Aim for 75,000-80,000 words to fit romance genre formula
The Last Forty Acres
Sometimes holding on means letting go.
Scene 1 Saturday Night Homecoming.
MEETING JULIA AND HELEN. THE SITUATION PRESENTED
Finally, the bridge came into view. Julia Holden disliked driving across bridges, but even so she
welcomed the sight of it, because once on the other side they wouldn’t have much farther to go. The
clock on the dashboard said 7:04. Hopefully, they’d reach the farm before dark. That is, if her
mother-in-law’s rattletrap truck held together long enough to get her there.
Helen was still sleeping, her head resting on a small travel pillow against the window. Dark
shadows under her eyes were a barometer of the fatigue accumulated after six hundred miles and
over nine hours on the road. Her gnarled arthritic hands rested in her lap and even in sleep remained
tensed and claw-like.
Julia eased into the center lane, which relieved her nervousness enough that she took her eyes
off the road for a quick look at the Mississippi River flowing beneath the bridge. Midway across the
a sign welcomed her to Illinois.
The truck picked that moment to act up again. The high-pitched squeal that had plagued them
intermittently all the way from Minneapolis came again from somewhere beneath them. Every time
it came Julia’s stomach jolted and she feared that the camper, holding all Helen’s earthly possessions,
had somehow come loose. But a quick look in the rearview mirror reassured her that the camper still
followed behind them like a faithful family dog.
The squeal stopped. Another reprieve. Julia gently nudged Helen’s arm and said, “We’re almost
there.” Her mother-in-law’s eyes fluttered open and after a brief look of confusion she sat up
straight and smiled. “The mighty Mississippi. Oh, how I’ve missed her.”
Just past the bridge a flock of white cranes rose up from the lowlands beyond the river’s bank
and were silhouetted, pterodactyl-like, against the deep blue April sky.
Following Helen’s instruction, Julia turned south onto Bluff Road, which ran parallel to the
Mississippi, although far enough away that the river was no longer visible. The road was aptly
named. Sunlit limestone bluffs, partially hidden by lacey spring foliage, rose up on their left. Here
and there trees blossomed in clouds of white flowers.
“The dogwood’s blooming,” Helen said. “Oh, and look! The bluebells have opened too.”
Julia caught glimpses through the trees of water trickling down mossy crevices in the bluffs.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said.
“Looks like they’re growing broccoli and cabbage,” Helen said.
Julia pulled her eyes away and saw that Helen was referring to the farmland on the right side of
the road.
“This bottom land has some of the richest soil in the country. No wonder, with thousands of
years of silt stolen from upriver. It’s a land of milk and honey—as long as the Mississippi stays on
the other side of the levee.”
Helen shaded her eyes from the sun’s glare. “This is the early crop. Later they’ll grow acres of
tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers—maybe eggplant.” After a minute, Helen lowered her hand and
turned her eyes back to the road in front of them. “But our farm is on top of the bluffs. The soil
there is more suited to corn, soybeans, and wheat.”
The truck squealed again, and again Julia’s heart lurched.
“Don’t worry,” Helen said. “I know a good shop to take it to soon as we get settled.”
Don’t worry. That was good advice. But Julia couldn’t help but worry about how Helen was
going to manage alone on the farm. Helen’s rheumatoid arthritis was so bad lately that she could
barely take of herself. Like the truck’s squeals, her symptoms were intermittent. Her doctor had
explained that the recent resurgence was due to stress. He advised her to take it easy and “calm
down.” Calm down? That was a little difficult to do when her house was being foreclosed on a mere
three months after burying her husband—and only two years since she’d buried all three of her sons.
After all she had endured it was a wonder Helen could move at all. But nothing fazed Helen. Her
faith had burned strong through it all. She had comforted others during the dark night of their
suffering, quoting Job on more than one occasion: ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.’
And Helen’s unwavering faith had strengthened Julia’s own newborn faith through the pain and
loss. Somehow Julia had survived. She saw the words etched as clearly in her mind as on the granite
gravestone: Lucas Holden, beloved husband and son, aged 24. Each Sunday afternoon she had faithfully
visited his grave where he lay next to his father and brothers. She spent a quiet hour catching Lucas
up on her week. The thought brought a momentary twinge of panic. She would have to miss this
week, probably next week too, depending on how soon she could get Helen settled at the farm.
ONLY A FEW DAYS?
“That’s new,” Helen said, bringing Julia out of her dark memories. She pointed to a house that
was nestled in a semi-circular cove formed where the bluffs curved back from their established
course. It was a great house, and she could picture herself living there—if she ever decided to give
up the city. From the porch that spanned the whole front of the house, she’d be able to look out
over the fields across the road. The house sat higher than the road and she wondered if the owner
could see beyond the levee to the river.
When they had passed it, Helen said, “There’s our turn. Now cross your fingers and toes and
say a little prayer.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Hanover Road followed a ravine that cut through the bluffs. As soon as Julia turned onto it the
truck voiced its protest against the steep grade, and Helen instructed her to downshift for more
power. The narrow road snaked left and right under a canopy of tree branches that blocked out
most of what remained of the daylight.
The engine groaned with the strain of taking them up the incline. She pictured the camper
coming loose and barreling back down the road, across to the fields on the other side, and then
bursting open, spilling everything Helen owned onto a field of broccoli. Of course, if the camper
didn’t detach, its weight would pull the truck and them with it down that same trajectory. And then
whether it split open or not would be a moot point, because the truck’s fuel tank would explode and
they’d die a fiery death. An image of Lucas and his brothers rose up in her mind, and for a moment
Julia’s chest seemed too small for her heart. She forced the image out of her brain and focused on
her driving. At least the squealing sound didn’t come.
Eventually they made it to the top of the bluff, the trailer still faithfully following behind them.
God must still have more for her to do before she joined Lucas. She pulled over to the side of the
road and concentrated on getting her breathing to slow down.
“Well,” Helen said. “I guess I forgot that part. Of course, the last time I drove up that hill
pulling the camper the truck was ten years newer.”
Now that they were out of the trees, there was still quite a bit of daylight, although the sun was
getting closer to the horizon. Gentle rolling hills lay before them, lush fields of bright green grass on
either side of the road. Julia wondered why there were no cows or horses grazing. Then, Helen
explained that it was wheat, and she was grateful she hadn’t revealed her ignorance. Julia took in a
deep breath, put the truck in gear, and started forward again.
After the wheat fields, they came to actual pastures where horses grazed behind white board
fences. The sharp contrast of the green, white, and brown made her think of William’s ‘Red Wheel
Barrow’ poem, but she couldn’t quite remember how it went.
She had only known Lucas as a city boy in Minneapolis. Now, seeing all the pastoral beauty he
had grown up with shed a new light, and she wished suddenly, desperately, that he were there to
share it with her.
“Coldwater is just up ahead,” Helen said. “Let’s stop and get a few groceries before we go on to
the farm.”
Scene 2 Stocking up and a ticket
FIRST MEETING WITH THE HERO NEIL. ESTABLISHING THE SPARKS (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE)
From Helen’s fond descriptions, Julia had imagined Coldwater to be much larger than it turned
out to be. Helen, however, was impressed by how large the town had grown since she’d been there
ten years before. A Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Taco Bell had sprouted up next to White’s
Drugstore and a Gas ‘n Grab on the corner where the old Standard Oil service station had been.
“And there’s the new Save-A-Lot,” Helen said. “There were rumors about one coming about
the time we left.”
Julia had firm convictions when it came to Save-A-Lot. She wouldn’t support a company that
treated its employees so shabbily while at the same time driving out all the mom and pop stores in
town. She hadn’t set foot in any of their stores in Minneapolis and she wouldn’t in Coldwater if she
could help it.
“You don’t mean for us to go in there, do you?” she asked.
“No. I’m sure I much prefer shopping at Hopper’s Grocery. If it’s still there.”
The town square looked too quaint to be real, more like a movie set. The stately Monrovia
County Courthouse rose three stories above a spacious lawn shaded by by taller-still oak trees.
A white gazebo had been afforded space on one corner of the square. Helen told her the
Coldwater German Band had concerts there every Friday evening during the summer months. She
and George had brought the boys most weeks. And they had brought them to all the festivals and
parades when Main Street would be closed to all but foot traffic and set up with amusement rides
and vendor stands—German potato cakes, brats, beer, and for hand-made jewelry, quilts, wooden
toys, and lots crafts to catch the eyes of shoppers.
“The strawberry festival is coming up in June,” Helen said. “I wish you could be here for that.”
“What’s going on over there? Looks like they’re having some sort of festival now.”
“Where?”
Julia pointed at a group of people milling around booths set up in the street alongside the
courthouse.
“Oh, good. That’s the local farmer’s market,” Helen said. “I’m glad to see some things haven’t
changed around here. Let’s get our produce there.”
Julia worried that prices would be higher than what she was used to in the grocery store, but to
her relief she found that they could buy a surprisingly generous amount of fresh lettuce, spinach,
green onions, and other salad ingredients with only a little of her remaining cash. There was
something very satisfying about buying directly from the growers.
At other stands locals sold handcrafted items. Most of it was overly cutesy Americana involving
geese, flags, and apples. But at another, she found a display of tiny, framed canvases painted with
still life scenes that were quite good. Seeing them made her miss her own paints. She usually brought
them along everywhere she went in case she came upon something interesting.
Her father had asked her if she was bringing her paints on this trip, but she had assured him
she’d be too busy helping Helen. He hadn’t been able to understand—not fully anyway—why she
was going to such effort for her mother-in-law. After all, technically speaking, Helen no longer was
her mother-in-law. But her father had been supportive as always, sending her off with his blessing
for her “odyssey in the boonies.”
After they finished at the market, Helen had her drive to Bethel Church where the family had
attended their whole lives. Julia liked the traditional architectural style of the church, especially its
white steeple rising up against the backdrop of a blue sky.
Helen was surprised to see that a large wing had been added since she’d last been there. “Looks
like the church is growing. That’s always a good sign, I guess.”
“I imagine you’re eager to see all your old friends again.”
“Yes, and I look forward to introducing you to all of them.” Helen’s smile grew sad. “Although
it will be difficult to repeat my story. They’ll all want to know the details.” She took a deep breath
and sat taller. “But that’s tomorrow. Come on. I want to show you where Lucas went to school.”
They drove past Lincoln Elementary and Coldwater High School where Lucas and his brothers
had attended, as had their father and grandfather before them. And on a tree-lined residential street
Helen pointed out the house where Lucas’ grandparents had lived after they had retired and left the
farm.
“They died within six months of each other. I wasn’t well enough to come back for their
funerals, but George and the boys went. I don’t think Harold ever forgave George for taking his
grandsons so far away to Minnesota. But if he hadn’t been such a stubborn old coot…well we
probably would never have left the farm. I’d still have my sons. And then George wouldn’t have…”
It wouldn’t do Helen the least bit of good to go down that path, and so Julia ruthlessly
interrupted. “Where to next, navigator?”
“Let’s get our groceries so we can go home.”
Hopper’s parking lot was crowded and Julia couldn’t find a spot near the door. There were
handicap spaces, but without the appropriate tag they couldn’t park there without risking a ticket.
She made a mental note to see about that Monday.
“I’ll let you off and go park.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“It’s too far, Helen. You’ll—”
“You go on, honey. I don’t think I’m up to it after all.”
Surprised, she turned and saw that Helen was absently rubbing her right knee with one gnarled
hand. She had been feeling well the whole trip. But sometimes, just when it seemed she was going to
have a good day her RA decided to deliver a sucker punch. Apparently, Helen had just taken one to
the gut. She was squinting, and there was a band of paleness around her mouth that Julia knew
meant she was in pain. Not that Helen ever complained.
“Are you all right? Of course you’re not. I’ll take you to the farm and come back.”
“Don’t be silly. That would be a complete waste of gas. I’ll wait in the truck.”
As much as she hated to delay getting Helen home, with the tank was nearly empty and her
credit card nearly full, it made sense to save a trip to town. “All right. I’ll hurry.”
Julia reached the door just as a man was turning the sign in the window to “Closed.”
“Are you closed?” It was a stupid question, but he smiled and opened the door.
“No worries. I don’t mind staying late for a pretty lady like you,” he said, tugging his pants up
over his belly. His nose, lumpy and red, was his dominant feature; his comb-over hairstyle came in
second place. Then his smile turned sly and he stared at her chest.
A scathing put-down popped into her head. Julia weighed her options and decided she needed
the groceries worse than she needed to unleash her wrath on him. She caught a glimpse of another
customer and heard the squeaky wheels of his shopping cart. At least she wouldn’t be alone with
him in the store.
“Thanks. I just need a few things,” she said and hurried past him.
Hopper’s Grocery was smaller than she had thought it would be. The lights overhead were dim
and the scarred wooden floors listed to starboard, giving the impression that she was in a boat
captain’s cabin. Julia selected a pint-sized cart and pointed it toward aisle one, where she got a loaf
of bread and three cans of green beans. In the next aisle she got dish soap and then added a bottle
of Mr. Clean, a sponge, and a pair of rubber gloves. It was best to be prepared. Knowing the way
some of her father’s renters left his apartments when they vacated them, she planned on doing quite
a bit of scrubbing for the next few days.
Aisle four was a hodgepodge of goods. There were bins of bulk candy from which the scent of
chocolate wafted. Her brain tried to convince her that she needed to buy some, but her budget
didn’t allow for candy, and so she overruled that idea and resolutely pushed her cart farther down
the aisle. She finally found the toilet tissue next to the light bulbs. All they had were overpriced
single rolls.
The squeaky cart she had been hearing came into sight when the man pushing it came around
the corner and stopped at the bins of candy. He wore dark dress pants and a white shirt with a blue
tie loose at his neck. Julia decided he looked like a professional at the end of his workday.
The tissue she held slipped from her hands and rolled down the sloping wooden floor. She
followed it until it came to a stop against one of the man’s polished loafers. “Sorry about that.”
He towered over her and had the sort of handsome face that always made her nervous. He bent
down to pick up the tissue and then grinned at her, his lips quirking in a way that made her warning
system send out an alarm. His eyes were deep blue and she realized immediately that spending too
much time looking at them was bound to be dangerous. He wore three days’ worth of golden brown
beard. She usually disliked the scruffy look, but on him it looked just right—and devastatingly male.
She had the sudden desire to reach up and touch his cheeks.
She felt her face flame and blinked in horror. What on earth was wrong with her?
