Page 24 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
“You’re a smart kid.”
“Not really. I just like learning about dinosaurs because it’s important.”
“We all have subjects in school that we enjoy more than others. That’s about finding your talent. I loved art. Maybe you’re going to be a scientist one day.”
“That’s not why I want to learn all I can about dinosaurs.”
“Why is that?” I asked as we turned off Main and onto Fourth Street.
“Because,” he said in a secretive voice, “I think that pterodactyls and dragons are the same thing.”
I thought it was a cute premise. “But dragons aren’t real, silly boy.”
He looked up at me with eyes so like his mother’s it stole the oxygen from the air. “Sure they are. Just sometimes the dragons pretend to be people.”
Chapter Seven
2025
Bailey Rae pulled the last of the dishes from the drying rack, the silence of the cabin heavy in spite of her houseguests, the first people to sleep under the roof since Winnie had drowned. She’d been spending as little time as possible in the house, afraid it would trigger her grief. But being here now had the opposite effect. She took comfort from straightening the milk-white glassware on the display shelves, recalling the stories behind the collection of items found at flea markets and garage sales. Working at the farmhouse sink brought happy memories of helping Winnie with spring cleaning. The kitchen had been the heart of the home, and spending time in it reminded Bailey Rae of how places had the power to heal.
Would the cabin offer the same to her guests?
Not too long after Martin had left with his supper, Keith retired to the Airstream, while Gia and Cricket sealed themselves in the guest room. Because of exhaustion or avoiding questions? Either way, they’d holed up with their pain and secrets behind the door.
Leaving Bailey Rae alone, with only Skeeter for company while she boxed away more of the keepsakes. She wouldn’t have room for them in the camper but could tuck them away in a storage unit for someday when she had a house.
Sitting on the braided rug in the living room, she pulled a stack of photo albums from the shelf. There weren’t many pictures around Winnie’s house, but those weren’t the days of cell phones and unlimited selfies. Just a few Polaroids were tucked in an album with sticky pages, cellophane sealing them in. Faded images without the artfulness of how to extend a leg just so, or how to tip the face to the most flattering light. No perfectly adjusted filters to hide behind, just truth in the lines on their faces and the emotions behind their eyes.
Still, there was an authenticity to those imperfect moments. She paused at one of Libby smiling even with the dark circles stamped under her eyes, all the more apparent with the wind lifting her long hair. Keith clung to her hand. Bailey Rae felt a gut punch at the similarity to Gia and Cricket. To herself and her mother.
She flipped the page to a newspaper clipping of Russell beside his race car, Winnie sitting proudly on the hood wearing bell-bottom jeans and a floral halter top. Her hair shielded most of her face, all layered and curly, still blond and so different from the graying braid or messy bun Winnie had worn for as long as Bailey Rae knew her.
Under the photo, Winnie had written:Us. 1978.
Her aunt had never been clear about the starting point for their relationship. She’d insisted the present mattered most. So Bailey Rae had come up with ways to trick Winnie into giving a timeline for different things. Since jars of canned fruit and vegetables had dates on them, Bailey Rae would ask who helped with those. Or she would thumb through old magazines and search for the address sticker to pinpoint who dropped it off and when.
For the longest while, she’d wondered why it mattered to her so much. But then in a psychology magazine, she had stumbled on an article about memory disruption and sequencing in trauma survivors. Gaps in her memory frustrated her, but more than anything, they scared her. What did those holes contain?
How unfortunate she’d already tossed the old magazines or she would have hunted for some of those articles to give Gia—
A knock at the front door startled her into dropping the photo album. Her stomach lurched and her eyes darted to the corridor leading to Gia’s room, then back to the cabin’s main entrance. Skeeter scrambled to his feet and sniffed along the bottom of the door. But he stayed quiet. The dog only barked when strangers came around.
Bailey Rae parted the lace curtains to peek outside, then breathed a sigh of relief. Keith stood on the porch with a couple of Coke cans in hand. The shirttails of his button-down flapped loose from his jeans, scruffy but scrappy. As always. Except with much less hair these days.
She slid the chain off, then unlocked the dead bolt. “Is everything okay? Or is this a DoorDash delivery?”
Chuckling, he passed her one of the cans. “I saw the spare-room lights go out and thought you might want some company.”
“That’s thoughtful of you. Thanks.” She popped the tab and joined him on the porch. “And thanks for staying over too.”
“I love my mother,” he said, leaning against the railing with his drink, “but I have to admit, I don’t mind the quiet night’s rest.”
“You’ve taken on a lot with her care.” People around town whispered about Keith not being able to hold down a job—or a relationship—but his devotion to his mother made up for a host of flaws.
“I’m all she has.” He shrugged, shirt rippling on his wiry shoulders. Some people gained pounds with years, while Keith seemed to shrink. “She’s all I have, for that matter.”
Bullfrogs croaked from the river, interrupted only by a screech owl and tinkling wind chimes. The sounds of home. Soon enough to be replaced by the lulling whoosh of waves echoing through the wide-open spaces with fewer places to hide. Or so she imagined her future life near the water. “That was a nice story about Uncle Russell and the grooves in the rug. I forget sometimes that he was like an uncle to you as well.”
