“Yes, please. I have quite a load this time. I might have to make your house my base, taking over your guest room. How do you feel about that?”
She felt all warm and lovely inside. “Nothing could make me happier, Auntie.”
“Wonderful! I promise not to get underfoot.”
Whatever words we utter should be chosen
with care for people will hear them and be
influenced by them for good or ill.
—Gautama Buddha
LEIGH HAD SEEN her aunt Helen several times since moving to Timberlake but only twice had Helen come to Timberlake. Last fall Helen visited and she was very preoccupied with the colorful leaves, plus she was finishing a book. Book deadlines always left Helen a bit antisocial and holed up with the final manuscript. Leigh was excited to introduce Helen to her new friends and colleagues.
This visit would be extended, at least until Helen grew restless. It was obvious when Leigh picked her up and filled the car with boxes and suitcases that she was planning on staying awhile.
“Wait till you watch the news,” Helen said, beaming. “They’re expecting another crippling snowstorm in the Midwest! And I’ll be here!” Then she giggled.
“When will you be traveling next?” Leigh asked Helen when they were on the road back to Timberlake.
“There’s a conference in New York at the end of May, just for a few days. Then I’m going to San Francisco in July. Maureen has a lovely little guesthouse and I can stay as long as I like. I wish you could get away for a little while. We could do the town.”
“We’ll see,” Leigh said. “Maybe I can take a couple of days. I do love Maureen and I haven’t seen her in a long time. But I’m needed here. These people depend on me and it feels...” She smiled. “It feels so good.”
“You’ve gotten so mellow since you’ve come here,” Helen said.
“The quiet and slower pace suits me,” Leigh said. “I was afraid I’d be bored. I’m not.”
“Have you made many friends?” Helen asked.
“There are some. The fire department is across the street and those guys hang around the clinic sometimes. They bring their families to me and sometimes include me in their get-togethers. There are a couple of other medical practices nearby—a pediatrician and an orthopedist—we’re friendly. There’s a neurosurgeon I’ve gotten to know—Maggie. She goes to Denver three days a week for her practice. We’re friends and her sister-in-law, wife of one of the paramedics, has become a friend. Maggie’s dad, Sully, has a great camping outpost on a lake nearby—he’s everyone’s friend.”
“And you’re skiing?” Helen asked.
“Not much beyond the few lessons I took last winter. I went with Maggie’s other sister-in-law, Sidney. This time I’m going to make sure you meet some of these people. You’ll get such a kick out of Sidney. She’s an amazing woman—consults in quantum physics at UCLA. She and her husband are going to move to Boulder at the end of the summer. She’s taking a position at the university and her husband is going to get his teaching certificate. Apparently he’s always wanted to teach high school.”
“I hope he’s got nerves of steel,” Helen said.
“You loved teaching,” Leigh said.
“My current job is much more flexible.”
“After we get all of your luggage sorted out, we’ll go and get something to eat. There’s a little pub in town owned by a guy I know—Sid’s brother, Rob. It’s kind of lively on Saturday nights, especially during spring break, and it’s always spring break somewhere. But I’d like you to meet him. He asked me out on a date. I patched up his son after an accident.”
“Did you go?” Helen asked.
“It’s for tomorrow night. I’m going to introduce you, tell him you’ve come for a visit, and I’m sure he’ll invite you to join us.”
“Have you been seeing him long?”
“No, Auntie—he just asked me. First date, though I’ve known him since I moved here. I think he’s just being neighborly because I put stitches in his son’s hand.”
“What a crock,” Helen said. “If he was thanking you for the stitches, he’d give you a plant or fruit basket. This sounds like a real date. I’ll look him over, and if I like what I see, I won’t join you.” Then she smiled her dazzling smile.
Leigh thought Helen was beautiful. She hoped to be that attractive and youthful looking at sixty-two. Leigh sometimes worried that Helen had never married because of her. As far as Leigh could remember, Helen hadn’t even hinted that she had any interest in a love life until Leigh was in college. After Leigh’s breakup with Johnny, during one of their teary heart-to-heart talks, Helen admitted that some of her many evenings with friends or book club nights or faculty meetings had actually been dates. But none of the men were ever all that serious, not much more than friends.
Helen was tall at five foot eight, her back straight and her head held high. She kept her hair colored a rich dark brown; she was trim and athletic. She was just beginning to show the true signs of aging, laugh lines around her mouth and crow’s-feet around at her eyes, but these little things did nothing to diminish her attractiveness. She had a beautiful, joyful smile. She didn’t look like a woman trying to appear thirty-five, not at all. She looked exactly like who she was—an honest, vibrant, healthy sixty-two. She loved her age and was reaching it with grace and humor. Leigh wanted to be just like her.
Together they unloaded Helen’s luggage and got her partially settled in the guest room. Leigh hadn’t had time to set up a work space in that room for her, since she arrived so quickly. “Just as well,” Helen said. “I’m going to want a small bookcase and a worktop of some kind. Maybe a sturdy folding table or maybe a desk—not a fancy desk. Just a place for notebooks, Post-its, those little things that keep me organized. The boxes contain office supplies—from printer to pens. I don’t actually sit at a desk to work and we don’t work off hard copy anymore—it’s always on the computer screen. I like to move around a lot, sometimes sitting on the porch, sometimes in a cozy chair, sometimes at the kitchen table. Sometimes in a coffee shop or bar.”
“Make this room any way you like,” Leigh said. “I want this to be your house, too. I want you to spend as much time here as you want. If you decide to stay for months or even years, that would make me so happy. If you just want to visit, I understand.”
“I’m going to stay a good long time while I look this place over,” Helen said. “Then we’ll see.”
The pub was warm and woody and the place was hopping, laughter ringing out from the busy bar area. It looked to be populated mostly with college students. They were supposed to be over twenty-one but who knew how many fake IDs were floating around the room.
“Let’s see if we can get a table or booth that’s a little away from the bar,” Leigh said.
“Why are there so many young people here?” Helen asked. “Skiing is over, isn’t it? Please tell me it’s over.”
“It’s almost May, it’s pretty slim pickings even at the higher elevations,” Leigh said. “But the trails and rock climbing all around us call to these young people. A lot of them come here to camp, hike, bike and climb.”
“Let’s spend spring break in Timberlake, Colorado? That can’t sound too exciting on the campuses in the north. I thought the kids all went to Florida,” Helen said. “Or Mexico.”