Heirlooms

Unruly and deciduous, the northwoods abound with wonders of worlds past. Deep within a particular acreage, a gate of an ancient farmer’s fence lies ajar, hinges broken – a child’s makeshift swing. Further in, rain water drips from the ceiling of a forgotten tunnel whose opposite end is a quarter-sized light; and at the shallow stream’s edge, a series of crumbling cemetery monuments have been nearly obscured by jurassic, vibrant ferns. Hazy summer is in full throttle. Two doe forage for food, heads bent together as if in intimate conversation. Hidden behind a veil of evergreens, the pair meanders near a gravel country road. All around are whispers: the trees shush. Be quiet, they say. Still your heart.Vera stands in the woods, slightly disoriented. For a moment she glances straight up, appreciating the kaleidoscopic, interwoven tree branches and their sharp green leaves, and the spots of gray sky in between. Similar patterns often catch her eye; perhaps it’s in her genes. Her last name is Webb. Maybe she was born to see these things. A single raindrop hits her cheek and she snaps back to her purpose, continuing her hunt. Not only are the clouds on the verge of bursting, the trail she has been following has been steadily disappearing over the last five minutes. Just as she whispers to herself, I must be getting close, Vera practically stumbles upon the structure she seeks.Is this it? This can’t be mom’s secret.First of all, it is astonishingly tiny. Two weeks ago when the lawyer informed Vera that she was heiress to a piece of lakefront property, she’d imagined a fairytale cottage or a cozy cabin. This structure is the size of a tool shed, smaller than her bedroom in her apartment in Minneapolis. Even though the lawyer emphasized the value of the land, encouraging her to simply demolish the structure and sell, her hopes for her own secret place to escape to remained high. Now they begin to dissipate like smoke.The shack is decrepit and buried beneath years of overgrowth. Its roof is covered in inches of moss, vines cling to the somehow solid wood siding, and wild plants and flowers surround it in every direction. When she locates and uncovers the door, Vera’s heavy heart lightens. It’s not what she’d been expecting, and it’s far from ideal, but it seems to have good bones and an undeniable magical spirit.I could use a little magic, Vera sighs internally. She told her friends she was going to spend her first summer after college graduation finding herself, journaling, soul-searching: carefully convalescing. In June she was entirely convinced she’d have an inward epiphany after a month or two, but the summer is nearly over now and she’s lonely and lost. Her mom is still gone. Driving up north was actually the first spiritual journey she’d had since the funeral. The cool yet humid air and winding country roads took her back to her childhood summers, when she and her mom would vacation at her grandparents’ lake house in Two Harbors. She loved sitting in the passenger seat, safe in her mother’s station wagon. She liked how the car would almost catch the mirages on the pavement; she liked the way they escaped just in time.Many years later, she was driving alone with the windows down. Her mother’s favorite song “Catch The Wind” played softly on repeat. Vera didn’t inherit her mother’s soulful singing voice, but she did have her eyes. Round and sorrowful, Noelle Webb’s eyes were pink rimmed, watery sea-glass green, and fringed with coarse blonde lashes. An exact replica, Vera could hardly bear to look at herself in the mirror. When she absolutely had to, she saw her white-blonde hair, the color of the inside of a seashell, and her small pink mouth. But she avoided eye contact with her own reflection.The coordinates to the land her mother had somehow neglected to mention were entered in her GPS. It took her four hours to find the small red sign marking the property, which had an abruptly short gravel driveway leading to a clearing. From there it was a quarter-mile hike along the eroded trail to where she now stood, in the unpromising but endearing entryway. She thought of how when she’d inquired about a key, the lawyer laughed. There’s no key. To her confused countenance, he’d elaborated, Vera, it’s abandoned. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.Nowhere was a word that crawled under her skin, made her feel displaced. Where’s mom? Is she nowhere? Where am I? Vera’s memory flashed back to the evening of the day her mom died. Exhausted and numb, Vera fell into a leaden sleep. The next dawn, she stretched and stood like a morning kitten; unanchored, she recalled what and where and why, her mouth shuddering in a weary yawn. That sense of nowhere still follows her like an unshakeable shadow.When Vera opens the cottage door, the thinnest scrap of shadow creeps across the hard clay floor. Though the sun is concealed behind layers of rainclouds, the dark and musty interior of the shack starkly contrasts the bright outdoors. She hesitates a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust before stepping gingerly inside. She naively thinks she is prepared to understand why her mother, her best friend and confidant in all matters of the heart, kept this from her.It’s as if the air hasn’t been breathed, hasn’t been stirred in decades. The space is barely twice as wide as the door, which swings to a silent halt. As the upset dust motes settle, Vera notices that it is surprisingly clean. The ground underfoot is cold, but covered with a rug of knotted cloth. The room is spartan and spare, with just a folding table and a single black chair situated beneath the window to the left. On the table is a glass jar filled with paintbrushes, stiff and wiry. Bare built-in shelves line the back wall, and a kitchenette consisting of a metal washbasin and a forgotten teacup are by the right-side window. A pile of firewood is stacked behind the door. Light pierces through small holes in the