Patricia Forsythe - At Odds With The Midwife

“Nathan wants to sell it. Apparently, the house actually belonged to his mom. When she passed away, she left it to him and it’s been sitting empty since his dad disappeared. I told him I’d look the place over and give him an estimate on what I think it might sell for.”

Lisa swung out of the car and opened the back door to tug out a fat briefcase and a big, black binder. “Although I don’t know what I’m going to use for comparative prices. This town isn’t exactly a hotbed of real estate activity and there aren’t too many houses like this one that come on the market. Even in this run-down state, it’s worth more than all the other houses on the block combined. Did you know the foyer is white Carrara marble? Of all things to find in rural Oklahoma.”

Belatedly, she seemed to realize that Gemma hadn’t moved a muscle.

Lisa leaned in and gave her a puzzled look. “Come on, let’s go.”

Gemma responded with a big smile. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Are you crazy? You’ll roast!”

“It’s not that hot.”

“Come on. Aren’t you curious to see inside the Smiths’ house?”

“Not really,” Gemma murmured as she joined her friend on the sidewalk.

Lisa held up her cell phone and took a picture of the front of the house before they walked through the sagging wrought iron gate and up the cracked sidewalk. Grass poked through—brave little spikes of spring in an otherwise lifeless landscape.

The general air of neglect was depressing. The front flowerbeds, which had once held Mrs. Smith’s prize roses, overflowed with dead plants.

“Going to need a major cleanup before it goes on the market,” Lisa said, stepping up to knock on the door.

A few seconds later, the door swung open. “Hello, Lisa. Thanks for coming, and...oh, Gemma.” Nate’s dark gaze swept over her, from her neon green toenails, to her cargo shorts and sleeveless Hawaiian-print camp shirt, to the loose swirl of hair she’d pinned atop her head.

He was struggling to control his expression. “Hello,” he finally said, stepping back.

She took off her sunglasses and perched them atop her head as she gave him a friendly nod.

Lisa strolled inside, seeming not to notice the tension between the other two.

“Gemma and I were on the way to the birthing center so she can show me around, but I knew you were expecting me to stop by this morning.” Lisa looked over the foyer as she set her binder and briefcase by the door. “Okay if I take some pictures?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but strolled away, drawn into the once-magnificent home and toward the dining room. “Kitchens and bathrooms,” she called over her shoulder. “That’s what sells houses. Kitchens and bathrooms.” She disappeared around the corner.

Gemma and Nathan stood awkwardly for a moment before she pointed to his hand. “How is the cut this morning?”

“Better. It’ll heal.”

Since that topic of conversation had gone nowhere, she looked around at the nearly empty living room. A huge, clean rectangle of hardwood floor was bordered with scuffed dirt where a rug had obviously been rolled up and taken away.

“Looks like you’re clearing things out.”

“Yes. I sold all the furniture to a secondhand store over in Toncaville. Now I’m dealing with the smaller items—and the dirt.” He bent slightly to dust off the knees of the faded jeans he wore with an old blue T-shirt and battered sneakers. He reached up to smooth his mussed hair and came away with a cobweb. “And the spiders,” he added.

“I ran in to a bunch of those at my place, too. I didn’t mind too much until they tried to join me in the shower.”

“If I lived here, I’d have to pay rent to the spiders to even use the shower.”

She smiled, feeling an easing of the tension, and walked over to examine a grouping of family pictures on the wall. Most of them were formal family portraits, everyone looking stiff and awkward. Gemma studied the faces of Nate’s parents, both of them serious, almost grim. She could see Nate reflected in each of their faces, but staring at his father, she wondered what was on the man’s mind. Was he even then siphoning money from an institution that was so vital to the community where he lived? She had no answer, so she turned her attention to the other photos. A few were snapshots of Nathan as a small boy, alone, or with an older girl. In one photo, he appeared to be about two and she held him on her hip with one arm and tickled him with her other hand. It was a happy, spontaneous contrast to the other pictures, but somehow it made her sad.

Gemma frowned, trying to pinpoint the reason for her sudden melancholy. “That was your sister, Mandy, wasn’t it? I remember that she was very beautiful, and—”

“And she died when I was twelve.” Nathan stepped forward and took the picture from the wall. He pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiped the picture clean and then placed it inside an open box on the floor.

“I know. I’m very sorry. I remember she used to come to our place and hang out with my mother.”

Nate frowned at her. “What? When?”

Gemma paused to think. “It must have been during her senior year in high school. You and I were in second grade. I remember seeing her and my mom out in the garden, and sometimes working in the kitchen. I think Mom taught her to bake bread.”

Nate didn’t respond but stood looking down at the photo he’d placed in the box.

“Is something wrong, Nate?”

“No. No. It’s ancient history now.”

Lisa called to him from the kitchen and he left Gemma standing where she was, gazing at the family pictures and thinking that even ancient history never really disappeared.

* * *

NATE STOOD BY the picture window in the living room and watched as Gemma and Lisa headed toward Lisa’s sporty little car. As they climbed in, Lisa said something that had Gemma throwing back her head and laughing as she tugged open the door and dropped into the seat. He tucked his hands into his back pockets and let his shoulders relax as he watched the curve of her neck and the way her ponytail bounced.

Gemma was everything this house wasn’t—warm, inviting, happy. Somehow, having her here, if even for a short time, had made the place even more depressing.

As they drove away, he turned back to the living room, his gaze going to the wall of family pictures—although, in his mind, family hardly described the people who had lived in this house, especially after Mandy’s death. He and his parents had been like three separate planets, each in their own orbit, never touching, rarely interacting. The Smiths had been the exact opposite of the Whitmires, whom he had often seen together in town—a tight, happy little unit of three. He remembered watching them with longing, wanting what they had, knowing he would never have it.

Mandy must have wanted the same thing. He hadn’t known she was close to the Whitmires. It ate at his gut to know she’d had a whole life, areas of interest he hadn’t known about, but he’d only been a kid, so how could he have known? He wondered if his parents knew. Maybe, judging by the frequent negative comments his mother had made about the “hippie crazies.”

Nate shook his head, pulling himself back from the past, where he’d been too often since returning home. Whatever happened now, it was up to him to create it. He had a huge job before him and it would be helped along by selling this mausoleum. Who knew? Maybe it would be purchased by a happy family with parents who didn’t mind how much noise a kid made running up the stairs, or building some crazy construction in the backyard.

Cheered by the thought, he turned toward the staircase and the last of the stored items he needed to sort through. There were a few sealed boxes in his mother’s closet that he would have to look at someday. They probably contained nothing more than old business papers, but maybe there was some family history that might actually spark a sense of family in him. He snorted aloud, marveling at his need to be proud of people he’d made a point of not obsessing over.