~May, 1946~

When Mother sent me to deliver gifts to Mr. Kent, I didn’t reckon I’d bother. I’d take the basket, sure. Fine. Then maybe I’d walk a half-mile up the road and dump the stuff–maybe eat it, actually–sit awhile in the dust, and head back home.

After all, new residents shouldn’t be the ones delivering presents. That’s the town’s job, isn’t it? You know, all the welcoming old villagers and their shiny smiling faces, coming to bear gifts to the newcomers? That’s how it’s supposed to be. 

But no one was very welcoming in Blackoak, Kansas. Not the families, not the land, and definitely not the other kids. They whispered things and cast funny looks at me and my old clothes.

At school I’d heard kids call our new home the Riddler house. Supposedly the man who’d lived there had been a recluse, died alone, and now haunted the place.

I didn’t believe the haunting part for two reasons. One, no ghost in their right mind would want to haunt a miserable house like Mr. Riddler’s. Two, he wasn’t dead. Mother had met him when buying the house.

He conned us, if you ask me. The floors creaked, the walls peeled, and the windows offered only a depressing view of whispering yellow grass. The house was falling apart, just like everything else in the stupid town. 

I was staring out at that endless ocean of fields when my mother’s voice rang through the house for the third time.

“Susie. Take the basket and get out.”

She wasn’t yelling, but I flinched at her voice anyway. 

I’d ignored her long enough. I grabbed the bundle of bread and jam off the kitchen counter and kicked my way out the front door. The screen banged shut behind me.

I could have stopped on the road and carried out my initial plan. But I didn’t. Barefoot, I trudged over the dusty path, sweating and thinking about an old wedding photo of my parents, about how sharp my mother’s features looked nowadays: her hollow cheeks, her dull eyes. No longer soft and plump, no longer gentle.

No longer happy.

No one was ever happy anymore, it seemed.

But Mr. Kent better be, I thought menacingly, swinging the basket, when he gets these confounded jellies.

I was lucky I didn’t pass his house right by. While I was still on the road I had that uneasy-being-watched-feeling, looked up, and there it was off in the distance–sitting on the crown of a grassy hill, windows dark like eyes.

If there were any ghosts in this town, they lived in this house, for sure. It even looked like a phantom with its off-white siding, black gaping eyes, and wide front porch mouth.

Up the hill I trudged, until I was encroaching on the ghost-house’s front yard. And there I stopped.

The prairie grass murmured in the wind. Behind me, trees rustled their dry leaves; somewhere on the house, a shutter squealed.

Quiet. I hated quiet.

“Who’re you?” a voice barked. I jumped.

“Suzanne Ellis,” I said, but I couldn’t see who was talking until a figure rose out of the tall grass. 

It was an old man, with a thin white beard and a tattered pair of overalls. “Who’s that?” he demanded. I gulped at the hoe in his hand.

My knees shook a little, but I stood up straight anyway. “Neighbor,” I answered steadily.

He contemplated. “You’re in the Riddler house?”

I nodded. Some of my hair had come free from my braids, and it blew across my face.

“Well, did I invite you here?”

I shook my head.

“Then get off my property!” Turning, he propped the hoe up on his shoulder. 

I watched him for a second, stunned. “Rude way to welcome a guest.”

He didn’t stop. “Not a guest if you weren’t invited. Get off my land, girl.”

The basket handle grew slick in my hands. “Aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m here?”

He turned again, and this time I could see red blotches in his ancient face. “I don’t care why you’re here, just–” He paused at the sight of the stupid gift basket. Maybe he realized he was yelling at an eleven-year-old girl and felt bad. “What’s that?” he asked gruffly.

“Gifts.” I made my voice as falsely cheerful as possible as I held out the basket, resisting the temptation to drop it and smash the jelly, and waited.

He seemed confused. 

“What?” I asked, irritated. 

One of his bushy brows went up. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“Just–take–the–basket.” 

He stared at me. “Leave it there.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just drop it.”

“My mother made this stuff. For you.”

“Didn’t ask for it.”

“Well, I didn’t ask to bring it!”

“I said leave it!”

“Fine!” I shoved the basket to the ground. 

Glass shattered. Jam was all over the dirt. Bread my mother had spent hours laboring on, wasted, inedible.

We stared at it.

“Mm,” he said thoughtfully. Then, “Clean it up.”

Anger made my face hot. “And what if I don’t?”

“Then I tell your mother all about that food you just wasted, that’s what!”

That shut me up, for about three seconds. “No need to flip your wig,” I muttered, stooping to pluck glass shards out of the dirt with trembling fingers.

