The Reunion Part 10
Rays of sunlight shot through the canopy of magnolia tree leaves over her head as she meandered along. She’d left the rental parked along the street in the neighborhood where her family had lived, wanting to walk off breakfast and see the old house.
Her plan was simple. Walk around a few of the blocks, see what she could and then drive back to her hotel until it was time to meet Jim at the police station. She had more than enough time for this side-tour.
She moved slowly, taking in the perfumed air filled with its familiar scents. Something else she had not realized how much she missed, until now.
Emotions threatened to bubble up. She could feel tears starting to form. Oh hello no, she told herself. Stick to the plan, stick to the plan, stick to the plan…
Her plan had made so much sense until it dawned on her that it didn’t. She didn’t have a Plan B. Nor had she factored in how emotionally hard it might be when encountering people like Jim or even the smells of home.
The devil’s advocate in her mind starting asking questions she had not thought of. The what if’s, not just the ones that would affect people here, but the ones that could affect her life at home.
Thanks for thinking of that now, she chided her inner voices.
Home. Home is supposed to be a place of safety. Belonging. Love.
She had known of this place, right up until the illusion exploded.
On 3rd street, she stopped in front of the third house from the stop sign and did a double take. She even counted the homes from the end of the block to make sure she was standing in front of the right one.
The yard was completely different. Gone was the wide cement path leading from the sidewalk up the slight incline to the bottom of the steps and continuing up to the porch. Now she faced roses in a flower bed that shielded a retaining wall making the yard level instead of the gentle slope to the sidewalk, like many of the neighbors still had.
The yard itself had been transformed into a massive playground, complete with a wooden ship, built in parts spread around the yard and connected with rope and wooden bridges, swings, and ladders.
An arch over the straight path to the house connected the front and back of the boat with a long bridge, and “Welcome Aboard” painted on the railing.
She leaned over to smell the roses, their petals wide open, the scent taking her back in time.
Her mother’s roses. Award-winning in all ways, color, scent, and size. Growing anything, from the roses to a bountiful vegetable garden, her mother had had a gift. She told Karen many times her secret was love.
Karen walked past the house, looking to see if she could catch a glimpse of the backyard. A high wooden fence had been built, blocking her view.
She sighed and turned around, walking back the way she’d come, and stopped at the driveway leading into the backyard. She saw the original one and half car garage and her father’s workshop had been replaced with a massive three car garage. Another tall wooden fence separated the yard from the drive.
Looking around the neighborhood, she realized more homes had been remodeled, something she hadn’t noticed earlier. She’d only been paying attention to the light and the smells, not the houses themselves.
“Everything changes,” she reminded herself.
For a moment she thought about knocking on the front door and asking if she might see the backyard, if the people inside would recognize her and invite her in, or send the crazy stranger away.
The screen door opened and a woman stepped out, her house slippers sliding across the whitewashed porch to the steps. Her hair was wrapped in a deep blue cloth and over a spring flowered house dress, she wore a paisley printed apron in all shades of purple.
“Karen?” The woman called from the top of the steps, holding up her hand as if stopping traffic. “Karen Lewis?”
“Oh. My God.” The woman came down the steps and path to the sidewalk. “I thought that was you!” she exclaimed as she hurried towards Karen.
Karen knew this woman. She welcomed and returned the hug she found herself in.
“Jasmine,” Karen whispered. Another rush of memories flooded her mind, she wanted to slap herself. So many details she’d not thought of, but she knew she would be seeing Jasmine.
“Jasmine,” Karen repeated and squeeze the woman harder. The tears she’d been fighting spilled onto her cheeks.
Jasmine released her hug but held on to Karen's arms with a firm grip, her face also shiny with tears. She shook her head, sniffing back her own emotions. “It’s like, …”
The women exchanged a knowing look then embraced again, both letting their tears flow until Jasmine pulled away then linked her arm through Karen’s. “Come inside, we’ll have some tea,” she offered. “And do some catching up.”
