Ernest Langston

Castle in the Woods

I rented a tiny room on the second floor of a rundown Victorian house, not far from the university.  The rooming house manager had taped an envelope to my door, which contained an eviction notice: I had seven days to pay the remaining balance of rent or else I’d be on the streets.  I had already pawned my deceased mother’s sterling silver brooch and matching earrings the last time I was in financial trouble.  So, there wasn’t anything else to pawn.  However, I had a lottery ticket worth $10.  As I searched for the ticket, there was a knock on the door; and without surprise, it was the house manager.  He had come to play his hand at other possible forms of payment.  I rejected his sexual innuendos, then signed his note, acknowledging that I was aware of the situation and its consequences.

“You know, for what’s it worth, Grace,” he said, rolling forward on his feet.  “If your money problems get really bad, I mean, if you can’t make rent, you can always sleep in my van.  It’s parked out back under the Sycamore tree.  You know the one.”  Then, with a sly leer and expanding pupils, he leaned against the doorjamb, sucked his teeth, and said “Consider it a favor, you know, between friends.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said, then handed him a hundred dollars and closed the door on his shrinking smile.  “I’ll be fine, and we’re not friends.”

“That’s still not enough, Grace,” he said through the door.

What was I to do now, knowing the money I had would soon be gone.

The following day, I found myself standing in the Shady Acres Retirement Home for Seniors.  The scent of roses swept through the lobby as a painting of a humongous oak tree stared down at me.  There was an accompanying quote written in gold ink swirled next to the tree’s massive trunk.  But before I had a chance to read the first word, a slender man with silver hair and baggy suit tapped my shoulder.  “May I help you,” he said, taking in my cropped brown hair, maroon-colored velvet dress, and well-worn combat boots.

“I’m here for the job interview,” I said, feeling my lying eyes gloss over.

He seemed puzzled for a moment, as if he had forgotten where he was, then tapped his philtrum with his index finger and mumbled something under his breath.  The name tag pinned on his lapel said Gerald.  General Manager.

“I spoke with Gerald a few days ago,” I said, then rambled on about my car being in the auto shop for repair.  He smiled and nodded in agreement.  “Yes, of course, I remember,” he said, then looked at his watch as if that meant something.  “We are talking about the cleaning position, swing-shift, right?”

“Swing-shift?  Yes, that’s right,” I said, noticing a woman in a wheelchair roll by.

“You own a vehicle, is that correct,” Gerald said, narrowing his gaze and scratching his right earlobe.

“My car will be out of the shop in a few days,” I said, now speaking the truth.

“Sorry, what was your name again?”

“Grace Garcia,” I said, eyes glossing over again.  “When we last spoke, I asked if I could update my contact information on my application.”

Gerald smiled again, squinted toward the ceiling as if he was trying to remember, then his eyes sprung open.  “I did say that, didn’t I?  Can you update your info today?”

Beneath my cool exterior, I screamed with absolute joy; yet in a controlled tone, I responded, “Yes.  I.  Can.”  

I had gotten the job by lying through my teeth, an unknown talent until that point.  I was feeling pretty good about myself, until I got home and saw a yellow Post It note stuck to my door with a drawing of a van parked under a tree.  I peeled off the note and locked the door behind me.  

I checked my pay-as-you-go phone for text messages; and of course, there wasn’t a single one, except a payment reminder, but that doesn’t count as a real text.  I climbed into bed and scrolled though Instagram, Facebook (or, whatever it’s called now), Snapchat, and swiped though Tinder until my fingers ached.  I was envious of how other people lived, of how they appeared so happy in their photos, sun-kissed in various exotic locations, dripped in the designer fashion, all this opulence, all this excess left me wondering how the lifestyle of the crypto rich and social media famous was obtained.  I was young enough to be an influencer; I resembled a taller (not as adorable, of course, on account of my crooked teeth and tomboyish appearance) Elle Fanning, a Latina version knockoff; however, my reality was one that nobody wanted, a reality that failed to inspire.  I was the uninvited, beanpole girl at the party.  The one who never posted selfies (ok, well, maybe a few, until realizing they never received more than thirteen likes) and always stands off in the distance, watching other guests like a ghost undulating in fog.

 One night, during a fit of plummeting self-esteem, I almost had the courage to post another selfie (with a filter, of course, and wearing a sheer top), but deleted the idea and the photo, then pushed my phone off the bed in disgust.  I then thought about posting my feet on various foot fetish sites and selling my dirty socks on eBay as an occupation.  

