Chapter 8 - The Cleansing of the Hearth
The transformation of my father’s former home in Whitefish Bay began on the first Monday of April.
The spring air was crisp, carrying the sweet, clean scent of blooming lilacs, damp soil, and the fresh breeze blowing off the blue waters of Lake Michigan.
In the circular driveway of the four-thousand-square-foot brick colonial, a commercial donation truck from the Milwaukee Women’s Center sat parked on the concrete.
Inside the house, four bonded movers were systematically clearing the formal dining room.
The heavy, dark mahogany furniture, the crystal chandeliers that Linda had polished for three decades, and the gilded mirrors that had reflected thirty years of superficial family galas were carried out through the double front doors, loaded onto the truck, and hauled away to be auctioned for charity.
Standing on the front lawn, wearing broken-in work jeans, a dark flannel shirt, and leather work gloves, was Cousin Chloe.
She was helping me load three wooden pallets of antique garden tools into the back of my truck, her face glowing with sweat and healthy exertion, laughing as we tossed old terra-cotta pots into a recycling bin.
"How does the floor look in the living room, Maya?" Chloe asked, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist.
"Wide-plank white oak, Chloe," I smiled, leaning against the tailgate. "The contractors start sanding tomorrow morning. We're tearing down the formal parlor walls, opening up the southern exposure to the garden, and turning the entire ground floor into a free architectural and art studio for inner-city youth programs."
"Uncle Thomas would have wept with joy to see this house used for real work, Maya," Chloe said softly, resting her hand over mine on the truck bed. "Real work, built on honest ground."
Down on the green clover of the front lawn, a large woolen picnic blanket was spread out beneath the shade of an ancient sugar maple.
Sitting on the blanket, surrounded by watercolor papers and jars of clean water, were Ava and her best friend from school, Lily.
Ava was nine and a half now.
She wore a soft denim pinafore over a white cotton blouse, her dark hair tied back in two bouncy pigtails with yellow ribbons. Her cheeks were flushed rosy-red with health and laughter, her brown eyes bright, fearless, and whole as she carefully layered strokes of cobalt blue and cadmium yellow onto an archival watercolor board.
Beside her sat her plush stuffed golden retriever, Barnaby, wearing a miniature party hat made of purple construction paper.
"Look, Mom!" Ava called out, waving a dripping paintbrush in the air, her face radiant with pure, unreserved joy. "I'm painting the lighthouse on the bluff! The waves have white foam on the rocks today!"
I walked across the soft grass, dropped to my knees beside her on the blanket, and wrapped my arm around her narrow shoulders.
I leaned down, pressing my cheek against her hair, smelling of sunshine, lavender soap, and the sweet vanilla aroma of the sugar cookies we had baked that morning.
"That's the most beautiful lighthouse on Lake Michigan, my brave girl," I whispered, kissing her soft temple.
Footsteps crunched softly on the gravel driveway.
Walking down the sidewalk, pushing an old metal shopping cart holding three plastic grocery bags, was an elderly woman in a faded trench coat.
Linda Vance.
She stopped at the edge of the property, three feet from the brick pillars of the driveway.
She had aged fifteen years in six months.
Her silver hair was cut short, unstyled, hanging in thin strands around her hollow, wrinkled cheeks. She wore no jewelry, no makeup, no pearls. She lived three miles away in her rented one-bedroom apartment, working twenty hours a week checking coats at a municipal civic auditorium to meet her court-ordered community service requirements.
She looked across the lawn.
She saw the moving trucks.
She saw the open doors of the house she had ruled like an empress.
And then her eyes locked onto Ava.
She saw her nine-year-old granddaughter laughing in the sunshine, surrounded by paints, whole, prosperous, and completely free.
Linda took half a step forward onto the grass, her mouth opening, her hands trembling against the wire handle of her cart.
"Ava..." Linda croaked, her voice barely louder than the rustling maple leaves.
Ava stopped painting.
She lifted her head.
She saw the old woman standing on the perimeter of the lawn.
There was no terror in Ava’s eyes.
There was no tears.
There was only a calm, quiet, and devastating distance—the look of an eagle glancing down at a dry ditch from ten thousand feet in the air.
Ava didn't stand up. She didn't call out.
She simply picked up her paintbrush, dipped it into the jar of clean water, and turned her back on the street, returning to the blue waves on her paper.
Linda Vance stood on the sidewalk for five long, suffocating seconds.
A single, heavy tear broke from her eye, tracking through the deep lines around her mouth, but she didn't step onto the lawn. She knew the terms of the restraining order. She knew that three inches of grass separated her from a county jail cell.
Slowly, painfully, she turned her metal cart around, pushed it down the cracked asphalt of the public sidewalk, and disappeared around the corner of the block into the shadows of her new life.
I reached down, covered Ava’s small hand with mine where she held the brush, and took a deep, clean breath of the spring air.
The ledger was balanced.
May you like
The house was cleansed.
And the shadows were gone forever.
