Bill finally caught up to Willow as she ambled up her driveway.  “Hop in, I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”  As they drove up the long road Bill told of the arrangements, his visit with her lawyer, and the best pastrami on rye he’d ever had.

“Maybe I should have gone to the deli.  The line was almost out the door so I went to a restaurant.  Marcello’s.  It was very good and I had a very nice waiter.”

“Did you and your mother eat there often?”

“No… I’ve never been to a restaurant before- well, not that I can remember anyway.”

Bill Franklin had always assumed something tragic had occurred to make Kari Finley such a recluse.  Her correspondence with him was predictable and their yearly business meetings cordially professional.  He’d met Kari when Willow was around twelve years old.  The tall gangly girl had grown into a lovely woman over the past ten years.  She wasn’t pretty in the modern sense of the word and certainly not beautiful, but she was definitely lovely.

Kari herself had always been beautiful.  He’d nursed a slight infatuation in their first few meetings but after the year had passed into their second year, he’d found, to his relief, that he was over his silliness.  Kari then became a trusted client and a silent friend.

At her living room table, Bill showed Willow the cost of the funeral, the mortuary expenses, and made suggestions for contributions to the minister for his time.  He showed her the addition he’d made to her letters with the time and date of the funeral added- Monday at 1:30 p.m., and asked if he’d done what she wanted.

“Of course!  It’s perfect.  And the courthouse approved the permit?”

“Well, not yet but they said that since you’re out of city limits, they can approve a permit as long as you own more than ten acres and bury her at least three hundred yards from your creek.”

“Oh good.  That is such a relief!”

Financial papers spread across the table in rapid succession.  He showed her the balance of her investments, her bank balance, and her upcoming bills.  Willow took careful notes on everything as Bill explained the source of her income and the projected outgo.  “As you can see, your mother spent little of the annuity she set up to live on.  Living here- growing your own food and everything- that kept costs so low.”

At this point, he pulled out the family records and pointed to the notarized affidavit of birth.  “This, however, is going to be a problem.  Your name is on these accounts but only because they’re so old.  For you to access them you’ll need either a social security number or identification.  You don’t have either and you can’t get either one without a state certified birth certificate.  I called your mother’s attorney and she said she’d file immediately for a family court hearing to establish the fact of your birth.”

“How long will that take?”

Bill looked at her sympathetically.  “I don’t know.  Hopefully, soon.  Meanwhile, your lawyer says I’ve been named executor of the will so I can handle any financial needs until you get identification and a social security number.”

She leaned back in her chair and watched him for a few minutes as he made notes and gathered necessary information.  “You know, when I was fifteen, I developed an enormous crush on you.  I was positively smitten for at least a month.  I think I drove Mother crazy.”

“I think I remember that visit.  It was both comical and embarrassing at the same time.  I didn’t see you much after that visit until the past two years.”

“I kept myself busy the next year and after that there was just so much to do that I didn’t realize for a couple of years that I’d hardly seen you when you came so I rearranged my schedule so I wouldn’t be rude.”

They laughed and talked companionably for some time before Bill finally stood.  “I’ll call you as soon as I have a court date and I’ll be here on Monday of course.  If you need anything just call.  Mari knows to patch you through immediately.  Here’s my personal cell number in case you need me after hours.”

She walked him to his car, waved for a moment, and then returned to the house.  The clock showed the time as three-thirty.  She pulled the chicken she’d left cool in the cellar icebox and took it to the barn.  In the “summer room” as her mother had called it, she chopped and diced until she had a healthy amount of vegetables and her chicken scraps in a pot and simmering on the stove.  She turned the burner as low as it could go and closed the window most of the way so that the breeze wouldn’t blow out the flame.

After swift clean up, she hurried inside to change.  The cow seemed to sense a change and lowed mournfully as though asking for her friend Kari.  “She’s not coming back old girl.  She won’t be here when you become dinner either.  Lazy woman.”

***

Chad tossed his cell phone down on the seat and punched his foot more solidly on the gas as his truck tore down the highway.  He’d been calling since noon.  When Willow answered and then disconnected he’d been mildly amused.  After all, she was still growing accustomed to using the thing.  However, when future rings went unanswered, he grew irritated.  A call to the Mortuary revealed that she’d arrived with a William Franklin and left without him, apparently just before he’d called.

“Six hours.  It’s been about six hours.  Anything could happen especially all alone and grieving…” he muttered to himself as he tore into her driveway.  He ignored the fishtailing of his truck bed and bounced along the ruts at forty miles per hour.

