At least when Momma moved us out to the farm, I’d had my sisters.
“Alec lives here now,” Phee said. “It’s only appropriate he has an opportunity to learn about his new home. About our family.”
I held up a rotary dial phone in the shape of a ketchup bottle. “Our heritage.”
“Not all of the furnishings are original to the house,” Phee said stiffly. “Obviously.”
“How come the house didn’t burn down?” Alec asked. “During the Civil War?”
“The Marches were Unionists,” Phee said proudly. “Oak Hill sheltered the Union wounded after the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads. Unfortunately, that didn’t protect the contents of the house from being lost. Or looted. Or sold off.”
“My dad says it’s all just stuff.”
Phee nodded. “He’s right, of course. Nothing is as important as family. But this stuff, as you call it, is our family’s history.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Aunt Phee.”
He shot her a flickering look through long, dark lashes. A hint of a smile.
“My mother told me her great-grandmother buried the family silver rather than see it go to support the secessionist cause,” Phee said. “It’s always been up to the women in this family to preserve things.”
“Like buried treasure,” Alec said.
“Don’t encourage her,” I said. “Or she’ll make us dig holes under the rosebushes, searching for it.”
Another of those sideways smiles.
“I guess this move is pretty hard on you,” I said.
“Into the servants’ quarters?” Phee asked.
“I was talking to Alec,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m used to it. Mom’s in the army. We’ve never lived anywhere more than a couple years.”
“And I’ve never lived anywhere but here.” Phee sounded almost wistful. “Oak Hill has been in our family for almost two hundred years. We didn’t build that house. We didn’t farm this land. It exists because our family profited from the labor of others. But here we are. From my great-great-grandfather to my father to me. And now to Jo and your father and you.” Her severe face softened as she looked at Alec. “I have always loved living here. I hope you will, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Aunt Phee.”
He grinned suddenly. “Yes, Aunt Phee.”
Her answering smile was something to see.
I blinked moisture from my eyes.
“Well, don’t stand there gawking,” Phee said. “We have work to do.”
I pivoted slowly, surveying the piles. “It looks like the house threw up in here.” Spewing the contents of every closet, attic, and spare room across the carriage house floor.
With Alec’s help, I created broad areas. Consignment store. Thrift shop. Dump. We hauled and sorted, getting hotter, sweatier, and dirtier by the hour.
“I could have stayed in New York,” I muttered. “I feel like I’m on the subway.”
But every now and then a breeze would wander through the open doors, bringing with it the scent of grass and the sound of birds. Or Alec or I would uncover a treasure—a Marine Corps saber from Spain that belonged to an uncle in the First World War, a silver-backed brush from Phee’s mother’s vanity set, an oil painting from the 1920s or ’30s in the Barbizon style—and Phee would tell a story.
