Secrets At Maple Syrup Farm Read online

  For Mom to reconnect with Aunt Margot now meant she was deadly serious. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine Aunt Margot living in our tiny one-bedroom apartment. She wouldn’t lower herself. I’d sort of cooled toward my once doting aunt, after hearing her spat with Mom. She’d been judgmental, and narrow-minded, for no good reason.

  “We’ve been talking for a while now. We’ve really mended the bridges.” Mom tried to rearrange her expression, but it was farcical, her smile too bright to be believable.

  I squinted at her. “Really? Now who’s messing with who?”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “Well, we’re on speaking terms at least. And she offered to help so you could go away for a bit. So I don’t want to hear any more excuses. Got it?”

  Stepping back to the bed, I hugged her small frame, resting my head on her shoulder so she wouldn’t see the tears pool in my eyes. How could I tell her I didn’t want to go? Leaving her would be like leaving my heart behind. Plus, accepting favors from Aunt Margot… We’d never hear the end of it.

  Mom pushed me back and cupped my face. “I know you’re scared. I know you think it’s the worst idea ever. But, honey, I’ll be OK. Seeing you miss out on living, it’s too much. The young nurses here gossip about their weekends and all the fun things they manage to cram into each day, and then there’s you, the same age, wasting your life running round after me. Promise me, one year, that’s all. Can you just imagine what you’ll learn there with all those great teachers? Just the thought…just the thought…” Her eyes grew hazy as she rewrote my life in her dreams.

  I knew to grow as an artist I needed proper training, but that was for people who had lives much more level than mine. My day-to-day life was like a rollercoaster, and we just held on tight for the downs, and celebrated the ups when they came. But Mom’s expression was fervent, her eyes ablaze with the thought. I didn’t know how to deny her. “Fine, Mom. I’ll start saving.” Maybe she’d forget all this crazy talk after a while.

  “I’ve got some money for you, enough for a bus fare, and a few weeks’ accommodation, until you land a job. It’s not much, but it will start you off. You can go now, honey. Tomorrow.”

  “Where’d you get the money, Mom?”

  She rested her head deeper into the pillow, closing her eyes as fatigue got the better of her. “Never you mind.”

  My stomach clenched. She’d really thought of everything. Aunt Margot must have loaned it to her. And I knew that would come at a price for Mom. There’d be so many strings attached to that money, it’d be almost a marionette. There was no one else she could have asked.

  When I was in middle school my father had waltzed right out of our lives as soon as things got tough, and since then not a word, not a card, or phone call. Nothing. That coupled with our lack of communication with Aunt Margot, a woman who cared zero about anything other than matching her drapes to her lampshades, made life tough. But we’d survived fine on our own. We didn’t take handouts; we had pride. So for Mom to do this, borrow money, albeit a small amount, and have Aunt Margot come and rule her life, I knew it was important to her—more important than anything.

  “I just… How can this work, Mom?” I folded my arms, and tried to halt the erratic beat of my heart.

  Just then a nurse wandered in, grabbed the chart from the basket at the end of the bed, and penned something on it. “Everything OK?” she asked Mom, putting the chart back and tucking the blanket back in.

  “Fine, everything’s fine, Katie. My baby is setting off for an adventure and we’re excited.”

  Katie was one of our regular nurses—she knew us well. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Crystal!” She turned to me. “And, Lucy, you make sure you write us, and make us jealous, you hear?”

  I forced myself to smile, and nodded, not trusting my voice to speak without breaking.

  Katie checked Mom’s drip, fussing with the half-empty fluid bag. “We’ll take good care of your mom, don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “Thanks, Katie. I appreciate that,” I finally said. She gave us a backward wave, and said over her shoulder, “Buzz me if you need anything.” Mom nodded in thanks.

  We waited for the door to click closed.

  “What you’re asking me to do is pretty huge, Mom.” My chest tightened even as I considering leaving. What if Aunt Margot didn’t care for Mom right? What if she upped and left after a squabble? How was Mom going to afford all of this? Did Aunt Margot understand what she was committing to? So many questions tumbled around my mind, each making my posture that little bit more rigid.

