The winter sun rose slowly above the horizon, gilding the edges of the last lingering grey clouds, and piercing through to beam onto the roof of the farmhouse. Gradually the light slipped down the façade, a brilliant reflection in the glass windows before spilling down to the porch, casting it in a dewy yellow glow. It was a bright day, not too hot and not too cold—Spring was on its way.
As the first rays penetrated the upstairs hall, Noah's stepped out of his bedroom just as the door across the hall opened. Catching her brother's gaze, Marge smiled as she quietly pulled the door in behind her. Already dressed for the day, she wore a beige cable knit sweater and jeans with wedge boots, her short hair pulled into a half up style.
"You're on vacation," Noah said, meeting her in the middle of the hall. "You should sleep in."
"Old habits die hard," Marge said. "I've never been able to sleep past six. A blessing and a curse," she added, touching her head with a frown. "Tell me I'm not the only one with a pounding head."
"You're not," Noah said, the only signs of his aching head the squint of his eyes.
"You wear it well," Marge said, taking his arm as they moved towards the staircase. "I guess we can't handle everyday drinking anymore. We're getting old, No."
"I'm already there," Noah said with a sigh.
Chuckling quietly, she patted his arm sympathetically. "I wanted to go into town today," she said as they began descending the staircase. "Show the girls off to Maeve, see all the old places." With a sideways look from the corner of her eyes, she added, "Maybe even stop in at the book—"
A great crash came from downstairs, followed immediately by a slightly raised voice of concern and hacking coughing. Pausing just before the landing, the siblings looked at the unmistakable direction of the sound, then at each other.
It had come from the living room.
Two grey tarps had been hung over the arch of the doorway, hiding the room from view. Hurrying down the stairs and across the dim hallway, they both reached out and parted the two sides of the tarps. Inside, their gazes went immediately to the window, where two figures huddled on the floor, tangled in curtains and curtain rods, early morning sunlight spilling into the previously gloomy room, the cast of shadow and light like an exquisite oil painting. Disturbed dust swirled everywhere, tickling noses and throats and getting into eyes.
"Are you okay?" Marge asked, pulling the neck of her sweater up over her mouth and nose. "What happened? What are you doing?"
"We're fine," Alan said, or tried to say, but the dust would not let him.
Noah and Marge helped extricate the two boys from the pile of curtains and took them out through the tarps into the hall, where they sat side by side on the stairs, coughing and clearing their throats with a drink of water.
"It was my fault," Ray said, voice hoarse. "I pulled on the curtains too hard, snapped the rod off."
"And I tried to catch him and made it worse," Alan said.
"I meant, more what are you doing in there," Marge said, torn between laughing and concern.
"Oh," Alan said. "We're cleaning. I asked Ray to help me last night."
Marge and Noah pulled up, blinking, then turning to look at each other. "Are you sure, son?" Noah asked slowly.
Looking up at his aunt and his father, Alan smiled. "I'm sure," he said. "I realized that wasn't preserving her memory, it was running away from it. But I'm ready to remember her now."
Marge started, and her gaze flicked to Ray, but he was too busy guzzling the last of his water to notice that Alan had said exactly what he'd predicted the first day she'd arrived.
Reaching out, Noah laid a hand on Alan's shoulder and squeezed. Smiling, Alan placed his hand over his father's. And that was all they said on the matter.
"We'll help, too," Marge said. "Many hands make light work, right?"
"Thanks," Alan said, smiling at her. Getting to his feet, he hugged her, then turned back to Ray. "You gonna make it?"
Cheeks puffed out with water, Ray flashed him a thumbs up, then held his hand out for Alan to pull him up. They returned to the living room a group of four—this time with cloth masks—and rolled up their sleeves. A few hours later, Jeff and the girls woke up and came down, and after a pause for breakfast, they all joined in the cleaning too.
*
It understandably took all day.
All the rugs and cushions were taken up and outside, where Jeff showed off his high school baseball skills as he beat the dust out, while Marge and Noah carefully wiped and packed up all the ceramic fishes and seashells and starfishes that Lotte collected to feed her love of the sea. It was then that Ray learned the great fireplace hadn't been built like that with the house. Noah had actually refinished it with real river stones that he himself collected, as a gift for their ten year anniversary, an event captured in a picture, complete with a bright red bow on the mantle made by a young Alan.
