Chapter 10

Ida Greene could come up with a dozen reasons to be upset over the goings-on next door, but at her doctor’s advice, she’d been practicing “complete tolerance” for twenty-three days. If she broke her streak now, all the good she’d done in naturally lowering her blood pressure might be for nothing.

Instead, she determined to bake a pie for the young couple inhabiting her late sister’s house the last three days. Baking always settled her nerves. Thanks to the four mature apple trees in her backyard, she didn’t need to fire up the old Camaro and make a trip to the grocery store either. Both the Pink Lady and McIntosh varieties were crisp, delicious, and ripe for picking. Under the watchful eye of Mr. Longtail—he came to visit every day—she used the handle of her broom to knock down apples until she had a basketful.

The girl, a tall, pretty blond, had been coming and going for the last eight months, feeding Mr. Longtail per her late sister’s directions, when it would’ve been so much easier for Ida to do it. Of course, this was as Sabrina had instructed in her will, and Ida knew to leave well enough alone when it came to Sabrina’s wishes.

Ida had meant to introduce herself to the girl long ago, but nothing seemed to happen fast at her age. The first several months she’d been reeling from the loss of her sister, and then there’d been the whole high-blood-pressure scare. In the scheme of things, today seemed like as good a time as any. A young man was staying in the house now too, it seemed. She’d caught a few glimpses of him working late into the evening the last two nights. If her trifocals weren’t deceiving her, he was as fine as young men were back before the world grew so complicated and soft at the same time.

She’d seen the report on Channel 3 and had put two and two together. She’d known they were bringing those mistreated dogs here before the vans had pulled up. But she hadn’t been prepared to see so many crates being unloaded. Her sister’s quiet house was being packed full of dogs. And not just any dogs. The dogs Channel 3 flashed across the television screen were intimidating, to say the least.

But the pie making sent Ida’s worries away. The girl who’d been feeding Mr. Longtail was competent enough. In all these months, she’d never forgotten to take care of him. And hopefully, that shelter Sabrina had been so fond of knew what it was committing to.

Ida lost track of the afternoon as she readied the crust. There was nothing quite like dusting the countertop in flour and rolling out a fresh, buttery crust or hearing the thin, fine scrape of the sugar and cinnamon as she mixed them with the apples. And of course there was the smell. Few things on earth smelled better than an apple pie baking in the oven.

When it was done, she let the pie cool as the sun sank low on the horizon. She watched the protesters pack up from their second day of protesting. Thank heavens they were leaving. The idea of people picketing outside Sabrina’s house was disturbing. Ida hoped they had realized how quiet the street was and determined to take their picketing elsewhere. Or, better yet, abandoned it entirely. That was more consistent with the benefit-everyone way of thinking her holistic practitioner had been trying to teach her.

When the ceramic pie dish was cool enough to carry, she covered the pie with her best dishcloth and slipped a small flashlight into her pocket. If the young couple was the welcoming type, she might well be walking home after dark. Mr. Longtail met her halfway between their two houses. He meowed and beelined in front of her, nearly causing her to trip and send the pie sailing, which would have been a shame. It had turned out lovely.

The young man answered the door, looking both more guarded and more handsome than he had from far away. “Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing the heavy pie that was growing heavier by the second.

“I’m Ida Greene, your neighbor. And you can be a dear and relieve me of this pie.”

He took it off her hands and cocked an eyebrow. “If I do, I may not give it back. It smells incredible.”

“That’s good to hear. I baked it for you. It only seemed right that you get more of a welcome than those protesters have offered you.”

He smiled and shifted the pie to the flat of one hand as he extended the other in her direction. “Kurt Crawford. Nice to meet you, Ms. Greene.”

He was enough of a gentleman to impress her. And he had remarkably strong hands. After the introduction, Ida craned her neck to look into the parlors flanking the entryway. Rather than studying the crates, she took in the condition of the walls and light fixtures. “It’s funny, but my memory of the house as it was twenty years ago is more vivid than that of how it looks now. And look what that crotchety cat has done to the beautiful old wallpaper!”

