Salt & Flowers: Chapter Fourteen

Samantha preps the house, tells multiple people she has things under control. But the power goes out, the garden—and maybe the house—starts coming apart in the dark, and the cat does not come when the fancy food is scraped into the floral dish. You know what it means when George skips a meal…

As she watched the colorful spiral inching northward on her tiny phone screen, Samantha spent the day preparing.

She was feeling quite proud of herself by the time she finished her storm preparation list. Beneath a weirdly lemon sky and with an already churning sea as the background music, she’d dragged all of the new patio furniture into the empty bay of the carriage house, moved the urns into the potting shed using a dolly she’d discovered in said carriage house (which would have been useful for the first step), taken down hanging plants and string lights, brought in cushions, filled up the bathtubs… She’d even patiently waited in line at the crowded and tense general store for a few supplies.

When she returned home, there was an eerie sense of wrongness to the property. The birds were gone, she realized. There were no songbirds, no calling or swooping gulls. They clearly knew the storm was almost upon them. Smart creatures.

With a new sense of urgency, she located all of the flashlights, batteries, and candles she could find. With her fully charged power bank, she was feeling pretty pleased with herself. She and George were stocked up, no matter what the next few days would bring.

She’d already talked her parents down twice from the ledge of making the drive northward—or her driving back to Boston and abandoning ship—when her phone buzzed again. She sighed, thinking they’d be going another round, when she saw that it was Murphy.

She’d spent the entire day not thinking about him while still completely surrounded by him. Every corner of the garden held memories of him, and more recently, of them.

Bracing herself, she looked at her phone.

I heard about the storm from my old neighbor at the RV park. I’m on my way back. Almost to the Vermont border, ETA 2hrs.

She pictured him bingeing a mystery podcast, which he’d told her he tended to do on his long drives, and tuning out the world completely. Forgetting her.

He hadn’t said goodbye. In the few moments that she’d given in to thinking about him, she’d worried about him in the campground in his tin can of an Airstream. Had considered texting him, even if she was still angry. After all, how did an RV hold up to hurricane-force winds? But it turned out he was already long gone. Riding the flare of hurt, she began typing.

Don’t bother, I’m fine.

Then, knowing that he’d be tempted to save her anyway, she added for good measure: Please don’t come. It’s better this way.

It was the exact opposite of what she was actually feeling.

Her phone buzzed again.

Okay. Urns and porch furniture in the carriage house. Fill the tub. Charge your phone.

She felt a flash of irritation. Already done.

Of course. You’re you.

Then a pause.

I’m just worried.

She watched the three dots appear and disappear for a while, but she didn’t answer.

Well. She typed a much longer reply (in her notes app; she wasn’t a fool) as she stood leaning against the linoleum counter in the kitchen as the sky began to darken prematurely in the mid-afternoon. She was already feeling a bit like she’d been hasty and unfair.

Something about Bradley broke the part of me that wants things for myself. Wanting something for myself was how I got robbed.

She huffed in frustration as she read what she’d written. Deleted it.

I drove to the village and got that folder the morning after we kissed because it was the first thing that felt real in years and it terrified me, because it wasn’t real. You were just playing pretend for Maude and her friends. I usually have an exit strategy, but this time, I never actually signed the agreement. I held it for six weeks and didn’t truly make a plan. You didn’t ask me why.

This time, she looked at what she read and closed her eyes briefly. Closed the note. It was filed where it belonged, between her master to-do list and a long text (email? novel?) to her mother detailing everything Bradley had done—with receipts—that she also hadn’t sent.

But it would all keep.

With that thought and nothing left to do to prepare, she moved to the parlor and curled up under her favorite blanket on the sofa. She began to play The Princess Diaries (her emotional support movie) and tried not to think of the garden—or the man who’d helped her bring it back to life—as the rain began to fall in an unrelenting sheet outside the windows.

It was only when the lights flickered a little while later, and her feet were a little cold, that she realized she hadn’t seen George since she got back from the village.

She tried to approach the next moments rationally and not panic as she looked out the window. She couldn’t even see what the world was doing in the dark, but she knew from auditory clues that the rain lashed down and the wind roared.

She absolutely did not want to go out in the storm. Probably should not.

But for George? She closed her eyes as she realized just how completely she’d fallen for that damn cat. If she weren’t so worried, she’d laugh at herself for ever pretending she was going to bring him to the ASPCA.