The following morning brought the unavoidable: a 24-hour notice to vacate my little room.  As one could imagine, I was met with inappropriate sexual implications in exchange for a month of rent, which I declined— again.  Then, I was offered to sleep in the broke-down van under the Sycamore tree, which I also declined— again.  The house manager and I were in a stand-off.  He didn’t want to see me go (for obvious reasons), but he had a job to do, and I didn’t have the rent money.  In the end, I packed my VW Jetta with the basics, drove across town to Walmart, and parked under a lamppost for the night.

I quickly learned that cleaning a senior retirement facility wasn’t as bad as I first imagined.  Actually, swing-shift turned out to be a sweet deal; when all the daytime employees left, I showered and washed my clothes without any trouble as long as I was sneaky about it.  I even developed a friendship with one of the residents, who was a 75-year-old woman named Rosaline Henderson, “Roz” for short.  She had the mouth of a rebellious teenager, the attitude of a champion boxer, and the words Love it or Leave it tattooed just below of her navel.  She told me of her tattoo the night I caught her trying to “escape,” as she put it, the same night she told me of Ed, her only child, the traitorous son who committed her to the lonelily existence of living in a retirement home.  “His name suits him perfectly,” Roz said, as I escorted her back to her tiny room.  “Ed: the past participle of my life.  But, I’ll tell you something, Grace.  You don’t live this long without learning a few tricks.  Can you keep a secret,” she said, lowing her sights to my cherry-red lips.

“Absolutely,” I said.  Her eyes gleamed like polished glass.  I looked closer and noticed her left eye was actually a glass prosthetic.  “Where were you “escaping” to, where were planning to go, a castle in the woods?”

Roz pulled the blankets up to her chin and, with a mischievous smile, said “Yes, how did you know?  In my youth, I owned all sorts of beautiful things, that is, until Ed came along and stole them from me— but I have one thing hidden for myself, a little place I owned before I met my husband, even Ed hasn’t a clue about it.  Do you drive, Grace?”

The following week, I kept the same routine as the last, anticipating my first paycheck.  Gerald was nothing more than a smile and a wave each time we crossed paths in the building; however, a husky security guard nicknamed Hound kept his post in the lobby.  One night as I made my rounds, Roz waved me into her room.  She confessed that she’d stopped taking her sedatives and needed help disposing of the evidence.

“I hide them under my tongue, until the nurse leaves, then I hide them in the mattress,” she said with a sly smile.  “I tried flushing them down the toilet, but that didn’t work.  Have you given any thought to our plan?”

“What plan?”

Her age-spotted hands dug out capsules from a tear in the mattress’s seam.

“These godawful things are worse than Quaaludes, and almost as worse as a needle nap,” she said, grunting as she dropped the last capsule into my trash bag.  “Now, what did you say, Darling?”

“What plan,” I repeated.

“I have it all worked out.  It’s very simple.  Number one: Can I trust you?”

“I am disposing of your medication, aren’t I?”

“They’re just sleeping pills.  And, number two: Can you drive?”

“I already told you; yes, Roz, I can drive,” I said, questioning the stability of her memory.

“But, do you own a car, because, if not, that’s a deal breaker?  We need wheels.”

“Roz,” I said, “This is entertaining; but seriously, you should sleep now.  I’ll get rid of the sleeping pills, but this is a one-time thing, okay?”

Roz sat up in bed and placed her frail hands in her lap.

“Why does everybody want me to sleep so much?  I feel trapped in this retirement prison, not to mention this aging body of mine.  I hate Mahjong; I hate these nurses; I hate the smell of disinfectant; I hate tapioca and oatmeal and soft ice cream,” she said, beginning to weep.  “I hate being old.  You don’t understand, because you’re still young and beautiful.  When you’re old, people treat you like… like, you were never young and wild, like, you’re disposable.  I am not disposable, Grace.  If it wasn’t for my greedy son, I’d still be in my house taking care of myself.”

Roz rolled over, turning her back toward me, and continued weeping.  I stood there with a bag of trash in my hand, imagining myself in her place, as if I had been funneled through a time warp, some out of body experience, witnessing the not-so golden years of my own life unfold before my eyes.  The thought of Roz dwindling away in a tiny, lonely room haunted me throughout the following weeks, so much that I realized I had to do something.  But, what could I do?  I was barely employed and living out of my car with nothing to show for it, except the thought of Roz and my unpredictable future.