  “It has to be now, Lucy. You have to do it now; there’s no more time.”

  My heart seized. “What? There’s no more time!” I said. “What does that mean? Have the doctors said something?” I wouldn’t put it past Mom to keep secrets about her health. She’d try anything to spare me. Maybe the pain was worse than she let on? My hands clammed up. Had the doctors given her some bad news?

  “No, no! Nothing like that.” She tried valiantly to relax her features. “But there’ll come a time when I’ll be moved into a facility. And I won’t have you waste your life sitting in some dreary room with me.”

  My face fell. We’d both known that was the eventual prognosis. Mom would need round-the-clock care. But the lucky ones lasted decades before that eventuated, and Mom was going to be one of them. I just knew she was. With enough love and support from me, we’d beat it for as long as we could. Her talk, as though it was sooner rather than later, chilled me to the core. There was no way, while I still had air in my lungs, that I would allow my mother to be moved to a home. I’d die before I ever allowed that to happen. When the time came, and she needed extra help, I’d give up sleep if I had to, to keep her safe with me. In our home, under my care. Going away would halt any plans of saving for the future, even though most weeks, I was lucky to have a buck spare once all the bills were paid, and a paltry amount of food sat on the table.

  “You stop that frowning or you’ll get old before your time. I’ve got things covered,” she said throwing me a winning smile. “I’ll be just fine, and Margot’s going to come as soon as I’m out of here. Don’t you worry. Go and find the life you want. Paint that beauty you find and I’ll be right here when you get back. Please…promise me you’ll go?”

  I gave her a tiny nod, gripped by the unknown. I always tried to hold myself together for Mom’s sake, but the promise had me close to breaking. Dread coursed through me at the thought of leaving Mom, the overwhelming worry something would happen to her while I was gone.

  But getting back on the open road, a new start, a new city, just like we used to do, did excite some small part of me. We used to flatten a map and hold it fast against a brick wall. I’d close my eyes and point, the pad of my finger deciding our fate, the place we’d visit next. That kind of buzz, a new beginning, had been addictive, but would it feel the same without my mom?

  Chapter Two

  The bus careered with a squeal and skidded off the road, startling me from slumber. Instinctively, I clutched hands with the woman beside me. Before shock fully registered the driver hit the brakes hard and we pitched forward in our seats. A shriek caught in my throat as we slid sideways toward a metal fence. I dropped the woman’s hand and braced myself as the bus leaned so far to the left dusty-colored ground screamed into view.

  “Glory be!” the woman beside me said, her voice edged with worry.

  The bus driver swerved and stopped dead just before we hit the shiny gleam of the fence. The commuters let out a collective sigh of relief. My heartbeat thrummed in my ears, as I surveyed the pitch-black night, wondering where we were, and if our journey would stop here, on some lonely forgotten road. I took a gulp of air deep into my lungs, trying to gather myself.

  “Sorry, folks,” the bus driver said sheepishly, making eye contact with me in the rearview mirror. “Damn deer trotted on past without a care in the world. Everyone OK?”

  I turned in my seat to check
. People sat, eyes wide, mouths in an O, but no one seemed hurt in any way, just stunned awake by fright.

  Commuters nodded. I rubbed my neck, and mumbled, “Yes.”

  The plump, brown-skinned woman beside me gave my knee a reassuring pat. “You’ll be OK,” she said, gazing at me with kind eyes. “Jimmy here’s the best driver round. Deer be bad on this patch of road come night-time.” She spoke with a rich southern accent.

  “Thanks,” I said speaking on autopilot as fear collected me. “He did well to keep it from rolling over.” A seasick sensation sat heavy in my belly and I shook my head in a kind of astonishment—wouldn’t that be the worst kind of irony, promising Mom I’d leave on this impromptu adventure and not making it there because of a bus crash? The thought alone was enough to make me stiffen. I’d never considered something bad happening to me—Mom was always at the forefront of my mind—but what if it did? Then who would look after her? Aunt Margot wouldn’t stay forever. I’d have to be careful, and not take risks if I could avoid them.