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, handing the roll of tissue to her. “Just part of the human
condition. I was twelve when I first realized that even teachers bought toilet paper—or had need of
it.” He leaned closer and added, conspiratorially, “It was in this very aisle that I saw my sixth grade
teacher Miss Murphy putting TP in her cart. A whole twelve-pack.”
Relieved that he didn’t realize she was blushing because of him, Julia smiled. “How shocking
for you.”
He put his hands into his pockets and nodded at the bins. “You seem like a sensible woman.
So, what’s your opinion? Should I get lemon drops or peppermints? Or maybe butterscotch?”
“Well, most people buy the kind of candy they like.”
“Oh, it’s not for me. If it were, I’d skip right to the chocolate turtles.”
“Me too. I love those things.”
“It’s for the County Board meeting tonight. I figured candy would sweeten tempers. And then
if it did come to throwing things, people would go for it instead of erasers and staplers.”
“In that case, why not go for the circus peanuts?”
“I like it. I like it. A subtle reminder to refrain from turning the meeting into a circus and yet
soft and harmless when thrown.” He drew a brown paper bag from the stack and scooped some of
the candy into it. “And then there’s the added health benefit.”
She had been watching his hand on the scoop. It was large and rough, the hand of a working
man, and contrasted interestingly with the sleeve of his pristine white shirt. Her eyes darted of their
own volition to his left hand. It was bare of jewelry. When was the last time she had even thought to
look for a ring on a man’s hand?
Finally his last comment sank in. “Circus peanuts?” she said. “I can’t think of anything less
healthy.”
“Of course they are. Circus peanuts are a known deterrent to over indulging, because once you
eat one you swear off candy for the next year. And yet, I’ll get points for thoughtfully bringing
snacks.”
She laughed. “Well good luck with your meeting. I’ve got to concentrate on what to make for
dinner.” Instead of concentrating on handsome men in the grocery store.
“Thanks for your help.”
Smiling, she pushed her cart past him. She could feel his eyes staring at her back all the way to
the end of the aisle. Or maybe it was just her ego imagining it. He was probably just being friendly
and hadn’t been hitting on her at all. She shook her head and wondered again what was wrong with
her. Why should she care if he were hitting on her or not? She had no interest in romantic
entanglements, even though her friends—including her own her mother-in-law—had been urging
her to get back in the dating game for the past six months. After the emotional trauma of losing her
husband, especially the way he died, her heart was a mangled mess. She had no intention of allowing
it to be ripped out of her chest again.
And that thought reminded her that Helen was waiting in the truck. What kind of a daughterin-law was she to be dawdling in the candy aisle with a handsome stranger when Helen was
exhausted and in pain? She hurried to get the rest of the items on her mental grocery list. By the
time she got to the checkout counter she had seen everything from bait to caviar. T-shirts with
Coldwater, USA emblazoned across the front and hot pepperoni pizza by the slice.
The man with the red nose and avid eyes was on a ladder at the front window putting up a
banner that read “Hop on Into Hopper’s for Lot’s of Saving’s!” His misuse of apostrophes was
doing nothing to offset her initial negative impression of him.
“There you are,” he said. “I was about to come after you.” Smiling his oily smile, he came down
from the ladder and sauntered over to the counter. “I was beginning to think you and Neil were up
to no good.”
She paused in putting her things on the counter. “What?”
“Neil, that handsome devil in a suit. Nebo, I call him. He’s not married either, the lucky dog.”
As much as she’d love to release the verbal bomb he so richly deserved, she knew the best tactic
was to clamp her mouth shut and ignore his innuendos. When Lucas died, she discovered firsthand
that young widows were often the special target of a certain type of aggressive male who saw them
as easy prey. After all, everyone knew that widows, being sexually deprived, were eager to be
seduced.
She opened her lips enough to say, “I’m in a hurry,” and handed him her credit card, being
careful not to touch his hand.
He studied the card. “Who are you from home?”
“Excuse me?”
“Fred’s asking you where you’re from.” The man she had met over toilet tissue and circus
peanuts was behind her. He smiled. “It’s a German thing.”
She turned away from his dangerous smile and saw that Fred was looking at her expectantly.
Apparently, she was unable to be rude to him, in spite of his obnoxious behavior. It was annoying.
“I’m from Minneapolis.”
“When did you move here?” Fred asked.
“Just visiting for a few days.”
“Welcome to Coldwater.” He stared at her chest and said, “I do love strawberries and cream,
don’t you, Nebo?”
Her cream-colored T-shirt was long sleeved and loose fitting. It wasn’t the most stylish thing
she owned and certainly not the most flattering. Apparently, though, the strawberries embroidered
on it were lust inducing.
Neil, a.k.a. Nebo, grunted and glared at the man behind the counter. “What’s the matter with
you, Fred? Shut up and give the lady her groceries.” He looked back at her—or rather at a point
over her left shoulder—and said, “On second thought, if you wait, I’ll carry them out for you.”
“That’s quite all right. I can manage.” She picked up the two bags and escaped Hopper’s.
She couldn’t wait to tell Helen what had happened. But when she got to the truck she saw
through the windshield that Helen was asleep again. Julia untied one corner of the tarp that covered
their belongings in the truck bed and tucked in the grocery bags. She strapped down the rope and
then went to get in the truck.
“Miss,” Neil called. “Wait up.”
He was hurrying toward her, distress all over his face.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said when he reached her. “Fred is not really a bad guy.”
“It’s great the way you guys stick up for one another no matter what. I admire loyalty. I really
do.”
“I’m not condoning how he treated you. As a matter of fact, I’m going to go back in there and
let him have it. He’ll feel really bad about it.”
“That’s wonderful. Now we all will.”
“Well, anyway, here.” He thrust a small brown paper bag at her. “This is for you. Enjoy your
visit to Coldwater.” She looked down at the bag she found herself holding and then watched him
stride back across the parking lot and into the store.
When she got in the truck Helen sat up and yawned. “I smell chocolate.”
Julia opened the bag. “Chocolate Turtles.”
“Yum. My favorite.”
“Mine too,” Julia said as she pulled out onto the street. It was a good thing she wouldn’t be
around Coldwater for long. Of the male population she’d met so far, fifty percent was totally
obnoxious. And the other fifty percent was entirely too attractive for her peace of mind.
It didn’t take long to pass through town and then they were on another country road heading
east. After they’d gone a couple of miles, Helen said, “That’s the Bishop’s place. Their three boys
and ours were forever over at each other’s houses. What those boys could come up with.”
Julia smiled, imagining Lucas as a mischievous little boy with merry blue eyes.
The road curved and when they straightened out again, Helen put her hand on Julia’s arm.
“Pull over, honey.”
She stopped the truck and Helen pointed and said, “That’s our land. What used to be, anyway.
Henry Shaw owns it now.”
A green and yellow tractor was making its way across the field, doing something to rows of tiny
green plants. Julia didn’t want to reveal her ignorance by asking what.
“Henry’s got the corn planted early. George would like that.” Helen sighed. “Almost nothing
prettier than a field of young corn.”
Julia could think of several of things just off the top of her head, but she kept her opinion to
herself.
Helen smiled fondly. “We farmed all this back in the day. Five hundred acres altogether. Beans,
corn, wheat. But then George’s dad sold it—all but the forty acres the house sits on. It’s our fault,
George and I. If we hadn’t left, Harold wouldn’t have done it. Lucas and his brothers would have
been the sixth generation to farm it.”
Lucas had complained bitterly about what his grandpa had done. Even though he was happy
living and working in the city and had no desire to go back to the farm, he hated that the land had
passed out of the family.
Helen jolted as if coming out of a dream and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to
sound so grim. Besides, if we hadn’t gone to Minnesota, Lucas wouldn’t have found you, now would
he?”
Julia blinked. “And I wouldn’t have the best mother-in-law in the world.”
Helen snorted delicately. “I don’t know about that. But come on. We’re nearly home.”
Scene 3 Home at Last
WHERE LUCAS GREW UP. MEETING CUJA. MYSTERY OF THE RENTERS
Helen’s last forty acres weren’t pretty like Mr. Shaw’s green corduroy fields. The land laid fallow
and unproductive on either side the weed-choked driveway that Helen had directed her to turn into.
The farmer who had been renting it for the past several years had declined to continue doing so this
year due to failing health. With no one to hold back Adam’s curse, tall weeds grew with abandon.
Helen exclaimed in distress, but then turned to reassure Julia.
“Never mind. It’s good soil. I’ll find someone else to rent the land and get things in order.”
Julia supposed it was natural that Helen’s farmer eyes had been drawn to the fields first. As for
her, she was focused on the house straight ahead. It had a tired look, although a fresh coat of paint
would probably fix that. The lawn, if it could be called that, looked as if it hadn’t been mowed yet
for the season. An old-fashioned red barn and various sheds and other outbuildings stood a short
distance behind the house.
Julia pulled up in front of the house and turned off the engine just as a skinny yellow dog came
charging from behind it, barking a no-nonsense warning that made her forget all about getting out
of the truck.
She lowered her window and said, “Hello, doggie. Nice doggie.”
The dog continued to bark. Hopefully, its name wasn’t Cujo, and they wouldn’t be stuck in the
truck for a week. It didn’t look rabid, not that she had a clear idea about the symptoms if it were.
Although it wasn’t a St. Bernard like in the story, it did look suspiciously like a pit bull, always a
breed to think twice about.
“Helen?”
“Yes?”
“Do you hear music?”
“All I hear is barking.”
“I hear Elvis singing. And since I don’t believe in reincarnation, I think somebody’s in there.”
“But the Smiths were supposed to be out by the first of the month.”
“Dog. Music. Someone’s living in your house.”
There was a momentary pause in the dog’s barking, and Helen said, “Yes, now I hear it. Heart
Break Hotel. Honk so they’ll come out here and take care of their dog.
Julia honked the horn. It seemed really rude, but there was no way she was getting out of the
truck until someone came out and collared Cujo.
No one came out.
“Let’s look in back,” Helen said.
Julia started the truck and followed the gravel drive that ran beside the house and on back to
the barns. A rusty blue Chevy sat in the grass only a few feet from the back porch.
“Dog. Music. Car,” Julia said.
“I wonder where they are,” Helen said.
“I wonder where we’re going to stay until they move out.” If the Smiths weren’t completely
packed and ready to go, it could be days before she could get Helen moved into the house. Days
before she could get back to Minneapolis.
“There’s electricity in the barn. We can hook the camper up there. And we can get plenty of
water from the well.”
At the pained look Julia knew she must be wearing, Helen patted her arm. “You’ll see. It’ll be
cozy.”
Julia tried to think of something enthusiastic to say and came up blank.
“Or if you’d rather, we can stay at a motel. There’s the Super 8 out on Route 13. It’s fairly
cheap.”
Anything over a dollar a night would be too expensive for their meager budget. Between them
they only had about five hundred dollars in cash. And, Julia knew for a fact that Helen’s one
working Visa card wasn’t in any better health than she was. Not that her own was much better. Her
salary wasn’t huge in the first place, and then she transferred a hefty percentage of it to the fund she
and Helen had set up for the employees.
She and Lucas had put off getting life insurance until it was forever too late. Of course George’s
life insurance company would be paying out to Helen any day. It wasn’t a large policy, and so Helen
would need to get her land rented right away. That income would help make ends meet. Until then,
she’d need to scrimp like crazy.
“Maybe they took the kids into town for a Friday night burger or something,” Helen said. “I
seem to recall George said it was a young family.”
“I hope they went into town for one last box or roll of packing tape.” Julia said. “But I’m not
waiting around for them to get home. Let’s get this thing hooked up before it gets completely dark.”
Helen grinned. “It’ll be fun, Julia, like a camping vacation.”
Julia smiled. “Sure.” She looked down at the dog still barking at her door. “If only we can
distract Cujo here long enough to get the camper plugged in.”
Following Helen’s directions, Julia pulled the camper as close to the side of the barn as she
could. The dog followed, still expressing its displeasure.
“It looks hungry,” Julia said. “Do we have anything edible besides our turtles? I’m sure not
wasting those on Cujo.”
Helen rummaged in her purse and came up with a candy bar. “Only this and it’s chocolate too.
Dogs aren’t supposed to—”
“I’ll chance it,” Julia said, taking the candy bar from her. She held the candy bar out the window
so the dog could pick up the scent. “Here, nice doggie. You’re such a good boy.”
“I think it’s a girl,” Helen said, looking over Julia’s shoulder.
“Cuja, then. You’re such a pretty girl, aren’t you?” she said as sincerely as she could manage.
The dog stopped barking and whined at the compliment.
“I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you girl?” She held the candy bar a little farther out the window, and
the dog whined louder at the tantalizing aroma of chocolate and peanuts with a creamy nougat
center. It would have made a great commercial, Julia thought.
“Okay, get ready to move fast, Helen. When I throw the candy bar, hurry and get in the
camper. Then find more food to keep the dog occupied while I hook it up.”
Julia stopped talking and mentally smacked herself up the side of her head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t
thinking. You’ll never be able to move fast enough.”
“It’ll be worse since I’ve been sitting so long. And even on a good day I have trouble opening
the camper door with these claws of mine.”
“All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. You slide over here and trade places with me. You
can keep Cuja occupied while I go for it.”
“That I can do.”
After they had managed the tight maneuver, Helen opened the candy bar, broke off a piece, and
held it out for the dog to sniff. “Get ready to run, Julia.”
Julia eased open the passenger side door. The hinges seemed to make an inordinate amount of
noise.
“Okay, go,” Helen said.
Julia slid down from the seat, a big drop for a person only five foot-two inches tall. The electric
cable was stored in a hinged door on the side of the camper. It seemed miles away, but she reached
it safely. She was familiar with procedures, because she and Lucas had borrowed the camper for a
weekend once. But watching him do the hook up and doing it herself were two different things. She
would have preferred that her first attempt weren’t under threat of dismemberment. The little door
opened easily enough, but the electric cable stored inside was stiff and unwieldy, and it took precious
seconds to unwind it.
She wanted to call out to Helen to ask how much candy was left, but she’d just as soon not
remind Cuja of her presence. At last she had the cable completely out of its compartment, but then
had the horrible thought that it wouldn’t be long enough, that she’d have to get back in the truck
and move it closer to the barn. It proved to be a groundless fear. The cord reached through the
open barn door and to the electrical outlet, which was just where Helen had said it would be. Now if
the electricity was actually still in service.