I’ll start inside. She forced herself to calm as her heart pounded uncomfortably. Go to the second floor and work my way down.

As she made her way up the stairs, the lights flickered again. She was halfway up, peeking through the leaded-glass window for a sign of his white fur in the floodlit yard (she saw nothing except for a lot of madly waving tree limbs) when the lights flickered again, came back on, then went out completely.

For the first time, she felt uneasy in the house as she made her way back down to the kitchen for the flashlight. Unlike the horror trope of intense cold, the warmth of the kitchen felt ominous to her—heady, humid, and oppressive like the storm outside.

She switched on the flashlight and swept it around the kitchen with unease. She almost jumped as the beam caught a reflection on the aluminum lid of George’s fancy cat food. Through the haze of adrenaline, a thought surfaced. Bingo.

She opened the food with slow relish, and with exaggerated scraping, she decanted the foul-smelling stuff in his floral dish.

Still, he did not appear.

She closed her eyes as she felt the first sting of tears. Usually, he somehow appeared the moment she had the thought to feed him.

Fact: George was a cat.

Fact: George was not even technically her cat. He was Ida’s cat, and then the house’s cat, it seemed, and would be staying with the house no matter what she decided.

Fact: somewhere between June and now, Samantha had also somehow come to belong to the house, and the cat.

George had witnessed every moment of her unmaking and remaking into someone new. He’d been there for every version of her this summer, usually watching from an elevated surface with habitual disdain. He had led her to ringing telephones, heartbreaking photos, and sat on paperwork, displaying an intent that went beyond ordinary cat behavior. He had cuddled with her and made endless biscuits on her legs. He had both judged her and comforted her. George was the first thing in years she could admit to herself that she loved without an exit strategy.

“This is my Breakfast at Tiffany’s moment,” she said aloud to the empty kitchen as she furiously wiped her eyes. “I’ve thrown my entire life up in the air, but it’s going to be the cat that I finally go running through the rain for.”

As she went to the door to the backyard, she shone her flashlight out and exhaled at the standing water it illuminated. She turned back to begin to search for her boots and jacket—and froze. She’d heard something.

She strained to listen over the driving rain and wind whistling through the old windows.

But there it was. A very faint, but very indignant—and hungry—George meow was coming from above.

As the relief flooded her, she felt the familiar whisper of a cool breeze across the back of her neck.

Upstairs, the storm was louder. She could hear timbers in the attic groaning with the unfettered wind gusts, rain pelting the windows, a loose shutter or piece of siding beating in time steadily. Beneath it all was George, yowling insistently.

The door to Ida’s room was closed, which was unusual. She felt some trepidation as she opened the door carefully, her flashlight beam leading the way. But only George was waiting for her from within, perched on the cedar hope chest at the foot of the bed with an expression of immense impatience.

He gave another meow and went over to the closet, rather than bolting to his food dish like she’d expected. She felt the prickle of the uncanny dance up her spine as he shot his paw under the gap of the door, as if hunting for a mouse.

“George—”

But then it dawned on her, another sound to mix with the cacophony outside. Water, and it wasn’t distant. Dripping.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake...” she opened the closet door, now afraid for a different reason. The real homeowner’s nightmare.

Sure enough, as her flashlight swept the sloped corner of the closet, the beam revealed a dark, growing stain spreading down the old plaster. Of course. Somewhere, unsurprisingly, the century-old house—maybe the roof, maybe the siding—had allowed the wind-driven rain through.

As she propped up the flashlight and began toting things out from the closet into the main room, Samantha was thankful that Ida had tended toward minimalism. There were only a few garments bags, hat boxes, and a high shelf of regular boxes. She made quick work of moving them to safety, George urgently threading through her legs in a supervisory manner.

Finally, on the back of the top shelf, where the drip had almost reached, was a dark, carved wooden box. George watched her expectantly, and the tingling feeling at the back of Samantha’s neck returned. The box was heavy, but some instinct made her hold onto it as she closed the closet and followed George back down the stairs to the kitchen.

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George seemed to enjoy the ambiance of the candles Samantha lit around the room as he ate his dinner with his usual gusto. She had placed the box on the table, and she returned to it now, after pouring herself a glass of red wine. The night seemed to be calling for it.

