Past Forward Volume 1 (3 page)

“So you have electricity but don’t use it.”
Chad didn’t quite understand.

“Well, we use it in the barn. We keep our
frozen food out here, and when it is too hot to use the stove in
the house—”

Almost afraid to ask but compelled, Chad
interrupted. “What’s wrong with the house stove?”

“It is wood fueled. It gets too warm
sometimes, so we cook on the grill or in here.”

Well, that explained the heat. He hoped that
steaks on the grill meant it was a little cooler inside by now.
“Keeping the house cool in weather like this is probably wise…”

She shoved the food in the freezer
compartment of the refrigerator and hurried to the grill. “I’m not
usually so scatterbrained, but it seems like I can’t do anything
right today.”

Chad took the platter from her and replaced
the steaks on the grill turning the rare side over. “Let’s cook
both sides, shall we?” He led her back into the house and sat her
at the table. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. You sit. I think
you have a reasonable excuse for being a little upset and out of
sorts.”

While he took orders on how to gather salad
fixings and mix dressing, Willow opened the cell phone box and read
the instructions. “It’s quite complicated for one little machine
isn’t it? All the different numbers and things.”

“I can program it for you when I’m done
here. Where are those seasonings you mentioned?”

“Oh, top right cabinet in the jar on the
left—the one with the flip top. And I want to try it myself. It is
a little bit of a challenge.”

They each worked in silence. Willow followed
each step of the instructions and waited expectantly to see the
phone flash its new number as the instructions indicated. “It
worked! Look! I have one hundred minutes.”

Chad brought the bowl of salad and dressing
to the table and glanced at the phone. “Excellent. You follow
instructions well. People usually get impatient and skip steps and
mess it up.”

“We learn everything by following
instructions. After a few big mistakes, Mother made it a rule.”

Laughing, Chad retrieved the platter and
shooed her back into the chair. “I’ll get them. Why don’t you serve
yourself some salad?”

He returned to find her picking at it. “I’m
not hungry I guess.”

“Eat it anyway. You need food.”

They ate in silence, Chad wishing he was
anywhere but the Finley farm, and if her face was any indication,
Willow feeling awkward and miserable without her mother. Each clink
of knife and fork sounded more pronounced than expected. The food
was excellent but neither tasted it.

After the meal, once they pushed their
plates aside, Willow smiled awkwardly and bowed her head. Chad
listened both amused and amazed as she spoke familiarly with the
Lord about His provision of food, friendship, and a mother. As she
ended with, “Lord, You gave me the best of mothers, and You have
now taken her away. Blessed be Your name,” he swallowed hard. All
of his ideas of showing her the Lord seemed immature and arrogant
in the face of her obvious faith.

After dinner, he watched as she washed the
dishes with hot water from the tap but lit an oil lamp when the
room darkened. The soap she used to wash the dishes was a grey
mixture she poured from a jar on the back of the sink, which he
learned they’d made themselves.

“Do you make all of your soap?”

“Yes. Mother has recipes for every kind of
soap. Dishwashing, laundry, skin, hair…”

“Will you continue to make it or will you
buy soap now?”

She eyed him curiously, as she hung the
kitchen towel on the rack and untied her apron. The apron surprised
him. He hadn’t seen anyone wear an apron for years. Her answer
surprised him more. “Why would I buy something so easy to make?
What would I do with my soap making time?”

Though he wanted nothing more than to get
away, he found himself fascinated by the strange life he saw before
him. Propelled by curiosity, he asked, “What did you and your
mother usually do after dinner?”

“Well, we wash up of course, but then we
either play a game or work on some kind of craft, read a book, take
a walk… it just depends.”

“What do you recommend then tonight?” Having
heard the loneliness creep back into her voice, Chad decided to
give the night up as lost and stay until he knew she’d go straight
to bed.

Willow, not as naïve as she appeared,
laughed at him. “Don’t feel obligated to amuse me, Officer
Tes—”

“Chad. My name is Chad, remember?”

She tried again. “You want to go home, Chad.
You’re here only out of kindness to me—” At the look of shock on
his face she hastened to add, “—and I appreciate it, I do. It’s
just that—” She paused. “Well, no one wants to feel like they’re a
burden, so please go home.”

Chad, unaccustomed to forthrightness such as
Willow’s, followed her to the door feeling rebuked and ashamed.
“You’re right. I didn’t want to come tonight or to stay. I
tend—well, I tend to be a little shy when I’m not on duty. I am
sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.” Chad forced himself to say
the words he wanted to say the least. “I hope you’ll invite me back
sometime and give me another chance.”

With a brief nod, Willow opened the door and
Chad stepped on to the porch. As he turned to leave, Willow stopped
him with an invitation. “Would you like to play a game of Chinese
checkers before you go?”

They played on the porch by the light of an
oil lamp. Chad had found the game confusing at first. To his
astonishment, Willow played three colors and expected him to follow
course. Trying to jump only your opponent’s three colors on a board
full of marbles required more strategy than he was accustomed to
using in the game. Willow beat him in almost no time.

“Excellent game. I’ll have to practice and
challenge you again,” Chad declared as he stood to leave.

“You’ll come back?”

“I have Thursday off. I’ll—wait; I need to
get your cell number. I’ll give it to the mortuary.”

Willow recited the number quickly. At his
evident surprise, she grinned. “I am good with numbers.”

As Chad reached his pick-up truck, he waved
once more and called, “I really am very sorry for your loss,
Willow. If you need anything, call me.”

“I can’t.”

The look of confusion on his face was
quickly replaced with understanding. “My number. You don’t know it.
I’ll call you when I get home, and you can program it into your
phone.”