That, and many other events lay displayed behind glass, and it was impossible to clean a room so filled with nostalgia and not get sidetracked down memory lane, especially a lane so densely packed with memories.
"Who's that?" asked Darla, sitting on the coffee table, as she wiped the glass over a sepia colored picture of a young woman in an old fashioned white nurse's hat and uniform.
Collecting the handmade lace doilies and crocheted chair backs into a basket, to be hand washed and dried flat later, Marge looked over the head of her eldest to the picture. "That's Great Grandma Collen," she said. "She was a nurse during the first world war. She actually went to France, where she met Great Grandpa Mort. He should be around—there he is," Marge added, pointing to another frame by the girl's knee. "In his uniform. He made it all the way to Lieutenant Colonel in the army before a gunshot to the hip stopped him and sent him back home. They had nine kids, you know."
Up on a ladder to fix the curtain rod, Ray leaned down to collect a bracket from Alan. "So, it didn't really stop him," he said in an undertone, making Alan duck his head to hide a laugh.
"There they are," Marge continued, pointing to another picture of the couple with their nine kids, lined up in front of the farmhouse. "Great Uncle Smokey, there on the left, was the youngest. Your uncle Noah was his favorite. Used to take him everywhere with him, and I mean everywhere; carried him around like he was a purse, to the barbershop, to where he worked at the school, to the mechanics. One time he went on a fishing trip and took your uncle Noah without telling anyone. He was gone for a whole weekend. Mama was furious!"
"First time I ever heard her cuss," Noah said, from where he sat on the hearth cleaning out the fireplace.
"Since then, old Smokey never so much as took him to the end of the porch without her permission," Marge said, to laughter.
"And where were you in all this?" Alan asked his aunt.
"I was being a good girl and helping Mama in the kitchen," Marge said. "You shut up," she added to her brother as Noah gave a loud snort.
"Maybe up till you was a teen," Noah said. "But when you got to be 'bout fifteen, you was hardly home."
"I told you to shut up," Marge said, widening her eyes and nudging Noah with her foot even as she held back a smile.
"What was the name they gave you in high school?" Noah asked, then snickered in satisfaction as she gave him a kick, his point made: she wasn't the only one who could tell stories.
"We all have a past," Jeff said serenely as he stacked up old story books.
"What's yours, Uncle Jeff?" Alan asked.
"That's between me and my wife," Jeff said, walking out between the pinned up tarps with the box in his arms.
"I'll tell you later," Marge said in a whisper to her nephew. "It's juicy. Oh, girls, look at this picture. I was in high school here. Oh, lord, the clothes, and the hair...!"
And so they spent the morning, laughing at young faces and old hairdos and clothes, and sighing at people no longer with them. Gradually things were moved out and into the hall and dining room. Windows were wiped cleaned and opened to let in crisp, cleansing air. Laundry was hung out and another load put in, and the walls and fireplace got a good wipe, while any furniture that needed repairing was taken out to the porch. Fresh firewood was added to the bucket on the hearth for the first time in two years.
After a brief break for lunch, the girls went off to play while the others continued. But even before that, long after the girls lost interest and the picture frames and albums were taken out, Ray kept asking for stories, more interested in the history of the family than their descendants.
When all that was left to do was the floor, Alan had to ask: "Aren't you tired of hearing about people you don't know?"
"Never," Ray said, unraveling the cord for the floor sander. "I love old stories and pictures. Being able to trace your family back for so many generations, I think it's amazing. Back in Montana, I used to visit Austin's grandma and spend all afternoon looking through old albums. I don't have a history or legacy like that of my own, not even a baby picture, so listening made me feel like I was a part of it. Or something," he added with a laugh.
Alan, picking up random things left behind, paused to look up at him. That's right, he thought. As an orphan and runaway, Ray wouldn't have had any family pictures of his own. All his stories were new.
"Hey, Ray."
Bending to plug the sander in, Ray looked over at Alan, and was met with the back of his cell phone and the sound of a clicking shutter. "Hope you got my good side," he said with a grin.
"You'll need to turn around for that," Alan said.
"Oy!" Ray laughed, glancing at the doorway. "This is not a safe space," he said, pointing the cord at Alan. "Now get out and close the tarp behind you."
