A Summer with the Dead Read online

  The driveway led up and around to the backside and then leveled out between the house and a low building with four, small, curtained windows. For a second, Maya thought she saw a blue curtain move, and suspected someone watched her.

  “Maya?” A tiny woman stood on the back steps of the house. Her gray hair was pulled into a small chignon at the base of her head, and she wore long, loose blue pants and a dark gray cardigan buttoned up to her neck. Her bony hands squeezed the front of the cardigan together over her chest as if substituting the sweater for gloves.

  “Aunt Elly.” Maya climbed from the car and threw her arms around her aunt. “I’m so glad to see you. It’s been such a long time!”

  “Careful, honey,” Elly said. “My back’s been bad lately. Arthritis I think.”

  Maya released her aunt and stepped back. “This big old farm is a lot for you to manage all alone.”

  “Yes, it is. When Harlan was alive we had over fifteen hundred acres, but I’ve sold it off bit by bit, down to about five hundred acres now. I’m not the manager Harlan was. I’ve been thinking seriously about selling.” Elly shivered. “Let’s go inside, honey. This damp wind makes me ache.”

  “I’ll get my luggage,” Maya said.

  “Naw, Coty’ll get it.”

  “Who’s Coty?”

  “He’s an old friend’s nephew. He lives right there in the bunkhouse, other side of the driveway.” Elly pointed toward the low building. “He’s been a blessing these last few months.”

  “It’s good that you have someone to help around here.”

  “Coty probably spotted you before you turned in the driveway, Maya. He don’t miss a thing.”

  Once inside, Maya warmed herself by a wood stove in the corner of the kitchen while Elly made tea and put out paper napkins and a dish of cookies on the table. The round table and matching light green chairs fit the bay window with room to spare. A cream-colored doily centered the table and upon it stood an empty blue vase. The floor was aged yellow linoleum and the cupboards were lacquered pine with black hinges. It was a cozy room. Maya moved to a kitchen chair with her back to the sunshine.

  “Are you always so punctual?” Elly asked. “You said four o’clock and, lookee there.” Elly nodded at the vintage clock above the stove. “It’s two minutes after.”

  “I try to be punctual, Aunt Elly. Thank you for inviting me. I’ve always wanted to see your farm. I almost didn’t come, though.” Maya said. “I had a job offer the other day. Not a great job, but a job. I don’t want anyone to think I’m mooching off you. I’m planning to help out around here.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Maya honey. I need someone to talk to, someone other than Coty. He’s not much on conversation. He doesn’t take after his aunt Judith at all. If she’s awake, she’s talkin’.”

  “Maybe that’s a blessing. Some people never get anything done, they talk so much. I’ve worked with people like that.”

  “True, but Coty … well, like I said, he’s very quiet. I invited him to move in upstairs and eat his meals in here with me, but he shook his head. ‘Bunkhouse is fine’ he said, and I guess he’s okay out there. He’s got a potbellied stove and a sink and toilet. I guess he heats water and bathes in the old washtub. I noticed it was gone from the shed wall.” And then, as if reading Maya’s mind, “He just showed up at the door one day, about three months ago. Early February.”

  “Have you checked him out? Do you think you should let a stranger live on the farm with you?”

  “Oh, Coty’s not a stranger. I was talking to my friend, Judith one day, back around Thanksgiving. You remember Judith, my childhood friend? Anyway, I was complaining about all the physical labor and how my back’s been hurting, and Judith said she’d send her out-of-work nephew over to help. She said his name was Coty.”

  Maya nodded, even though she didn’t remember Judith. “So, this Coty fellow is handy with tools and making repairs?”

  “He sure is. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Your front porch is rotten. I can fix that.’ I told him I was well aware of this farm’s neglected condition. Well, he fixed the porch with lumber that’s been stored in the upper barn for years. He did a good job too. In February we had heavy rains and some flooding down in the fields and I was afraid to drive over that bridge. There were planks missing and a support timber had almost washed away, and he fixed those too. And just yesterday Coty said my roof has missing shakes. I heard him up there this morning, clomping around. I swear, if it weren’t for him I’d already be living in that retirement place in Seattle where Judith lives. She sent me photos.”