From the outside, the house mirrored the many others that filled the residential neighborhood behind the one commercial center in town. Whitewashed cottages, originally built by the owners of the paper mill across the river, had become historic icons of a time and way of life whose story was beginning to change.
Wide front porches, pitched roofs and large windows faced green lawns and the magnolia tree-lined streets. Beds for flowers of all kinds, yet roses dominated the scene, the subject of an annual and highly competitive contest every year since the town was settled.
Inside, the house had been remodeled into its most modern version. State of the art electronics and furniture created functional spaces for a big family living in a small home.
Jasmine was explaining the front room. Opening a large armoire that doubled as a ‘multi-desk’ she showed Karen how smooth wood boards extended from their storage positions into layers of desk space.
“The kids do their homework, all of them, right here. They may be on top of each other, but they get it done, together.” Jasmine lovingly folded the furniture back into itself. “Zachary outdid himself on this one.”
Karen ran her fingers over the hand-carved door. She saw faces in the wood. “Are these the kids?”
Jasmine pointed to six of the faces, “yes, these. Destiny, Kala, Indigo, Andrew, Terrance, and Cameron. But these,” she explained as she waved her hand over the entire front of the cabinet, “these are the faces of our families. Our ancestors.”
Something about the tone of Jasmine’s voice, maybe it was the depth of what this piece of art represented, physically pushed Karen a step back. She had to take the whole thing in, she wanted to examine every detail.
A family portrait. A real family portrait.
“It is beyond beautiful,” Karen murmured.
Jasmine moved on, showing Karen extending pieces that turned chairs into lounges and lounges into beds.
“When the kids have friends stay the night, this place turns into the best bunkhouse in town.” She settled her hands on her hips, smiled and sighed contently. “It’s quite the sight.”
Jasmine reached her arm around Karen and squeezed, “it’s a good sight to see you again too,” she kissed Karen’s cheek then released her. “Come on, let’s have that tea.
“I had a feeling you’d come by. I was watching for you. We heard what you did last night, at the bar.”
This was one detail she’d not overlooked; the way news travels in a small town.
Karen took a seat at the large kitchen table while Jasmine poured tea into tall ice-filled glasses. She didn’t answer her friend, instead taking in all the changes of the remodeled kitchen.
Gone were the oak cabinets her father had built when they’d first moved into the house. The kitchen now looked like it belonged in a magazine. Dark wood with modern appliances and white marble countertops in an enlarged space.
“You took out a wall,” Karen noticed, “what a difference.”
“Oh, we did more than that.” Jasmine held out a glass for Karen, then motioned with her hand, “come see the rest of it.”
A wall separating the kitchen from a closet and tiny bathroom off a hall, all no longer existed. A new doorway led to a cozy office space with a built-in desk under a window looking out over the backyard. Shelves lined the walls on both sides of the room, filled with books, pictures, and memorabilia from a life well lived.
Karen was drawn to the window, it was the backyard she’d wanted to see, only it wasn’t what she hoped she’d see.
Gone were the wide flower beds that used to flank another massive magnolia tree. The tree remained, but now only grass filled the space.
“I know what you’re thinking, ‘what happened to the roses?’ They were gone long before we got ahold of the house.” She came to stand behind Karen. “The only ones we could save are the ones you saw out front.
“Zachary and the older kids worked like crazy to save them. Destiny even spent a summer with old Mrs. Johnson who was the saving grace and brought them back to life. The house had been empty for a long time when we bought it.
“It caused quite a stir in the neighborhood, let me tell you,” Jasmine sighed and shook her head. “Some people, you know?”
“Yeah,” Karen mumbled. She did know.
Jasmine led Karen out of the office and into a large master bedroom with hand-cranked iron windows that also opened to the backyard. Long linen curtains floated in the breeze, giving the room a ghostly feel.