“What was that?”

I straightened up, wincing at a slice on my finger. A crimson drop of blood stained the jam jar. “You’re an ungrateful old man–that’s what.”

His brows narrowed. “You’re an ungrateful little girl.”

Then he disappeared into his house.

I carried the glass pieces halfway home in the basket, buried them under some trees, and then made the mistake of bringing the empty basket inside.

Mother was furious.

“That was part of the gift, Su!” she said, slapping her drying cloth against the counter. 

I fumbled through my explanation and ended up telling her the whole thing anyway.

Then she was even more furious.

“You’re apologizing tomorrow. You’re going over and saying you’re sorry.”

“But–”

“No!” she snapped. “I don’t care what you have to say about it. You’re apologizing and you’re bringing over more bread and jam. I’ll not have our neighbors thinking we’re some uncivilized barbarians.”

“He’s the barbarian.”

She stood there on the kitchen floor, staring at me, grinding her teeth. “You have no respect.” Having delivered this blow, she resumed washing dishes. “No supper for you.”

As if I cared.

I barely slept that night. Thought about escaping through my bedroom window and spending the midnight hours lying in the field, but I had nothing to climb down on. 

My stomach growled and my eyes begged for sleep, but every time I shut them I saw my mother in her wedding gown. Smiling. 

She had Dad in that photo.

Dad.

Be my brave girl.

Tears stung at my eyes. I swiped them away with my knuckles before remembering that she was not watching me, could not see me, could not tell me to cheer up and put that frown away.

Next morning I had school, but afterwards I was sent straight over to the Kent place with the same darn basket and different goodies.

He was in his yard again, in the same spot, hoeing a square of dirt. When I approached he looked up and his eyes went all stormy-looking.

“I’m here to apologize,” I said stiffly.

No sound except murmuring prairie grass.

He waited expectantly. “Well?”

“Well, here you go.” I set the basket down and started to walk away, but he called out.

“Where’s the apology, then?”

I fidgeted with my blouse sleeve. “Fine. I’m sorry for yelling at you and arguing and smashing your gift.” 

He waited as though I was supposed to go on. I did not.

Finally he nodded his snowy head. “Very well. Apology accepted.” And he resumed hoeing.

That hadn’t gone as terribly as I’d thought it would. Suddenly it seemed like a better idea to loiter here than to return home to Mother. 

“Well, what are you standing around for?” he said. 

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to meddle with strangers?”

I shrugged. “She don’t care.” I watched him for a minute. “Whatcha doing?”

“Gardening.”

“Whatcha growing?”

He glared. “A garden.”

“Yeah, of what?”

“Flowers.” He paused to lean against his tool. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “If you must know.”

“Why?”

“Can’t an old man garden in peace anymore?”

I shrugged again. “I dunno.” It was far more entertaining to bother him than to go home and sit in the deathly quiet. If I sat still for too long I’d be faced with images of my smiling parents. “So how’d you get out here?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Out here. Kansas. Middle of nowhere.”

“My family,” he said, “has lived here for three generations, little girl.”

“Suzanne Ellis,” I reminded him, inching forward and taking the basket along with me.

“Mr. Kent, do you think Riddler haunts my house?”

He sighed. “Maybe.”

“But he’s not dead.”

“He’s not? Well, I wouldn’t know.”

“Why? You a recluse, too?”

“You could say that. I suppose.”

That was fascinating. Why some people were so attached to their houses, I couldn’t imagine. Usually I’d do anything to stay out of my house for as long as possible. “Why?”

He paused. “You’re quite a rude child. You know that?”

“Yeah. Mother’s told me.”

He scratched his head. “Well, I guess when you get to my age it’s easier to stay home than go anywhere else.”

“Oh.”

He scratched his head again, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “You should run along home now. Don’t want your parents worrying ’bout you, do you?”

“Don’t got parents. Just Mother. My dad’s dead,” I informed him. “And I told you my mother don’t care.”

He stared at me like I was an elephant in a zoo. “’Course your mother cares,” he said gruffly, ignoring the part about my dad. 

“Well, she used to. Before he went to the war,” I said conversationally. “But she misses him and she doesn’t really care what I do now unless it’s really bad. Like ruining your stuff.”

“I see.”

“And so that’s why she made me come back. Also, do you have grandchildren?”

“A few. One granddaughter. Eveline.” He surveyed me for a moment. “Your age, probably.”

“Does she go to school here?”

“No. She lives in New York.”

“Oh. Do you visit?”

He shook his head. “Recluse, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, why doesn’t she come visit you?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he tucked the hoe against the house and began climbing the stairs. “Go home, little girl.”