Kurt followed her gaze to the strips of wallpaper that the cat had clawed away. “You know this house?”

“Yes, very well. Sabrina was my year-younger sister.” She pointed toward her house. “I moved next door after my husband died twenty-one years ago. Sabrina lived here much longer, nearly sixty years in fact.”

Kurt’s eyebrows arched upward. “Would you like to come in?”

Ida’s thin fingers closed around the doorframe for support. She could almost see her sister, decades ago, barefoot and in a cornflower-blue summer dress, carrying a basket of laundry down the stairs, singing as she went. “I very much would, Mr. Crawford. I very much would.”

* * *

If it wasn’t for Ida taking a seat at the kitchen table after touring the house, Kurt doubted he would have remembered his dream from last night, his second night in the house. As it was, only snippets came to mind. It had taken place here in the kitchen. He remembered the soft, yellow light pouring into the kitchen from the window behind the sink, making the god-awful aged counters shine a brighter yellow. Kelsey had been at the stove stirring something in a pot, and his grandmother, Nana, was standing alongside her, smiling with approval.

Nana had looked younger, like she did when he was a kid, and she was wearing her favorite slippers and an apron over a cotton dress. He also remembered the powerful sensation he’d experienced watching them, one that had made his insides swell up like a balloon. It had been so long since he’d felt something that strong in real life, so the best he could equate it to were peace and contentment. Like everything was exactly as it should be.

Ida showing up with her pie and her wrinkles and her old-person manners must have stirred the dream into conscious thought. Kurt rarely remembered any dreams. The ones that stuck tended to wake him in a cold sweat and were nothing to reminisce over. He hoped time out of the service would change this.

“This kitchen,” Ida said, shaking her head and smiling. “It stood out as much when they had it installed as it does now. The first time I saw it was in the early sixties. They’d only been in the house a few years. Back then, I lived in my childhood home of Connecticut with my husband and two sons. With Sabrina having settled so far away, she and I were only able to see each other every few years.

“When she and her husband bought the house in the late fifties, it needed considerable plumbing and electrical repair, and the kitchen needed a complete revamping. It was already half a century old then. Since the work was completed, little about the house has changed. Sabrina replaced the stove and refrigerator again in the late seventies with the models here now. She had to pay an arm and leg to keep the vintage look because hardly anyone was making it then.”

Kelsey, who’d brewed a fresh pot of coffee to go with the pie, carried a steaming mug to Ida. Not wanting Kelsey to feel as if she needed to serve him, Kurt got up to pour his own cup.

“We have milk but no sugar,” Kelsey told Ida. “No creamer either. Sorry. We’re still getting things up and running.”

“A splash of milk will be fine. And I understand. At this house’s age and after a full year with no inhabitants, there’s likely to be a bigger-than-average to-do list. And to be fair, the house hasn’t had the care it deserves the last several years. After Sabrina’s husband passed, she spent more time next door with me than she did here. Fewer memories, you understand.”

“I can only imagine,” Kelsey said. “If your sister was from Connecticut like you, how did she end up in St. Louis? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t. Jeremy Raven, her husband, led her here. He was raised in this very house, in fact. His parents died when he was young, and the house was sold. Through the grace of an aunt, Jeremy went to medical school at Cambridge. He and Sabrina met in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town in southwest England, while he was on break from the university. And theirs was quite the meeting. At Weston, at low tide, the water recedes about a mile offshore. It’s something to see. Everywhere you look, boats are trapped in the sand.

“My sister had traveled there by train and was walking alone at low tide looking for seashells when she got stuck out in the mudflats. Jeremy was on the beach with friends, celebrating the end of another term. He ran out and attempted to save her, and ended up stuck himself. They were thrown a rope, thankfully, and pulled from the mud as the tide was rushing in.”

“Wow. That’s both very fortunate and wonderfully romantic at the same time,” Kelsey said. She met Kurt’s gaze, and her cheeks flushed pink.

“She sounds brave to have traveled on her own like that, especially for a woman back in the 1950s,” he said, surprised by an urge to run his hand down Kelsey’s back.