A massive four-poster bed filled the space, flanked by small bedside tables. Lights dangled at the end of corded wires from the ceiling all over dark planks of wood flooring, like the rest of the first floor.
“Look at this,” Jasmine pulled Karen into the master bathroom.
“Wow,” Karen reacted to the bright space.
“Yeah,” Jasmine’s voice was full of pride. “It’s my favorite too.”
The master bath floor and walls were covered in small, white, round subway tiles. At one end, tucked up under another set of iron windows, a modern tub sat waiting to relax anyone with the time to settle in. The same linen curtains flowed from ceiling to floor, framing tall windows that opened into a secluded patio. At the other end, glass enclosed a large walk-in shower complete with bench and a big silver shower head hanging from the ceiling.
In front of her was a long antique cabinet, painted an inky black in sharp contrast to the white tile and its white marble top. Porcelain sinks sat on top of the marble, ready to catch water from faucets that came from the mirrored wall behind them.
The wall behind her was storage. Tall, narrow cabinets held everything the family needed, towels, first aid supplies, shampoos, and soaps.
“You’d think the kids would use their own bathrooms, but no. We all end up in here every morning.”
Karen looked around the room again, noticing the one thing missing from a bathroom. “Where’s the toilet?”
“Oh!” Jasmine smiled. “The hiding place,” she slid a piece of the wall into a pocket, revealing the water closet. If Jasmine had not shown her, Karen would not have realized it was a door.
“Very cool,” Karen was impressed.
“Yeah, this was all Zackary’s doing.”
“I had no idea he was so talented.”
Jasmine smiled, “neither did I. But, he got lucky. Remember Mr. Dean, from school?” Karen nodded as if she did. “Well he bought the old furniture factory, remember the one, up the road, just past the old gas station and car wash?” Karen nodded again. “Well one thing led to another, and next thing you know, Zachary is making furniture one day and designing it the next. Mr. Dean really gave Zach wings, you know?
“And he really liked Zach. When we got married, he gave Zach a piece of the business. A wedding gift. He and his wife didn’t have children, so I guess he kind of thought of Zach as the son he never had. And when he died a few years back, Zachary inherited the business.”
“Wow,” Karen responded, not wanting to interrupt the story.
“We’d had our eyes on this house for a long time, watching it fall into disrepair was heartbreaking. We’d both spent a lot of time here, happy times. We wanted that again. We wanted that for our family. We’ve been here almost 17 years now.”
Karen turned away from her friend. She’d missed it too. The women left the bright bathroom space and returned to the kitchen, Jasmine talking the whole time about a past Karen had not experienced.
She shook the ice in her glass before taking a long drink. A breeze blew in, carrying with it a sweet magnolia scent. For a moment she was standing in her mother’s kitchen, she and Jasmine were 15 again, on the cusp of womanhood and summer, talking with her mother about boys, clothes and the kinds of lives they hoped to live someday.
All Jasmine had ever wanted was to marry Zachary and have a boatload of kids. The memory made Karen laugh, “I get it now, the boat outside.”
Jasmine smiled, her full lips spreading to show perfect, straight, white teeth. A beautiful smile that lit up the room. “I knew you would. When Zach started building it, well, you can guess how that went over. But when it started attracting every kid in the neighborhood,” she leaned forward as if sharing a secret, “and gave parents a rest from their own kids, well, it’s become kind of an attraction in and of itself. Heck, even people in the new part of town have smaller versions of it in their tiny backyards. And,” her voice filled with pride, “there’s a bigger version of it at the new park.”
“There’s a new park and a bigger version?” Karen smiled. “He’s really leaving his mark on the world.”
Jasmine nodded in agreement. “Yes, yes he is. But, I always knew he would.”
They settled into chairs at the kitchen table, finished their iced tea and Jasmine filled Karen in about the new park and it’s massive pirate ship playground before abruptly turning the conversation to the reunion. “When I heard what you stirred up last night,” she paused and shook her head. “I was wondering when that was gonna happen.”