The sun streamed into her east window the
next morning. Willow woke, dressed in her customary jeans and
blouse, and froze before her mother’s bedroom door. The memory of
the previous day covered her like a smothering blanket on a summer
day.

“Oh Lord, I don’t think I am prepared for
this,” she murmured as she hurried to do her usual morning tasks
and her mother’s as well.

By ten-thirty, she’d fed the animals, eaten
breakfast, and set the house to rights. She then sat at the kitchen
table wearing her favorite dress and pouring over her mother’s
“manuals.” Several hand-decorated journals lay in piles around her
as she studied them.

Kari Finley ordered her journals first by
subject, then year. Titles of things like “Gardening” and “Repairs”
were written in beautiful calligraphy and then embellished with
intricate patterns of flowers, curls, and, on one, with
hand-pressed flowers. Inside each had a table of contents and the
date of the original journal entry and volume. The detail would
have been remarkable to a casual observer, but to Willow, it was
simply her mother’s way.

She made notes as she read. Columns on the
paper showed her schedules compared with her mother’s notes and the
plans she’d made for the coming weeks. As a child, she’d been
annoyed by how carefully her mother planned their work. Impromptu
fishing trips were difficult when mother had plans for canning,
planting, or chicken butchering.

Willow pushed the notes and journals from
her and rubbed her temples. The clock struck noon, reminding her
that she needed food and water. She carried her bread to the barn
and made a chicken salad sandwich with huge leafy leaves of lettuce
peeking from the edges and a sliced tomato on the side. Othello
tried to convince her that he needed the food, but she ignored the
suggestion and took the plate inside.

Beside the table, she paused. Mother had
always insisted that they eat at the kitchen table. Willow always
thought it might be nice occasionally to eat at the little table by
the window in the living room where they played cards and games,
but her mother had laughed as though it was a joke rather than a
serious suggestion and meals continued as ever.

Without a second thought, she moved into the
living room and put her plate at her accustomed place. A mosaic
vase, one she’d made as a young girl, in fact, stood empty on a
nearby shelf. Determined to enjoy the afternoon as much as
possible, Willow grabbed the vase, retrieved a pair of scissors,
and went out to the flower garden where she snipped several flowers
and arranged them clumsily in the vase.

As she carried her bouquet back to the small
table, she noticed a different view than she’d ever seen as she
stood behind her mother’s old chair and placed the vase on the
table. Feeling somewhat rebellious, she transferred her plate to
“Mother’s” side of the table and sat in the chair. Instantly, the
feeling evaporated. In its place, an overwhelming sense of her
mother’s presence filled her.

There Willow saw the world from her mother’s
vantage point. She imagined herself as a little girl, both long
pigtails flopping on the table as she wrote in her own journals,
and her hands flipping them aside impatiently. She saw that same
little girl version of herself chasing the dog, throwing sticks
down the long driveway, and hiding from him as he retrieved them.
It took her years before she understood how the dog always found
her no matter where she tried to hide.

Three bites into her sandwich, a strange
sound echoed from the kitchen. She leapt from the table, searching
frantically, until she realized that it must be the cell phone. By
the time she’d found it, located the instructions, and slid it open
as directed, the ringing stopped. She sighed in frustration and
stared interestedly at an unfamiliar number. It wasn’t the one for
her phone or the one Chad had given her. Experimenting, she dialed
the number and pushed the “send” button.

No one was on the other end of the phone. A
ringing sound blasted her ears, prompting Willow to turn it off.
Just then, she heard a voice. “Hello?”

Eagerly, Willow spoke clearly and precisely
into the mouthpiece hoping, she’d be understood. “Yes, this number
was on my cell phone. My name is Willow Finley.”

“Oh yes, Miss Finley. This is James over at
the Fairbury Mortuary. I was wondering if you could come in this
afternoon to discuss arrangements?”

“Oh no, that won’t work. I can’t come in
today. I have a lot of work left to do, but I can try to get ahead
this afternoon and come tomorrow morning. What time would you like
me to be there?”

The man on the other end—James—suggested she
arrive at ten o’clock to go over the arrangements. “Please bring a
list of anyone you would like for us to contact and the name of
your preferred minister.”

After she slid the phone shut and assured
herself it was off, Willow realized that she didn’t have a
“preferred minister” and that she should find the list of family
her mother had left in the packet in the firebox. She hurried to
finish her meal and clean up her studying so she could begin
correspondence. As she stacked the journals and started upstairs
with them, she paused. “Keeping them in her old room doesn’t make
sense. I need them down here,” Willow muttered to herself.

She glanced around the room to find an
optimal place for the collection but Mother had designed a space
with a perfect “home” for every item in the room. The living room,
however, had a shelf of commentaries that she’d always despised.
Mother loved to read them in the evenings sometimes and had a habit
of reading aloud a tidbit that interested her. Too often, that
tidbit continued for several pages before she realized she was
still reading aloud. Meanwhile Willow, grinding her teeth in
frustration, had sat waiting for her mother to return to her silent
reading so she could return to her own book—usually much more
exciting reading.

Those commentaries soon sat on her mother’s
bookshelf in her bedroom and several of her mother’s journals took
their place. As much as it made sense, she felt a momentary twinge
of remorse as she saw yet another change she’d made in such a short
time. It seemed as though she was an invader rearranging her own
home.

Thursday morning, she strolled along the
highway again. The heat wouldn’t have bothered her had the
humidity, combined with exertion, not been a factor. She dabbed at
her forehead, neck, and underarms with a hand towel, and
occasionally fanned herself with it.