“Suzanne Ellis.” I left the basket near the dirt garden and decided it was probably supper time anyway.

Mother did not speak at all during supper.

After that I began dropping by the Kent place after school every day. Mr. Kent would dig his garden and I would chatter away, everything I couldn’t say when I was at home or at school. All about reading and how I hated math but liked science and wanted a telephone in our house, even though I knew we weren’t rich enough for that.

All about Mother and Dad and the wedding photo on the vanity. And how my dad had red hair and that was why mine was red, too. And how he left for war and the last time I remember seeing him he hugged me and gave me a kiss and told me to be a brave girl. 

I shouldn’t have told him that, because I started crying. 

Hot tears rolled down my cheeks and I tried to hide them behind my hands, but I knew my cheeks were getting all red and suddenly I had to sniffle to breathe because my nose was running like a river.

Mr. Kent stared at me in disbelief.

“I–I’m sorry,” I choked, pressing my nails into my cheeks. “I’m–I’m not–supposed to cry.”

I waited for him to scold me, but he didn’t. He simply stopped spreading sunflower seeds in the dirt.

“Brave people have to cry sometimes,” he said softly.

“No they don’t.” My voice broke.

“Certainly, they do.”

I didn’t believe him, so I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m fine.” But my nose crinkled up and I discovered the tears weren’t stopping yet. 

“You miss him, don’t you?” he said, setting down his trowel.

I nodded. 

He sighed. “Wait here.” 

I watched his blurry figure climb the porch and disappear into his ghost-house. 

I was left alone in the ocean of dry grass. The ends of my red braids glinted in the sun. 

Brave girl.

Mr. Kent returned carrying a photo, a very old one of five unsmiling people. A mother, a father, and three children, all of them dressed to the nines in frilly dresses and ironed suits.

“My family,” he said, handing me the picture. “Although there’s three children not in the photo. They weren’t born yet.”

“That’s your wife?” I pointed to a pretty-faced blob on the paper.

He nodded somberly. “Mrs. Etta.”

“She’s gone, too.” A statement, not a question.

He paused. “Not gone,” he said slowly. “Deceased, yes.” He looked over at the dirt garden. “She loved sunflowers.”

I swallowed. Her eyes sparkled in the light, though her mouth was a thin, sober line. 

“Tell me this, Suzanne,” Mr. Kent said, as I traced Etta’s dress with my finger, “do you think soldiers are brave?”

I nodded, and a tear stained the edge of the photo. “Oops.”

“I was in a war, too. And when Mrs. Etta died, I still cried.”

Brave girl. “Really.”

“It’s true.”

I sucked air in through my nose. “I haven’t seen Mother cry.”

“That doesn’t mean she isn’t sad. Your mother misses your dad too, Suzanne.”

The photo crinkled as I handed it back to Mr. Kent. He took it in his wrinkled hands and smoothed it out. “You aren’t any less brave because you cry. Your mother might not know that yet.”

We were silent for a minute. Rustling grasses and creaking shutters filled my ears.

I snuffled. “Are you a recluse because your wife died?”

“Maybe that’s part of the reason.”

“Will I be a recluse too?”

He sighed. Elderly people sigh a lot. “I hope not. You’ve got lots to do in this world, Suzanne Ellis.”

That night at supper, I told Mother about school. She nodded a bit, and actually asked if I liked my teacher.

We talked more each night. 

I thought maybe the dullness was leaving her eyes, each day, very slowly. I knew for sure it was true when I walked in the door one afternoon and her face lit up.

She was happy to see me.

I made her happy.

My brave girl.

* * * * * * *

Mr. Kent passed away a year later. 

He died as he had lived–quiet, thoughtful, unknown. 

He watched from his porch as I watered his sunflowers one last time, and then I helped him inside and said ’bye, just like I did every day. And that was the last time I talked to him.

His granddaughter did visit him, once, before he went. I met her on the road and nearly fell over when I saw how much she looked like me. Red hair, brown eyes, freckles all over her nose.

“I hate them,” she laughed.

“So do I,” I said, “but maybe we’ll grow out of them.” Then I remembered the way my mother had counted them the other day, calling them stars. They did look a little bit like constellations. “But they’re kind of pretty, really.”

Eveline visited again at his funeral.

Her face was very red. I took her hand, very softly, and said, “It’s alright to cry.”

And I did not try to hide the tears that fell down my nose.

And Mother did not tell me to put away the frown. Instead she drew me close, cradled me against her chest, and planted a kiss on my head.

I felt a tear fall into my hair.

My brave girls.