Karen finished off the last of her tea and shook her glass. “Can I pour myself some more?” She motioned to Jasmine’s glass. “You too?”
The right side of Jasmine’s mouth curled into a grin and her right eyebrow lifted. “Really? You’re going to avoid the subject?”
Karen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She wanted to tell her childhood friend everything. She was here to do just that. How to break this to her, without breaking her, there was the obstacle.
She didn’t answer. She stood at the kitchen counter, admiring how the marble counter sloped into a large farmhouse sink with simple brushed silver faucet under a planter box window filled with a fresh herb garden and small figurines, likely made by Jasmine’s children.
Looking past what was in front of her, she saw the backyard, not as it was now, devoid of flowers or decoration with straight lines of fence, grass and a massive magnolia tree shading most of the yard.
Instead, she saw her mother’s flower garden, the curved beds against the wooden fence that lined the alleyway between the rows of houses on 3rd street and the row facing 2nd street. Smaller circles dotted the yard holding prized rose bushes, each a different color and scent.
Her mother’s roses had been the best. She’d won the annual Rose Queen title every year she’d entered the competition, starting right after Karen was born.
Her parents bought the house from the couple who’d lived in it since it was new. He’d worked at the paper mill. She had raised the family.
His wife had passed away and he was being moved into a retirement facility closer to where his children lived. The old man left many of his tools hanging in their spaces above sturdy workbenches he’d built himself. He and his sons had spent lots of good times in the garage building ‘stuff,’ the old man told her parents. Boats and cars in their youth, playhouses, and forts when they started their own families.
Her dad carried on the tradition, building ‘stuff’ in the garage. He was constantly repairing the house or removing something old to replace it with something new.
Her mother fell in love with the gardens. The old man’s wife had been growing all kinds of flowers and even some vegetables, but always had the trouble of too much shade under the big magnolia.
Changing everything didn’t take long. Within a year the front and back yards were transformed into a beautiful rose garden.
The roses flourished in the dappled sunlight under the magnolia, getting enough direct light in the mornings and shade during hot summer afternoons, growing into magnificent versions of themselves.
Karen spent many hours of her youth working alongside her mother as she watered, pruned and cared for the roses. Together they learned about the different species, their Latin names, and new and old breeds. Her mother could identify them just by sniffing their heavenly scents.
It was in the garden where they found her, late one afternoon at the end of the summer before her brother started high school and Karen would enter the 10th grade. Karen and Oliver were returning home from their summer jobs, Oliver at the gas station where he pumped gas and learned how to work on engines, she from old Mrs. Johnson’s place where she helped with chores like gardening, laundry, cleaning.
Their father’s car was parked in the driveway. Karen remembered the way Oliver looked at her, his face showing deep concern. “Why is dad home so early?” Karen checked her watch, it was only 3 o’clock. Her father was rarely home anytime before 6 pm during the week.
They hadn’t noticed the Ambulance parked in front of the house. Later, she’d see it and wonder how long it had been there.
He’d met them in the driveway, gathering them into his arms, stopping them from going into the backyard where men in uniforms waited.
As he whispered to them, his voice choking on the words, both Karen and Oliver broke down with him. Both repeatedly cried “NO!” and tried to pull away from him. Karen pushed and squirmed, crying over and over again, “no, no, no…”
“She’s gone baby,” her father tried to explain. “She just slipped away.”
He told them there was a blood clot. “It traveled from her leg and stopped her heart.”
A neighbor had stopped by and found her, already gone. Her father insisted they wait to remove his wife until his children were home and could see their mother one more time before taking her body away.
He waited until they’d calmed down before turning them toward the backyard. There seemed to be a lot of people standing around. Karen remembered them parting, stepping back to give the three of them room to pass.
Her mother’s body had already been placed on a stretcher. She seemed so peaceful, as if only sleeping. Oliver leaned over her and wrapped his arms around her body, his own body trembling in grief, his face wet with tears.