She opened the box. On top, she found a bundle tied with a piece of satin ribbon gone tea-colored with age. It took her a moment as she took in the careful, childlike cursive letters—Ms. Ida Whitmore—laboriously written on the thin envelopes embellished with colorful leopards, kittens with huge eyes, and rainbow dolphins. Recognition dawned.

For the second time that night, she felt tears rise as she untied the ribbon and flipped through her own childhood in order. Age eight. Age nine. All the way to age twelve, by which time she’d chosen a more dignified stationery. Every letter she’d dutifully written to her pen pal, kept for almost thirty years, and tied with a bow.

She spent hours reading about her activities and accomplishments, violin lessons, equestrian, math club—updates clearly dictated by her parents, particularly her mother. She also noticed that her real personality, the things she remembered about her childhood, slipped through now and again.

I just read a really good book, but it wasn’t on the list of classics for school, so I have to read another one this month for it to count. It was about a boy who thinks he’s buying a marble from a magic shop, but then it hatches, and he realizes it was a dragon’s egg! I really want a pet. Have you ever thought about getting a cat? I really want one, but mom says that dad’s allergic. I don’t think he actually is, though. A dragon would be even better. No fur! ; )

I’m finally taking art classes this spring!!! I’m so excited! I got to give up math club, which I really hate. Math. is. the. Worst. I hope that I can come visit you at the ocean this summer. It’s my favorite place in the world! I can’t wait to smell the flowers and collect seashells on the beach. Maybe I’ll even know how to paint by then, and I can paint the beach!

Beneath her own letters was another bundle, much larger—a lifetime’s worth, which filled the rest of the box. There were dozens of letters, on much nicer, heavier paper. Some of them had vintage stamps, but none were canceled. Every single one was addressed in Ida’s angular and increasingly shaky hand. Mrs. Maude Aldrich. Not a single one was opened, had ever been sent. Samantha set them aside.

Below the bundle, at the very bottom of the box, were a couple of loose items.

The first was a photograph. Samantha examined it in the candlelight. It was Ida, alone. She was sitting on a porch swing on what appeared to be this porch, a swing Samantha vaguely remembered at the edges of her memory that was no longer there. Ida faced the water, her hands on her lap. It had to have been taken years ago, and she already looked old. It wasn’t just a sad photo, its relation to the other items in the box somehow made it feel worse.

She felt around for the final item in the box, pulled it out. Her heart picked up speed at the heavy cream envelope with her own name in angular, shaky script.

For Samantha.

The storm raged around the house. George had finished eating and arranged himself by her feet, even though she knew he wanted to be up on the table. Because he had scared her, and it comforted them both, she blew out the candles, picked him up and made her way to the sofa with the letter still in hand.

She propped up her flashlight on throw pillows, snuggled into the squishy sofa with the squishy, purring cat on her chest, and began to read.

Samantha read the letter twice. The second time, she both laughed and cried on the postscripts. George nuzzled her arm, firmly. Fueled by multiple glasses of red wine she’d somehow consumed, an adrenaline hangover, and pure emotion, Samantha picked up her phone and began to text.

The storm continued on for some time. As she drifted off, Samantha heard and somehow saw the garden being unmade. The tearing sound of the arbor lifting from the ground. The crack of a limb falling onto their refurbished fountain. All the beautiful, colorful zinnias and dahlias drowned and toppled.

But it was hard to know if it was real or just a dream, because at some point the wind changed from a thing of malice to just weather, and eventually just stopped.

Dawn rose the color of an oyster shell.

Samantha saw it blearily through the window as the corded antique phone rang on the table near her pounding head. George bonelessly slid off her and onto the sofa as she got up and reached, reluctant to leave his warm spot.

“Hello?” Even after she answered, the phone was still ringing in her head.

“You’re alright, then,” Maude’s almost midatlantic accent sounded surreal to her aching brain.

“In a manner of speaking. The house is still standing. But the garden...” Samantha peered out the picture window, saw limbs and other fallen brush and closed her eyes. She couldn’t do a full inventory just yet.

“It’s all been through worse. The garden will come back.” Maude said it pragmatically, but not unkindly. “I heard you had no power down that way, but I knew the old phone lines almost always work—”

“Maude.” Samantha’s hand had found the large pile of ribboned letters from the table beside her. “I found something that I need to give you.”