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The Copper Box

By Suzanne J. Bratcher

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BEWARE THE WOLF IN DISGUISE.
The text message was nonsense. Marty dropped her cell phone in the pocket of her denim apron and glanced around the workshop. An armoire with a broken door loomed in the afternoon shadows. A harpsichord minus its strings languished beside a worm-damaged oak table. Dust motes floated across a stray shaft of sunlight. The mingled odors of beeswax and turpentine tickled her nose. Out in the parking lot, a car door slammed. But not a creature stirred, certainly not a wolf. The text was a wrong number. It had to be.

Marty picked up the steel wool and went back to cleaning the 1850s blanket chest. It was a simple, six-board design, but the wood was cherry instead of the usual pine. The crack in the top looked worse than it was. As she worked, she let her imagination wander. She could envision the scene now. A middle-aged man with kind brown eyes and a beard streaked with gray working on a raw cherry board with a smoothing plane, joyful because his daughter was about to marry her young man or melancholy because his son was moving his family out West.

Her cell phone vibrated on the worktable. She ignored it. Probably not a good idea; the signal didn’t have to mean another text. It could just as easily mean a call from a client. Marty picked up the phone. Another text.

TAKE SPECIAL CARE TODAY. BEWARE THE WOLF IN DISGUISE.

A prank. A prank that was wasting time. She typed. WRONG NUMBER.But her reply bounced back. SENDER BLOCKED.

Marty didn’t have time for games. She powered off the phone. She would respond to missed calls, legitimate calls, after she finished work.

Marty dipped a slender brush in wood glue and began to spread it along the edges of the split. Easy to turn off the phone. Not so easy to get her mind off the text. Who would send her such a message? Wolf in disguise could mean only one thing. But after the fiasco with Ted, she had let her friends know she was taking a break from dating. From now on, she would wait on God for her soul mate.

The message had to be sarcastic. Could it be from Ted? Not a word for months and then this? Absurd. The grapevine had it he had moved on quickly, much more quickly than she had. Vicki was more likely. Ticked because Marty had refused Saturday’s invitation to meet Vicki’s single cousin from Texas. After work she would go up front and explain to Vicki one more time. Marty put the brush in cleaning fluid and reached for furniture clamps.

“Miss Greenlaw?” An old woman, thin white hair expertly fluffed around her wrinkled face, stood in the doorway. Dressed in yellow linen slacks and an ivory silk shirt, she looked like she might have stepped out of the pages of "Antiquing Georgetown, Virginia."

Marty looked at the clamp in her hand and then back at the woman. Usually she enjoyed working with clients, but the woman’s intense scrutiny made Marty suspect she wanted more than an opinion about a family heirloom. Still holding the clamp, Marty said, “May I help you?”

The woman bustled into the room. Something familiar, something that reminded Marty of nightmares. Why hadn’t Vicki kept the newcomer in the showroom or buzzed to find out if it was a good time for a visitor? The woman was carrying Marty’s spiral-bound book, "A Beginner’s First Book of Antique Repair." Maybe she wanted an autograph.

“I couldn’t tell from the photo on your book, but now that I see you . . .” The old woman’s voice wavered. She groped in a tapestry handbag and pulled out a tissue. “You look just like your mother.”

But she didn’t look anything like her mother. Polly Greenlaw was blonde and big-boned, obviously of Swedish descent. Marty was petite with curly auburn hair. The woman obviously had her confused with someone else.

“You’re Martha Baker. I’m your grandmother Lois.”

Baker. The name exploded in Marty’s mind, howling from the part of her memory she kept deliberately locked.

“Before all our tragedy, before the Greenlaws adopted you.”

Marty knew perfectly well when her name had been Baker. She also knew she didn’t want to go back to that time, not even in conversation. A nightmare.

“Your daddy was my son James. Your mother was Elaine, Ellie.”

Mommy! Daddy! Never coming home. Never.

