the way his oldest daughter Polly had proud
ly showed her the picture of her very pretty and unbelievably young mother, surrounded by her family only months before her death barely a year ago. And she'd heard it in Pete's voice, "She was the foundation of our family." They had spoken quietly after dinner, about his family and most specifically his children, and his worry of how they were adjusting. He worried about how well he was doing for them. Mary understood loss and as she had stood with him in his home gazing out into the yard where the three children played, she attempted to explain her thoughts to the young man who had so quickly become a friend.

  "In many ways she is still the foundation of this family, Pete. All that she was is still here in all the ways that count," she’d paused, looking for the words that wouldn't just give comfort but have meaning as well. "More importantly she is at the very soul of this family." Turning to look at him, "you couldn't ask for more."

  Mary let that conversation play through her mind as she walked down the very short hallway to her grandmother's bedroom in the front corner of the house. She had spent hours playing with her dolls on the bedroom floor listening to her mother and grandmother talk, enjoying time in their presence and basking in their attention. She could still see the room as it had been, filled with old furniture, jewelry scattered on the dressing table ready for her to play dress up with. Turning from where she stood in the doorway she opened the closet door. Once filled with clothes, suitcases, and so many things that intrigued a little girl, it now stood empty. But in her mind's eye she could see what had been and for a moment she could smell the lavender sachet her grandmother favored. She just stood there, letting the scent and the memories take her back.

  With a slow shaking of her head she stepped away from the closet and the memories and let her gaze take in the room as it was now. Pete was right. The place was a hovel. As a rental people had moved in and people had moved out. She had no doubt that many had been folks just passing through with no care for it but a roof over their head and safety from the elements which could be extreme during an Iowa winter. She ran her hand over the bedroom doorknob as she walked by, original to the house, and wondered how many times her parents might have done the same. So much remained she thought. And so much that could never be the same.

  Glancing into the front room from the tiny hallway she remembered where the Christmas tree stood in this house. In the front room, her grandmother's living room, it always stood to the side of the fireplace nearest the dining room. And she remembered with breathtaking clarity the joy of those mornings with everyone crammed together in this little front room. Those were her memories. And they were cherished memories that no one could take from her.

  Walking through the house one more time to turn off the lights, she lingered in the kitchen. She could see the outline of the Marshall Street house out the back kitchen window. She still wasn't certain what to do with it. But she was certain she'd been right in buying it. The memories might not be hers, not like those she felt here. But her mother's memories and her own memories of her mother's love for that house were strong. Knowing what to do with it would come.

  Turning off the last of the lights, she stood at the front door with plans in her head for the days to follow. And for a moment in the darkness she simply stood quietly, remembering years of family and joy that had filled this small house. A small place that had always remained so huge in her memories. And for a moment in the quiet she heard the voices, distinguished and clear. So much so she could pick each out, grieved for those she would never hear again. She heard the laughter rumble through the room as if they were standing besides her, drawing her in, including her as they always had. She'd never felt alone in their midst. And as the moment flowed past, Mary felt the peace she hadn't known she'd been looking for. She was back in Burlington. She was standing on the porch of her grandmother's house. She was home.

  

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mary stood and stretched to loosen her back. Much of the last week had been spent cleaning and often on her hands and knees. Her first focus had been the bathroom and her grandmother's bedroom. They weren't exactly where she wanted them to be yet but they were clean. She'd moved out of her hotel room yesterday. There hadn't been much to move from there but she'd had several furniture items on hold at local shops that had been delivered over the course of the last couple of days making her actual move into the house much easier and far more comfortable. For the moment she was sleeping on a wonderful antique Eastfield bed she'd found in a small downtown hole-in-the-wall shop that had quickly become her favorite place to hunt out treasures. She planned to put it in the back bedroom once it was cleaned up and she was able to locate the bed she wanted for the front bedroom. Her memories were fuzzy when it came to the furniture that had been in her grandmother's bedroom. But she was confident she would know what was right for the room when she saw it. She didn't want to emulate her grandmother's taste but she did want the room to have the same feel to it as it did then, warmly welcoming and comfortable.