She heard a snuffling sound outside, but since she wasn’t fluent in dog she didn’t know if it
meant “thanks for the chocolate candy” or “get off my property.” At last she got the plug turned the
correct way and inserted it into the outlet. A tiny orange light began to blink, an immediate
reassurance that the power was indeed still on.
The candy had to be gone by now. As soon as she thought it, Helen cried out, and Julia
pictured the dog latched onto her mother-in-law’s hand, her life’s blood pumping out onto the
ground.
“I’m coming, Helen.” There was a half-rotted two by four half-sunken in the dirt next to the
barn door. Julia pried it up and came around the side of the camper with it extended in front of her.
“Back off Cuja, or I swear I’ll brain you with this.”
Helen was leaning out the window, happily petting the dog. “No, honey. See? She’s a nice dog. I
think she’s welcoming me home.” Cuja turned toward her, and Julia stiffened. But she was wearing a
doggy grin and only waved her tail in greeting and went back to adoring Helen.
Julia dropped the board, and keeping an eye on the dog, opened Helen’s door and helped her
down from the truck. Cuja’s tail wagged harder and she whined either in sympathy for Helen’s stiff
and painful joints or because she wanted more candy. Maybe both.
The three waded through the tall grass to the glassed-in back porch. Oldies music was still
playing, although fainter, presumably, from somewhere at the front of the house. The concrete
porch steps were only wide enough for a single person and there was no handrail.
“I don’t think I can manage that right now,” Helen said. “You look and tell me what you see.”
“I see that the Smiths like beer. I can’t begin to count the number of empty cans in there.”
“They’re probably saving them for the recycling center.”
“If so, they’ll have enough to live on for a year.”
“Anything else besides beer cans?”
“Trash. Lots and lots of trash. And enough dog food bowls for a half a dozen dogs.”
“Where are your friends, Cuja?” Helen said, petting the dog’s neck. “Maybe they took the
others to the vet.”
“Well, Cuja, we might as well have dinner while we wait for them to get home.”
Scene 4 Sunday Morning
RENTERS STILL NOT HOME
The sound of Helen’s morning ablutions in the camper’s microscopically small bathroom came
through the paper-thin walls to wake Julia. Julia stretched sleepily and wished she could get a few
more minutes of sleep.
She’d had trouble falling asleep the night before, expecting at any moment to hear a ruckus
when the Smiths got home and found a strange camper parked in the driveway. But no one had
come pounding on their door to demand that they explain themselves, and she had eventually
drifted off.
When she came out of the bathroom after her own business there, Helen had set the tiny
kitchen table with glasses of orange juice and the last of the stale bagels and cream cheese. She used
a special knife designed for arthritic hands. She had other tools that helped her with buttons, jar lids,
and pens. It was difficult to restrain herself from helping her, but she had learned to respect Helen’s
dignity.
Julia opened the camper door and the morning light streamed in. Cuja stood at the bottom of
the steps, smiling expectantly up at her. The dog really, really, really wanted to come inside to
reaffirm her love and devotion to her new best friends, but since their quarters were already so
cramped it made maneuvering difficult, especially for Helen, Julia decided Cuja would have to eat
her breakfast in the yard.
“Maybe they had a family emergency,” Helen said.
“If so, maybe they arranged for someone to come by and feed the dog. Then again, maybe
not.” Julia threw the dog a piece of bagel, and Cuja caught mid-air.
After they finished the bagels, Julia handed Helen down the camper’s rickety metal fold-out
steps onto the gravel. The sky was a pure, deep blue, and a light breeze played in the trees with a
flock of twittering sparrows. A picnic table sat under a maple tree near the back door, and Julia
imagined the Holden family eating hotdogs and watermelon there on summer days.
The shabby house looked nicer in the sweetness of the April morning, although it wasn’t likely
to win the Better Homes and Gardens contest. At their approach, a cardinal flashed out of a spruce
tree. Cuja followed, her nose to the ground, snuffling happily at whatever it was that dogs found
intriguing. Dew sparkled on the tall grass and instantly wet Julia’s shoes.
The door to the glassed-in porch wasn’t locked. The knob turned freely, but Helen put a
restraining hand on Julia’s arm when she would have gone in. “I don’t feel right going in there if the
Smiths are still living here.”
Julia turned to go back to the trailer and was struck anew by the beauty of the morning. The sun
reflected off each dewdrop on the tall grass they’d waded through. “I’ve changed my mind, Helen,”
she said, pointing to the path they’d trampled. “If the Smiths were still living here, wouldn’t there be
other tracks beside ours?”
“I guess you’re right. But let’s give them just a little more time. Maybe when we get home from
church they’ll be back.”
It seemed unlikely, but Julia supposed it wouldn’t hurt to wait a bit longer before they went
barging in.
Scene 5 Bethel Church
MEETING FRIENDS, OLD AND NEW. ALL IS NOT WELL AT THE CHURCH.
They were late getting to the church. Julia wondered if Helen had dawdled on purpose so she
wouldn’t have to talk to people before the service. The parking lot was full, everyone apparently
already inside. But an older couple stood under the portico at the double doors ready to greet late
comers.
Helen’s face lit up and she hurried forward. “Floyd? Floyd and Lottie Jones?”
The man grinned, his eyes twinkling, and held out his arms. “Helen.”
The woman frowned. “Helen?” She adjusted her glasses and then smiled. “Helen!” She rushed
toward them and took her friend into her generous arms. “Helen, I’ve missed you so much. Oh,
honey, you’ve lost so much, haven’t you?”
“I went out full and came back empty, Lottie.”
“Why didn’t you call, Helen? We would have gone to the funeral, but we didn’t hear in time.”
“I’m sorry, Floyd.”
“He was a good man, Helen. I’m so sorry to hear of his passing—and piled on top of what
you’d already been through…well, it must have been horrible.”
“God’s grace is sufficient, Floyd. You know that better than most people.”
“Indeed I do.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been so hectic and—”
“Listen to us grilling you the minute you get here,” Lottie said.
Helen put her arm around Julia. “Where are my manners? Lottie, Floyd, this is my daughter-inlaw, Julia. Lucas’ Julia.”
Lottie pumped her hand. “You are a dear girl to help your mother-in-law.”
“It’s no hardship. Helen is like a true mother to me.”
“Is Pastor Hesterberg still here or has he retired by now?”
“Retired,” Lottie said. “If you can call it that. He’s off on another mission trip to India. We’ve
got Reverend Aubrey now. He’s young, but he’s a good man. I’m just praying he can hold the fort
against some of members who want to…” She lowered her voice even though no one else was
around. “Well, let’s just say there’s a faction that’s all big on rules and regulations.”
“But there’s still lots of solid folks at Bethel—including lots of new faces you won’t recognize,”
Floyd added. “And wait until you see our new fellowship hall.”
“We noticed the new wing yesterday,” Helen said.
“And we’re having Potluck today,” Lottie said. “You picked a good Sunday to visit.”
“Next time I’ll bring my famous chicken spaghetti casserole,” Helen said.
“Next time?”
“It’s not a visit, Floyd. I’m back for good.”
Lottie grabbed Helen in another gentle bear hug. “Oh, that’s great news! It’s about time you
came home where you belong.”
“You ladies will have to catch up after church,” Floyd said. “We’d better go find seats before
the service is over.”
A soloist was just finishing a song when they entered the sanctuary. Helen scanned the faces of
the congregation and whispered to Julia, “Floyd was right about all the new members. I don’t know
half of the people here.”
As they made their way to an empty pew, recognition passed like a wave over many in the
congregation. Some smiled excitedly and waggled their fingers at Helen. Others looked startled, and
Julia wondered if they were shocked by the changes in Helen’s appearance. Julia ended up sitting
between Helen and Lottie with Floyd at the end next to the center aisle.
“Oh, there’s Ken and Camille Copperfield. See, Julia? He’s the tall man in the pale green shirt.”
Before she could answer, Helen went on, whispering the names of other friends she recognized.
Julia smiled at Helen’s happiness, happy herself to know she would be leaving Helen in the
bosom of her friends.
A man with grayed-out red hair walked to the podium and somberly greeted the people.
Helen stopped scanning the audience and looked at the man in front. “How about that?” she
whispered to Lottie. “Bill looks the same as ever.” [Dana, don’t have a coronary. I’ll be changing the
names and details throughout. I just wanted you to know this is who I pictured as I wrote about
these “Bethel” characters!]
“Yep,” Lottie said drily. “The same as ever.”
He led them in Amazing Grace and when it was finished, Lottie leaned over and whispered.
“And the same inimitable style of song leading.”
A woman in front of them turned around and frowned at them, obviously having heard their
comments. Julia felt her face turning red. But then the woman whispered fiercely, “I’ve hinted on
more than one occasion that Bill should practice with a metronome. But he won’t take my advice.”
Julia choked back a laugh and wished she were somewhere else.
Another man came to the podium, and Helen said softly, “Ron Hutson. Is he still a deacon?”
“Head deacon now. He and George used to butt heads, didn’t they?” Lottie said.
Thankfully, Helen didn’t add any comments for people to overhear, just cleared her throat and
shot a look at Lottie that Julia couldn’t interpret.
Besides being deacon, Ron Hutson was also apparently the chairman of a committee charged
with exploring ideas for a retreat center for the church. He reported on several leads the members
had been following for suitable land on which to build. After he urged the congregation to keep
praying, he turned the podium back over to Bill who led another hymn.
When Pastor Aubrey came to the pulpit Julia was surprised by how young he looked. He could
have been mistaken for an earnest high school student. No wonder Floyd worried about his ability
to withstand being steamrolled by strong personalities in the church.
But when he began to preach, she saw that he had an inner strength that belied his young age.
Soon, she forgot all about anything but what he was saying. And even though tired, she remained
focused to the end.
After the benediction she and Helen stood to leave, but before they could take a step, friends
surged around them, enveloping Helen in hugs. Amid exclamations of joy at seeing Helen again,
meeting Julia, and condolences for their losses they were swept along to the potluck in the new
fellowship hall.
MEET THE AUBREYS HERE.
Scene 6 The Potluck
ANOTHER MEETING WITH NEIL. MORE SPARKS FLY.
NEED TO ACTUALLY MEET Mary Vaughn, Betsy Hutson, and Carolyn Turney. Betsy
(Mrs. Oblivious: HE’S IN A BETTER PLACE. BLESSING YOU DIDN’T HAVE CHILDREN. which is a pain Ruth
has that she has nothing of her husband left. NOT TOO SMART. MISSES THE FINER NUANCES OF A
CONVERSATION. DRESSES LIKE MARY VAUGHN. TOTALLY TASTELESS/UNCREATIVE/LITERAL. Sticks her
foot in mouth routinely.
Helen was winded from the exertion and clung to Julia’s arm even when they reached the
bottom of the stairs. The line for food had backed up into the hallway where they stood. Sheriff
Jones went off to talk to someone—Julia didn’t catch the name—declaring he might as well take
care of a bit of business while he waited for his grub.
“No sense in you standing in line, Helen” Julia said. “Why don’t you go sit down and visit with
your friends?”
“That’s a good idea, Julia,” Lottie said. “Come on, Helen, let’s go find a table. When Julia gets
to the food we’ll shamelessly cut in line.”
“No, let Julia mingle and get to know people,” Floyd said. “I’ll bring you ladies your plates.
Only I’m going to go talk to Leo first. Might as well get a little business done while I’m waiting for
my grub.”
As he walked off, Helen turned to Lottie. “That’s the best excuse for cutting in line I’ve ever
heard.” Laughing, they left arm in arm.
The food smelled wonderful and Julia’s stomach rumbled. The line moved slowly and after a
brief introduction, the people in front of her didn’t seem inclined to chat. She took out her phone
and searched for nearby campgrounds. There were several in the area, the Happy Camper only a few
miles south of town. Emptying the sewage tank was sure to be disgusting, but she would do it as
soon as they got home. Her policy, even as a child, had always been to check unpleasant tasks off
her to-do list first. She suddenly considered what it must be like for the unfortunate people who
cleaned out portable toilets for a living. It had to be at or near the top of The Most Disgusting Jobs
in the World list.
As soon as she got Helen moved into the house, she’d get an ad for the camper posted on
Craig’s List. Helen thought they should be able to get at least a thousand dollars for it. Julia had her
doubts, but every dollar would help.
“Going camping?”
She jumped and nearly dropped her phone.
Neil stood behind her, grinning down at her.
“No, I was just checking into where I can empty our…” She stopped, not about to discuss her
sewage situation—even if they had met over a roll of toilet tissue. She felt her face flame again, and
wished for the millionth time someone would invent a way to prevent blushing. She hurriedly closed
the site on her phone and tucked it into her purse.
He wore a charcoal suit with another white shirt that set off his tan. She wondered if he went to
a tanning booth. Perhaps he was just back from a vacation in the Bahamas.
“I didn’t see you in church,” she said.
Smiling, he loosened his tie. “So you’re wondering if I’m a gate crasher, huh?” He held up three
fingers in a Boy Scout salute. “I promise I was there. I sit in the back row with the other sinners. I
wasn’t going stay for the potluck but the preacher’s wife strong-armed me. It’s hard to say no to a
five-foot-two pregnant lady.” He held his hand up to his chest indicating Mrs. Aubrey’s height. Julia
estimated her own head would reach the same place near his heart if she were to stand close enough
to him.
She shook away the thought and managed a small laugh. “What a bully she is.”
“There are a few around here, but Mrs. Aubrey’s not one of them.”
“Really? Everyone I’ve met has been so kind. It would take forever to remember everyone’s
names.
“Give yourself time.”
She wondered if he meant time to learn the names or time to run into the members who
weren’t kind.
“Unfortunately, I won’t be around long enough. I’m just here visiting with my mother-in-law
for a few days.” His eyes darted to her left hand, and she had the urge to put it behind her back. The
question hung in the air as clearly as if he had been bold enough to voice it.
“My former mother-in-law.” She hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was on the table. He looked
like he was trying to think of a polite way to ask which category she fell into—divorced or widowed.
But even though the pause grew long, he refrained from asking.
“So, how was your meeting last night?”
He seemed confused and then his face cleared. “Oh, the county board meeting. Nobody threw
anything, but Mr. Raymond got so mad at Mr. Willis I thought he was going to have a stroke. I kept
my phone out in case I needed to to call 911.”
“Did they like the circus peanuts?”