Othello didn’t meet him.  That seemed strange but Chad assumed the animal was out chasing rabbits or squirrels.  He knocked on the front door and got no answer.  Around the back, he pounded on the back door but received nothing but silence as a reply.  Throwing courtesy out the door, he entered the house and hurried in and out of every room.  There was no sign of her.

He almost ran to the barn and found chicken soup simmering on the stove.  It smelled wonderful.  Without realizing he’d done it, he gave it a stir and put the lid back on the pot before he hurried up into the loft and then out the doors again.

He opened his mouth to start calling her name when a gunshot rang out from behind the barn.  Chad froze.  Torn for a moment between retrieving his own weapon from his truck and rushing to her aid, he opted for the latter and hurried to the corner of the barn.  His training kicked into high gear.  He peeked around the barn and saw nothing.

Another shot rang out, this time closer.  It sounded like a twenty-two rifle.  He’d spent most of his teen years target shooting with a twenty-two.  The sound was as familiar as a two-cylinder motorcycle and the howl of their basset hound when his aunt sang.

Debating whether to call out, he crept toward a line of trees.  Another shot fired.  Chad threw caution to the wind and raced through the trees.  Willow whirled at the sound of his footprints throwing the barrel of the gun in the air instinctively.

“What are you doing?  You scared me!  I could have shot you.”

Chad, ignoring her questions, began a tirade of epic proportions.  “Me?  Excuse me?  I’ve been calling you all day!  First, you answer and hang up on me, and then nothing.  I imagined you out here lonely, grieving, and then heard gunshots and assumed-”

He stopped short.  Willow’s hands covered her face as her shoulders shook.  He gently pulled the gun from the crook of her arm, the end of the barrel being too close to her head for his comfort, and leaned it against a tree.

Suddenly he realized that her ‘sobs’ sounded suspiciously like giggles.  “Are you laughing at me?”

Willow pulled her hands from her face momentarily, and nodded.  “Mmm hmm.”  A fresh wave of laughter engulfed her.  “You sounded like Mother when she thought I’d drowned in the creek.”

“What did she do after she read you the riot act?”

“Well she scolded me at first- is that what you mean by riot act?”  He cocked an eyebrow at her.  “Well after that, she gave me a sound spanking.  I remember sitting right back in the creek to cool my backside.”

Chad smirked trying to hide a smile.  Willow’s expression was priceless.  “That’s exactly the expression on Mother’s face.  Exactly.”

“So what are you doing out here?”

She pointed at the gun.  “Mother was the markswoman.  She kept in practice for self-defense.  I had to shoot enough that I could at least hit a dog if I had to.  Mother insisted.  Now that she’s gone, there isn’t someone else to rely on if I need protection.”

The hollow tone in her voice belied the matter-of-fact attitude.  Chad took the gun and started to empty the chamber but Willow stopped him.  “No.  We leave it loaded.  It’ll stand behind my bed now like it used to stand behind Mother’s.”

“You shouldn’t leave it loaded-”

She jerked the gun from him, grabbed the box of ammunition, and marched into the trees.  “A gun does no good as protection if you have to stop and find the ammunition and then load it.  By that point, an intruder could have killed you unless you’re good at clobbering them with it.”

“But-”

She whirled unexpectedly in mid stride causing Chad to bump into her nearly knocking her down.  As he grabbed her arms to steady her, Willow stepped back exasperated.  “Who is going to get hurt in this house?  Who?  How is that gun going to harm me if I am not behind it?  I’m the only one in there.  Even if you visit or Mr. Franklin or Mr. and Mrs. Varney, are they going to go upstairs, behind my bed, and play with my loaded gun?”

Forced to concede that she had a point, Chad sighed.  “Ok, but do me a favor. If a child ever comes here, promise me you’ll hide it in a locked room and remove the ammo until they leave.”

“Promise.  Now, are you hungry?”

***

“I can’t believe your mother took pictures.  She took lots of pictures, of both of you.  It’s amazing.”

Curious, Willow glanced at Chad’s bewildered face.  “Why is that so amazing?”

“Well, you live here, in a house without electricity, grow your own food, live like Laura Ingalls in a lot of ways, but your mom takes pictures.  How did she get them developed?”

Willow pulled a small picnic basket from the shelf next to the scrapbooks.  Inside was a camera, several rolls of unused film, and a stack of prepaid envelopes to a mega photo-development house.  “We just pop the film in one of these with a check and put it out at the mail box.  About two weeks later it comes back with more film and mailers.”

