White Pine: Part 1
It'd been almost a year now since I first freed the photo albums and my mother's self portrait from Unit #16. After that day Martha and I parted ways, and soon after she retired to live down South with her children. Every now and again I would hear from her, but our conversations always seemed to fizzle out before we hit the five minute mark.
I did not move away from Maine. I stayed close after eighteen, never more than a day's travel from the Unit. I can't explain why. I know most folks my age cannot wait to leave their hometown, to go out and explore the world, be their own person. For me I felt the opposite, as if I needed to stay to be my own person. My curiosity anchored me, and it didn't feel right to leave - not yet.
I met Grace - who always joked her name should've been 'saving'- at the first job I landed. Grace was a waitress in her early forties, but had the energy of a twenty year old. She radiated positivity and can-do attitude, all of which was accentuated by her brilliant smile and thick braided hair that flowed down past her bellybutton. She loved to talk customers heads off, and when that wasn't enough she talked off mine.
Grace and I worked the night shift, relegated for those with no immediate family to go home to. During the long nights we became fast friends. A conversation with Grace was 80% talking and 20% full body gestures. The woman simply could not sit still. I did my best to understand her and in her own way she did the same toward me. Grace, however was equipped with impressive intuition that I was never blessed with. Instead I relied on my brash inquisitiveness and wit to get the answers I wanted.
Grace only asked me once about my family after she had commented on wanting to purchase a locket like mine for a friends birthday. I told her I got it from my mother but when she asked if I could find what store she purchased it from I shook my head.
After that we didn't bring my family up much, I suppose her intuition told her it wasn't something I was ready to share. It wasn't that I didn't trust Grace, I did. It was that I felt some sort of instinctual protection over Unit #16 and my mother. Her story wasn't a commodity to be shared at dinner parties or thrown around to win me pity. I felt uncomfortable sharing her storm in part- or in whole - because it was so incomplete. Not only was a piece missing, but so was the whole middle of the puzzle - hell I didn't even have all the edge pieces put together. How was I to explain that?
When June rolled around, less than a year after Grace and I met, she surprised me with an invitation to come to her house for cake. I didn't remember telling her my birthday, but then again I wasn't surprised she'd made it her mission to find out, either by intuition or more likely, sneaking a peek at my I.D while I was waiting tables.
It was dark when we left work, but I'd gotten used to being greeted by the moon. We drove to the rural, yet famous part of town, known for its breathtaking hiking trails and local artisans that line the sparse route. I'd ridden my bike to this side of town only a few times before on my off days. It was the older side, where there were less cars, as a result of narrow cobbled streets. All of the vendors and artist galleries were closed now with several of them featuring signs in colorful scripts proclaiming such. I watched contently as the dimly lit buildings flew by enjoying the feeling of the cool spring air from my opened window.
A slight bump indicated the end of the brick road as we eased into a newly paved route leading into a tunnel of dense fir trees. I had never been this far out of town and contently watched the moon flicker in and out from behind the massive tree line as Grace performed both sides of a duet to the car radio.
Five minutes later we rounded the corner from behind a massive pine tree, and that's when I saw it. A humongous Tudor style building. I snuck a glance at Grace, but said nothing as we passed a simple wooden sign with the words "White Pine Bed 'n' Breakfast" etched and painted in white.
I thought she was joking as we parked the car a few feet from the sign.
"I thought you worked here." I asked getting out of the car to get a better view of the house.
Grace had mentioned her second job a few times on slow nights at the restaurant, but never had she mentioned its magnificence. From what I could see in the near midnight hour, the main building stood in front of a line of pine trees that towered above its pointed roofs. Vines crept up the first story of rock and continued up to the windows of the second, almost concealing its white facade. Attached to the main building on the right side, closest to me was a small addition that with a screen door, and a wall of windows that peeked into the otherwise dark house. A single light above the wooden door was encased in a lantern, causing the bulb to emit a darker glow.
"I bought it last week." She answered wiggling her eyebrows while she flashed me a giant smile, her pristine white teeth contrasting her shadowed face.
I let out puff of air and looked back at the way we had come. On the other side of the graveled driveway were four small cabins placed evenly in a large open green space lined with more pine trees at their back. Each with a simple wooden porch facing the empty green space spreading over an acre long. The moon seemed to sit directly over the field and for a moment I had to resist the urge to pull away from Grace and lay in the grass amidst her glow.
"Can't eat your cake out here." Grace called from the main doorway, pulling my attention back to the building.
Two concrete steps led up to the front door made of thick wood, clearly an original aspect of the home. Judging from the solid stone and brick walls and creeping ivy the Bed n' Breakfast had to be more than fifty years old – at the least.
The inside of the house was bare, but no less magnificent.
"It's a bit of a fixer upper, and the old folks- the owners before- took a lot of the decoration they had in here." She explained gesturing her hand at the blank walls.
A grand staircase stood before us at the end of the foyer and led up to a railed walkway that then disappeared into the rest of the house. There were only two doors that you could see from the foyer, each with a different number.
Three door less arches led deeper into the house, one at each end of the stairs. The one at the left I assumed to lead into the addition I noticed while outside while the one at the right was too dark to see into. The last was close to the house entrance, a skinny unlit hallway ran forty feet into the shadows.
"I have an offer for you May." My coworkers voice dropped to a serious tone as she reached out to place her hand on my shoulder. She allowed a long pause as both our eyes roamed the bones of the home.
What could she possibly want from me?
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