“Of course not. No one likes those. But that’s all right. I’ll have plenty for next month’s
meeting.”
“Speaking of candy, I forgot to say thanks for the turtles.”
“You’re quite welcome. It was the least I could do.”
She was surprised to find that they had reached the food table. Across the room, Helen and
Lottie were laughing and talking with friends. Julia picked up a paper plate from the stack and
looked over the selections. Even though they were the last in line there was still a huge selection to
choose from.
“That lasagna looks good.”
“It is. Mrs. Williams always brings that.” He spooned a portion onto her plate and then one
onto his own.”
She chose several salads and main dishes that looked good. Neil offered her a spoonful of a
particularly gooey-looking casserole and said, “Here. Gotta make room for Mattie Hamontree’s
Cheese Whiz casserole.”
“No, thank you. I’ve got more food than I can possibly eat.”
He leaned in closer to her and said softly, “Just so you know, she’s watching from the kitchen
like a hawk after mice. You’ll get a black checkmark beside your name.”
Julia risked a look. A woman wearing white hair in a crush-proof helmet and pearls at her thin
neck watched them from the kitchen pass-through window. She put an equally thin hand to her
necklace and an assortment of rings glinted. She wasn’t entirely sure he was joking about the
checkmark.
Julia smiled at the woman in the window. “Oh,” she said to Neil. “Of course.” The glob of
casserole slid off the spoon he held onto her plate.
He grinned. “It pays to appease her in the little things.”
Mattie Hamontree’s thin, barn red lips remained straight as a stick. Apparently she didn’t see
the need to waste a smile on newcomers such as herself.
“Not that you should actually eat it,” Neil whispered near her ear.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Ah, but a princess shouldn’t trust anything cooked in a witch’s cauldron.”
She smothered what felt like a girlish a giggle threatening to erupt and then looked nervously at
the pass-through. Mattie Hamontree, apparently satisfied they had paid homage to her casserole, had
turned her attention to something going on in the kitchen.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The general is busy commanding her kitchen slaves. It takes her
constant supervision to make sure the forks are sorted properly.”
“Aren’t you being a little harsh?”
“Sorry. You’re right. Let’s talk about you. Since this is our second date, I figure—”
Julia gasped. “Date? I hardly think—”
His lips quirked up in that way that made her stomach feel funny. “Well, I brought you candy
on our first date. And now I’m taking you out to eat.”
She found it was impossible not to enter into the ridiculous conversation. “At this rate, we’ll be
engaged before I go back to Minneapolis.”
“Aha! We’re getting somewhere. Now, I know where you’re from. Next question: What do you
do for a living? When you’re not visiting small Illinois towns, that is.”
“I thought you’d ask my name. As I recall, I never gave it to you.”
“I’m working up to that one.”
“All right. We’ll save that for later. Right after you explain why the odious man in Hopper’s
called you Nebo.”
“Try to forget that Nebo thing, would you? And Fred’s not really odious, you know. He’s just
having…problems.”
She took her time answering. If she knew him better, she’d be able to tell whether he was joking
about Fred. “I am an assistant director at G.A.M.E.S., which before you ask, stands for Greater Area
Minneapolis Employment Services.”
“I bet that gets lots of jokes.”
“I wouldn’t have named it that. How about you? I assume being a county board member is not
your full time vocation.”
“It should be. We’re working on a knotty zoning problem and can’t come to a consensus.”
A frown flittered over his face and Julia turned to see who he was looking at. Rev. Aubrey and
his wife Lisa had come down the stairs and stood at the doorway chatting with a distinguished
looking couple.
Neil pulled his eyes away from watching them and looked down at her. “Let’s go find a seat.”
“Are you running away from Lisa and her strong-arm tactics?”
“No, not from her.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “I should probably sit by my mother-in-law.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s the white-haired lady in the far corner laughing with all her friends, but I don’t see any
empty seats within a mile of her.”
“Here, follow me,” Neil said. “I know the perfect place for you to tell me the details of your
life. Like your name, for example.”
POV SWITCH TO NEIL
He ran interference for her through the crowded room the best he could, slithering past friends
with knowing grins who seemed determined to prevent him from reaching his goal. No doubt they
were dying to know how Neil Ashe had managed to convince the woman to talk to him, much less
follow him across the room. He wondered himself. But since single women didn’t grow on trees in a
town the size of Coldwater, unless you counted the barfly types, he wasn’t wasting the opportunity.
Normally, he would have hung around to shoot the breeze with his friends, especially Joe
Richards. He’d have to call later to see how his wife’s cancer treatments were going. And since he’d
rushed past Pastor and Lisa as if they were plague carriers, he’d catch them later and apologize.
Sometime when they weren’t talking to the Turners.
He could have survived Jack Turner’s scornful hatred and Xxxx’s hurt eyes one more time. But
when he had seen them across the room while the woman was laughing at something he’d just said,
he realized he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she were sucked into the soap opera he and the Turners
starred in.
In Hopper’s Grocery he’d felt as if he’d been smacked upside the head by one of Cupid’s
minions the moment he laid eyes on her. She was so cute. Even a Neanderthal like him knew the
word was verboten, especially when used to describe the modern, liberated woman. He would
continue to keep the word safely behind his teeth. But he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking it. She
was a half-pint, reaching only half way up his chest, but was spunky enough for two women. Her
eyes and hair were chocolate brown and her skin was as pure as cream. No wonder Fred had gone a
little crazy over her. He made a mental note to stop by his house and have a little private chat with
Violet to see if the doctors had any more to say about his dementia.
At last they reached the back hall. He opened the door to the first room on the left. It was
painted a cheerful yellow and looked the same as he remembered it when he was a little tyke and
Miss Kline was teaching him Bible verses.
The woman—he was dying to know her name—paused at the threshold as if she had qualms
about going into the room. It was one thing for a woman to talk and joke with a man in a room full
of people, and quite another to sit in a room alone with him. But then, as he had hoped, the
ridiculousness of the setting seemed to hit her and she smiled. More importantly, followed him into
the room.
“Here, allow me.” He pulled out one of the miniature chairs at the miniature table with a
flourish, and when she had seated herself, whipped a napkin and plastic tableware out of his shirt
pocket, and placed them before her.
When he sat across from her, his long legs sprawled beneath the table, he dwarfed the chair,
adding more ridiculousness to the situation.
“Isn’t there other rooms with full-size chairs? I feel like Alice in Wonderland.”
“There is, but they’ll be full of roving hordes of barbarian children.” Kids who were every bit as
nosy as their parents down the hall. “Besides, I love this room. I have many happy memories here as
a five-year-old. I swear that’s the same Noah’s ark mural. Later, when I was in junior high my
buddies and I would sneak in here when no one was looking to filch animal crackers from the
cabinet.”
“Ah. You realize, of course, that statistics show a clear correlation between an early life of crime
and an untimely end on death row.”
Her eyes crinkled when she was trying not to laugh, and he vowed to try harder to make her do
so. She wiped her eminently kissable lips with a napkin and studied her plate, while he sucked in a
lungful of oxygen and tried not to stare.
She chose a forkful of lasagna and he took a bite of ham. “So tell me your…” He drew out the
pause. He could tell she thought he was finally going to get around to asking her name. He grinned
at the expectant look on her face. “Your job description. Do you grill unemployed workers to make
sure they’re not slackers?”
“No, unfortunately, I don’t get to interact with the clients much. I mostly talk on the phone and
shuffle papers around in my cubicle.”
“No high rise office overlooking downtown Minneapolis?”
“Definitely not. How about you?”
“An office overlooking downtown Minneapolis?”
“Very funny.”
Score one point for the smile on her face.
“No, but my office does overlook the Mississippi. You’ll have to come see the view some
time.” A funny look skittered over her face as if she might actually want to accept. But then she
shuttered her eyes. He hoped she hadn’t interpreted his comment as an invitation to view his
etchings.
“Hey, Nebo. What’s up?”
At the door, dark-haired Josh Nurnberger stood shyly looking in. He was one of the fifteenyear-olds he had enjoyed working with in the youth group before that responsibility and joy was
taken from him by Turner and his gang.
“Not much, buddy. When are we going to shoot some more hoops?”
“Whenever you say, Nebo. I can call all the guys and we could order a pizza and everything.
Like we used to.”
It pained him to not be able to hang out with the kids anymore, especially Josh who so
desperately needed a father figure. At least they’d had the sense to choose Floyd Jones to be the
youth director. “On second thought, we’d better not do that, Josh. But don’t worry. Mr. Jones is
making plans for the youth group.”
“You were a youth group leader?” Julia asked.
“Until recently. You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Julia said.
“He was good, too,” the boy said with a touch of defensiveness. “I mean, Mr. Jones is cool,
too, and all. It’s just that…well, he’s kind of too old for shooting hoops and stuff like that.”
Neil winked at Josh and said, “Hey, come on over here, and I’ll introduce you to this pretty
lady.”
The boy, colt-like, walked over and stood bashfully a few feet from where they sat.
Neil gestured to him. “This is Josh Nurnberger, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever want to
meet.” He turned and grinned at the woman at the table beside him. “And, this lady is…”
“Julia,” she said, extending her hand to the boy.
In fairness, he couldn’t award himself a point for that smile since it was aimed at Josh. The boy
seemed as bowled over as he did. Adam’s apple bobbing, he took her hand solemnly into his own
slender one and shook it.
“Julia Keller Holden,” she added.
Neil stood up suddenly from the table and took two steps back. “Holden? Julia Holden?”
Josh, seeming to sense something was amiss, waved and bolted out of the room.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were Julia Holden?” Neil demanded.
Anger flashed in her chocolate eyes. “What?”
“You’re Julia Holden?”
Julia rose from her chair and threw her napkin onto her plate. “Well, excuse me. You make it
sound like a crime,” she sputtered.
“In most states it is.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
He ran his hands through his hair and stalked across the room. “You’re my cousin, for crying
out loud. I’ve been sitting here making eyes at my cousin.”
“I most certainly am not your cousin. I don’t even know you.”
“Which one did you marry? Jeremy? No, it was Tyler, wasn’t it?”
“I married Lucas.”
“There. I told you. You’re my cousin.”
“I take it you’re related to Lucas?”
“We share the same grandparents.”
“So you and Lucas are—were cousins. Don’t be an idiot. I married Lucas. I wasn’t related to
him. Ergo, you and I are not related.”
“Well, if feels like we are.”
“And Helen Holden is your—?”
“Helen is a cousin of sorts too.”
“Why don’t you go yell at her too? She’s right down the hall.”
“Oh, crap. Helen’s your mother-in-law. More to the point, Lucas’ mom. She’ll hate me. Don’t
tell her, okay?”
“Don’t worry. The subject won’t even come up.” Julia picked up her plate and walked out of
the room.
Way to go, slick, he thought. What an ass he’d been. Of course they weren’t related. But still,
Lucas’ wife? It was hard to wrap his brain around it. He’d acted as if he thought her repulsive, which
of course she was anything but. Still, the thought of being attracted to his dead cousin’s widow did
not seem right at all. It was just as well she was mad enough to spit nails at him. She was spunky all
right.
Miscellaneous leftovers
LET REV. AUBREY APPROACH NEIL. PAST TREATMENT HINTED AT. PRESENT
SHENNANIGANS HINTED AT. NEIL FINALLY LEARNS HER NAME (since it’s our second
date, don’t you think you should tell me your name? AND IS HORRIFIED TO FIND HE’S
BEEN FLIRTING WITH HIS COUSIN.
“By the way, Mr. Youth Group Leader,” Neil said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked some
of your guys to help paint Helen’s house. They seem to think it will be fun.” WAIT! WHY ARE
THEY OUT OF SCHOOL? SCHOOL INSTITUTE OF COURSE.
“That’s a brilliant idea. Only goes to show you should be their leader.”
“How sweet of them—and you, Neil,” Helen said.
“Wait a minute,” Julia said. She lowered her voice. “As I told you only a few minutes ago, we’re
moving in tomorrow.”
“Then we’ll work fast.”
“If you must know, we can’t aff—.”
“I’ve got it covered, Princess,” Neil interrupted.
“The boys will be glad to help you for free.” Floyd bent to look into her face. “Don’t be so
stubborn about accepting a little help.”
“It would be nice to have fresh walls,” Helen said.
How could she resist that? “All right.” What was a few more dollars when you owed so much
already?
Suddenly Rev. Aubrey and his wife Lisa were in line behind them, and Julia wondered what else
she had missed while talking with Neil. It was high time she turned her attention toward someone
else.
Lisa smiled at Julia. “Is there anything good left?”
“Lots,” Julia said.
“Good,” Lisa said, grabbing a paper plate from the stack. “I thought I was going to starve.”
“Sorry, honey. A bit of a dispute arose. Xxxxx If I’d known how long it was going to take, I
would have escorted you down and gone back.”
“I’m not a china doll, you know,” she said. “If I wanted to eat without you, I could have made
it quite easily on my own.”
Rev. Aubrey smiled tenderly at his wife. “I think you’re the strongest woman I know.”
Lisa rubbed her belly. “I won’t be if I don’t eat soon.”
“Here, let me help you,” Rev. Aubrey said.
“You’re so thoughtful.”
Neil rolled his eyes and shook his head. “There they go again, cooing all over each other.”
Lisa grinned. “Sorry, Neil. We can’t help it.”
A DESCRIPTION OF THE TURNERS . MEET THE TURNERS.
SPARKLING MOMENT IN THE PARKING LOT. AND A WARNING FROM NEIL
ABOUT TURNER. SHE WONDERS AT THE ANIMOSITY
At closer look, Julia estimated that Lisa was about her own age and Rev. Aubrey was a few years
older, in his late twenties at most. She stole a glance at Neil beside her, and realized that he was
probably well into his thirties. Funny, she hadn’t noticed their age disparity before.
Lisa speared a bite of salad and then paused, turning piercing gray eyes on Neil.
“Did you ever think about leading the kids again?” Lisa said.
Neil looked confused. “Floyd Jones is doing a great job. The kids don’t need me.”
“Floyd’s thinking of stepping down,” Lisa said. “He says he isn’t as young as he used to be. You
should think about it, Neil.”
Neil continued to look confused. “You must not have heard yet. I’m—”
“Divorced?” Lisa asked. “Yes, we know that, don’t we dear?”
“Yes, you know how news like that travels,” Rev. Aubrey said.
Julia noticed with interest that Neil’s tanned neck was turning red. “Then you know that I’m
disqualified from teaching?” he said.
