We met Fred and Ben at the house. They’d found some really cool hardware and light fixtures. But, it was hard to get excited about antiques, when the here and now had so much uncovered mystery.
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I spent the morning looking over my shoulder. I didn’t know the connection, but I was putting two and two together. Whatever was going on, it had to do with why Leeanne avoided the sheriff and Skinner like the plague. I just had to make sure they didn’t catch her off guard.
Leeanne went on as if nothing was happening. After what I’d heard last night, it didn’t surprise me. She was still able to smile after all she’d been through. That required some coping skills I couldn’t even imagine.
The plaster was almost gone. I spent the morning hunting for stray nails, and scraps of the thin, wooden plaster lath that hung on to the studs. The inside of the house looked like a skeleton. The windows were arriving tomorrow and that was the next item on the agenda.
A few of the inside doors were still sticking and I was in an upstairs closet working on a door. I heard Fred and Ben in the hall outside.
“Has she told him yet?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” Fred said. “She’s so hard to read, and he’s ready to jump in and save her already, so I can’t tell.”
“I hope he stays,” Ben said.
“He’ll be okay, he’s one of the good ones,” Fred said.
I heard them walk down the hall and down the steps to the lower floor.
So, whatever it was, Fred and Ben knew. At least it sounded like they were on Leeanne’s side. I don’t know how I would have handled it otherwise.
“Well, that’s the last of the plaster,” Fred said. “Dalton, Ben and I have a little surprise for you.”
I was standing in the living room of the old house.
Outside, Ben pulled up in a four door SUV I hadn’t seen before.
“Mrs. Murphy told us about you’re being an orphan from Sisters of the Frozen Rosary, so, we thought we’d take a little road trip,” Fred said.
Ben came around to the passenger side of the SUV and opened the door. Annabelle Murphy climbed out. She came across the lawn without help. She was surprisingly active for eighty-seven.
“This,” she said. “Was the first doctor’s house in River Grove.”
She ran her hand over the fireplace mantle.
“This room was his office. I know, because, I came and sat on the exam table in front of that very window when I was pregnant with my daughter,” she said. “O.T. Robinson, good looking man, very romantic story.”
She walked over and pulled the pocket doors shut, admiring the woodwork.
“You see, this house, was started by a man named Munson. First Methodist minister in this part of the state. His congregation was so small, he had to pick up shifts in the button factory outside of town. Too bad for him, but lucky for Robinson, Munson was there on the day an explosion burned the place to the ground and he died,” she said.
Annabelle Murphy seemed to be back in time. She stood in the front window and looked out, as she continued her story.
“Widow Munson was still very young and very pretty. There used to be a portrait of her over that fireplace,” she said. “But, she had a frail constitution and losing Mr. Munson was too hard. She had a nervous breakdown and called for the doctor.”
Ben, Fred, Leeanne and I stood and listened, enjoying the story.
“He said he first saw her, lying on a fainting couch, outside that very window,” she said.
She pointed to a big window behind me. There was a side entrance door leading out to the porch right beside it.
“She was so beautiful, he knew he had to marry her the very first time he saw her. Two years later, they had their first child. Mrs. Munson insisted he move his office here from downtown, so they added that side entrance, so that patients could come and go without disturbing the family,” Annabelle said.
She looked around, seeming surprised we were all watching her.
“Well, that’s enough from a crazy old woman for one morning. Let’s get some dinner, I’m starving,” she said.
We drove to Hobart and stopped in at the Kozy Diner. The owner came over to chat with Annabelle. It seemed everyone in the area knew her.
“Well, hello, I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age,” he said.
He looked to be about ten years younger than her.
“Hello Robert,” she said. She smiled at him in a way that made me imagine they’d known each other well at one time.
“I heard you were going out to Sisters this afternoon. There’s not much left to see out there. But, old Hubble always welcomes visitors,” he said.
“And you must be Dalton West. I’ve heard good things about what you’re doing with the Robinson house. Good things. Might have to have you come and take a look at this old place when you get the time,” he said.
He offered his hand. It was frail and cold, but his grip was firm.
Sisters of the Frozen Rosary was situated much closer to River Grove, than Hobart, although the two towns were only eleven miles apart. But, Annabelle had wanted the split pea soup at the Kozy Diner.
