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  "What made you change your mind?" Casey wondered, but she knew her aunt, knew her methods. She also knew Mallie's weaknesses.

  "She offered me a thousand to keep my mouth shut."

  "I can see where that would do it," Casey offered dryly. "It would certainly help to cover gas costs."

  "You don't understand," Mallie tried again.

  "Oh, honey, I certainly do," Casey assured her. "I've been there and done that." She laughed at her expression. "Had I been you I might have been tempted myself."

  "Come on, Mallie." Mary drew her again toward the kitchen while continuing to keep an eye on her aunt. "Let's get something for you and Aunt Charlie to eat." She measured Mallie's demeanor. "Then we'll get you settled down for the night. You look exhausted."

  "I am," Mallie admitted. It really ripped that her own grandmother had more energy than she did. "I don't know how she does it," she spoke softly, never for a moment wanting to hurt her grandma's feelings.

  "Grit," Casey advised knowingly. "Pure unadulterated grit." She too kept an eye on her aunt who was slowly moving through the house, pausing here and there, looking out windows, touching windows, and Casey knew, remembering. "Wish that we all could suffer from the same at her age." She walked towards her aunt who was standing at the back window of the dining room. Casey understood the significance of that. Suddenly her aunt raised her hand, warding her off.

  "Wait," she softly demanded. Closed her eyes. "Listen."

  Mary immediately understood. She walked past Mallie, reached out to lay her hand on Casey's arm even as she walked past her on her way to her aunt. Gently, she touched her aunt's shoulder first, then edged her hand around to hold her near. She felt the tension in her, the rigid stance in her frail frame. She leaned her own head close to her aunt's, binding them together, woman to woman, whispered softly. "I've heard them, their laughter." She let her head lay on her aunt's shoulder, a shoulder than had born the weight of so much sorrow over the years. Her own, and so many of those who turned to her for strength. The last of the three who had held them all so closely bound together throughout their childhood. "In the morning when I wake, I lay there in Nanno's room. It's so quiet I can hear the birds." She paused, felt more than heard or saw Casey move toward Mallie, hold her close even as she felt the tremors move through her aunt, felt the gentle sigh, heard her quiet relief to be understood...accepted. "And in that quiet with the birds singing I can hear them sometimes, the joy and the laughter. The way all their voices tumbled over each other in a rush to be heard."

  "Yes." Her aunt agreed softly...hearing them too. "Yes," she repeated on a weary sigh that came from deep, deep within. "I felt the need to come. I had to, just so I could see." She took a shaky breath, struggled. "So I could hear. I thought if I just closed my eyes and listened, maybe once, just once...I could hear." She looked to her side, took in her nieces, her granddaughter. "I needed to hear them." She looked around the room, filled with so many memories, overflowing with the heart of all those who had given this house so much life. "It is so very hard being the last."

  Mary reacted straight from her heart and took her aunt into her arms. "Oh, Aunt Charlie. I can't even begin to imagine."

  Mallie took the few steps needed to reach her grandmother, threw herself into her embrace. She was badly shook by the frail tone she'd never before heard out of her grandmother, the woman who plowed her way without fear through any and all obstacles. "Oh, Grandma."

  Casey joined the other women of her family. Enveloping them all in her arms. She'd known this would be tough on Charlie but couldn't have in a lifetime anticipated that final statement. The words shook her clear through, the thought of being the last of a generation tore right into her. How lonely it must seem at times, she thought. She caught a good look at her aunt's face, saw the raw emotion and the weariness. "You'll take my bed tonight, Aunt Charlie. I can..."

  "No," feeling the strength that always came from when family surrounded her Charlotte declared, "I'm going to sleep in here, on Mama's daybed." She looked around the room, "It's so much the way it was." She leaned once again into her niece. "You did good, Mary." She sighed, missing all her family who had gone before but the void left by her sisters was without description. She looked at her sister’s daughters, each in their own way so much the image of the women she so dearly missed. "You both do your mothers proud." She stepped away, sat on the day bed once again built into the wall. "They would love this." She leaned back, knew she would sleep well this night. "We'll wait and go to the Marshall Street house in the morning."

  Mary stayed silent about the most recent purchase and hoped Casey would do the same. Anxious to get everyone settled, she gathered some sheets and blankets from the bathroom closet for her aunt while Casey finished putting a plate of food together for Mallie. By the time she had her aunt comfortable Mallie announced she was going to sleep on the couch. Both Mary and Casey understood it was her desire to be as close as possible to her grandmother that drove her choice. As Casey and Mary headed back to their own beds they heard the soft whisper from Mallie. "Will one of you explain this to my Dad?"

  "I will." Mary offered, wondering exactly what she would say even as Casey rolled her eyes, grateful beyond words it wasn't her.