“Say something, honey. Let me know you remember.”

Marty chose not to remember. Just as she had chosen years ago. Something terrible. But it seemed Lois had interpreted Marty’s silence as encouragement. She moved closer, close enough that Marty caught the light scent of lavender. Granny?

“I saw you twenty-two years ago, honey, just after we buried your sweet little sister.”

Ruthie. The room tipped, and Marty groped for the edge of the worktable. She didn’t want to remember. It was all such a long time ago. Nothing to do with her now.

“I’ve upset you. I should have called, but I couldn’t take the chance you would refuse to see me. Until a week ago, I didn’t even know the name of the couple that adopted you.”

Gene and Polly Greenlaw and their son, Ron.

“Even then, I wasn’t sure we’d found the right family. But when I read your blog, I knew it had to be you. Back when you were a tiny tot you loved old things. Remember Grandpa Henry’s copper box?” Lois closed the distance between them and put a gentle hand on Marty’s face. “Hello, Martha.”

The touch sent a shock through Marty, a shock so strong that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. A long time ago, Granny Lois. Marty pushed the past away, clung to the present. “I have two grandmothers, in Chicago and San Antonio.” Marty took a step back, meant to leave it there. But the words kept coming: “I don’t want another grandmother.”

Lois studied her with compassionate, gray-green eyes, eyes that were becoming uncomfortably familiar. “I was your very first grandmother, Martha. In Arizona, the big white house in Jerome. We had such fun together! You’re sure you don’t remember Granny Lois?”

Granny Lois isn’t coming back. Until now.

“Your daddy used to come up my driveway with his three girls. Your mommy on one side, you on the other, and Ruth Ann on his shoulders.”

Memories tumbled out of the attic of Marty’s mind, landing every which way. So many memories it was impossible to sort them. Grasping the only one she was sure of, she dragged it out into the light. “I remember Granny Lois left me with a social worker.”

Now it was Lois’s turn to step back. “You blame me. Of course you do. That’s why I’ve come. To explain.”

But Marty didn’t want an explanation. Not now. Not ever. She was doing fine without these memories. In fact, she was better off without them. Why else had she put them away? But she didn’t want to hurt this old woman, grandmother or not. “It was all a long time ago.” The words came out in a rush and kept coming. “I’m a grown woman. I have friends, work I love, and a home of my own. Maybe you mean well, Mrs. Baker, but honestly, I don’t need another grandmother.”

“You don’t remember what happened to Ruth Ann, do you?”

Ruthie! Come back, Ruthie.

“It was like that at first. You couldn’t deal with your sister’s death, not after everything else. It was almost as if you boxed up that terrible day and put it away somewhere.”

In the attic. With the nightmare.

“But I thought—hoped, really—that after all these years, you would have healed enough to remember. I don’t blame you, Martha. I tried my best to forget. But it won’t work. The past is still the past, whether we choose to remember or not.”

The gentle pronouncement sounded like a warning, and Marty wanted to run away from this old woman and her memories. Absurd. The past couldn’t hurt her. It was over and done.

Lois pulled a checkbook in a tooled-leather cover out of her handbag. “I suppose I let my hopes run away with me. I do that. For an eighty-year-old woman who’s been around the block more times than she wants to admit, you’d think I’d have learned to be realistic. Your grandpa Henry used to say, ‘Lois, your optimism is your greatest virtue, but it’s your greatest fault too.’” She tore a deposit slip out of the back of the checkbook. “I suppose I expected you’d be waiting for me to find you. Maybe I even expected I would be the answer to your prayers as you are to mine. But, of course, you didn’t know a thing about all those prayers.”

Prayers. Dear God, make this woman go away! Please! Marty knew she should offer Lois Baker a cup of tea and listen politely to whatever had brought her halfway across the country. She even opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Suddenly Marty was seven years old. Not only that, she was mute. Something terrible was hidden in the jumble of memories. Something she didn’t dare remember. So Marty watched silently as Lois dug through her bag for a pen and then took it and the deposit slip to the worktable.