“My mom does scrap booking but this looks different.  It’s like your mom did everything herself.  The papers and stuff-”

Smoothing the page where a corner had tried to come up, Willow nodded.  “We did.  When there were pictures to do, we took turns deciding how to decorate the pages and what to draw.  We’d spend hours designing the papers and embellishments.  We got ideas from fabrics and book covers and things.”

“Why not just buy them and save all that time?”

With a shrug that showed she’d never thought of it, Willow said, “What would we do with the time we saved?”

Chad’s mouth opened to answer and then shut.  He’d never heard that question.  It seemed that everyone was looking for ways to save time but no one had ever questioned the validity of doing so.  “Well, isn’t there anything you always wish you had more time to do?”

“Fish.  I love to fish.  But I’d grow fat and lazy if I got to fish all I wanted.”

This announcement surprised him more than anything she’d said yet.  “You fish?”

“Love it.  I go every chance I get.  Othello hates it though because I chain him on fish days.  He scares away the fish.”

A thought occurred to him.  “Do you tie your own flies?”

Eagerly, she jumped up and rushed upstairs.  Minutes later, she lumbered back down them carrying a tackle box and a board with a tie vise mounted to it.  “I love tying flies.  I do it in winter when I can’t fish.  It keeps me from going crazy.”

One look at her flies and Chad wanted to hurry home for a rod.  “We’ll fish,” he said as though the question was settled.

They glanced over the ties and debated the merits and demerits of each before Willow picked up the things to carry them back upstairs.  Chad took it from her.  “I’ll carry it.  Show me the way.”

Shrugging, she climbed the steep stairs and opened the first door on the left.  “This is our craft room.  The board goes there.”  Willow indicated and empty space on a beautifully crafted bookshelf.

“That is one gorgeous bookshelf.  Where did you find that!”

“Mother made it a couple of years ago.  We’d been working with the first thing she ever made but it was amateurish and falling apart so Mother made a new one.”

He ran his fingers over the wood admiringly.  “Can you make things like this?”

“Not on your life.  I am lousy with a saw.  I can’t cut a 1″ yardstick much less a board.”  She paused with a wicked gleam in her eye.  “But Mother can’t fish well and I can so I think we’re even.”

Hardly noticing her joke, Chad read the titles of dozens of books.  “You have a book on how to do almost everything in here.  Candle making, soap making, knitting, sewing, spinning?  You have a book on how to spin?”

Her sigh was almost comical.  “I’ve always wanted to spin but Mother would never agree to sheep.  She said they were dumb animals and she wasn’t going to be bothered with them.”

“You’ll have to get a couple and try it.”  He paused at the expression on her face.  As though he could read her mind, he continued, “I didn’t mean to imply that there was anything wrong with your mother.  You’d just said that she told you that you should live your life how you like it and I thought-”

Her smile, though weak, relieved him.  “You’re right.  She did say that and I know she meant it.  She didn’t want to have to deal with sheep and the mess that comes with them but she didn’t mind if I did.  I think at some point I would have received a pair of lambs for a birthday or Christmas or Easter.”

A wide array of art supplies, fabric, and similar materials were stacked on shelves, in baskets, and something about the style of the baskets made Chad wonder if the Finley women hadn’t made them too.  “Is there anything you two don’t do?”

“Pottery.  It was too expensive to ship clay.  We considered going to black and white film so we could do our own photo developing but we love color too much.”

While upstairs, Willow showed Chad her room, her mother’s room, and a large room organized as a storage pantry.  ”We keep our overflow canning and things in here.  Those bins with the locks are where we store Christmas and birthday presents.  That closet holds out of season clothes and…”

She explained their organization system as they returned downstairs.  Chad hardly listened.  Instead, he mentally calculated everything she’d described.  The women had hand painted their bathroom wall to look like wallpaper and every picture on the walls was one they’d drawn, stitched, painted, or photographed.  The quilts on the beds, the sheets, everything was stitched by one or the other of them if not both.  Even the large area rug in the oddly shaped living room was hand hooked.  The thought of all of their work was a little overwhelming.

“You’re a little like the Amish aren’t you?”

Smiling, Willow led him to a room to the right of the stairwell.  An unbelievable number of books occupied wall-to-wall shelves and shelves in the center of the room as well.  Just inside the door, she pointed to a shelf with at least a dozen books on the Amish lifestyle.

“Mother actually considered joining the Amish.  The first thing she did after she deposited ‘the bribe,’ as she called it, was to go to the library and research Amish theology.”

“I take it she wasn’t impressed?”