  “Sure as God made little green apples Jimmy’ll have a few more gray hairs by the time we reach Ashford.”

  The woman brought a sense of peace with her no-nonsense attitude.

  “He just might,” I said, my mouth dry. “I think my first gray might sprout up of its own accord too.”

  She tutted, giving my hair a cursory glance. “Nothing gonna dim that blonde mane o’ yours.”

  The young woman in front of me rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. Across the aisle a spotty-faced teenage boy wiggled in his seat, balled up his sweater, pushed it hard up against the window as a pillow. Everyone was settling back down, but I was too keyed up to do anything other than sit there, mildly panicked at how close we’d come to crashing.

  Was it a sign that I was choosing the wrong path? It felt like a warning somehow. Even though I’d promised Mom I’d explore for twelve long months, a half-day into the journey, I was regretting the decision with every ounce of me. The excitement of not having to pull double shifts at the shabby diner had dimmed the further away from Mom I got. When I’d quit work, the manager had barely raised an eyebrow. The other waitresses gave me small smiles, some heavy with envy, some full of hope that maybe one day they’d get out of there too. Right this instant, I’d swap with them in a heartbeat, and pretend this journey never happened.

  It was hard to forget Mom’s dazzling smile when I went to say my goodbyes. She’d radiated happiness. It was almost palpable, like she’d been cured, or something miraculous, but it was all because of me. She was overjoyed my travels were beginning in earnest, though in actuality, I’d have to stay in one place half the year to save for the rest of the trip, if I found a decent job. When it was almost time to leave it took all my might not to clutch her and sob, telling her I didn’t want to. Instead, I’d held myself tight like a coil, and said I’d do my very best to enjoy myself. In an effort to lighten up a somber situation we played the “Remember When” game.

  Remember when we slept in the lighthouse that night? Remember when we swapped our homemade dream catchers for a crate of apples? Remember when…

  After that the Van Gogh Institute Scholarship came up about a hundred times, but I shrugged her off. I needed time. At this stage I didn’t know if I’d make it without her.

  “Where you from?” the woman asked, bringing me back to the present. She crossed her arms over her midsection, as we bounced softly along.

  With a smile, I said, “Detroit.” I pivoted a fraction to face her. She looked like the type who would chatter on regardless.

  “Ah,” she said, “the birthplace of Motown? Ain’t that something?”

  “It is.” I missed it already. It was home. Where my heart was.

  She studied my face intently. “Why the long face?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t about to share my story with a stranger. Besides, there was no way I could say Mom’s name. I held on to the promise I made as though it was something tangible, my secret. “Just saying goodbye.” I tried hard to make it sound breezy and bit the inside of my cheek, willing myself to stay focused and not well up. Honestly, I was like a child going off to camp the first time. I knew Mom wanted me to “find myself” but I didn’t think I was lost. She did.

  With a raise of her eyebrows she said, “Goodbyes…surely are difficult. But sometimes, you gotta take the plunge. Life is for living.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. My mom had said something eerily similar when I’d visited the hospital to say my goodbyes.

  Snatching her purse from under the seat, she rifled around in it, before brandishing a brown paper bag full of something spicy-scented. “Here, eat. You as skinny as a rake.” She handed me a chocolate-dipped gingerbread man. “Ashford—where we goin’—is about the nicest place on earth. Problem is, once you visit it’s kinda hard to leave.”

  “That so?” I took a bite of the cookie, ravenous now I’d awoken. “I’m not staying for good,” I said. “Just stopping by for a while.”

  She hemmed and hawed. “That’s what they all say.”

  I smiled at the woman in thanks, all the while thinking maybe the bus simply slipped off the road because of a deer, and not because I’d made a bad decision walking away from my mom, when she needed me so badly.

  “Did you make this?” I asked, holding the remnants of the gingerbread man, just his little chocolate-dipped legs.

  “Why I most certainly did. I work at the Gingerbread Café. I’m CeeCee.” She held out her hand.