  

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  "Wow! This is huge." Mallie rushed in past them even as Mary unlocked and swung the heavy front door open. They had spent the morning sitting around her kitchen table telling Aunt Charlie all that had been done and all they'd found and learned. The trip down the alley to the Marshall Street house had also been delayed by a trip down to Mary's basement and another up into the attic. After their aunt's emotional reaction just to being in the house again the night before, both Mary and Casey were quietly concerned with her reaction to seeing all the family heirlooms found hidden away. But she was back to herself and dealt with it all in her normal Aunt Charlie way. And to their delight had filled in many of the unknowns in their assumptions as to how all the furniture and boxes had gotten into the closed up side of the basement.

  "Your fathers and my Jason felt badly even as they took their hard stand about getting rid of Mama's belongings. To them it was just excess furniture that none of us needed," she said slowly, speaking haltingly as she stood just looking around at all they had pulled out of the storage room at the front side of the basement and into the larger, more open area. "Your mother," she looked at Mary, "called me after I'd gone to bed. I was just laying there quietly cursing my husband," she admitted candidly. "She and Leslie had decided to haul as much as they could down to the basement that wasn't already down there and close it all up in Mama's canning room." She shook her head amazed that after all this time it was still there. "Looking back I think our thought was that we would somehow come back for all of it. I don't know what we were thinking. The house was going to be sold. Barely weeks after Mama died it was on the market." She thought back to that late evening, the sorrow and anguish that had filled up the room and weighed down their hearts. "We weren't thinking, not really." She took a deep breath past the grief beginning to clog her throat. "We were all still in such utter shock. Mama was there one day and not the next. I can still remember running up the street when I got the call." She felt her granddaughter's arm slide around her holding her to the here and now as her heart travelled back. "They were bringing her out the door when I got here. She looked at me so clearly, looked right into my eyes." Charlie closed her own, drowning helplessly in the memories that flooded through her. In that moment she was on the porch, grasping her mother's hands, holding tightly to that look and telling her over and over she loved her, that it would all be okay. And when those eyes slowly closed and she heard that horrible sound, a sound she'd never been able to completely erase from her memory, she knew in that desperate moment that would forever stand still in time...nothing would ever again be as it was.

  "You were doing what you could, what you had to just to survive such a horrible time." Mary offered, understanding loss
could drive you to do the hard to explain.

  "Maybe," Charlie hesitantly agreed. "Jason told me much later that both your fathers heard them down there, went down themselves and simply started helping them without any discussion." She shook her head, "I don't know that they understood but I do believe they tried." She walked over to the tall dresser that had stood in her bedroom at the Marshall Street house throughout her childhood and teenage years. "It's amazing how important the least likely things are," she murmured more to herself than anyone else in the room as she ran her fingers over the smooth marble top. "My mother picked this out for me when I was a little girl. She wanted me to have pretty things, things she didn't when she was little." She sighed, wishing for even just a single moment of all that was gone and so very much missed. "Looking back she must have paid dearly for it, we probably ate her vegetable soup for weeks...maybe months to pay for this." She laughed softly before she continued. "Dad adored her, he may have hated vegetable soup but would never have said a word."

  "He adored all of you." Casey knew this from all her own mother had shared with her.

  "Yes. He surely did," Charlie agreed, the knowledge of that simple fact like a warm blanket around her.

  "Let's check out the attic now!" Mallie had exclaimed, hating to see her grandmother upset and hoped the excitement of unknown treasures would help to cheer her up.

  While Charlie had known immediately what they were talking about when they told her about the basement's locked up room and what they’d found behind its hidden door she'd had no such idea whatsoever about all they'd found in the attic when they told her about it. She hadn't even known that the separate storage space existed. She’d been equally surprised to learn that her grandmother had built and owned the house before her own mother had moved into it.

  "Okay, sweetie." Charlie took the hand her granddaughter held out and slowly climbed the old stairs. They didn't spend nearly as much time in the attic as they had in the basement after everyone quickly realized the difficulty Charlie had getting into the small storage space let alone moving around within it once she was. The general consensus was that all of them would get a better sense of everything still up there after it was all hauled downstairs. And more than that Charlie wanted badly to go to the home of her youth. She was still in awe her niece had bought it and that it was once again back in the family.

  Walking through the doors of the Marshall Street house with both Mary and Casey by her side, Charlie felt an overwhelming range of emotions surge through her.

  "Are you okay, Aunt Charlie?" Casey asked trying to keep the obvious anxiety out of her voice.

  "I'm fine, honey." She patted the hand that now held hers tightly. "You're just like your mother, always nurturing everyone even when it wasn't necessary. It used to irritate me some until I realized it was just her nature to do so."

  "Yeah," Casey agreed, remembering the years of resenting it, and all the years since her mother's early death when she would’ve given anything to have it back. Even if only for one more moment.

  "Hey! Hey! Cool!" Mallie's excited voice drifted through from the back of the house. "Is this that hidden stairway you guys were talking about?"

  Casey and Mary headed towards the kitchen, both hearing the stomps on the steps even as they reached the bottom of the stairway.

  "Mallie, be careful. It's pitch dark up there," shouted Casey, knowing even as she did the girl would hear her and do as she pleased regardless.