  “I’m glad for the chance to see your farm before you sell it. I can help you get it ready, Aunt Elly. I can do minor repairs inside, and I can paint and clean and we can have a garage sale and–”

  “Sweety, those are great ideas and even though I love this old place, I know it’s time to move on. And I know your Uncle Harlan would understand, bless his soul.”

  “Have you told Coty you plan to sell and move away?”

  “No. We haven’t really talked at all. Sometimes he doesn’t even answer when I speak to him, as if he’s hard of hearing, but I’ll write him a strong recommendation when the time comes.” Elly took a sip of her tea. “Come on, baby girl. You’ve waited thirty years to see this place. Let me show you around. There’s a lot to see.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  ELLY LED THE WAY through a narrow pantry and into an adjoining room that jutted out from the north side of the house. It resembled a glassed-in porch surrounded by overgrown rhododendrons. The shrubs blocked any view of the yard or fields. Overhead, a single skylight was covered with pine needles and moss and did little to lessen the gloom.

  “It’s always dark in here.” Elly paused to turn on a lamp. “I hardly ever come in here anymore except to run the vacuum around and sometimes slap everything with a dust cloth. Seems a waste with all this great big furniture and nobody using it, doesn’t it?”

  Maya nodded. “It’s beautiful furniture. An antiques dealer would probably buy it from you. It’s in excellent condition.”

  “Harlan only wanted quality. He never settled for anything less.”

  “Of course,” Maya said. “He married you.”

  “That’s funny, you saying that. Harlan used to say the same thing. He was such a sweetheart.”

  They circled back into the kitchen through the same pantry hallway. Elly pointed into the dining room and headed toward a flight of stairs. “The bedrooms are all up here.” At the top of the stairs she paused in an open door. “This is my room.”

  Elly’s room was pale blue with cream wainscoting. A small, stone fireplace filled the opposite corner. Beside the bed stood a table and tarnished brass lamp. The room looked sparse and masculine, as if the room had not been redecorated since Uncle Harlan died.

  Continuing down the hallway Elly opened storage closets, linen cupboards, and a bathroom door. Inside stood a claw foot tub, pillar sink, and a toilet. White tile covered the floor and walls.

  “The medicine cabinet is empty because I bathe and keep my things in the downstairs bathroom. I got into that habit years ago when I’d come in from working outside in the garden. I’d just strip right in the kitchen and toss everything down the basement stairs to the washer and dryer. There’s more bath soap and toilet paper in the hall cupboard if you need it, and towels and washcloths too.”

  Further along the upstairs hallway were three more bedrooms. They faced the back driveway. Elly paused long enough to open the doors. Inside were four-poster beds, rocking chairs, vanities, and tallboys, beneath ash-colored drop cloths.

  Maya shivered. Peering into those rooms reminded her of when she was eleven years old and her father died. While her mother made arrangements for the funeral, Maya tiptoed around the quiet, carpeted hallways of the funeral parlor. She remembered parting a burgundy velvet curtain and meeting a yellow-faced woman in a green dress. The woman was stretched out inside a pearled silver
casket with a white satin lining. The yellow woman wasn’t breathing. Her lips looked like someone had glued them together with the same glue they used for her eyelids.

  “I don’t even heat these rooms anymore,” Elly said. “I keep the furnace vents closed, and the doors shut.” Elly opened one of the last two doors at the end of the hallway.

  “Here’s your room, sweety pie. I put you down here at the end because I thought you’d like having a fireplace too, and this room has the best view of the valley. Your window looks north.”