  “It’s delicious.” I shook her hand. “Lucy. Nice to meet you.” It wasn’t like me to chitchat so easily. Mom was the extrovert, the babbler; I took a while to warm up. Instead I people-watched, always lost inside my mind with how I’d paint the planes of their faces, or whether I could catch the question in their eyes, their own unique gaze.

  I guess it was a safety mechanism of sorts, my lack of involvement with people. We’d moved so often, it was easier not to make friends than risk losing them. But alone, maybe I’d have to change that.

  “We be seeing a lot more of each other, mark my words.” There was something comforting about the woman, the way she spoke, the warmth in her.

  ***

  After snatching some nap time, I awoke, squinting. The sky had lightened. The bus burbled along, making its way to Ashford. My sketchy plan was to find a job, anything. The money Mom had borrowed from Aunt Margot, I stubbornly refused to take. I used it to pay her rent a paltry few more weeks, and restocked her fridge and freezer—a surprise, for when she got home. All I had was the wages from the last few shifts at the diner to see me through, but I knew how to be frugal, and how to work hard.

  I had to find a job quickly, and hoped at the end of each week, there’d be enough left over that I could save and send some home. I’d sleep better knowing my mom had a back-up plan and some independence when it came to money.

  Resting my head against the cool glass, I watched as meadows dotted with the odd home or two flashed past.

  The driver hollered out, “Ashford’s ten minutes away, folks.”

  I nodded to him as we made eye contact in the rearview mirror. His face was lined with fatigue. He was probably dreaming of bed, while commuters snoozed fitfully behind him.

  In the distance a property appeared. It was flanked by lots of trees, bare of leaves, and stood out beside the rolling snow-drizzled meadows.

  As the bus lumbered closer, I pushed my face up against the glass again. My breath fogged up the window; I hastily wiped it with my hand. As we neared, I could make out an old cottage, decayed with age. Twisted vines snaked around porch poles like skeletons.

  I pulled at CeeCee’s sleeve. “Would you look at that place!” It was mesmerizing.

  She sat up straighter, popping specs on the bridge of her nose. “That there’s the Maple Syrup Farm. It’s gone and got itself a new owner too. A real handsome guy but he tend to keep to his self.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Folk sa
y he’s just one o’ them lonesome types.” She clucked her tongue. “Whatever that’s ‘sposed to mean. He ain’t been there long, a month or two maybe. Still trying to make sense o’ the place. As you can see, it needs a lot o’ work. The cottage itself is over a hundred years old.”

  The driver slowed for a bend in the road. “It’s eerie, like something out of a ghost story.” The property was bathed in a filmy light almost like that one patch of land was a different color to the rest of the world. Sepia, faded somehow. All I could imagine was trying to capture it on canvas, painting daubs of russet and taupe, lashings of cloud white. Hoping my brushstrokes would reflect its bygone charm.

  “Town folk believe there’s a ghost there, but it ain’t true. Old Jessup passed on not long back, and he left the farm to his nephew, Clay. Don’t stop people talkin’ out o’ turn saying they seen Jessup wandering around those trees. He used to love them, talk to them as if they was real.”

  “Sounds like there’s a story there.” When I painted a landscape like the one in front of me, it was easy to get lost in pondering what had gone on over so many decades—the history of the place, and not just the facts, but the heart and soul of it, the real story. Who slept under that cottage roof a century ago? Did they dream of other places, or were they happy there? Did kids frolic by the lake, swim, climb trees, tumble down hills? Was there a woman at the hearth, stoking up fires and baking? Imagining lives long forgotten piqued my curiosity and made my fingers itch to pick up a paintbrush.

  She yawned, and stretched her arms above her head. “Sure is. And Clay’s only addin’ to it by being reclusive.”

  I tucked a stray curl behind my ear. “Ashford’s own little mystery.”

  She guffawed. “Sometimes there ain’t much more to do than speculate about folk.”

  I laughed. The town must be a hotbed of gossip because of its size. “I guess so. What’s he doing with the place? Is he going to stay?”