Ida let out a soft humph. “Brave she was. In her younger years, she was a bit of a black sheep, at least in my parents’ eyes. Her way of doing things tended to be a touch unconventional. They never could see eye to eye. Our father was a minister, so maybe it’s no surprise. After one particularly big argument, Sabrina left home in a fury and made for Europe. She was just seventeen. It caused such a scandal in my hometown! She lived like a gypsy for nearly two years, sending me postcard after postcard from one city to the next before she and Jeremy met. She claimed if it hadn’t been for his complete devotion to her, she’d never have settled down.

“Jeremy was six years her senior and ready for a grown-up’s life by the time he earned his medical degree. To my entire family’s surprise, Sabrina allowed Jeremy to make her his wife and bring her to St. Louis. They lived in a small apartment in Soulard, but Jeremy bought back his childhood home the first chance he got. And, obviously, they lived out the rest of their lives here.”

“Wow,” Kelsey said, closing her hands over her mug. “That’s really cool. I had no idea.”

Ida smiled as she finished cutting the pie into slices. She transferred the slices to chipped and faded blue-flowered serving plates that had belonged to her sister. “I always thought this colorful kitchen was Sabrina’s way of stating that she wasn’t going to tame down entirely.”

Kurt eyed the bright-yellow countertops and light-blue cabinets with a new appreciation. He wondered what Ida thought of her sister leaving this home and its contents to the shelter. Personal things like paperwork and pictures had been cleared out, but so much remained. He also wondered what Ida thought of all the crates of dogs filling up the house. She’d been polite but quiet during the tour. But knowing the dogs were here, she’d brought him and Kelsey the pie and was extending this welcome. Since all this felt too personal to ask, he went with something simpler. “Was your sister a gardener?” Although that area of the backyard was grown over, he’d spotted the makings of what once might’ve been an impressive garden.

Ida smiled as she pressed her fork into her slice of pie. “Yes, Sabrina loved to garden. Late summer to fall, she was always canning something. After Jeremy died six years ago, she couldn’t find the energy, but she kept an impeccable garden for decades.”

“After I get the yard cleaned up, I’ll give you a tour of what remains. There seem to be a few pumpkins hidden in the tall grass.”

Ida smiled. “I would very much enjoy that.”

“Oh my gosh, this pie is incredible.” Kelsey had taken her first bite. “I have a weak spot for apple pie, and this is absolutely perfect.”

Kurt followed suit. Kelsey was right. It was hands down the best slice of pie he’d ever had.

“Why, thank you. We used to compete, Sabrina and I. Good-naturedly, of course. I made the best apple pie, and she, the best peach cobbler. These apples are from my yard. You may not have noticed, but you have several peach trees on the side of the house and a pear tree at the far end of the lot. The peaches will all have dropped, but there might still be pears. They make a good pear butter.”

“It’s so awesome to hear these stories,” Kelsey said, meeting Kurt’s gaze before she refocused on Ida.

It was a pleasure seeing how animated Kelsey had become. Maybe Ida’s stories would give her a better opinion of the house. Help her see it in the same light he’d seen when he first set eyes upon it. This thought brought Kurt back to last night’s dream, and he remembered a new snippet. He’d been standing at the stove next to Kelsey, his hand on the small of her back, smelling whatever she’d been cooking. Remembering the perfect, easy connection he’d felt between them, he was thankful he was now seated. His knees weakened from the desire of wanting to feel something that strong in real life. Clearing his throat, he forced his attention back to Ida.

“Your sister,” Kelsey continued, oblivious to his thoughts. “She was so kind to leave her house to the shelter, but none of us knew anything about her other than that she’d adopted her cat from us. Was she a big animal lover?”

“Yes and no,” Ida said, shifting in her chair. “She and Jeremy always had a dog or a cat to keep them company over the years, but if anyone had told me my sister would leave her beloved home to an animal shelter, I’d never have believed them. But their only child lives in England, teaching at Cambridge, believe it or not. He was married about twenty-five years ago in a little stone church in Weston-super-Mare in honor of his parents. Unlike my worldly sister, the only time I ever left the country was for that wedding.”