     The next time Roz and I spoke, she apologized for her emotional outburst and then confessed why she was placed in Shady Acres.  “The damned kitchen,” she said with disdain, then clucked her tongue with added disapproval.  “I fried eggs and forgot to turn off the burner.  Well, you can guess what happened next, can’t you?”

     “The kitchen caught fire,” I said, noticing she had scratched her cuticle until it bled.

     “It was an accident, plain and simple; just a little grease fire,” Roz said, wiping away the red from her fingernail.  “That’s the only reason I’m in this God forsaken place.  ‘Declining cognition,’ they said.  ‘Declining cognition,’ my ass.  I’m perfectly fine.  I just got old, that’s all.  O.L.D.”

She then asked if I would do her another favor.  I held out my hand, expecting her hidden sedatives to appear from her mattress.  But, instead of sleeping pills, she handed me a strip of paper with an address.

     “What’s this,” I said, watching her glimmering eyes shine like polished stones.

     “That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” she said, then held her breath for a moment.  “Will you help me escape?”

What did I really have to lose?  A wave of liberation washed over me as I agreed.  

     Later that evening, I had second thoughts of helping Roz escape Shady Acres.  The night air frosted the windows of my car, and the lamppost’s white light glowed overhead.  The dropping temperature forced socks over my hands and a bath towel under my hoodie.  I was on the moon in my VW tin can, cocooned within opaque glass and dreadful thoughts of drifting into outer space, cold and alone with nothing more than a dying cell phone showing photos of fabulous looking strangers living their bests lives.

     A nurse discovered Roz’s torn mattress seam filled with sedatives and reported the news to Gerald, who then threated to tell her son.  Later, after Gerald left the room, Roz removed her gold necklace and three gold rings.

     “Pawn these,” she said, then placed the jewelry in my hand.  “I’m not going down without a fight.”

     “When are we running away,” I said half-jokingly, feeling her jewelry warm my palm.

     “They want to make a zombie out of me, with their sedatives, but I’m not going quietly into the night,” Roz said, running her thumb over the ridge of her knuckles.  “24 hours, Grace, at the front door.  Be there or be square.”  

I wondered if Roz was serious about escaping, knowing if we were caught, we’d both be in big trouble; I’d lose my job and Roz, a woman old enough to be my grandmother, would spend her remaining years abandoned and overly medicated in the maze-like corridors of Shady Acres.  

     As I prepared for another night of sleeping in my car, I wore each piece of Roz’s jewelry and  hoped I’d have the answer by sunrise; however, I was startled awake hours later.  Someone had slipped a wire hanger into my car and was trying to hook a door lock, which threw me into a panic.  I crawled into the driver’s seat, yanked the hanger from the stranger’s hand, and started the engine.  A fist pounded against my fogged windshield, as a man shouted “Open the door.  I’m freezing to death.  Open the door.”  He then sprung onto the hood and pounded his fist against the windshield, until a series of cracks streaked across the brittle glass.  I stomped the gas pedal and sent him flying over the top of my car.  I raced through the parking lot, nearly crashing into a RV, and a row of tents.  Should I have stopped to check if the stranger was still alive?  It was all a blur, rapid-fire snapshot of my life in jeopardy; adrenaline surged through my veins; my heart pumped near oblivion; the moment felt so surreal as it unfolded before my eyes.   

     I wondered about the man’s worsening condition as I drove into the night, then caught a glimpse of my eerie reflection, my ghostly face painted green from the glowing dashboard lights.  Thoughts of my tiny room, a safe and warm place under my blankets, floated in and out of my mind, yet I knew I could never go back, so I drove onward without a destination.  In the morning, I awoke in a slumped position behind my steering wheel, parked in front of a pawn shop, which was located somewhere on the outskirts of town.  The bent coat hanger sat in the passenger seat.  Roz’s gold rings and necklace were still with me, obvious signs to carry on with the plan. 

     When I arrived for work that afternoon, Roz confessed that she no longer trusted the kitchen staff.  

     “They’re drugging my food,” she said, pointing to the toilet and discarded plastic trays in the trash can.  “Did you get it?”

