Chapter 10 - The Song in the Pine
The summer returned with its heavy, sweet heat.
The alley behind the annex was dry now, the brick walls clean and red in the sun. Walter had rebuilt the service gate, replacing the old latch with a brass lock he had found in a junk shop in Wilmington.
Beside the gate, on the wall where the cardboard box had sat, he had mounted a small wooden plaque.
It was made of cherry, three inches square, with a single bluebird carved into the center.
On Saturday nights, the house on Front Street was loud.
Margaret still came on Sundays, but she didn't clean anymore; she sat in the kitchen and showed Caroline how to make peach cobbler without burning the crust.
Emma was walking now, her small, bare feet making a rapid tap-tap-tap on the heart-pine floorboards.
Walter sat in his chair by the fireplace, the windup music box sitting on the mantlepiece. It was the finished one now—the cherry chest Caroline had made from her father’s tools, with the bluebird painted in deep, rich lacquer.
Caroline sat on the rug beside him, her head resting against his knee.
"Do you think the storm will come tonight?" she asked, looking toward the window where the sky was turning the color of a plum.
"Let it come," Walter said, his hand resting on her hair. "The roof is tight. The sills are square."
May you like
He reached up and wound the key on the cherry chest.
The music began—the old, clear tune of the mountains, steady and sweet, filling the room where the cracks had been filled, where the wood had been given room to move, and where the family they had built out of rainwater and pine had finally found its home.
