Elsa stared at the underside of the canopy above the bed and thought of the woman who had slept here, alone, her husband occupying the room across the hall. The one that once had been the nursery. Not for the first time, she wished she had known Birdie better while she still lived.
She wished she had been able to honor Birdie’s wishes and hand the aviary to the Petrovics.
Regret made a terrible bedfellow.
Eventually giving up on sleep, Elsa wiggled out of her sleepingbag to make herself ready for the day. It was just after six o’clock, nearly time for dawn. She might as well go outside. This would likely be the only sunrise she’d ever spend at Elmhurst.
Careful not to disturb Luke and Tom, who slept in the parlor, Elsa let herself out the front door and took the paved stone path into the closest copse of trees. Dew beaded her shoes as she left the path and sat on a downed tree trunk. Bird vocalizations were much reduced from the spring songs that attracted mates and established territories. Still, enough made their presence known to bring a smile to Elsa’s face.
She tugged her sweater tighter around her and inhaled the sharp woodsy scent. Slowly, the indigo sky faded, and a crimson ribbon on the horizon showed between the trees. Fallen leaves carpeted the ground. Twigs snapped, and Elsa turned to find Luke approaching with one hand held behind his back.
With any luck, he’d come to surprise her with coffee, but she’d pretend not to notice for now. “Did I wake you on my way out?” she asked.
“I was already up. Mind if I join you, or do you prefer to commune with nature alone?”
“Nature is better when shared.” She patted the trunk next to her.
He paused a few feet away from her. “I brought you something. Close your eyes?”
She did so and could tell from the spicy smell of his shaving soap that he sat down beside her. Curiously, she did not smell any coffee.
She must have shivered, either from the chill in the air or from anticipation, because she felt him shift, and then he draped his jacket over her shoulders. It smelled of him and still held his warmth.
“You won’t be cold without this?” she asked.
“Nope. Here, put your arms through.”
Still not peeking, she obeyed and felt her body relax into the sudden comfort of being warm again. “Thank you. That’s so much better.”
“You’re welcome. You can open your eyes, just don’t look behind you yet, okay? First, I wanted to tell you that I took your advice. Yesterday morning I told my father what I told yours at the park about my changed perspective on salvage and restoration.”
Her eyes widened. “And?”
“And I’m glad I did. So was he. Turns out, it meant more to him to hear that than I’d ever dreamed it would. All this time, he had been feeling like the family business was holding me back from bigger and better things.”
“Oh my. Did you talk and sort that out?”
“We did talk. I’d been thinking about what you said about how you’d misinterpreted your parents for years. I wanted to know if I’d done the same thing, so I asked questions I wouldn’t have otherwise. Once my mother joined the conversation, things slowly fell into place. At first, when I came to work for my father, he criticized me because, frankly, I deserved it. I had a lot to learn, and he was too raw from grief over losing Franklin to put a nice spin on the corrections I needed.”
“I can understand that. Did your mother shed any light on things?”
He nodded. “She suggested the critical spirit became not only a habit but also a defense against bonding with me too much. They both expected me to leave them to make a name for myself as an architect. I guess Father thought losing his second son that way wouldn’t hurt so much if we remained angry at each other most of the time.”
Stunned, Elsa gripped his hand. “That was a big conversation. Huge!”
He chuckled. “I’m still exhausted from it. But I am so glad my parents opened up the way they did. If Mother hadn’t chimed in,I doubt Father and I would have gotten to the root of the issue. But we did, and I have you to thank for the prompt that started it. So thank you.”
Her heart leapt. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear all this. You may not recall that the first day we met, you asked a rhetorical question about whether people could be restored the same way old buildings could be. I think the answer is yes. People can be salvaged. Relationships can be restored. We can save the beautiful that remains and build upon that, can’t we?”
His response was a smile that needed no words to improve it. “I also—I made you something. I hope you like it, and I really hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings. My only intention with this is to give you something to remind you that you don’t ever have to walk alone. I want to be the one you lean on, the one beside you. But for the times when we’re apart, I’d like you to have this. To use or just to look at if you don’t need it.”
Elsa didn’t know whether to be touched or nervous. She landed on both at once. “So it isn’t coffee?”
He chuckled. “There will be a fresh-brewed pot waiting for us back at the house after this.”
After reaching behind the trunk they sat upon, he handed her a long vertical carving of a dozen or so chickadees stacked on top of each other with the same branch winding around it beneath their feet.
“Luke,” Elsa gasped. “It’s gorgeous. Wherever did you find such a piece?”