I peeled off a duplicate cleaning lady uniform from my body and tossed the light blue medical scrubs on Roz’s lap.

     “Does that answer your question,” I said, looking over my shoulder.  “We have to leave tonight, Roz.”

     “That’s the plan, Honey.  What did you think we’re doing,” she said, displaying the medical scrubs with a prideful smile.

     “No, you don’t understand.  I have to leave tonight, with or without you.”

     “Why what happened, Honey,” Roz said.

     “Please, stop calling me Honey, Roz.  I’m nobody’s honey or sweetheart or darling or whatever else.  And, it’s best if you don’t know, at least for the time being, okay?”

Roz appeared worried as she floated her sights about the room, drifting from her age-spotted hands, to the coffee-colored curtains, beyond the wilted house plants, then down to the beige carpet, and into the white-tiled bathroom, where the plastic food trays crowned the trash can under the sink.  Her red-rimmed eyes welled with tears, but it was hard to tell if she was more worried about me or herself.  After another moment had passed, she raised her glassy eyes to mine, wiped her trembling lips, and said, “Be there or be square, kid.”

     Minutes after my shift ended, I sat in my car, in a swath of nightshade, staring at the front entrance, waiting for Roz.  Hound patrolled the grounds as the swing-shift employees exited the building.  He’d shine his flashlight into the dark as if it was the long arm of the law, sweeping across the parking lot, down into the service dock, up and over treetops, like a spotlight searching for escaped convicts.  Peeking over my dashboard, I saw the beam of light shift direction and disappear around a corner.  But, Roz was nowhere in sight.  “She should’ve been out of the building by now,” I thought, sensing the urgency to drive away, but something held me in place a moment longer.

     Within that final moment, Roz, disguised as another cleaning lady, walked out of the retirement home.  She waited on the edge of the curb, searching the dark parking lot, like a child waiting to be picked up after school.  When I keyed the ignition, the engine stuttered and failed, releasing a whizzing noise into the dark.  I tried the key again; and again, the engine didn’t start.  Roz, appearing confused, clutched her purse and began pacing in circles.  And if things weren’t bad enough at that moment, I noticed the beam of light reappear in the near distance.  I turned the key again and still nothing.  I wanted to call out to Roz, to warn her of Hound’s presence, but I couldn’t without ruining our plan.  The beam of light grew closer to Roz as it shined on a nearby corner.  When I tried the key again, the engine stuttered and then came alive with a loud rumble, which captured Roz’s attention.  Hound turned the corner, sweeping the flashlight toward Roz.  She was caught between Hound and my panicked face staring through the passenger door window.

     “Get in,” I said, with my heart pounding out of control.  “Hurry up.  Hurry.”

Roz fumbled the door handle and stepped into the car without concern.

     “Jesus, kid, for a minute there, I thought—”

I stomped the gas pedal before she uttered another word, jerking her deeper into the seat.

     “Don’t die on me, Roz,” I said, pulling out of the parking lot.  “You’re my only friend.”

     “How do you know where we’re going, Honey,” Roz said, securing the seatbelt.

     “I googled the address,” I said, eyeing the rearview mirror.  “Which I should’ve done earlier, but I didn’t think you were serious.”

     “About escaping or the cabin,” Roz said, locking the door.

      “What cabin?”

     “Didn’t Google tell you?  My cabin in Lake Tahoe.  Where did you think we going, Honey?”

     “Google listed several places with the same address.  You forgot to write down the zip code.”

     “I didn’t forget, Grace,” she said, aiming the air vents at herself.  “I’ll google the directions, so can we stop talking about Google, okay?  It’s giving me a headache.”

     The drive to the address was going to take 13.5 hours, and I wasn’t absolutely convinced that the cabin still belonged to Roz, or if it ever belonged to her.  Whenever she spoke of the cabin, she described it as some mystical place, located on a mountain top nestled within a pine tree forest, overlooking a majestic lake that mirrors a cloudless, hard-blue sky.  It sounded like California folklore.  I wanted to believe every word; I wanted to believe we would arrive without incident; I wanted to believe we would live happily ever after— I wanted to believe.  But, I had no evidence of Roz being the legal owner of this property in the woods.  Was Roz simply telling me a story to help her escape the retirement home or was she telling the truth about a mysterious cabin?  I had to believe in something beyond our very bad situation, so I drove through moonlit farmland with hope in my heart.  I had to believe my life was worth living, and the sleeping, runaway senior citizen in my passenger seat wasn’t suffering from dementia, some delusion of grandeur, or anything of the sort.  I imagined Roz was my grandmother in a parallel universe as a way of coping with our unravelling reality; there was never a retirement home, never a son who survived on extorting his aged mother, and never an adopted girl who died a thousand deaths before the age of twenty-two.  There was only here and now— nothing else.