Alan did as told, but kept his camera up and clicking at a laughing Ray as he backed out of the room, not stopping until the flap of tarp hid him from view. Standing in the hallway, Alan scrolled through the pictures with a smile as the sound of the whining sander filled the air.
*
"Ahhh!" Marge said, stretching out her back with her hands in the air beside the line of seat covers hanging on the clothesline. "I haven't cleaned like that since I was a girl, and Mama was expecting the church ladies over for tea."
"Sorry," Alan said, coming over with another basket of laundry. "I didn't mean to make you clean on your vacation."
"You didn't make me do nothing I didn't want to do," Marge said, dropping her hands to clasp them behind her head. She looked up at him in the fading daylight. "How are you feeling, hon?"
"Good," Alan said, with a deep breath and exhale. "I feel good. She would have preferred it clean, anyway."
Coming up behind him, Noah clapped his son on the shoulder. "And God help you if it wasn't. Come on," he said. "Hard work deserves a hard reward. Let's head to Benchley's for dinner. My treat."
"We'll catch up," Alan said. Glancing back into the house, where the sander still whined distantly, he added, "You know Ray won't stop until he's at least put down the first coat."
"Don't take too long," Marge said, walking up the stairs and passing him into the house. "I'll get Jeff and the girls."
Showered and changed, they piled into Noah's red truck, and drove off into the sunset in a cloud of dust.
As the sun's rays lengthened, and the wall sconces came on in the living room, Alan lifted the tarp and looked into the empty room, swirling with wood dust. The sander slowly grew quiet with a last whine of machinery, and Ray looked up through dusty googles.
"How's she look?" he called, voice muffled by the rag over his nose and mouth.
"Better than when Pa does it," Alan replied, his own face covered. "He wants to take us into town for dinner."
"I want to put a coat down first."
Alan chuckled. "That's what I said. I told him we'd catch up."
"You should go," Ray said. "They're family."
"So are you."
In the act of rubbing his gloved fingers over his goggles, Ray paused and looked up. Across the room, sugar-colored eyes met his, then smiled. "It'll go faster with two of us," he said. "I'll get the mop."
Ray watched him duck back out the tarp flap, the look in those eyes and the unexpected words making his heart thump wildly in his chest.
It took about another hour to clean up the dust, lay down the first coat of floor polish, then get cleaned up themselves. Outside by the tan truck, Ray whistled for Bear, but the dog only ambled out to the porch and laid down with a large, face stretching yawn.
"Looks like it's just us," Alan said, getting into the passenger side.
"I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of offended he doesn't want to go," Ray said, getting behind the wheel.
Alan laughed. "I'm here," he said.
"Eh..." Ray said, then laughed as Alan hit him in the chest.
Ray guided the truck down the drive and onto the empty road, headlights sweeping the asphalt but hardly piercing the endless dark fields beyond. Rolling down the windows, they propped their elbows on the edge, letting the cool evening air blow across their faces and ruffle their hair as they cruised along the empty stretch of road.
"New jacket?" Alan asked, glancing at Ray, dressed himself in a cream-colored sweater under a brown jacket, his hair still wet from his shower.
"New everything," Ray said. "Had to replace most of my clothes this winter. What do you think?" he asked, touching the front of the dark green shirt under a thick black canvas jacket, his own black hair fringing over his right eyebrow. "Keeping in mind I'm already wearing it and the only feedback I had was your Pa."
"My Ma always taught me if I can't say something nice..." Alan said, laughing when Ray reached out to hit him.
"Hurt my feelings," Ray said, hitting him again.
"Sorry," Alan said. Still smiling, he bit his bottom lip, looking at Ray's profile in the passing cones of streetlight, at his dimpled smile and the fluttering hair alternatingly in shadow and light. "Hey, pull over for a second."
"Why?" Ray asked. "I told you to go before we left the house. You're worse than Bear."
"Just do it."
With both hands on the wheel, Ray guided the truck to the side of the road, coasting to a stop at the base of a telephone pole, in the intersecting cones of light from two lampposts in front and behind. They were the only ones on the empty road. Surrounded by endless dark fields, they were the only ones in the world.
Ray cut the engine. He looked over at Alan and met gleaming sugar-colored yes in the dark of the truck. Under the fireworks last July, he had seen the kiss coming, but tonight, as Alan leaned over and took his lips, he was completely caught off guard.
Suddenly the night air wasn't chilly anymore. It was blazing with the scorching heat of summer.