Listening for footsteps to fall inside the cottage, Gabriel turned to look across at the church.
As a child, Gabriel had played in that field on Sundays. He remembered running all the way up to the road and looking across at the cottage tucked neatly amongst the trees, with its storybook high-pitched roof that sloped sharply downward on either side, curling toward the bottom like sections of a roller coaster. The windows were tall and narrow, rounding into arches at the top with shutters that looked like they could be pulled into place and latched to keep out the storms or hangry trolls.
Gabriel had believed that a good witch had lived here. Not like the one in the pink dress in The Wizard of Oz, but maybe like the one on TV with a wiggling nose and the nice smile.
In the front yard of the cottage, he remembered that, like today, it became magical with spring and summer flowers.
Gabriel’s mother wasn’t a flower person, and, other than zinnias, didn’t know what they were called. But when the wind swept a fragrance across the fields, Daniel would ask old Mrs. Normans what that smell was, and Gabriel had listened attentively.
Mrs. Normans knew all the flowers and seemed glad she was asked. That’s how Gabriel started to put together the smell of lilac with the tall trees draped in purple, and the scent of roses—beach roses? Bench roses? Bench might make more sense since they were a good car’s drive to the Chesapeake Bay. He’dthought the space in the shade beside the roses looked like a good spot to put a couple of chairs, sit out reading or playing a game of go-fish, surrounded by all those yummy smells.
Girly smell.
When no one came to the door, Gabriel resisted looking in the window. He glanced at Whiskey to see if she heard anything.
Whiskey was all nose, standing there chuffing the scent of garden flowers.
Gabriel remembered thinking as a boy that it was a woman’s house with women’s smells.
Isn't that funny, he thought, turning to tap three times again with the knocker; his memories of this house were probably why he always bought his girlfriends rose-scented perfumes as an adult.
“No one’s here,” Gabriel said as he turned away and stepped back onto the front path.
He stopped with his hand on the gate.
The rose bush came up to Gabriel’s head. When he was a boy, this bush had been covered in bees. It had so many bees that if he stood quietly on the other side of the road, and the wind was just right, they could hear the buzz.
Mrs. Normans said that the woman who lived in that house had been her friend when she was a young mother, and that those bees would make the most delicious honey from the rose nectar.
He rounded out of the garden, walking past the row of hydrangeas not yet in bloom. He liked them because they were a riotous mix of hot pink and purply blue, and he had a picture book with that kind of flower.
When he was five – maybe six – their babysitter hadn’t minded reading that story over and over and over—all night if he wanted.
Gabriel liked to hear his favorite stories on repeat as a child, but his parents would complain of boredom.
“If you want to hear a story, you’re going to have to pick a new book.” It was a phrase he remembered well because it came with a sense of disappointment.
Soon Gabriel discovered that if he wanted to stay with the characters for a while, his parents didn’t need to read the same book on repeat; they could read chapter books to him instead. Each night another chapter, each night he’d have fun with the literary friends he was enjoying. Everyone was relieved—except Daniel, who was still too young to keep the plot going in his head. So before one of the parents wandered into their room before lights out, Gabriel had taken to reviewing the story and talking about the book with Daniel. They’d talk about what they would have done, what they’d learned from what happened, how to avoid the mistakes, and mostly how to be heroic.
Being heroic had been their childhood goal. It was a pact they’d made with each other—to go on adventures and protect the vulnerable from evil.
It was a calling Gabriel thought of as he joined the military after the Army tested his athleticism and smarts and offered him a Ranger track.
Daniel followed.
Equally athletic and strategic, Gabriel had no idea how Daniel got slotted for mechanical work.
Their mother didn’t often get sentimental enough to talk about the dangers of being at war, but she had told Gabriel that while she was proud of the work he did, she wished he were doing something safer at the base, like Daniel.
Surely his mom met Daniel in the light and understood that, in fact, the base ended up being the thing that killed Daniel, and he might have been safer facing bullets and IEDs.
That is,ifDaniel went toward the light the way their grandparents had said it was supposed to happen, and not the way Daniel had sworn, with curled pinkies and a heartfelt promise that he would do his part and hang out as a ghost until they were able to go across together.
This errand had been a sentimental cudgel.
Grief reared her powerful head.
He had to stand there, at the corner of Sommer’s house, figuring out how to contain all those emotions for the walk home.