  When their aunt walked into the room she was more interested in the wall cabinets in the room barely noticing the tall cabinet that still sat jutting out into the middle of kitchen.

  Mary walked over to stand next to her. "Are they the original cabinets, Aunt Charlie?"

  Charlie opened and closed them, obviously thinking to herself. "Yes," she finally decreed. She tilted her head, wishing her memory wasn't as old as she was. "They are, but they're in the wrong place." She waved her hand to the other wall, and in doing so finally noticed the huge piece sitting in the middle of the room. "Those cabinets were on this wall," she pointed to the wall opposite where they were presently standing even as she slowly walked around to the front side of the cabinet that Mary had pushed away from the other wall to unveil the stairway door hidden behind it. As she rounded the far edge to inspect the front side of it, her breath caught and grabbed everyone's attention. Even Mallie who had since bounced back down the stairs disappointed there was no exit at the top. She stopped and stood silently to hear what had caused her grandmother's eyes to light up and her breath to hitch.

  "This," Charlie laid her hand on the counter top of the huge cabinet, ran her hand along it, letting her fingers play over the rough edges of the old wood. "This was on that wall, where those cabinets were moved to." She opened the cabinet door that had once held her mother's coffee grinder. "It took up almost the entire wall with just enough room before the doorway so the light switch wasn't covered up."

  "It must have been difficult to find something to fit that wall," Casey studied the size of the wall and then the cabinet.

  "It was and that's why my father himself made this for my mother." Charlie could see in her mind's eye her mother's expression on that morning so long ago when she had walked into the kitchen where they all waited for her. "My father made it as a surprise for her birthday that year. I was in the fourth grade." She remembered the excitement of being included in such a big secret. "We all helped, I helped him sand this counter top." She rubbed her hand over it again, remembering the pride she’d felt at being part of such an important gift. "I imagine he spent a lot of time going over what we did, fixing it, making it just a little bit better, but it made us feel so special. I don't think he ever understood how much he did for us just by letting us help him."

  "Aunt Charlie," Mary took her hand, worried at the glitter she saw gathering in her aunt's eyes.

  "It's okay, honey. These are good memories, they're just not always easy to remember." She looked around. She was proud of her sister's girls and dearly wished her own daughter was here with them. "Are you going to keep this as a kitchen?" They’d told her about their plans for the house, how some of the downstairs rooms were to be converted into studios or offices.

  Mary looked around the room. "Yes, and if you would help us with your memories, I'd really like to make it as close as we can to the way it was."

  Charlie nodded. "It was a lot like your kitchen in the little house." She looked at her niece. "But then you did that from your memories of your Nanno's kitchen as you remembered it didn't you?"

  "Yes." Mary took her hand again. "We had such wonderful times there. I loved her kitchen so much and wanted it just the way I remembered."

  Charlie squeezed the hand in hers. "Just so you remember, to make your own wonderful times there now for your children and theirs to remember." She walked over to the stairway, peered up into the darkness. "I dearly hated those stairs. The light never worked very well and you could hear the sounds of mice and such in the winter."

  "Eck." Mallie squealed at her words. She hated mice and anything else with four little legs.

  Charlie looked at how the huge cabinet had been moved from where it had covered up the door. "Is it blocked upstairs as well?" At her niece’s nod she only added, "I don't blame them. It was dark and spooky. Worst than the basement." She looked over to that door. "Though I didn't go down there unless I had to and that was rare."

  Casey and Mary looked at each other almost automatically, each thinking along the same lines. Aunt Charlie might not have the insight they'd hoped for to help them find what they were looking for in the house.

  "Mary," Charlie began, not certain what her niece would think of what was rummaging through her mind. "I would very much like to rent one of these rooms."

  Mary looked at her aunt, felt Casey turning towards them as well. Her aunt still looked frail, the emotions of the day had caught up with her which was why she and Casey had decided over their first cup of coffee on her front porch befor
e their guests had woken that they would wait to ask her about any potential hidden areas in the house. But she also saw a glint of anticipation in her aunt's face, a brightness in her eyes that hadn't been there in a long time.

  "Aunt Charlie, you can have any room, any two rooms or more in this house that you want. But I won't take money from you. I couldn't take it from you." Anticipating her reaction that came from knowing the woman all her life and from the expression on her face they all recognized, she used the one weapon she knew without a single doubt would work. "My mother would never forgive me if I did anything less for her sister than I would do for her," she said it simply, quietly, and from her heart where the truth of the words she spoke came. "She loved you so much, Aunt Charlie." She walked over to her, took her small, frail hand that held so much strength, held it to her heart. "When I lost Mama, I can't count the times I picked up the phone to call her, not thinking, forgetting for that moment in time she wasn't there to answer my call." She felt the single tear drop, felt a soft breeze of air gentle against her face. Knew in her heart her mother's spirit was with her, was always with her. "Just as I knew in each of those horrible moments I could call you and you were." She let her aunt hold her close. "Let me do this for you because I'd give anything if I could have for her."