“Says who?” Lisa asked.
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Stop with the ma’am, already.”
Rev. Aubrey grinned. “Speaking of which, feel free to call me Evan. You too, Julia.”
Floyd explained what the youth group’s plan to paint Helen’s house.
“Great,” Rev. Aubrey said. “Tomorrow’s my day off and I love to paint. When do we start?”
“Seven a.m, Reverend,” Neil said.
“I guess I should keep junior away from the fumes, but I can bring lunch.”
To church and meet friends, including several people inquiring about her selling the land. Neil’s there
again at the potluck and they talk more extensively, he warns her about Philip and Turner. She’s all gung
ho and naïve about farming. She discusses leasing the land and he explains the situation, but she’s
confident she’ll be able to get someone. Sexy moment at church of all places, parking lot? All this moves
the first doorway to the 25% mark.
.
Scene 7 Touring the Farm
DOWN MEMORY LANE. BACK STORY. MESS DISCOVERED. JULIA’S PROJECT GROWS
Of course she wouldn’t tell Helen about the encounter. She would be as disgusted as Neil Ashe
was at the thought of her daughter-in-law cozying up to her dead son’s cousin. She kept her mouth
shut all the way home from church and let Helen gush about the fun she’d had talking to old friends.
Cuja greeted Julia and Helen enthusiastically when they got home, but there was still no sign of
the Smiths. Julia fed the dog some of the kibble they had picked up in town, and then Helen
suggested a tour of the farm. They drove the truck, Cuja trotting happily alongside them.
Every spot on the farm brought back memories for Helen. The old red barn was where their
small flock of sheep had sheltered when they weren’t out doing their job of keeping the grass around
the outbuildings cropped. She described for Julia how Lucas and his brothers had learned to ride
them, laughing uproariously while they hung onto their wooly coats for dear life. How the lambs had
frolicked in the spring and how silly the ewes had looked after their annual shearing. And how mad
George got the time the ram managed to sneak up behind him and butt him to the ground.
It was good to hear the stories about Lucas, Julia told herself. It made it easier to remember
him. And easier to block out thoughts of another blue-eyed man.
Lucas and his brothers had begun following their father around even when they were barely old
enough to keep up with his long strides. They had helped feed the pigs and taken turns riding
shotgun in the huge combine when the crops were harvested. The three stairs-step brothers had
perched precariously on top of hay wagons loaded six bales high on their way from the hot, dusty
fields to the barn. And after George and the hired workers had stacked the bales in the loft, the
brothers had played for hours on end making forts connected by secret passageways between the tall
stacks of hay bales.
The pond brought back memories for Helen of fishing for blue gills and picnics of bologna
sandwiches and apples.
“They skated on the pond the moment their father announced the ice was thick enough to be
safe. George and I watched them like hawks, but even so, the boys found trouble. Tyler fell on the
ice doing one of his crazy tricks and broke a permanent tooth. And then there was the infamous
grain bin incident. Jeremy was trying to beat the brothers’ record time for climbing to the top of it.
Caught his arm on the caged ladder and broke it when his foot slipped off the rung.”
But a broken arm wasn’t the worst danger of a grain bin. Farmers had been known to fall off of
and into bins. Falling off a bin meant broken bones at the very least, usually death. Falling into one
could be deadly too. The grain acted like quicksand, pulling a man under to smother in his own
crop. Lucas’ grandfather had been a victim of another more subtle danger.
Every year, before the new crops went into the bins, the men would have to shovel out what
remained of the the previous year’s grain left in the bottom. In spite of George’s warnings, his father
Harold had not seen any reason to wear a facemask when he worked in the bin. Masks were
uncomfortable for his nose, which was admittedly prodigious, and besides, he couldn’t see the tiny
mycotoxins that the moldy grain contained. He only changed his mind about masks after a nasty
lung infection put him in the hospital.
That was when George started working on an idea he had for an improved grain bin to replace
their old-fashioned one, one that wouldn’t sustain mold growth.
George’s father was stubborn about other things too, anything, in fact, that George wanted to
do to improve the farm operation. Harold insisted that things were fine just the way they were, and
they didn’t need to go borrowing money for every tomfool idea that came out of Prairie Farmer
Magazine or worse yet from the idiots in the agriculture department at the University of Illinois.
Eventually, George got tired of butting heads with his father. He loaded up Helen and their
three sons and headed for the city, taking his grain bin idea with him. For two years he spent his
days working for Agro-Tech in Minneapolis and his nights working on his idea. Then, after scraping
together the investment money and renovating an old factory building, his concept became a reality.
At first, George’s three sons—young men by then—were his only employees. When the orders
started flowing in he hired others so his sons could go to college.
Julia had met Lucas at the Christmas Ball, the social event her college and his co-sponsored
each December. She majored in Liberal Arts at Morningside College, and he was in the preengineering program at Bradley University. But they found much in common and plenty to talk
about over the loud music and bland punch. They had fallen in love almost at first sight and married
the summer after they graduated. They’d had less than a year together—295 days—before the
unthinkable happened.
Julia dragged her gaze from the infamous grain bin that had been the beginning of the end for
Lucas and his father and brothers. Of course, she had heard the whole story several times, but
listening to Helen relive fond memories of the farm on a sweet spring morning she realized in a
fuller way what a change it had been for the Holdens to trade country living for the city.
Although she seemed happy after her trip down memory lane, Helen’s strength was obviously
waning. “What’s next?” Julia said. “Or do you want to rest while I make us something for dinner?”
“We haven’t seen the machine shed yet. Let’s take a peek in there.”
Julia thought the white metal building looked pretty boring compared to the quaint red barn
they had explored earlier, but she pulled the truck up to it and helped Helen down.
Helen produced a key from her purse and handed it to Julia. She unlocked the padlock and
heaved the huge sliding door open. Cuja, happy to explore, edged her way in ahead of them. There
was not much to see. The shed was mostly empty except for what looked like a garden tiller and
some rakes and other equipment she wasn’t familiar with. It was, as she had expected, boring. But
Helen stood in the gloom, apparently entranced with memories. Then, when when she turned
toward her Julia saw that her face had gone pale.
“It’s all gone,” Helen cried. “The John Deere and the little International.”
“Tractors?” Julia said.
“Yes,” Helen squeaked. “And hay wagons and other things. How will I work the land without
equipment?”
Helen staggered to Julia and stared, wide-eyed at her. “The renters,” she said, her voice gone
hoarse. “The Smiths must have sold it all and then skipped out.”
Julia looked down at the skinny dog licking her fingers. “And left Cuja behind to fend for
herself.” She knelt down and ruffled the dog’s soft ears. “No wonder your ribs are poking out, girl.”
“Come on,” Helen said, her normally sweet face had gone fierce. “I think it’s time we had a
look inside my house.” SHOW PHONE USE BEFORE NOW
When they got to the front porch of the farmhouse Hotel California was just ending. The radio
announcer encouraged listeners to call in for a chance to win tickets to an upcoming Eagles concert.
Helen handed Julia the key for the front door, but it wasn’t even locked. She turned the knob, and a
stench of rotting garbage whooshed out, causing them to stagger back.
“I changed my mind,” Helen said. “I don’t think I can bear to see what they’ve done to my
house.”
“Why don’t you rest on the porch swing while I go see how bad it is?”
“Have I told you lately how much I appreciate your help, Julia?”
Julia grinned weakly. Then, willing herself not to gag she stepped cautiously into the living
room, Cuja, the explorer, by her side. It was very bad. Dirty plates and cups sat on every available
surface in the living room, including the floor. It was impossible to know for sure what the scraps of
food were because everything was thickly covered in gray mold. Cuja sniffed a plate cautiously and
then turned away in disgust.
The plaster walls were grimy and had innumerable dents and dings—one fist-sized—as if rowdy
boys wielding hammers had roughhoused there. The carpet, possibly once blue, was stained and
matted. The smell from the molding food was bad enough, but Julia nearly lost her bagel when she
noticed Cuja checking out several piles of animal excrement on the living room floor. At least she
hoped it was animal and not human.
She discovered that the oldies music was coming from the dining room. She turned off the
small radio mid song and studied the huge antique oak dining table upon which it sat. The table,
which had been in the Holden family for years and had featured in many of Lucas’ happiest
memories, looked as if the renters had used it as a chopping block. Julia’s eyes stung, and she wiped
away an angry tear. If she had anything to do with it, Helen would never see this outrage. She’d
make her stay in the camper until she found a way to clean it all out. She’d sand out the gouges and
refinish the table. Not that she knew how yet. But she could probably get a book about it.
She steeled herself to go into the kitchen where there was sure to be more unpleasant surprises
awaiting her. Cuja turned away at the doorway as if she had better sense than to go in there. More of
the same stacks of moldy dishes completely covered the counter tops, but for some reason, her
stomach found it even more revolting than those in the living room. Maybe it was an accumulative
effect. Or maybe because of the added treat of cockroaches skittering away at her approach.
The smell was stronger and she found herself trying not to breathe. She imagined the molecules
of rotting food passing through the membranes of her nose and entering her blood stream to
become a part of her. That made her cough, which meant taking in even more of the noxious air,
and so she tried not to think about it. The large trash container in the middle of the floor filled to
the brim and overflowing onto the floor was probably the source of most of the smell.
It was impossible to tell what color the dirty linoleum was for all the litter and globs of foul
yellow gunk that looked like dried mucous. Nearly every cabinet door stood open, revealing barren
shelves. Having seen the multitudinous stacks of dirty dishes lying helter skelter, Julia was not
surprised that there were none left in the cabinets. But they were also bare of even rudimentary food
staples, meaning Mr. and Mrs. Smith hadn’t been into grocery shopping any more than they were
into house cleaning. Or they had truly packed up and left.
The sink was not filled, as she had figured, with more dirty dishes, but clogged with more of the
dried mucous-like gunk. Seeing it up close brought an even stronger urge to throw up. The kitchen
grew blurry to her burning eyes, and Julia used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe at them. It didn’t help.
She coughed violently.
And then she noticed that her legs had turned to rubber. She felt herself slipping to the floor,
not even caring all that much that she was about to put her face on the filth. She felt a vague
curiosity that Cuja was making a ruckus somewhere far away. And the litter on the floor next to her
was, upon closer examination, empty Sudafed boxes. Judging by the number, someone in the Smith
household must have had a really bad cold, she thought, and then closed her eyes.
Miscellaneous leftovers
Helen seems to Neil to have a PollyAnna attitude about life, or is delusional, or has really strong faith.
Julia seems like a stubborn, independent, foolish woman determined to do everything by herself. Neil
yells at them and then leaves. (His protective instinct goes into overdrive, but he resists it, it makes him
mad, because he doesn’t want to be involved with two foolishly independent women. He is put off by
what he sees as raging feminism, but which is mostly bluster and pride. He gets phone call and must
leave, glowering at the women as he goes.
Who does he think he is, anyway? Helen reveals the relationship. All the Ashe men are protective, etc.
Scene 8 Neil to the Rescue
INCREASING ATTRACTION, BUT NEIL’S TAKE CHARGE ATTITUDE GRATES ON THOROUGHLY MODERN
JULIA
The stench was gone, replaced by a combination of soap and masculine cologne that did
nothing to alleviate her dizziness. She was being carried, she realized in a dull sort of amazement, her
face against a hard chest wearing a crisp shirt. A crisp white dress shirt, she determined after
focusing her eyes on it. Her filthy face was sure to soil it, and she reared back in distress at the
thought. And reared again when she realized it was Neil carrying her. He must have read her mind
earlier at the church, for somehow her wish to put her head on his heart had come true.
“Shh. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
The sweet words were incongruous with the frown he wore, which annoyingly did nothing to
diminish his handsomeness, all the more potent because of her proximity. She had noticed his eyes
the moment she’d first met him in the store. Now, her brain gone all mushy, she realized that they
were twin pools of blue that matched the sky above his head. It seemed incredibly personal to look
into them from so close, and so Julia shuttered her own brown eyes against them. He quickened his
pace and called out. “Where’s EMS, blast it?”
A voice nearby told him they were on their way.
If this were just a dream, she could keep her eyes closed until morning. But it wasn’t, and so she
opened them. It didn’t mean she had to look at him, though. She turned away and saw Helen getting
up from the picnic table under the maple tree. Cuja was panting at her feet. Julia felt stupid that she
had just now got around to thinking about them and realized she must be a little out of it.
Neil eased her down on top of the picnic table. She intended to sit there and rest a bit until her
head cleared, but then she realized that she wasn’t sitting at all. Someone put a wadded blanket
under her head.
“Julia! Are you all right?” Helen patted her face with a gnarled hand and peered worriedly into
her eyes.
“I think so. What happened?”
When she started to sit up, Neil pushed her shoulders and she fell back bonelessly.
“Take it easy,” he said, still frowning. “You got a pretty strong dose of that stuff.”
The minutes after that—she had no clear idea how many—were a confusing blur. Helen was
there, holding her hand and saying something she couldn’t quite follow. And then the emergency
workers got there and bustled Helen out of the way so they could prod and poke and ask Julia
stupid questions. Before she could come up with the answers, they stuck an oxygen mask on her
face and told her to lie still. The paramedic said encouraging words that she couldn’t understand.
Helen patted her face again and said something silly about Cuja getting Timmy out of the mineshaft.
Then the paramedic was shining a light into her eyes.
When he quit blinding her, she saw that a few yards away, Neil stood looking at the house. A
uniformed police officer was putting up crime scene tape, and Julia thought maybe she was
dreaming, or perhaps watching a TV show. Other officers holding cameras, clipboards, and other
things she couldn’t identify stood in the tall grass talking into the walkie-talkies hanging from their
shoulders. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the body language said something was
seriously wrong inside the house.
Then a fire truck arrived and more men poured into the yard. They wore full body protection,
including sealed helmets, each with an oxygen supply of its own. GET ACCURATE
DESCRIPTION. Two men carried a metal container that looked like the ones bomb squads used to
handle explosive devices. While the policemen continued to stand restlessly out in the yard, the
firemen carried the container into the house.
By then, oxygen had cleared the last of her confusion away, a good thing, of course, but now
she knew for sure that the horrible scene playing out in the yard was real and not some dream or TV
drama. She pushed the oxygen mask away and sat up on the picnic table.
“Maybe you should lie there a little longer,” Helen said.
“I’m all right.”
When she would have stood, the paramedic put a restraining hand on her, and Neil hurried
toward her, frowning harder than ever.