Turning the paper over, the old woman began to draw a tiny map. “My address is on here. If you start to remember, come home, Martha. Anytime, tomorrow, next week, next month.” With warm hands, she pressed the paper in Marty’s cold ones. “We’ll remember together, honey. One thing at a time. It won’t be so scary that way.”

Scary. As Marty looked into her grandmother’s earnest face, another interpretation of the text message came to her, another wolf’s disguise. Who had warned her? And why?

###

Paul Russell tossed what was left of an ancient pair of work boots onto the growing pile of trash. “Grab that hat, will you, Scott? We’re finally making progress down here.”

The teenager picked up the felt fedora and sailed it across the dim basement.
Scott’s aim was off, perhaps not intentionally, but as Paul reached out to snag the hat, his self-control frayed. He was tired and not just physically. All morning, all week, he’d done his best to keep the tone of their work upbeat. Reclaiming the old house was supposed to give them a shared goal, bring them closer, help them heal. Instead it was driving them farther apart.

Paul put the hat on his head and sat cross-legged on the dirt floor. “Pow-wow time.” Scott frowned but came to sit across from him. Paul patted the floor between them. “Now for a few ground rules.” Scott just looked at him. “Ground rules. You get it?”

“I get it, Dad. I just don’t think it’s very funny.”

Paul fought his discouragement and soldiered on. “Never mind. Here’s the idea. When I’m wearing the hat, it’s my turn to say what’s on my mind. When I pass the hat, not for money of course, it’s your turn.” Scott rolled his eyes.

At least that was some response. Paul tipped the hat back with one finger. “I’m frustrated. I thought you wanted us to work together on this house, make Mom’s dream come true.”

Scott started to speak, but Paul held up his hand. “I’ll give you the hat in a minute. This work is drudgery. I know that. But before we can get to the creative parts of rebuilding, we have to clear out the rubbish. It may not look like it, but we’re making progress. I’ve been doing the best I can to think of ways to make it fun or at least bearable. But it’s obvious my attempts aren’t working. So, help me out.” Scott shrugged.

“All right. Pick from this list. Music? Competition about who can fill up the wheelbarrow the fastest? Reciting the times tables or the periodic chart or imagining what kind of guy wore this ridiculous hat and how it wound up in our basement? Something, anything, you’ll find interesting that will help us pass the time.”

Scott held out his hand. Paul took off the hat and gave it to him. Instead of putting it on, the teenager dropped it in his lap. “Here’s the thing, Dad. I’m not a little kid anymore. I don’t need a game to get me to work. If I really thought fixing up this house was a good idea, I’d work as hard as you. But this house is a wreck. It can’t be ‘fixed up.’ The best thing we could do is tear it down. Then if we really want to live in Jerome, we can build our own house.”

“But Mom wanted . . .”

“I’ve still got the hat, Dad. See, that’s it. You think fixing this house will somehow bring Mom back. News flash! Mom’s gone. And nothing you or I do can change that.”

Paul listened with growing dismay. Had he really misread his son so badly, and if Scott didn’t want to work on the house, what were they going to do with their summer? More importantly, how were they going to find their way back to a relationship?

Still holding the hat, the teenager scrambled to his feet. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Sit back down. We’re not done. We have to figure this out.”

Scott didn’t budge. “We can’t figure it out any more than we can fix up this hovel, Dad.”

Most of the time Paul forgot how much Scott looked like Linda. But as he got to his feet and faced his son, he was struck with the likeness. Same blonde hair, straight and fine. Same clear blue eyes. Tall for his age, Scott would soon be Linda’s height, then he would catch Paul and probably grow taller. Basketball was already his game. “This is the first time you’ve leveled with me, Scott. You’ve got to give me time to process this new information.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve told you, Dad. This is just the first time you’ve heard me. Maybe these are different words, but I’ve told you over and over I didn’t want to come here. Working on this house makes me feel worse, not better.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s like we’re pretending Mom’s coming back!” Scott handed the hat to Paul and turned away.