roof and walls, illuminating without electricity. There isn’t a trace of modernity to speak of.People once lived here, is all Vera can think. This barren shack was their shelter.After her meeting with the lawyer, Vera did some research regarding the history of her inherited land. Last week, with the help of a local historian, she learned that it had apparently been passed down for generations. In fact, her grandmother lived in the lean-to for an entire summer. Her grandmother’s parents and two siblings had nowhere to go after the family home, which stood in the nearby clearing, accidently burned down in 1930, six months after the crash of the stock market. At least they were only summering, Vera thought in amazement. Winter would be impossible here, in these conditions. After the summer of 1930 passed, the family of five moved from the woods to the Cities, for good.Vera silently contemplates life during the Great Depression. She imagines her ancestors’ sleeping arrangements, cooped up together in a row on the floor, for where else would they have slept? How did they eat without refrigeration, bathe without plumbing? She feels detached from such a rustic way of life, even as she stands in their footprints. Then again she wonders if life was really so drastically different for them and for her. Across the wavelengths of time, she too has lost something, sunk into depression, and wound up here, in this beyond-repair, makeshift nest.  Cautiously, Vera examines the china teacup. It is light and delicate in her hands. She thinks of how in the late stages of illness her mother looked like an antique porcelain doll. Like her mother’s faint veins and pale skin, the painted teacup is a web of tiny fractures. As if taking a sip, Vera presses it gently to her lips before setting it back down. She sits in the chair, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table. Outside the rain is waiting patiently in the swollen sky. In the distance, she gets a glimpse of the shimmering lake. A loon cries out in echoing earnestness.With this view before her, Vera can envision the endless hours of entertainment possible on this land: swimming, exploring, bonding. Perhaps these simple things were enough to distract from their hunger pains and sadness – maybe even enough for happiness. She used to love the time spent on the shores of Lake Superior with her paternal grandparents, who remained in her life long after her father left. The northwoods are home. Urban life had not eradicated her appetite for nature; quite the contrary, she feels a longing growing inside her. She stands up and takes another glance around.Someday soon I will come back here, she promises herself, running her hands along the rough back wall. Suddenly something catches her index finger. She draws it away, instinctively assuming it’s a sliver, but when Vera peers closely it bleeds like a paper cut. In the wall, something pink protrudes from a slit between the boards. She faintly remembers once hearing about how in the old days people would sometimes insulate their homes with newspaper; she couldn’t vouch for the truth in that though. She pulls out an envelope, and behind it a piece of gray paper emerges, still stuck.The envelope is small and faded, with the words “The Heirloom” written on the front in an unforgettable font. The calligraphy stops Vera’s heart; it’s her mother’s handwriting. She carefully breaks the seal.But the letter inside does not match the envelope. The handwriting is unfamiliar, and at the top it’s dated much earlier than she’d anticipated: August 5th, 1942. Vera scans quickly, seeing her grandmother’s name, Arden Juaire, signed in the bottom right corner. It’s a letter written by her mother’s mother, who had been in this space many summers before, whose pen touched this paper some summers later. A woman Vera never had the chance to meet. The greeting reads Dear Stranger. Trembling, Vera mentally trips over the words in excitement.I wouldn’t be surprised if no one ever found this letter. But if someone does, as it appears you have, since these words cannot exist without a reader, please know how much this little house meant to me.  It was more than mere shelter. It was where I was stung by a bee for the first time. Where my mother taught me how to build a bouquet of wildflowers (cut the stems at an angle, so they’ll live longer). It was my family’s last resort in an era of despair. It was, in my fanciful imagination, a boundless palace. Where I began to paint – my homegrown studio. I mixed my own paints from the natural pigments and dyes in my backyard, the blackberry juice both deliciously sweet and colorful. I think the inspiration for my paintings has seeped into the very framework of this structure. I hope my paintings, hidden behind these walls, will resonate with you. They’re all yours, as is this little house, if you’ll please promise to keep them.On the back is a message from her mother. It says Vera, I love you always. Find strength and solace here. Noelle’s beautiful voice no longer haunts but soothes Vera. Until now, she hadn’t felt tied to the land. Before, it wasn’t terribly significant, despite her heritage. Now, a maternal presence invades the space and she is reassured, aware that every woman’s heart is a deep lake of secrets. She carefully pries the bent wooden board enough to see the papers tucked behind the walls. But a crack of thunder right overhead stops her from taking them out. The clouds have finally given in, unreservedly relinquishing fat drops of water. She will have to come back another time to retrieve the paintings.Someday soon I’ll return. Someday, Vera chants, sounds like a sigh.Outside again, she inhales the earthy air deep into her lungs. Vera carries the jar of paintbrushes and the letter with a sense of proud ownership. She lets the raindrops pelt her face in their relentless fury, so that when she finally bows her head and walks away, the phantom drumming sensation lingers.