The paramedic looked at the monitor on her index finger. “I guess you’re good. Your blood
oxygen level is back to normal now. But you should take it easy for a while.” He gathered his
equipment and went back to his red vehicle.
Neil looked closely at her, dipping to see into her eyes, and once again Julia shut them against
their super power.
He smiled at Helen, proving he was capable of other facial expressions besides glowering and
frowning, and then holding out a hand, he said, “I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Neil Ashe.”
Craning her head to smile up at him, Helen took his hand. “Neil? Kenneth’s boy?”
“That’s right,” he said, grinning. His teeth gleamed brilliantly—dangerously— white against his
tanned face.
Helen wrapped her arms around him. “It’s been so long I didn’t recognize you.”
“My condolences, Helen.” His gaze moved to Julia. “I should have said that earlier at church.
I’m sorry.”
Julia wondered if that apology was supposed to cover his obnoxious comments as well.
Helen gave him a last squeeze and then pulled back. “I didn’t see you there, Neil. Let me
introduce you to my daughter-in-law.”
“We’ve already met,” Julia said. “Twice, actually.” Helen’s smile grew wide, and Julia was sure
she was going to quiz her about that. Instead, she merely asked Neil, “How did you end up out here
for our little drama?”
“I was at the station looking for Sheriff Fife when the call came in. Thought I’d come along and
see if I could help.” He turned back to Julia. “How do you feel?”
That brought up the worry that had been nagging at the back of her mind. No telling how
much the EMS bill was going to be. At least her condition hadn’t required an ambulance trip to the
hospital.
“I’m fine,” she said. “What happened?”
“Meth. Your renters were making it in the kitchen.” He frowned at her as if the whole thing
were her fault.
“Meth?”
“Methamphetamine,” he said. “Highly lucrative, highly addictive, and highly dangerous. MORE
INFO HERE.”
“You’re saying it caused me to faint?”
“With the house closed like that the fumes must have built up. Good thing Helen called 911
when she did.”
“Thank you,” Julia said after a beat. “For getting me out of there.”
“Save your thanks for the dog.”
“Cuja came and told me,” Helen said, patting the dog fondly “She even had sense enough to
insist I go to the back door instead of all the way through from the front or I’d probably have
passed out too. I opened the back door and pulled you as far as I could to the fresh air. Cuja
grabbed you by your shirt to help me. It was better than any Lassie episode I can remember.”
Neil pointed vaguely at Julia’s shoulder. “Looks like you’ll need to buy a new one. The dog’s
teeth must have ripped it.”
She frowned at the thought of yet another expense, and then even more when she saw how
much of herself was exposed by the tear. He frowned back at her as if being unconscious were no
excuse for a torn shirt.
Odd noises came from inside the house.
“What are they doing in there?”
“Scraping up as much of the meth residue as they can. Then they’ll spray everything down with
a chemical foam they use. It will neutralize the meth. To a certain extent.”
She slid down from the picnic table and found to her satisfaction that her legs were steady
enough to support her. She took a step toward the house, but Neil put a hand on her arm to hold
her back.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
Julia had already determined that Neil Ashe fell into the category of dangerous male to be
avoided like the plague. Apparently, he also had a hero complex and thought it was his duty to
rescue stray women.
“I assure you I’m fine,” she said. “Cousin Neil.”
He rolled his eyes at the irony dripping from her voice.
“The sooner I get started cleaning up this mess,” she said, “the sooner I can get Helen moved
in.”
“It’s going to take more than a little cleaning to make that place livable.” He was watching her
closely as if he thought she was going to fall any minute and he’d have to heroically carry her to
safety again. “Anything porous will have absorbed the toxic fumes and need to be thrown out.
Things like upholstered furniture and bedding.”
Beside her, Helen made a distressed sound, her eyes smudged with fatigue and worry.
“Don’t worry, Helen. We’ll get it all sorted out.”
“But I can’t afford —”
“You need to rest,” Julia said. “Maybe you should go lie down. You know what the doctor said
about stress.”
“Here, let me help you.” Neil walked with them back to the camper and then held out an arm
for Helen to hold onto as she climbed up the steps. Julia grudgingly gave him points for having
noticed and accommodated her frailty.
“Thank you, Neil,” Helen said. “I’ll be back to help in a little while, Julia.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “But rest for now.”
Julia shut the camper door and turned to go back to the house.
“What’s wrong with Helen?” Neil said.
“She has RA.”
“Rheumatoid Arthritis, right?”
“It’s a mean disease.”
Two firemen came out of the house and carried the weird contraption she had seen earlier to
their truck. When she started toward them, Neil once again put a hand on her arm to hold her back.
“Don’t go near that stuff.”
She paused, but when a policeman came out of the porch, and she pulled away from Neil and
hurried toward him. “Excuse me, officer. I want to talk to you.”
He saw her and stopped. “Yes, ma’am? You’re Helen’s daughter-in-law.”
“Julia Keller Holden.”
“Sheriff Barnie Fife.” He tipped his hat and then shook her fingertips, as if afraid a woman’s
hand was just too fragile for a full-fledged manly handshake. “I’m sorry you had to come home to
this mess, Miz Holden.”
“It’s Julia, please. When will you be done with your investigation, Sheriff?”
“We’ve got all we could to go after the yahoos that did this. We’ll find them. I promise, ma’am.
Don’t you worry about that.”
“Good. I’d like to get started with the cleanup.”
“I imagine when your menfolk get word they’ll come down to help you and Helen handle all
this.” He shook his head and smiled. “Although it’s hard for me to imagine those Holden boys all
grown up. Which one of them is your husband?”
His archaic attitude made her want to bristle, but she knew he meant well. And at least now she
knew that not everyone in the county had gotten word of the Holden tragedy. She struggled to come
up with an answer. Whatever she said was bound to make him feel bad.
Beside her, Neil shifted uncomfortably and stared first at her and then the sheriff. “I thought
you knew, Barnie,” he said. “They’re—”
“Lucas passed on,” Julia said.
She was two years past it, past the worst of the pain, she really was. But sometimes she just
didn’t feel like telling the pathetic story one more time. This was one of those times. She found that
she was dangerously close to crying. The shock and upheaval of finding Lucas’ childhood home
ruined must have heightened her emotions. Crying was useless, so stereotypically female that she
seldom permitted herself the indulgence. She turned away from the two men and walked up to the
open porch door. Behind her Neil was speaking softly to the sheriff, and she felt a wave of gratitude
that for once she didn’t have to be the one to try to explain the unexplainable.
Julia pulled at the yellow crime scene tape that stretched across the yard. It made the situation
all the more surreal. She wanted to find the idiots who had trashed Helen’s home and pummel them.
It was, she realized, not a very Christian attitude, but it pushed out the urge to cry.
“Well, then,” the sheriff said, coming up beside her. “I’ll be going now to get started on the
investigation. I’ll let you know what I find out about the Smiths, although that’s likely not their real
name.”
He seemed to be addressing his remarks to Neil. No doubt he intended to spare the ladies from
worrying their pretty little heads.
“Please keep me informed,” she said, putting a slight emphasis on the pronoun.
“I will.” He tipped his hat again and went to his car.
When the cruiser was out of sight, Julia tore at the yellow tape on the porch until it fluttered
down and out of her way.
“Hey, you can’t do that,” Neil said.
“What? Is it like the tags on mattresses and pillows? Will the FBI come arrest me?”
“The tape is to warn off anyone who might come snooping around.”
“Why would anyone come snooping around?”
“For one thing, an abandoned building is a magnet for teenagers up to no good.”
“It won’t be abandoned. Helen and I will keep a close eye on it.”
“From the Super 8?”
“What gave you the idea we’d be at the Super 8?”
“Because it’s the only motel in town.” He studied her face. “You can’t mean to stay out here by
yourselves in that—that—” He gesticulated toward the camper.
Whatever he wanted to call their camper, he obviously thought better of, probably because of
the fire she felt shooting out of her eyes.
“Home away from home?”
“I assumed you were two sensible women.”
She felt the fire surge brighter. “We two sensible women are going to clean out this mess and get
on with life.”
“It’s a huge job.” He left unsaid that it was a man’s job, but she could tell he was thinking it.
“I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You can’t go in there. The fumes are toxic. You saw what
happened.”
“So I’ll wear a mask,” Julia said. “Besides, you said the firemen neutralized all that.”
“Yes, but that’s just a preliminary cleanup. You’ll need to get a crew of men trained in cleaning
out meth labs to finish the job.”
“Do they have to be men, or can women learn how to do it? If they’re the sensible type.”
Neil’s phone must have vibrated because he pulled it out of his pocket and turned away with a
mumbled, “Excuse me.” After a brief discussion he shoved the phone back into his pocket and
started for his car.
“Something’s come up and I’ve got to go. But I’ll do a little research and find you a good cleanup crew.”
“Look, thanks for rescuing me and all, but I can take it from here.”
He got into his car and lowered the window. “I’ll get back to you,” he said, as if her words were
water rolling off a duck’s back.
Scene 9 Blue Monday
BAD NEWS FROM THE POST OFFICE. NEIL CONTINUES TO ANNOY. MEXICANS TO THE RESCUE.
“From what I could see of the kitchen,” Helen said, “it’s going to be a monumental job.”
“All the more reason to get started right away,” Julia replied. The city limits sign was just ahead,
and she slowed the truck. “Where’s the best place to get what we need? I sure hope you’re not going
to say Hopper’s, because—”
“No, definitely Rural King. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Neil to help.”
“Definitely not. Will they have cleaning supplies? I’ll also need face masks and—”
“Honey, Rural King will have everything your little heart could think of there. Including free
popcorn for shoppers.”
“Popcorn?”
“I can smell it now. That and new Wrangler jeans, all overlaid with a hint of pesticide.” Then
her face brightened. “Oh, I just remembered. It’s April and they’ll have baby chicks.”
“Sounds…interesting.”
Helen grinned. “Think of it as Introduction to Rural Living 101.”
Julia pulled into the Rural King parking lot and parked as close as she could get. “All right. Let’s
hurry.”
“Tell you what, honey,” Helen said, taking out her wallet. “You go in and get what we need
while I go to the post office and pick up my mail. By now it should be starting to come to
Coldwater.”
“Are you sure?” Helen seldom drove anymore. Gripping the wheel was too painful.
Helen thrust a handful of twenties at her. Julia looked at the money in distaste.
“It’ll save time. Besides, I have a nostalgic urge to drive around my hometown. Like old times.”
Julia sighed and took the money. “All right. I’ll hurry.”
The atmosphere was much as Helen had described it. The popcorn aroma was surprisingly
appealing, in spite of the attending chemical smell, and her stomach growled. The yogurt she’d eaten
for breakfast was already long gone.
She pulled a shopping cart from the corral just inside the door and tried to make sense of the
department signs hanging from the ceiling. She aimed for Housewares. She worked her way past
Automotive, Gardening, and Clothing, the cart’s wheels squeaking with each step she took. The
sound seemed to get louder the closer she got to Housewares, until until she finally realized the extra
noise wasn’t coming from the cart at all but from three metal tubs sitting in the aisle. A red glow
came from within as if the tubs were some weird power source for alien space ships. But when she
got close enough she saw that the light was emanating from ordinary heat lamps suspended over
hordes of fuzzy yellow chicks that were giddy-upping around in dizzying abandon all the while
peeping—and pooping—their tiny hearts out.
She felt the sudden urge to hold one and then pictured how amusing it would look if she put
several of them in her shopping cart. Or maybe she’d get a lamb or two for Helen. She looked
around, half expecting there to be a pen of them further down the aisle.
She shook herself to snap back to reality. She had a shopping list, and barnyard animals, no
matter how cute, weren’t on it. She found the right aisle at last and quickly added to her cart a large
plastic bucket, a bale of cotton rags, and another pair of rubber gloves, just in case. Now for the
masks that Neil insisted she buy.
She didn’t see any employees to ask. But the aisles were crowded with customers. She asked a
woman hurrying by on the end of a leash, the other end of which was attached to an eager golden
retriever. She obviously wasn’t blind and Julia wondered at a store that allowed pets.
“Sorry,” the woman said, struggling to hold her dog back. “I just come for the dog food.”
A man wearing dirty jeans and a scruffy denim jacket overheard and stopped. “That way,
ma’am,” he said pointing. “Over in hardware.”
His clothes were little better than those of some of the homeless people she’d seen on the
streets of Des Moines, although by the number of items in his cart he had plenty of money with
which to purchase what he needed. Suddenly she realized he was an actual, real live farmer. Smiling
her thanks, she went on.
In Hardware, a man wearing dusty overalls directed her to the painting supply aisle. There were
two types of masks to choose from, but as far as she was concerned, it was a no-brainer. One brand
cost $14.99 each and the other was $7.99 for a package of six. She put the cheaper one in her cart
and then rummaged in her purse until she found the tiny calculator she kept for such purposes. The
few items in her cart came to the ridiculous total. Obviously she had entered the prices wrong.
SWITCH TO NEIL POV
Julia was frowning at her calculator, and Neil discovered, to his disgust, that even then she was
cute. Her cheeks were pink and healthy. The frown didn’t appear to be caused by any lingering
effects from the meth-ridden house. She’d painted her toenails pink to match the sandals they
peeked out of. How could he help but think “cute?”
He reached down into her cart and took out the package of masks. “These are hopeless,
Princess.”
She took her eyes off the calculator and aimed her frown at him. “Super Neil to the rescue
again.”
“Only without the cape and tights.”
She took the package of masks from him and put it back into her cart. “You said I needed
masks, so I got masks.”
“This type won’t keep out a flea much less the toxic crap in your house.” He took down six of
the expensive brand from the shelf and put them in his cart. Then he turned his scrutiny to her cart
again. “And what are you going to clean it with?”
“I already picked up a bottle of Mr. Clean at the grocery store.”
“Perfect. That is if you were going to use it for your bubble bath, princess.”
“It says it has anti-bacterial action.”
He pushed his cart farther down the aisle until he came to the industrial strength cleaners. He
chose the largest, most serious-looking bottle and studied its back label. “Ah,” he said. “This is more
like it.”
“How much is it?”
“It’s $48.50, but it’s worth it. It won’t stop with mere bacteria. It will kill the germs’ germs and
the germs’ germs’ germs. And more importantly, it has what it takes to continue neutralizing any
meth residue.”