“Wait! You can’t just tell me what you don’t want. Tell me what you do want. If this project makes you feel worse, what will make you feel better?”

“Nothing, Dad! Nothing will make me feel better.”

Too stunned to respond, Paul watched his son go. Father, help me. Tell me what to do. He was losing Scott, and he didn’t know how to get him back.
A moment passed and then another. Finally, Paul sailed the hat back across the basement. Then he hefted the wheelbarrow full of trash and pushed it across the uneven floor toward the open door. He had no idea what he was going to say to his son, but he knew he couldn’t let the conversation end where it had.

After the dim basement, the early afternoon light was almost blinding. Setting down the wheelbarrow, Paul shaded his eyes and checked the sky in the southwest. The cloud that had hugged Cleopatra Hill for the last week was still there, maybe a little bigger, certainly no smaller. From this angle a casual observer might take it as a welcome harbinger of an early monsoon season rather than the constant reminder of the fire that was burning out of control in the Prescott National Forest.

Sort of like the failed pow-wow. On the surface, mild teenage rebellion; underneath, a problem so large he didn’t know how to begin to address it. Frowning, he raised the wheelbarrow and pushed it up the rocky incline. He left it beside the porch and went inside.

Only faintly aware of how the floor sagged or how the staircase creaked, Paul hurried up to his son’s room. Not surprisingly, the door was closed. He knocked, the rat-tat-tat they used.

“Go away, Dad.”

“We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to say. You seriously don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me. I want to understand.” Silence. “May I come in?”

“No!”

Paul put his hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn it. “We have to talk sooner or later.”

The door was suddenly jerked out of his hand. Scott elbowed around him and headed for the stairs. “Later.”

Paul’s frustration erupted in a bellow. “Scott!”

Scott stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned. Paul glimpsed such desolation on his son’s face, it took his breath away. He wanted to cry, “Let me help you!”

But before Paul could get a word out, Scott’s face settled into a mask of exaggerated patience. “What, Dad?”

Suddenly Paul couldn’t cope with the emotion swirling around them. Grasping at the familiar, he demanded, “Where are you going?”

“I’m grounded? I tell you how I feel, and you ground me?”

“Of course not. But I want to know where you’re going and when you’ll be back.”
Scott didn’t answer, just turned away, walked down the hall and out the front door.

Paul hesitated. He hadn’t dealt with open defiance since his son was a toddler. Then he simply picked him up and put him in the time-out chair. As Scott got older, Linda had played the part of mediator. And the last couple of years Scott had quietly complied.

Paul didn’t know what to do. Chase his son, force him to talk it out? Shrug it off, pretend he hadn’t seen the misery on Scott’s face? He knew neither option would work. But he also knew he couldn’t leave things the way they were.

Paul hurried, but by the time he stepped out onto the porch, Scott was halfway across the dirt road that ended just beyond their house. Maybe he was headed to Lois’s house. A surprising friendship had sprung up between the eighty-year-old woman and the fourteen-year-old boy. Maybe Scott would talk to Lois, explain his feelings to her. Then maybe Lois could help him understand his son. But Lois was out of town.

Scott seemed to remember at the same time Paul did because he turned abruptly and began to climb Cleopatra Hill. Paul started to go after him to make sure he stayed clear of the old mine behind the Baker house. The entrance was fenced off, but the makeshift road into the hill and the collapsed shaft fascinated Scott. No matter how much parents and teachers lectured, kids never grasped the danger that radiated out from the old mines. Unseen tunnels could cave in at any moment.

Still, Scott knew the mine was off limits, and Paul understood the impulse to walk off too much emotion. Against his better judgment, he let his son go.

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