As it turned out, the spot was close to a very familiar landmark in my life, unless my sense of direction was wrong. I was pretty sure that right over the next hill, was a barn that had held a green Volkswagen not that long ago.
It looked like every other Oklahoma farm that had been let go to seed. There was a collapsing barn, and a red brick silo. The house looked like it might still be lived in, and there was a huge pond, where I assumed, Annabelle had once been miraculously rescued.
From here, I could just make out the water tower, and one white church steeple. The Methodist church, in River Grove.
A brick paved road curved down, past the pond and up a hill on the other side to a massive scorched stone foundation. Ben pulled the SUV to a stop in front of what looked like an entrance stoop.
Fire, scavengers and time had done their job. There was almost nothing left but the massive yellow limestones, forming a huge rectangle around a flagstone floor. One huge fireplace rose at the back of the structure, it’s chimney crumbling.
My heart raced. I studied the surrounding landscape, hoping for some shred of memory, but none came.
“So, is this how you remember it?” Fred asked.
“Um, yeah, what I do remember. I was really young,” I said.
I think I was. I had to be, the place had burned twenty years ago.
Ben came over with his iPhone.
“I had a friend at the historical society send me some pictures,” he said.
I watched the screen as he scrolled through. The first few were of the fire, then there were several of a huge stone house, that would have fit this footprint exactly.
“Where did all the rock go?” I asked.
“Picked up by builders, mostly. They sold what they could of it. They wanted to start again, but almost the entire order died in the fire, along with fifteen children,” Ben said. He put a hand on my shoulder. “This must be hard for you.”
“Well, I don’t remember much, but yeah, it’s kind of emotional, I guess,” I said.
Annabelle was standing in the center of the flagstones looking up.
“From here, you could see all the way up into the bell tower. It was in the very center you know. We used to climb up and swing out on the ropes,” She said.
She smiled, turning to take it all in.
She pointed down the hill and across the pond.
“My father’s farm was just over there,” she said.
She turned the opposite direction, “The school was in that copse there, the grove of trees on the hillside,” she said.
She smiled again. I wondered. How was it that some old people had nothing but good memories, while others only seemed to hold onto the bad. She’d been through a lot, but there was no hint of bitterness, only joy.
“My father was a kind man. He bought all of this, when we could barely afford our own farm,” she said.
“That’s why we were on our way to Kansas City when the accident happened. He was going to take a job there. I’m glad I got to stay,” she said. “I just wish it had been under different circumstances.”
Ms. Murphy looked around, Ben and Fred were standing at one corner of the flagstone floor, thirty yards from Leeanne and I. She motioned me closer.
“Is this helping at all? Do you remember anything?” she asked.
I wanted to. Both for me and for her.
“Not really,” I said.
Annabelle Murphy patted my hand. She looked up at me with a twinkle.
“Don’t you worry young man,” she said. “When the universe is ready, you’ll know everything you need to know. It’s been my experience, that memories come and go in their own good time.”
I smiled. The woman was so brave. I couldn’t even imagine having a full year’s memories at this point, let alone eighty-seven years, and much of it very difficult from what I’d heard of her story. She trotted off to where Ben and Fred were standing.
The three of them moved over to the fireplace, where Annabelle talked, gesturing as she told them some other tidbit she’d remembered.
“So, nothing huh?” Leeanne said. “I envy you.”
I sighed.
“I bet you do. I’m just hoping I won’t envy me now, when I finally remember it all,” I said.
“Leeanne, Dalton, could you come over here for a minute?” Ben called. “Ms. Murphy would like to take a picture with you.”
Ben lined up his phone, while Fred directed.
“Okay, how about Dalton, you in the back. Nana on his right, here in front. Leeanne, on his left, next to Nana. Perfect,” Fred said.
“Wait, could we shift them just to the left, I want to get just a little more of that fireplace,” Ben said.
We shifted left.
“Just a smidge more,” Fred said, looking over Ben’s shoulder.
We shifted.
“Perfect,” Ben said. “I’ll text this to you when we’re back in data coverage. And for you, Nana Murphy, I’ll make a print.”
“Oh, that would be lovely, I have the perfect place to hang it,” she said.