Karen stood on the other side of her mother, and ran her fingers through her mother’s hair, pushing it behind her ear, the way she used when it floated around her face. She felt a bump and saw where blood had been wiped away from her skull.
She ran the back of her fingers across her mother’s cheek and felt the coolness of death.
Somewhere inside her, she understood death for a brief second.
Outside of that place, nothing else ever made sense again.
The strength of Jasmine’s arm around her shoulders brought her back from her memories.
“It was hard, rethinking the backyard. We both wanted to keep it like it was. But with the kids,” Jasmine’s voice trailed off as she too got lost in a memory, “maybe someday I’ll get out there and do something with it.”
Karen nodded. She knew it was ridiculous of her to expect anyone to keep things as they were, everyone wanted their own visions and dreams to come true. Her parent’s visions had come true in this place. It was only right that the new owners should do the same.
“I get it, really I do.” She sighed an rested her head on Jasmine’s shoulder. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Thank you for keeping it in the family.”
Jasmine squeezed her shoulders. “You’re welcome.”
She let Karen off the hook for a few more minutes, giving her friend time to collect her emotions and come back to the present. She understood what she was seeing through the veil of memories. She’d seen the rose bushes through the window many times too.
“Want to see the upstairs?”
Karen lifted her head from Jasmine’s shoulder, sniffed and cleared her throat before taking a long deep breath. “I don’t know. Do I?”
“It’s not what you think. And yes, you do.”
She took Karen’s hand and led her to the narrow staircase at the back of the kitchen. “This was something else we didn’t want changed, and,” she added, “there wasn’t a lot of room for a big, grand staircase.”
At the top of the stairs, Karen stopped. She had to blink hard and shake her head, Jasmine was right. Upstairs was nothing like she remembered.
The staircase ended in a loft space, on her right it was open to the living room below. In front of her, it tucked up under two narrow windows that faced the street. Behind them, extending out over the new master suite space downstairs, were four bedrooms, two each for the older children, and two each for the younger ones to share.
Jazmine pointed to the rooms. “That’s Destiny’s and that’s Andrews. Kala and Indigo share this one and Terrance and Cameron in that one.”
Karen peaked into the rooms, each decorated in vivid colors and built-in furniture, but it was the space around the windows that drew her attention.
Gone were the tiny rooms and single beds tucked up under thin windows. The spaces had been transformed into two cozy reading nooks, both lined with books and charging stations for electronics, settled around benches covered in thick cushions. Colorfully crocheted throws lay across big square pillows. A perfect place to spend time reading a good book and staring out over the neighborhood.
Mixed in with the books were photographs. Karen leaned in to get a better look. Many of them were of Jasmine, Zachary, and their children, in varying stages of life. Jasmine holding a baby, kids dressed in Easter clothes holding baskets full of eggs. Christmas. Birthdays.
There was a picture of herself with Jasmine, sitting cross-legged on a blanket under the shade of the magnolia tree, stringing beads onto wire they were twisting into bracelets and earrings.
Another of herself with Jim, Jasmine, and Zachary, dressed in denim overalls and red checked shirts for a Sadie’s Hawkins dance. Karen studied herself in the photo, a long-ago moment of happiness caught forever on film.
A photo she’d not seen in a long time made her heart pound. Her bother with Zachary, arms around each other's shoulders, cut off shorts and shirtless, soda cans raised high, smiling from behind dark sunglasses.
Behind them, the old rope swing hung over the swimming hole, a place where they’d all spent many hot summer afternoons. It was one of the happiest pictures she’d ever seen in her life. She remembered being there when the photo was taken.