“Actually, she was for the most part.  The problem was, with each district being independent of the others, and because people often use the same theological terms for different things, Mother was afraid she’d make a poor choice and not know she’d done it until it was too late.  The last thing she wanted to do was start over her starting over.”

“What brought her here?”  Chad asked the question as he looked over the hundreds of books.

“The day she gave up on the idea of the Amish, she went for a drive.  There was a for sale sign out at the road so she drove in and looked around.  It’d been the home of an elderly couple who moved into one of those retirement places.”

While Chad commented about the excellent condition of the house, Willow glowed.  “She did most of the work herself.  The house had to be completely renovated so it had new plumbing and wiring and all that stuff.  So Mother came in and made everything pretty.  She wanted new windows in the past few years but she didn’t want to have to undo all the trim work she did.”

Every window and doorway in the house had beautiful trim around it.  He’d noticed ivy vines, fleur de lis, and around the kitchen, grapes on the vine.  “Where did she find them?  It must have cost her a fortune.”

“Oak from Fairbury Hardware.  It was more expensive than the pine stuff but it holds up better.”

Shaking his head, Chad traced the ivy vines along the doorway into what he assumed was meant to be a dining room.  “No, these.  Where did she find these?  Hand carved molding and trim work isn’t cheap.”

She laughed.  “Fairbury Hardware.  She bought the plain oak pieces and hand carved them.  Her first ones are up in the attic.”

Closer examination showed flaws that might have otherwise been overlooked.  Chad traced the outline of the design and gave a low whistle.  “This took a lot of time.  I can’t believe she did this!”

“Winter evenings.  She started when I was around eight or nine.  She whittled a few things for my stocking that year and then wanted to do something more intricate so she came up with this idea.”

“I don’t know how you both had time to do so much and yet still worked so hard.”

Willow, tired and starting to come out of the fog she’d lived in for the past three days, collapsed onto the chaise near the door, and sighed.  “I think that’s the secret.  We worked hard enough to keep us busy- the Amish influence I guess, but we used modern conveniences and things to leave us enough time to fill with relaxing and hobbies.”

Weariness seemed to engulf her.  Chad noticed a change in her demeanor and decided it was time to leave.  “Hey.  I was planning to challenge you to a rematch on those checkers but I have to be at work tomorrow and after chasing you down, I’m beat.  Mind if I come out Saturday or something and beat you before work?”

“What time is work?”

“Shift starts at two,” he answered lazily.

Just as Chad shut the door of his truck and inserted the key in the ignition, he saw Willow fly out of the house, across the yard, and to his window.  He rolled it down, surprised to see her upset so quickly.  She must have been holding back as long as she could.

“Chad, do you think I’ve been secretly disrespecting of my mother all these years?”

His brain tried to follow the question but he felt at a loss to understand what Willow meant.  “Huh?”  His eloquent response earned him a mental kick from himself.

“I keep doing things that Mother didn’t like or wouldn’t have done.  Inviting you and the Varney’s to visit, writing Grandmother and Grandfather- even the rest of the family…”  Her voice trailed as she thought of the repercussions of her actions but then continued.  “And of course, I moved her commentaries, I ate in her spot at the living room table when she never would do that and I’m thinking about getting sheep.  Have I been in some kind of secret rebellion all these years?”

Chad patted her forearm and shook his head.  “I think you’re trying to exert control wherever you can so you don’t have to face everything at once.  If you tried to keep everything exactly the same, you’d find yourself constantly reminded of your loss.  Making changes that you said yourself your mom said might happen, is just a way of keeping yourself sane.”

A strange look clouded her eyes and she sighed.  “Is insanity such a bad thing?  Sometimes it sounds like a blissful escape.”

Without another word, Willow returned to the house.  Chad watched, concerned, hanging one arm over the steering wheel, and resting his chin on his wrist.  A light flickered in the living room and then went out again.  Undecided, he paused with his hand on the door handle.  Something about her demeanor bothered him.

A light flickered in an upstairs room.  Chad mentally climbed her stairs, turned in the hallway, and deduced that she was in the bathroom.  For a moment, he turned cold and pulled on the door handle.  As he pushed open the door, the light went out.  Seconds later, it glowed in Willow’s bedroom.  The silhouette of Willow unzipping her dress was enough for him.  Chad slammed the door shut, started the engine, and backed all the way down the driveway.

Willow heard the door slam and glanced out her window.  Chad’s vehicle zipping down the driveway in reverse confused her.  “It looks like his truck is broken.  It won’t even go forward!” she mused as she grabbed her favorite pajamas and slid under the covers.