     Somewhere in the middle of a moonlit desert, we stopped at a Motel-6 for the night.  For a moment, Roz had no recollection of who I was, where we were going, or our plan.  Her watery, red-rimmed eyes held the appearance of an abandoned child on the verge of crying.

     “Roz, are you okay,” I asked, turning off the motor.

The fluorescent light from the motel’s eaves illuminated the interior of my car.  For the first time, Roz inspected the backseat and, upon seeing my meager possessions strewn about, realized I had been living in my car for some undiscernible amount of time. 

     “I bought us a room,” I said, apprehensive of how she’d react.  “We can start again in the morning, okay?”

Roz pressed the heel of her palms against her eyes, concealed her tears, and wiped away her confusion.

     “Good idea,” she said, then paused long enough to study every detail of my face.  “You must be tired, Grace.”

With a half-hearted smile, she unlocked the door and stepped out of the car, wondering which direction to walk.

     “This way, Roz,” I said, pointing to a door.  “Follow me.”

The sound of 18-wheeler trucks coming and going made it near-impossible to sleep, but we managed after some time.  It must’ve been an hour before dawn when I noticed Roz wasn’t in the room.  Looking into the parking lot, which was partially shadowed by uneven light, I wondered if she had hitched a ride with a trucker, realizing if she had, there would be no way of tracking her.  Roz would be lost forever or, possibly, even worse.  My heart raced with dread and panic.  There was no sight of her in the car or the lobby, no cellphone to call, no photo of her and nobody to help me find her.  The thought of driving around the area crossed my mind, but what if she returned to the motel and found my car gone and the motel room locked?  What if she doesn’t return?  What if she was wandering the streets in a state of confusion?  Were the prescribed sedatives to keep Roz from venturing into the world alone?  I was lost for ideas and time was ticking.  I had to do something to find Roz.  But, what could I do?  I walked toward the rear of the motel, using the flashlight on my phone to light my way.  

     Beyond the motel dumpsters, there was an irrigation ditch.  I stood on the edge and called out for her, hoping she would respond, but the howling wind and rumbling traffic made it difficult to hear.  A gust of wind blew dust into my eyes and momentarily stole my sight.  I cursed myself under my breath and continued my search.  Why did I agree to join Roz’s “Escape” plan?  How could I have been so naïve, so foolish, so absent-minded to believe something wonderful would come from such a bad situation?  

     In the distance, some 40-yards away, a plateau rose from the desert floor and offered a well-needed vantage point.  I crossed through the scrub toward higher ground with increased urgency, anticipating daybreak and hoping for any sign of Roz.  Cold sweat carried dirt into my hot mouth as I walked farther into the cold desert.  The motel lights now blurred and shimmered like fireflies dying among the varying shades of night. 

     Upon reaching the plateau, I climbed hand over fist through the shifting ground.  My legs burned.  My combat boots grew heavy, rivaling blocks of concrete, as I carried the guilt of this ordeal on my shoulders.  Worried to the point of tears and nausea, I summited the plateau and then collapsed beneath a predawn sky.  I called out for Roz until dust filled my throat and left me coughing into the wind.  On the farthest edge of the plateau, in the ombré light, I saw a silhouette of a woman.  She stared up toward the fading stars, as if waiting for a UFO to appear.

     “Roz,” I said, wiping the sweat from my eyes.  “Is that you?”

The woman turned, held her gaze on me for a moment, and shouted “Hurry up, Honey.  We don’t want to miss it.”

     “What in the hell were you thinking coming out here,” I said in a parental tone.

Roz looked up at me and, with a small smile, patted the earth next to where she sat, and said “Sit down, Grace, let’s watch the sunrise together.  Then, you can read me the Riot Act, okay?”

I scraped my boots against the dirt in feigned protest, threw my hands toward the sky, and surrendered, once again, to Roz’s wish.

