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Where Memories Await

By Heidi Chiavaroli

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Chapter One
The ghosts of my past show themselves on Christmas Eve more than any other night of the year.
I drag in a deep breath and place the tiny sheep figurine from my manger back in its place. It stands out from the rest of the set—slightly bigger, not as intricately carved as the other figures.
That never mattered to me.
My chest aches and I lean back in my bedroom chair and close my eyes, praying for relief from the hauntings.
A knock sounds at my door.
“Come in.”
The door creaks open and my niece Josie pokes her mass of chestnut hair around the
corner. “Hey, Aunt Pris. Mom’s heading to the church early to help with the pageant. She wondered if you were okay going with me and Tripp?”
“I suppose.”
She enters my room, coming closer. She looks pretty tonight, has taken time to do her hair and makeup.
“You feeling okay?”
“As well as I can for my eighty-two years.” Aches and pains are a normal part of life now, especially in these cold Maine winters. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
But Josie doesn’t leave. Always my pesky niece, this one. But she has spunk. Reminds me of myself back in the day. “If you don’t feel well enough to come, God will understand. You can join us for carols and food after if you’d like. Lizzie and Asher are playing us their new song.”
The thought that she doesn’t want me at the service scrapes painfully across my heart. “Girl, I haven’t missed a Christmas Eve service in eighty-one years, and I don’t intend to begin now. I’m fine. Only keeping company with my memories.” I allow my gaze to fall on that sheep, attempting to shove away the ghosts. I inwardly curse when Josie approaches my nightstand and caresses the object of my attention. The girl doesn’t miss a trick.
“Tell me why you like sheep so much, Aunt Pris?”
She’d given me two sheep figurines when we opened The Orchard House Bed and Breakfast. One could make the case I was off my rocker for allowing my dead nephew’s wife and children to convince me to transform my old Victorian into an inn—complete with a live-in family. But most of the time, though I didn’t make it a plain fact, I considered myself blessed beyond measure.
Josie had noticed my fetish with the gentle animal during the extensive renovations Colton Contractors performed.
“Can’t an old woman have any secrets?” I shouldn’t snap at her. I blame it on my blasted back, sore with every breath tonight.
My tone doesn’t deter her, though. She kneels at my feet. She smells like coconut and baby powder, and something in my heart threatens to burst. I am grateful for her and her siblings. For their Mum, Amos’s wife. They could have abandoned me, forgotten me. Especially after my nephew died. Especially with my sometimes…challenging nature. But they didn’t. Instead, they’ve breathed new life into this old house, gave me company and companionship in this last stretch of my life.
“Don’t you want to share your stories, Aunt Pris? I want to hear them—we all do. Would it hurt to open up?” She nudges my arm, a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “It is Christmas Eve, after all. A time for miracles.”
Christmas Eve. A time for miracles. Bleh. Too bad I only harbor sad memories.
But the girl is right. My time on earth is short. Even if I lived another twenty years, I knew from experience how fast they could fly. Or how quickly a mind slips. I think of my friend Esther. Poor dear, I am grateful her days still prove healthy. It’s nights that have a way of stealing her mind. Dementia is not kind.
I glance at Josie. Would sharing my story help to make anything different, or would it only serve to open old wounds?
“Don’t you have a child and a husband to be with on Christmas Eve, girl?”
She grins. “They’re both taking naps.” She digs out her phone. How anyone can carry those ringing, beeping contraptions around every hour of the day is beyond me. “We have more than half an hour if you feel like spilling your guts.”
“As enticing as spilling out one’s guts sounds, I think I shall pass.”
“Then at least tell me why you like sheep so much.”
So young and audacious. Why do I pretend I don’t see my own dear sister in her—a different piece of Hazel was in every one of my great nieces.
My hand takes up a small tremor and I command it still, to no avail. “I don’t like them.”
She cocks her head to one side and speaks slow. “You don’t like sheep, so you cover your bed and curtains and walls with pictures of them?”
I press my lips together. Do I want to travel this path? So many years of keeping it bottled up…then again, do I want to take it to the grave?
“Do you know what penance is?” I ask.
“Yes, of course. It’s something you pay to show you’re sorry. Kind of like proving you’re sorry.”
“The sheep are my penance.”
Her eyebrows come together, the dim light of my nightstand lamp casting divots of shadow and light on her brow. “Oh, Aunt Pris.”
“Don’t pity me, girl. You’re the one who asked, but I refuse any show of pity. Understood?”
She nods, solemn as ever I’ve seen her. We remain silent—me wavering at the bridge before me, her undoubtedly wondering whether to push me to cross.
She doesn’t. My heart ceases its wretched pounding.
There is a certain calm in thinking about it, I suppose. Perhaps this would be part of my penance. Dare I hope sharing would finally release me?
“Your grandmother—my sister…she loved sheep.”
Josie takes in a small inhalation of breath. No wonder. The child knows nothing of her grandmother, as Amos had known nothing of his mother. I’d been close-lipped about my younger sister for nearly sixty years now. I oft wondered if the family forgot I ever knew Hazel.
“What do you know about sheep, girl?”
“Um…not much. They’re kind of stupid, aren’t they? And when they fall on their backs, they can’t get up by themselves.”
My jaw tightens, and I force it loose. “They are not stupid, Josie. But they are emotional. And yes, many times they are helpless.” Another moment of quiet.
I stare at the electric candle at my window. Beyond the dark, the apple orchards of my childhood roll up a gradual hill, alive and well thanks to my nephew Bronson. The trees still standing from my youth are at the end of their fruit-bearing years. They’ve born witness to my entire life.
Something tells me to stop talking, but something stronger urges me forward. “Hazel was not stupid. But her emotions…well, they always seemed to get her into trouble.”
 

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