  Maya stepped into the room. There was the faint smell of fresh paint and paste wax. The hardwood floor gleamed. The walls were smooth, pale, pewter gray. The wainscoting and chenille bedspread were white. Everything looked new including the brown and gray braided rug beside the bed. A colorful patchwork quilt lay folded across the foot of the bed and white lace curtains filtered a view of the valley. Maya stepped closer and parted the curtains. The lower fields sloped away from the house. At the bottom of the slope were the stream and the bridge. From behind the crest of a distant hill, smoke trailed upward through the tops of emerald evergreen trees.

  “This is cozy,” Maya said, yet she shivered with a sense of déjàvu. She was certain she had seen this room once before, or a room exactly like it. Somewhere. Maybe in a dream?

  “Harlan and I slept in this room when we first moved here,” Elly said. “We liked the view too, but Harlan didn’t like looking down on that mossy skylight. He said it kept reminding him of all the work that wasn’t getting done. And, he said it was more important to have a view of the barns.”

  “You have a neighbor over the hill? I see smoke.”

  “Oh, that’s Parker Ellroy’s place. He’s about a mile away as a crow flies.”

  “And what a wonderful little rock fireplace, just like the one in your room.”

  “Harlan’s the one who enjoyed a friendly flame of an evening. He was always hauling in wood and I was always sweeping up behind him. The furnace in the basement is new. I had it installed five years ago. It struggles to heat the second floor though.”

  Maya said, “I just saw a shadow pass under the skylight.”

  “That’s probably Coty. I asked him to bring a load of firewood up for you. I had him paint this room last week, and while he was working I told him that my blood-kin niece was coming to stay a while. He didn’t say anything, but he sort of frowned and I got the impression he didn’t approve.”

  “Why would he disapprove?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Like I said, he’s different.”

  Maya stepped back into the hallway. “Where does this door lead?”

  “Down into that skylight room behind the kitchen, but I never go that way. Those stairs are steep and dark and there’s no hand railing. Let’s go back the other way.”

  Maya’s three-piece luggage sat in the middle of the kitchen floor. Elly opened the back door and leaned outside. “Coty?” she called and then shrugged. “I can’t keep track of him.”

  Maya jumped. A man stood so close they bumped elbows when she turned around. He was a head taller than her. He was dressed in a thick black and red buffalo checked jacket and navy blue jeans. Beneath the jacket lay a black turtleneck and above the turtleneck jutted a square jaw with dark stubble. His cheeks looked ruddy from the brusque wind outside. He narrowed his brown eyes and assessed her. His bronze, windblown hair was streaked with silver at the temples. A short scar divided one eyebrow. He smelled like fresh split cedar. Maya stepped back.

  “Coty! Don’t sneak up on us like that,” Elly said.

  Coty’s gaze darted from Maya to Elly and back again. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice was deep.

  “Coty, this is Maya, my niece. I told you she was coming, remember?”

  He nodded. “You’re why I painted the guest room.”

  Maya cleared her throat. “Hello.” She knew she should have offered her hand, but by then it felt too late, and then awkward.

  Coty said, “I’ll take this luggage upstairs and come back for the big trunk in the back of your car. Then I’ll get the firewood.”

  “I’ll help,” Maya reached for a suitcase.

  “Naw, I got them.” He was shoeless and wore wool socks. He didn’t make a sound as he climbed the stairs carrying the two big suitcases and her cosmetics case under his arm. The smell of fresh-cut cedar faded.

  “Thank you,” Maya called, before saying to Elly, “I’m not sure why, but I pictured someone younger when you said he’s your friend’s nephew.”

  “That’s funny, Maya, because before Coty showed up at my door I pictured someone older. Judith is seventy-six just like me and Coty is her oldest nephew. I’d say he’s what, forty-five, forty-six?”

  “I’m not a good judge of age,” Maya said. “It doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.”

  Elly and Maya sat at the kitchen table munching iced raisin cookies. Not just one cookie each, the way her mother doled them out. There was an entire plateful on the table.

  Something about Coty made Maya nervous. Maybe it was his penetrating gaze. Was he judging her? Did he think she was taking advantage of Aunt Elly? That she was a freeloader? After an inheritance? Maya felt insulted, even though Coty’d said nothing to suggest he thought such things.