     As the sun broke over the horizon, Roz said, “Isn’t that marvelous, Grace?  Just take a look at that: it’s like one of those photographs on display at a person’s wake, but so much better.  You want to know why?”

     “You could’ve left me a note, Roz,” I said, feeling cold, sticky sweat upon my skin.

     “Because, we’re alive, Grace— we are alive,” she said, holding eye contact as the sun rose in the distance.  We sat in silence for a moment longer before Roz continued “I didn’t want to disturb your sleep.  You needed the rest.  Now, can we please enjoy this wonderful gift, Honey.”

     “I almost had a heart attack, Roz.  I really did.”

Roz took my hand and placed it over her heart.

     “You’re right, and I’m sorry.  Can you forgive me, Grace?”

     “Yes, of course,” I said, then gently squeezed her hand.

The sun grew big and bright and warmed us with its generosity as we walked back to the motel.

     Many hours later, when we finally arrived at the cabin, Roz confessed how she acquired the property.

     “When I was a child, my father and mother had terrible arguments over his gambling problem,” Roz said, looking on the neglected, stone cabin.  “There were times when my father gambled away paycheck after paycheck, leaving my mother to fend for herself, so you can imagine a wife’s frustration, not to mention my father’s drinking problem and womanizing, but that’s besides the point.  I believe my father’s turning point was when he was beaten near death and was at the mercy of my mother’s care.  To show his appreciation, he vowed to quit drinking and gambling, which, to his credit, he did; however, that only lasted for a short while.  If this is boring you, tell me to stop, Grace, and I will.”

     “No, no, I’ve been curious of this cabin since you first mentioned it; actually, to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure if this cabin was real or a figment of your imagination,” I said, taking note of the emotional shift sweep across Roz’s face, which brought her to great laughter.

     “‘A figment of my imagination,’” she questioned, dabbing the corners of her watery eyes.  “Hell, I wish it was.  It would have made for an easier life, but no, Grace; it’s all true.  My father won this property in a poker game, fair and square, and he put the deed in—”

     “Your name,” I said, shifting in my seat.

Roz focused her sights on the dazzling sunlight shimmering across the lake.

     “Yes, of course,” Roz said.  “He and my mother knew, if the property was in his name, he’d gamble it away; my mother also knew about tax liens and other such things.  In the end, after all these years, there it still sits— an abandoned pioneer-style cabin in the woods.”

     “Yes, but at least it’s yours, Roz,” I said, opening the car door.  “Better than Shady Acres, right?”

     “The truth of the matter is, I don’t know how much longer I have to live, Grace.  I still got some years, I imagine, but when my time is up, this place will be yours,” Roz said, resting her hand on my shoulder.  “Now, help me out of your car.  My legs are killing me.”

     The interior of the cabin was in better condition than the exterior.  There was dust and cobwebs and a broken window or two; but for the most part, the musty, two-room cabin was in decent shape, even after all the years.  As for Roz, she moved about the place as if she had time traveled into her past, gliding her fingertips across framed, black and white photographs that hung on the walls, over the top of a wood-burning stove, and then sat down in a rickety rocking chair near a soot-stained fireplace.  

     “We’ll have this old place up and running in no time; don’t you worry,” Roz said with a renewed look of determination in her eyes.  “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.  Follow me.”

     Roz walked into one of the bedrooms and stood over the dingy, moth-bitten mattress covered with a thick layer of dust.  She convinced me to flip over the mattress and search the seamline for a small hole, which took more convincing, but I eventually followed her wish and discovered Roz was telling the truth.  

     “Believe it or not, Grace, there’s a lot of money in there,” Roz said with absolute certainty.  “Folks hid money in their mattresses, in those days, probably still do.  My father never trusted banks, and neither did I, for the most part, as you can see.”

While I gutted the disgusting mattress and dug out the cash, which was more than I imagined, Roz took a knife to a floorboard, pried up a slat, and unearthed a small box.  She then emptied the tin box onto the floor.  And again, I was in disbelief.  The contents included: a photograph of her family; a satchel of cat eye marbles; three fishing lures; one magnifying glass; two candlesticks; one matchbox; but most importantly, the evidence I had hoped to see: the official property deed in Roz’s maiden name.

     “Here, it is, after all this time,” she said, handing me the aged piece of paper.  “Tomorrow, we’ll go into town, talk to a few people, and get this old place back on its feet.  But for now, we will build a fire.  How does that sound, Grace?”