  But at this moment she was in the kitchen taking stock of what needed to be done. She had taken it on this morning determined to at least scrub it clean. Now that she'd gotten a good look at everything up close after the process of hours of cleaning she wondered if it wouldn't be better just to rip it all out and start from scratch. Nothing in the kitchen was her Nanno's. Her kitchen had been full of whites and yellows. There'd been gingham everywhere though Mary felt certain she wasn't going to replicate that aspect of the decor. There had also been kitchen linens laden with cherries and other fruits, a collection of wonderful salt and pepper shakers, and so many other little things she would happily bring back to give it the homey feel her grandmother had brought to every room of her home.

  Looking around the room now simply made her sad. The cupboards looked like someone had stapled together particle board and hoped it would all hold together. She didn't think it would for much longer. Walking over to the opposite wall, she took another look at the long neglected sink and knew there was no way it could be satisfactorily cleaned. At least not to where she'd feel comfortable using it. Or any water that came out of the faucet that looked like it had been salvaged from a love your rust specialty shop. Wiping her hands along the sides of the jeans she had relegated to work clothes, she scrounged around in her purse for the small business card that had been taped to the front door the day after she'd closed on the house. Houses she reminded herself. Houses.

  She needed to find that card. She’d thought at the time it was a blaring signal for her of just how quickly news spread in a town this size. She hadn't owned the house for twenty-four hours and at least one person knew and more than that knew she might possibly be in need of a building contractor. At the time she'd wondered how they'd known. Not Pete. She had considered that possibility only momentarily then pushed the thought aside immediately. Pete did a lot of talking but he didn't talk. He didn't gossip. Not when it mattered. Somewhere along the line they’d become friends and she knew inherently he was a man who valued friendship and the loyalty that came with it. It didn't matter who you were. Prince or pauper, friendship had rules.

  She was being silly. She knew she was being silly. She was making the assumption they knew who she was. It could easily be they knew the house had sold and that it was a mess waiting for someone to ease its pain. And hers. And wasn't she being just a bit presumptuous that anyone would notice or care whether Mary Lane had moved to Burlington. More likely they...whoever they were...thought the lady who bought the house on Cedar Street needed help and maybe long term counseling.

  Where had she stuck that card? She wandered through the house trying to remember what her line of thinking had been at the time. At home she would have filed it in....files...that's it. The kitchen drawer. She walked past the attic door, something else she needed to get to, and back into the kitchen where she pulled out the drawer closest to the doorway leading into the dining room. Digging through the papers she'd deemed important enough to keep including the closing papers on both houses,
she snatched the small business card that had slid down to the bottom of the drawer. "Courtland Gordon. Contractor," and a phone number. She sighed. Contractors, in her limited experience with them, tended to be pushy. She knew what she wanted, knew too she wanted to do some of it herself. When it came right down to it, she didn't need a contractor as much as she needed a strong back. She picked up the phone, dialed and listened to it ring, and was surprised to hear a voice answer instead of the expected answering machine.

  "Hello, is this Courtland Gordon?"

  "Sure is."

  "My name is Mary Lane. I found your card on my door a few days ago. I was hoping you might be able to stop by sometime to discuss some work I'd like some help with.”

  "The little house on Cedar up the way towards Marshall?"

  "That's it. It has a black and white exterior."

  "I know it." Court wondered what on earth had possessed him to leave his card on the door. He had more than enough work to keep busy not to mention the paper work that was piling up. On top of that he was starting to run behind on his other deadline. It didn't matter. He could lie to himself all he wanted. The truth of it was she reminded him of the only woman in his life he had admired and loved. Unfortunately he hadn't told her enough. "I can be there in a few minutes," he said into the phone. He ran his hand through his too long hair then looked at the phone as if it was a living thing. He didn't need this, he thought gruffly. He'd only caught a brief glimpse of the woman but that was all it took. She had reminded him immediately of his mother. And the Lord only knew how much he missed that woman.

  Before Mary could agree or otherwise the line had gone dead. Before she could do much more than close the drawer and push the pail and mop under the disgusting sink the doorbell rang.

  "Did you fly?" The words tumbled out before she had the door completely open. Only when he spoke did she get a good look at him.