Julia went back to punching in numbers in her teeny calculator, frowning the whole time. After
a minute she looked up. “You really don’t need to concern yourself. Cousin Neil.”
So, she wasn’t ready to let that go. He’d apologized. What more did she want? “Apparently I
do,” he said. If left to her own devices she’d get sick, really sick, next time.
“So how did you get to be such an expert, anyway?”
“I’ve had my share of dealing with meth heads. My work with the Monrovia County Board has
taught me more than I want to know about drugs. And last spring I caught three hoodlums trying to
break into my own fertilizer tanks.”
“Fertilizer tanks? Why do you have fertilizer tanks?” She looked surprised and gave him the
once over, starting with his dress shirt and ending with his loafers. Then she had the audacity to
laugh at him. “You’re a farmer?”
Neil snorted. “What? You think we only wear bib overalls and straw hats?”
Julia huffed. “Of course not.”
But it was obvious she had formed that stereotypical image. He got a similar reaction from time
to time when people learned that he had a university degree in horticulture with a minor in
marketing.
“Actually,” he said. “You should get yourself a pair of bibs, princess. This is going to be messy
work.” He decided turnabout was fair play and let his eyes run over her starting with her blouse and
working down to her pink sandals. Again. “I’d say about a size six should do it. They’re over in aisle
twenty-four.”
She laughed. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
“Suit yourself, princess.” She wasn’t smiling at him anymore. But the look of outrage every time
he called her “princess” was some consolation.
He went off down the aisle, throwing in a large box of 45-gallon, 1.2 mil garbage bags. Julia
followed him, clicking away on her stupid calculator. Next he selected six pairs of thick, black rubber
gloves. The label guaranteed they were chemical resistant. Then he hurried off, with her dogging him
behind him, to the registers at the front of the store.
“Wait a minute, would you?” Julia said.
“Sorry, but I’ve got people waiting.”
She caught up to him as he got in line behind a family apparently buying new work boots for
everyone, including the youngest, a cute toddler wearing a John Deere cap.
“I’d like to hurry, too, because Helen is waiting in the truck, but thanks to you, I’ve got to put
all this other stuff back on the shelves.”
“Just leave it. The employees will put it back. That’s what they’re being paid to do.”
“Yes, and that’s the sort of behavior that drives up prices for everyone. Speaking of prices,” she
said looking down at her calculator, “how much are those gloves and why do we need so many?”
“They’re $12.99.”
“Each?”
“Each.”
She went back to her calculator, although why she bothered, he didn’t know. He was paying for
the stuff. It was the least he could do. Helen wouldn’t have had come home to such a disaster if he’d
checked in on the Holden place from time to time. It’s what neighbors did. Especially neighbors
who were family.
But knowing what a feisty woman Julia was—and criminally stubborn—he understood that
she’d feel obligated to pay. Which was why he intended to sneak out of Rural King while she was
being a good citizen restocking the useless items from her cart.
SWITCH TO JULIA POV
The family of boot buyers was gone. And so was Neil Ashe. He wasn’t in any of the other
checkout lines either. Maybe he’d thought of some other expensive item that he would insist she
needed. She was about to search the store when she glanced out the front store window and saw his
car back out of a parking space and speed off
“Unbelievable,” she muttered.
Helen had parked the truck right next to the door. Julia was relieved to see that she looked no
worse for wear. She opened the truck door. “You want me to drive home?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind. I think I’ve had all the driving I can take for today.”
It was another reason Julia would be worrying about Helen stuck out in the country once she
was back in Minneapolis. She made a mental to talk with Lottie and Floyd about helping Helen get
where she needed to go.
“Is that mail I see sticking out of your purse?”
“Yes, mostly junk, but still it’s good to know my mail knows where to find me.
“I just saw Neil come out,” Helen said. “Did you see him?”
“Yes, I saw the jerk.”
“Julia! What did he do?”
“He bought the stuff we need—all the most expensive brands, mind you—and then sneaked
off so I couldn’t pay.” She buckled up and started the truck, which fortunately sounded normal for
once.
“What a horrible thing,” Helen said. “I can’t believe anyone could be so mean.”
Julia waited until a car went past and then pulled out onto the Street. “He’s so domineering and
stubborn I can’t believe it. I had it under control, Helen, but he just sneered at everything I selected,
like…like…”
“Like he was some kind of expert on the subject of chemical abatement?”
“Yes, like that. But who made him the boss of us and who does he think—and did you know
he’s a farmer?”
“Of course he’s a farmer. His branch of the family owns acres of that prime bottom land.”
Julia handed Helen the money she hadn’t needed. “Good,” Helen said. “We need to gas up the
truck. And we’d better pick up more oil for it, too.”
“You’re right. Why it’s been at least a hundred miles since I added any oil.”
It all took way more time than Julia wanted to spend, and by the time they reached the lane she
was antsy to get started cleaning. Helen, seeing her untilled and untended land, sighed again and said,
“Since you won’t let me help clean, I’ll start making some calls and see about getting this land of
mine rented.”
“Good idea.”
When they drove around to the back of the house, they found an overstuffed chair in the
middle of the driveway and two unfamiliar trucks snugged up to the porch. The door was propped
open, and music poured out. Elvis had been replaced with peppy Mariachi music and the noise of
power tools.
If they were robbers, they weren’t being subtle about it. If they were stealing the drug-infested
furniture, she’d happily help them load it. Julia got out of the truck, and Cuja trotted out of the
porch to greet her, wagging her tail at the excitement. Behind the dog, two masked strangers wearing
black rubber gloves came out, one on either end of a sofa, which they lugged over and deposited
next to the overstuffed chair. The men pulled down their masks, revealing polite smiles. One man
said something in rapid-fire Spanish. She couldn’t catch all of it, but the gist was that she shouldn’t
have any worries because they were not banditos but honest citizens of America.
“Muchas gracias,” Julia said. “I think.”
It was one of only a handful of Spanish phrases she knew, but it made their eyes light up. More
Spanish ensued.
“Thank you,” she answered. “But I don’t need any employees.” When he gave her an expectant
look she added. “Vamanos.” It wasn’t right, but it was the best she could come up with.
The men smiled in satisfaction. “Si, senora,” one said and they started back into the house.
“No, I mean you should go home.”
They turned back and waited patiently for her to say more.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t pay.” She mimed empty pockets. “No dinero.”
More Spanish ensued, including several references to El Señor Ashe. When she obviously didn’t
understand, they shrugged helplessly and went back into the house.
Julia went to open Helen’s door.
“I take it they’re not robbing us,” Helen said.
“Apparently Neil employed them. Can you believe it?”
“He sure works fast.”
She thought of his dangerous eyes and kissable lips. “I just bet he does. But we’ll never be able
to pay those men—even minimum wages. If I had Neil’s number I’d call him and give him a piece
of my mind.”
Together they went to the back porch and looked cautiously into the kitchen. Yet another man
whom they wouldn’t be able to pay was at the sink with some kind of power equipment, which he
was apparently using to unclog the drain. Julia shuddered, picturing the gelatinous gunk that she had
seen. In addition to the de rigueur rubber gloves and mask, he wore a set of headphones, either in
deference to the loud noise coming from his equipment or so he could hear the the song he was
singing loudly and off key. He was older than the other men, and she wondered if he was the one in
charge.
She ventured a half step into the kitchen, careful not to touch anything, and waved her hands
over her head until the man at the sink noticed her there.
He stopped singing and turned to stare at her. She backed up the half step until she was back
on the porch. He did something to the machine on the counter and the noise stopped. And then he
lumbered across the kitchen toward them, lowering his mask as he stepped out onto the porch.
“Hola. Usted debe ser la señora Holden,” he said, bowing to each of them. He took off one black
glove and extended a hand toward Julia. “Mi nombre es Ernesto Mendoza y por favor, estoy a gusto.” He
spoke slowly, obviously willing her to understand him.
Even without a literal translation, Julia knew it amounted to an introduction. She smiled and
shook his giant hand. Then he smiled politely at Helen and shook her hand as well.
“Do you know Spanish?” Helen said.
“Not much. All I can think of is mi casa es su casa.”
Helen giggled. “That might give the wrong impression.”
“Hola,” Julia said at last and pointed to the kitchen with a questioning look. “¿Por qué ?” It
meant why, which she figured was the essential question.
Making helpful hand motions, he rattled off more Spanish, including more about El Señor Ashe.
She repeated her miming performance of the empty pockets, but he just smiled kindly and
patted her arm. It didn’t take an understanding of the language to know he was telling her Neil Ashe
had paid them and that she shouldn’t worry.
Ernesto Mendoza turned to go back into the kitchen, but when he saw that she would follow
he came back and picked up a plastic Rural King shopping bag that she hadn’t noticed on the floor
among the beer cans. He pulled out a mask and a pair of gloves and handed them to her with more
gestures and Spanish. The only word she recognized was cuidado, which she knew meant be careful.
Cuidado, indeed. Did he even understand the danger of the job Neil Ashe had set him to do?
She wanted to tell him that even if she had the money to pay him she wasn’t about to let anyone—
especially an immigrant who because of the language barrier might not even understand the risks—
do all her dirty work for her. But she didn’t know how to convey any of that, and besides the loud
noise, including his off-key singing, was back.
***
After changing her clothes Julia put on a mask and gloves and figuratively rolled up her sleeves.
She decided the first thing to do was to pick up the beer cans on the back porch before someone
slipped and fell on them. She found the lawn bags Neil had bought and began scooping up the beer
cans into one.
One of the young men from earlier came out onto the porch carrying a dripping trash bag out
in front of body. It looked—and smelled—like the one in the kitchen that had made her gag earlier.
He said something to her but it was muffled by his mask. She smiled encouragingly and then felt like
a fool. He couldn’t see her smile because of her own mask. He edged past her and threw the bag out
the door and into the bed of the truck.
She ended up with two huge bags of aluminum cans, getting beer on her clothes and tennis
shoes in the process. But she would get a tidy little sum for them as soon as she found out where to
sell the aluminum. She laughed wryly to herself, remembering how she and her father had so freely
given away aluminum cans to whatever charity wanted them. Well, she thought, charity begins at
home.
She set the bags aside and went into the kitchen. Ernesto turned at her approach, and holding
up one finger, said, “Por favor. Por favor.” After a short while he turned off the noisy equipment
and turned on the water. Then, exclaiming in apparent satisfaction, he beckoned her toward the
sink. She had no desire whatsoever to see the horrors contained there, but she could hardly refuse
the man who had taken on the nasty chore of unclogging it.
The sink was still filthy, of course, but seeing the water come full force from the faucet and
then drain quickly away was a wondrous sight. She thanked him in both heartfelt Spanish and
English. A series of thumps came from upstairs. Pointing to the ceiling, he said something about
muchachos and left the kitchen.
With guilty relief that she hadn’t had to deal with either the sink or the rotting garbage from the
kitchen, she began collecting the other less toxic trash in the living room and elsewhere on the main
floor. She filled two more lawn bags and that didn’t even include the piles of dried dog poo. That
would have to wait until she could find a broom and dustpan.
When she tried to drag one of the bags into the kitchen, the young man from before appeared
out of nowhere, insisting he take it for her.
Eventually, she learned his name was Xxxx, and was introduced to the others as they passed
through carrying stuff to be thrown out. Besides Ernesto and Xxxx there was Xxx, an old man no
taller than she and Carlos Flores, an uber handsome man with flashing black eyes about her own age
who spoke excellent English. She smiled and thanked them, trying not to look alarmed at the
number of men she would have to find a way to pay.
The men carried bag after bag of trash to the trucks along with three filthy mattresses, which
they piled next to the furniture in the driveway to burn later. Meanwhile, Ernesto brought a ladder in
from his truck, and he and Julia began scrubbing down furniture, cabinets, and walls with the
industrial cleaner Neil had bought. Soon Carlos joined them, and they made good progress. The
fresh breeze from the open windows blew out the rank air, and the cleaner’s lemon scent took its
place. She felt a resurgence of hope. Maybe Helen would be able to move in tomorrow. Monday at
the latest.
They would want to have the curtains back up first, of course, no matter that they were out in
the country with no one to see in the windows. She and Ernesto had taken them down amidst
clouds of gray dust and put them into one of the lawn bags. They were filthy and ragged, but since
they had no money for new ones they’d have to do.
When she pantomimed to Ernesto her intention to wash the curtains, he pointed to the floor
and spat out a stream of Spanish that she took to mean the laundry room was in the basement.
“Tenga cuidado,” he added with a frown.
When she opened the basement door, she found it wasn’t as dark as she had expected in such
an old house. Then she remembered the open cellar doors by the back porch and realized that late
afternoon sunlight was coming in there. Even so, being a very old basement it was gloomy. She
found the light switch and flipped it on, but couldn’t see all the way to the bottom because half way
down the stairs made a right-hand turn. She shoved the bag of curtains and it skittered down and
plopped onto the landing.
When she herself reached the landing she saw that it was the kind of basement she hated, the
kind featured in horror movies and Halloween fright houses, the spider-webby kind that was home
to rodents and other horrible surprises. A dark doorway to her left led to another section of the
basement, a coal room maybe. She decided that for the moment it would be best not to think about
what might be in there.
The basement ceiling was low enough that a tall man such as Neil would find it difficult to
avoid bumping into the floor joists overhead. The walls were of damp, corroded cement. The floor
was the same, not that she could see much of it. A sea of dirty clothes and ragged towels, enough it
seemed for a dozen people, stretched from wall to wall.
The clothes were likely contaminated with meth. And mold. The sour smell managed to get past
the edges of her mask, and she reached up to adjust it tighter to her face. Steeling herself, she tugged
the bag down the remaining stairs and across the littered floor to a rusting washer and dryer on the
far wall. She loaded the washer with the first batch of curtains and looked for detergent. On the
floor she found a half-empty jug of Tide, gooey blue gunk dried on its sides. In spite of its nastiness,
she was grateful to have it, since she hadn’t thought to buy any at the grocery store.
When the washer started its cycle she turned to look again at the Herculean task before her. No
matter the tremendous progress they had made upstairs, she and Helen wouldn’t be moving in until
every last bit of the mess on the floor was hauled out and burned.
Squinting in disgust, she peeled up a handful of stiff clothes and stuffed them into the bag the
curtains had been in. Even when it was packed as full as she could get it she had barely made a dent
in the piles on the floor. She tied it off and hauled it to the concrete cellar steps leading up to the
yard. Getting a full lawn-size bag up stairs was, she found, a lot harder than it had been getting one
down the stairs. Grunting, she managed to pull it up the first three steps, and then her foot slipped
on some dry leaves and she sat down hard. She took a cleansing breath and tried again.