  An upstairs door closed and the ceiling groaned. A minute later Coty strode into the kitchen. He jammed his feet into boots before exiting the back door.

  “I guess it wasn’t Coty I saw through the skylight,” Maya said. “Why would he walk all the way around to the side of the house with my luggage when my car is right outside the back door?”

  “It had to be him. There’s no one else here,” Elly said. “Maybe Coty was in the fields when he spotted you arriving. If so, he’d probably come in through the basement. The only other door is in the living room and no one uses that door. No one has used that door since … well, it’s been so long I can’t remember the last time. Maybe since Harlan was alive. I keep it locked at all times.”

  Coty entered the back door again, kicking off his boots on the porch. He hoisted her trunk to his shoulder, crossed through the kitchen and dining room and up the stairs without a word. The kitchen ceiling groaned again as he strode the length of the upstairs hallway. The smell of cedar came and went.

  “I wish I could have visited the farm while Uncle Harlan was alive,” Maya said. “I never got to meet him. Where did the two of you meet?”

  “Heavens, Maya. I don’t remember ever not knowing Harlan. We grew up in the same neighborhood. That was so many years ago, though, and I’ve forgotten more than half of what I ever knew. Sometimes, I could swear Harlan is still here with me. I see him sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, but when I look again, of course he’s not there. It was just a shadow or something, but sometimes I’m convinced I hear his voice. He says my name and it wakes me up in the middle of the night, but when I call out to him, he doesn’t answer. And sometimes in the bathroom, I’m certain I smell the soap he used. He never wore colognes or stuff like that, just that clean, soapy smell.”

  Poor Elly, Maya thought. She’s lonely. “I always hoped you and Uncle Harlan would come for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas.”

  “We wanted to, honey, and we would have, but back then we had animals here on the farm. A cow, a horse, and some chickens. We couldn’t go off and leave them. Cows gotta be milked and chickens gotta be fed and watered. Besides, your mother never liked me. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s not talk about Mama. I’m so glad to be here and to see your face and hear your voice. Let’s celebrate. I’d like to take you and Coty out for dinner. What do you say?”

  Elly grinned. “I haven’t gone out for dinner in years. Let’s go find Coty and ask him.”

  Elly crossed to the base of the stairs. “Coty?” she called. He didn’t answer.

  Maya followed her aunt across the driveway to the bunkhouse. Elly knocked, opened the door and leaned inside. “Coty?” She closed the door again. “He’
s not in there. He wouldn’t have gone with us anyway, Maya. He hardly ever leaves the farm.”

  “Should we search for him?” Maya glanced around the yard, wondering where to start. The sun was already low and the shadows were black beneath the surrounding trees. Again, Maya had the feeling someone watched her.

  An alder tree groaned and creaked as the wind pushed against it. Green leaves fluttered overhead as last summer’s leaves, with their points curled under, skittered along the driveway like brown crabs. Maya shivered. It was one of those moments she so often fought against, this sudden sense of déjà vu and dread. It always came with the sight and sound of rustling leaves or a wind bending the trees.

  Sometimes by a hard rain. Sometimes it was other things. Maya looked away from the shadows.

  “Let’s go,” Elly said. “Just you and me. The two of us need time for girl-talk, without Coty listening in.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  MAYA DROVE FIVE MILES into town, over a stone bridge, its sides covered in moss, and past a sign that read, ‘Welcome to Graceville—Population 1390.’

  Elly pointed to the sign. “Someone should repaint that. There’s only nine hundred eighty people here now. In the past few years families have just up and walked away from their homes.”

  Maya parked near the front door of the River Lodge Café. The three-story structure was built log cabin style, with a sizable front porch. Across the porch, a dozen unpainted cedar chairs faced the road. Behind the chairs, multi-paned windows caught the dusky evening light. Inside, customers were drinking, talking, and laughing. Miniature table lamps warmed their faces with golden light.

  “This place looks cheerful and inviting,” Maya said.