Jasmine sighed. “It’s not like what it used to be. It’s now a four-lane bridge surrounded by housing, cookie-cutter homes,” she made a face. “I didn’t care for them. They had no soul. We wanted this house. We’d spent a lot of time here, we had fun here. It meant breaking some rules, but we did it anyway.” She gestured to the property kitty-corner from where they stood at the window. “Oh, they weren’t having any of it. But two years after we moved in they divorced when she was caught screwing the preacher.” She snickered, “funny how things work out.”
Jasmine noticed Karen still studying the photograph of her brother. “I can make you a copy of it if you like.”
Karen nodded, “That would be nice. I don’t have many of him.” She held it a moment longer then returned it to its place on the shelf. “I don’t have many pictures of us at all.”
Jasmine gathered Karen into another hug, making it hard for Karen to keep herself from crying again.
Karen let go of her friend and stepped back, she needed some space but Jasmine wasn’t letting her go.
“I heard what you did last night,” she murmured. “Bringing up Elizabeth. It’s been a long time, a lot of people have forgotten, a lot of people have worked hard to forget. It changed things around here. And then you disappearing too.”
“Did they ever talk about it?” Karen wondered out loud.
“Nothing like that had ever happened around here, that we knew of.”
Karen asked what she felt to be an obvious question. “What else didn’t we know of because people were too afraid to talk about it? Afraid of the truth?”
“Is that why you’re here? Have you come to seek the truth?”
Karen looked away, gazing through the windows of the second floor, standing in a space that had been her bedroom. “I’ve come to tell the truth.”
Jasmine’s lips puckered and a low whistle escaped them. “And how do you plan to do that?”
“I’m going to put it out there, I’m going to bring it up. I’m going to ask questions and point out the glaring inconsistencies in their stories.”
“So why are you here?” Jasmine broke the silence. “Is to right the wrongs, or wrong the rights?”
Karen liked the way Jasmine described the path she was on. To wrong the rights.
People had taken privileges, made decisions that altered lives other than their own. People who’d sworn not to do such things, people in places of respect and honor. And yet when life called upon those two virtues to lead them through the darkness they found themselves in, those virtues were nowhere to be found. Instead, the ugly heads of righteousness and self-preservation had risen and taken control. It was time the consequences for those actions were paid.
“Come with me. I have something for you,” Jasmine took Karen’s hand, leading her down the stairs.
They passed through the kitchen and made their way out the back door to the garage, Jasmine keeping a tight hold of Karen as if she might break free and run away.
They paused at the single garage door where Jasmine flipped open the cover to a keypad and pressed buttons. The door began to rise, like a door to a cave, giving Karen her first glimpse of the space.
What had once been a small, dark one and a half car garage filled with benches and tools had been expanded into a massive 3 car showcase complete with man cave features like a big screen TV, comfy couches, big windows, neon signs, and a full-service wet bar.
“It may look like a man cave, but in reality, this is our family room.” She pointed to a small electric blower in its place on the wall like art. “Yes, that’s how I clean it.”
Karen smiled. “I bet it makes cleanup kind of fun.”
“Oh yeah. There are times I’ve tried to blow the kids clean. And sometimes, they like it.”
Karen walked around the space, admiring the clean walls and workspaces. She gravitated to the end of the workbench, next to the double-wide roll-up door.
“I have what you’re looking for,” Jasmine smiled.
Karen watched Jasmine open a cupboard and slide something large and obviously heavy from a shelf.
She set the item on the workbench and unwrapped the deep purple cloth surrounding it. “We had to rebuild the garage, which meant destroying the old structure completely. But we kept this for you.”
Seeing what lay inside the fabric, Karen gasped, then laughed and finally began to cry. She wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tight. “Thank you,” she croaked through her tears.
Four sets of handprints covered the block, carefully cut from the old garage floor. Karen remembered the moment when her father had gathered them together, her brother, mother and herself to press their hands into wet cement he’d just poured. The date at the bottom of the block read “September 17, 1975.”
Karen ran a trembling finger over the hands of her father and brother, then settled her palm into her mothers print.
Proof her family had existed.