SWITCH TO NEIL
Neil shook his head. Julia was trying to tug a black garbage bag bigger than she was backward
up the cellar steps. Just as she put her foot on the next step he saw a little red and black snake trying
to slither out of her path. He shouted, “Stop!” and put his boot on it to keep it from going into the
basement.
She jerked in surprise to see him coming down the steps toward her and would have fallen, but
he reached a hand out and grabbed her shirt. With the mask it was hard to tell, but she seemed glad
to see him. Silently he thanked the little snake for giving him the opportunity to play the hero.
Women liked that.
“I’m quite capable of doing this.”
But then she turned on the step and saw the snake wriggling under his boot. Crying out, she
clambered over the bag of dirty clothes and danced in place at the bottom of the stairs. It was
amusing, but he tried to keep a straight face.
“Could you please stop shrieking for a minute? I’m trying to think how the poem goes.”
“This is no time for poetry. Kill it.”
He couldn’t remember. Something about red next to black. Meanwhile, the snake continued
trying to get out from under his boot. “Red next to black….” He retried the words but couldn’t
quite get the poem right. “Is it kills Jack or is a friend to Jack?” It was a little mean to keep her in
suspense over a harmless little milk snake.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He muttered some more as if he wasn’t quite sure and then picked up the snake by what should
have been a neck and smiled at him. “Okay, friend then.”
He took it outside and released it into what had once been the Holden’s garden and then jogged
back to the cellar steps. Her eyes above the mask seemed relieved, but then went all worried.
“You weren’t gone long. What did you do with it?”
“I put it in the garden.”
“In the garden?”
“Relax. It’s only a harmless milk snake. Don’t worry about it.”
She plopped down on the garbage bag she’d been struggling with and looked around the
basement. What a mess. No wonder she looked overwhelmed. It would take her forever to get it all
hauled up out of there and burned. The work wouldn’t get done if he kept looking at her. He took
the mask from his T-shirt pocket and put it on.
He wore a gray pocket T-shirt that struggled to span his chest and denim work pants that
looked comfortably loose. A hammer hung from a thigh-high loop on the side. He had looked
devastatingly attractive in his dress clothes. For some reason that she couldn’t understand he looked
equally great in what must be his farmer clothes.
“Apparently Helen’s meth-head renters failed to appoint someone to laundry duty.”
“Apparently not.”
“They may have figured it was safer to consider their clothes disposable. They could get tons of
clothes at the thrift store for cheap. If you’re done resting, Princess. I’ll take that bag up.”
She stood and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “You don’t have to trouble yourself. I was
about to get it before that nasty snake startled me.”
Stubborn woman. He took the bag in one hand and carried it up the stairs. His men had already
started a pile in the gravel driveway. By the end of the day, there was sure to be lots to burn.
When he got back, Julia was busily stuffing the nasty, meth-encrusted clothes into a bag. If
there had been any less disgusting jobs he would have sent her to do them. Not that she was
inclined to so what he wanted.
“I’ve used up almost all of the garbage bags,” she said. “I’ll wash up a bit and go back to town.”
He pointed at her soiled pants. “You really should buy a pair of bibs while you’re there,
princess.”
“I’m not wearing overalls. And stop calling me princess.”
Sparks were shooting out of her eyes again, but at least she didn’t look so tired. He lived to
serve.
“I’m just kidding. I have more bags in my truck. Looks like we’re going to need them.”
SWITCH TO JULIA
Julia leaned on her mop and surveyed the kitchen with satisfaction. The cabinets, freshly lined
with checked shelf paper they had picked up at the Dollar Store on the way home from church, were
stocked with what meager dishes and dry goods they had. The sink and appliances were sparkling
and the floor, if not sparkling, was at least clean. The first two buckets of mop water she had thrown
out the back door had been black with filth. By comparison, the bucket of water at her feet might be
considered potable in some third world countries.
“Are you sure you won’t come?” Neil said from the doorway. “I promise the food will be
good.”
“No thanks,” Julia answered. “I’m so tired I think I might fall any moment into a heap.”
Together with Neil’s men they had accomplished a Herculean task in only one day. All visible
traces of meth-making was gone. The bathroom and kitchen were spotless. The ruined carpets
throughout the house had been ripped up, and the wooden floors beneath them scrubbed. It would
do until Helen could afford new carpet.
“I should be serving dinner to you and your men instead,” she said to Neil. “But I don’t think I
could manage more than peanut butter sandwiches. And after all they’ve done today they deserve a
decent meal.”
“Which is why Marta is making her awesome barbecue chicken for them.”
She turned off the kitchen light and carried the mop and bucket out to the porch. “Thank you
for everything.”
“You’re welcome.”
She thought he would leave then, but instead he followed her. They stopped at the smoldering
remains in the driveway. Neil picked up the pole Carlos had left and stirred it until it flamed up
again.
“Why is it that boys always like to poke at fires?” Julia said.
He laughed. “Well in this case, I’m trying to get the fire hot enough to finish the job.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Julia said. “You should go eat.”
He smiled, his teeth gleaming out of darkness, and continued stirring. A cluster of red sparks
flew out against the sky. That she was alone with Neil in the darkness popped into her head. The
situation would have been romantic except that for the fact they were burning trash.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told you, I’m trying to burn—”
“You know what I mean, Neil. First you run off before I could pay for all that stuff. And then
you—”
“I told you. I had people waiting.”
“Then you send your farm hands out here.”
“Well, I couldn’t get the professional team I wanted. They’re booked until next week.”
“But, but… why do you persist in thinking it’s any of your business?” She stopped to take a
cleansing breath.
He poked at the fire again. “I don’t know about where you come from, but around here we take
care of family.”
“Family? You don’t owe us anything.”
“You’re mighty independent, aren’t you?”
“I have been taking care of myself for a long time now.”
“Well, I’ll be going then.”
Julia felt a sudden spurt of disappointment and marveled at her mind’s traitorous inconsistency.
It would be best if he went with no further words between them. But in spite of his declaration, he
didn’t leave, just continued poking at the fire. And she stood there watching him do it when she
could have so easily said a cheerful goodbye and gone into the camper with Helen.
“I need my crew tomorrow. We won’t be able to help you until probably Thursday.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that…”
“No, I just mean we don’t need any more help. It shouldn’t take me long to move our stuff in
tomorrow.”
“Hold your horses, Nellie. That house is not ready yet.”
“It will have to be. We can’t stay in the camper any longer, because…well, we just can’t.”
“You can’t move in until I clean out the ducts.”
“Ducks? What ducks?
He had the nerve to laugh. “Ducts, not ducks.”
She frowned. “Who cleans their ducts?”
“People whose ducts are filled with meth dust. They’ll need to be cleaned out or the first time
Helen turns on the furnace she’ll be breathing crap all over again.”
“I doubt she’ll be turning on the furnace again until winter.”
“Well, maybe I can put that off, but what about paint fumes? Surely you won’t move her in
until the walls are painted.”
“I wasn’t planning on painting. It’s not so bad. Ernesto and I scrubbed the walls down.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course not.”
He stared at her, not speaking for a long moment. At last, he threw the stick into the remains of
the fire. “Get a good night’s sleep.” Then he walked off into the darkness toward his truck. When he
reached it, he turned to look at her. “Listen, I’ll make a few calls. Promise you won’t move in until I
call you.”
“I guess we can wait. For a little while.”
“Ducks,” he said again. He was laughing as he drove off.
“Great. Now he thinks I’m a fool.”
She brushed at her filthy T-shirt and jeans, but they were hopelessly ruined—and so dirty she’d
have to strip down before going into the camper. Maybe she should have picked up “disposable”
clothes at the thrift store like the meth makers did. Or maybe she should have bought the ridiculous
bib overalls as Neil suggested. Yes, she was definitely a fool.
The 1st Plot Point/Doorway of no return at 25% mark
(The key incident. a game changing scene, a cataclysmic event to which the character will react
strongly. The point of no return for the main character. The climax of the first act.) Julia learns
that Helen will not be getting life insurance because of the suicide clause in the policy. Julia
realizes Helen will never be able to do this on her own, that she must stay for quite some time
to help, although she still thinks she will return home.
Scene 10 Tuesday Morning News
BAD NEWS FROM THE INSURANCE COMPANY. A TURNING POINT FOR JULIA
JULIA POV
Julia carried a box of kitchen items from the camper over to the house. It was already almost
eight o’clock and she sure didn’t plan to wait all day for Neil to get back to her before she got to
work. The sooner she got Helen’s stuff hauled over and stored away the sooner she could get her
settled in. And the sooner she could get back to Minneapolis. She’d have to have Helen drive her to
the car rental place as soon as they opened in the morning. If she left right after that, she could be
back to work on Thursday, as she’d promised her boss.
The sunlight streaming in the east window should have made the kitchen cheerful. Instead, it
revealed that the room wasn’t in nearly as good a shape as she had thought the night before. Sighing,
she set the box on the table. In spite of the vigorous scrubbing she and Ernesto done on the walls,
they were still grungy. Neither had scrubbing eliminated the gouges and stains in the linoleum, which
in the morning light looked hideous. She went into the dining room and then on into the living
room. They were even worse. Somehow the holes in the walls had multiplied overnight. The
bedrooms were sure to be disasters, too. Had she been in denial? So selfishly eager to get back to the
city that she had convinced herself the house was actually livable?
Sighing again, she took out her phone and speed-dialed her boss. “Cindy?”
“Julia, how are things down at the farm?”
“Not so good. There was a complication with my mother-in-law’s house. It’s going to take
longer than I thought to get it ready for human habitation.”
“How much time do you need? I suppose I could spare you for a couple of more days.”
Julia studied the living room walls. It would take time to patch every hole. And time to read up
on how to do it. Time to paint. And before that, time shop for the supplies to do the job. And time
to figure out whether she had enough money to it.
“Can you be back Monday?” Cindy said.
“I think that should do it. I hope so, anyway.”
“You’re out of vacation time, you know.”
“I know. You’ll have to dock my paycheck. Thanks, Cindy.” Julia put away her phone and saw
that Helen stood in the doorway sadly surveying the room.
When she saw Julia looking at her, Helen’s face brightened. “It sure is better now, isn’t it,
honey? Let’s get my things moved over so you can get started for home.”
“Not until I get this place painted.”
“Oh, Julia, that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, it is necessary. I’m not letting you move into this…” She broke off when she realized the
only word she could come up with was “hovel.”
“I can’t let you take up any more of your time with me. Besides, I don’t have the money for
paint anyway. Not at the present time.”
“I think I can swing it. You can pay me back when the insurance money comes in.”
Helen turned away from the doorway. “I think we need to sit down.”
Julia followed her to the kitchen and stood watching as she slumped into one of the dinette
chairs.
“I wasn’t going to tell you. At least not until you went back to Minneapolis.”
“What?”
“There was a letter from the insurance company yesterday.” Helen looked up, her face a study
in misery. “They are not going to pay.”
“Why not?” Julia demanded. She sat down next to Helen and took her hand. “Sorry,” she said
more softly. “Tell me.”
“They say it wasn’t an accident.”
“Of course it was an accident. The pavement was wet and George lost control and—”
“They saw his medical records. That he was on an anti-depressant and seeing a counselor.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s not what I’m saying. It’s what the insurance company is saying. They’re ruling George’s
death a suicide.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Julia realized she was shouting again and lowered her voice. “Sure, George
was down. Who wouldn’t be after everything that happened? But suicide?”
Helen wiped at her eyes and then propped her head on her hands.
“They can’t do that,” Julia said.
“Apparently, they can.”
“After all the premiums you paid? And by the way, with all the endless privacy documents you
have to sign, how did they get the medical records in the first place?”
“Apparently, they can do that, too. There’s an appeal process. They gave me a website.”
“Yes, and who knows how long that will take? Meanwhile you’d starve.”
“The Lord will provide, honey. I’ve been praying.”
“I believe God is quite able to provide. If he decides to. But millions of people starve every
year. They surely prayed, too.”
Helen smiled and patted Julia’s hand. “Just watch, honey. The Lord is mighty to save.”
“While we’re waiting for that, we need to figure out where you are financially speaking. Stay
here. I’m go get paper and pens and we’ll run some numbers.”
They added Helen’s meager assets several times, but even assuming they got the tillable land
rented, and so far she hadn’t found anyone interested, there was no way to make the sum stretch
enough to work.
“I could rent out the house,” Helen said. “I’d live in the camper. It’s cozy.”
Julia tried but failed to restrain a snort. “Don’t be silly. How would you manage the sewage and
water? And even if you wanted to go through all that, you wouldn’t be able to hook up your truck to
the camper.”
“I’m sure the renters would be willing to do a few things like that for me.”
“Not the kind of renters you’re likely to get unless you fix up this house.”
“Which puts us right where we are now. No money to buy paint.”
As far as Julia was concerned, the only sensible option was for Helen to sell the land and move
into her apartment with her. Or, if they found that too crowded, she’d look for a larger one. Later, if
Helen’s RA continued to get worse she could get into one of those assisted living places. There was
one not far from her church, and Julia knew from listening to an elderly family friend that it was
really rather nice. Best of all, when a resident’s money ran out, and in Helen’s case that would be
sooner rather than later, the home would be compensated by Medicaid. Helen wouldn’t have to pay
another dime for room and board.
Practically speaking, it was what Helen should do. But when she set aside what was practical
and considered the nontangibles, it made her feel sick to her stomach to think of the emotional cost
to her mother-in-law.
Helen would have to be completely broke, essentially indigent, before Medicaid took over. Sure,
they’d dole out a few dollars a month to her for sundries, but it wouldn’t be adequate to pay for her
clothes and medicines, much less enough to allow Helen the pleasure of buying things like birthday
cards and Christmas gifts.
If Helen moved in with her, she’d be spared the expense of housing, but she was resistant to
the idea. Julia suspected Helen thought she’d be in the way of her snaring a new man.
But in either case, Helen would have to go back to living in Minneapolis, far from what she
considered the Promised Land. She’d have to leave the bevy of old friends with whom she had just
reestablished ties. But the worst emotional toll would come from being forced to irretrievably
abandon the land, the Holden family’s last forty acres.
“There’s really only one solution.” Julia took out her phone and selected “redial.”