Ida paused to eat a bite of pie and have a sip of coffee. “It was both strange and fitting, the way she decided on leaving this house to your shelter. My nephew is established in England, and my sons are happy in Connecticut. So, with no heirs for her home and an inoperable cancer diagnosis—yes, it was cancer that took her,” she said in reply to Kelsey’s look of sympathy, “though I don’t have the strength to talk about that today—Sabrina was motivated to find the right buyer for the house. She had a dozen real estate agents and appraisers come by, and she contacted two different historical societies. You see, the house was built by a brew master of the South City brewery.”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“That fact was never touted, though I don’t know why. My sister had a few lowball offers from contractors who intended to gut more than they would have kept. The idea of this happening to her beloved home set her blood to boiling. Then one afternoon I came over, and she had your shelter’s newsletter in her lap. She was pretty weak by then, but she looked at me with the brightest eyes and told me that she intended to leave the house—furniture and all—to the shelter so long as you all would agree to care for Mr. Longtail.” Ida paused and gave a small huff. “I mean no insult when I tell you the idea seemed preposterous to me at first, but when my sister set her mind to something, it was set.”

Kelsey smiled and shook her head, her honey-blond hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I can’t tell you how awesome it is to hear this. I had no idea.”

“Thank you, dear. I saw you on the news the other day,” Ida said. “And I knew right away you intended to bring the dogs here. At first, I was a bit worried, but I suspect this is exactly what Sabrina would’ve wanted. The busier and bigger and more vivacious life was, the more she enjoyed it.” She motioned toward the front rooms. “And from what you showed me as I came in, you certainly seem to have everything under control.” She paused to point a thin finger at Kelsey. “And just like you did yesterday afternoon, dear, she’d have given those protesters a piece of her mind. I was sitting on my porch when you came upon them. My sister would’ve liked you.”

Kurt felt surprise wash over him. So Kelsey stood up to the protesters. Of course she had. She simply wasn’t the type to rehash it. He wished he could have seen the confrontation himself.

“Thanks,” Kelsey said, swiping a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s such an honor to meet you, and it would’ve been an honor to meet your sister.”

“You two would’ve gotten along well, I’m certain.” Ida folded her napkin and stood up, bracing her frail hand on the edge of the table. “When you’re more settled, if you have the time, I’d be happy to show you some of my sister’s photographs and tell you some of the stories that took place here over the years. There are many delightful ones. But how could there not be? A lot of living was done inside these walls. And, young man,” she said, turning to Kurt, “feel free to climb my apple trees any time you’d like. The best ones are always up high.”

He and Kelsey showed her out together, but Ida refused his offer to walk her home. She pulled a flashlight from her pocket and promised she was fine. Kurt closed the door and caught Kelsey taking in the foyer and curved staircase with a look of renewed interest and admiration.

“Nice,” he said, “to have such an interesting neighbor.”

Kelsey shook her head and hooked a thumb in the belt loop of her jeans. “She’s incredible. And clearly her sister was too. I had absolutely no idea. I’ve been feeding Sabrina’s cat for eight months, and I had no idea about any of it.”

Kurt shrugged. “Sometimes things happen like that. So, did that remarkable pie give you the energy for another couple hours’ work with the dogs?”

Kelsey rolled her shoulders in a stretch. “I’m going to sleep like a log tonight, but yes, I’m good to go.”

“Great. There are a couple dogs I’m feeling confident enough about to let you do the whole thing.”

Kelsey gave the cuff of his T-shirt a soft tug as they headed into the first parlor. “Look at that. Dogs impressive enough to gain the trust of steel-hearted Kurt Crawford.”

He winked as he reached for a leash. “That doesn’t only go for the dogs, you know. You’ve made it clear you allow some of that knowledgeable mind of yours to rule along with your I brake for turtles heart.”

Even in the semidark room, he could tell his words made her blush.

“Thanks,” she said, “but just so you know, the whole world should brake for turtles.”