Goodbye Valentine Cave

Chapter 1

Goodbye Valentine Cave. Our home. The very first home our children ever knew. You welcomed them. You gave them a place to learn and grow and have their first Christmas. You allowed us to paint silly animals on your walls in the smallest bedroom at the top of the stairs. A lion, a tiger, an elephant, a flamingo and a parrot. That little jungle oasis was the first bedroom to the two most amazing people in my life. The place where I rocked them to sleep. Where I nursed them in their earliest days. And across the hall was the first bedroom my husband and I shared in a place of our very own. The happy memories those walls witnessed are in the thousands. The memories within your walls will never leave me. There were first birthdays, Easter egg hunts, red paper hearts taped to the wall for Valentine’s Day, and cheesy fake cobwebs stretched between the windows for Halloween. The tree out back my dad planted to commemorate my first Mother’s Day will always be a part of me. Your memories go back a hundred years. Our six years here are such a tiny bit of that time. Such a trivial bit of your life as a house. But for us, it was such a big, big six years. They’ve been, without question, the best of my life. I became a mother here. And that’s everything. So, even if our years have not been a huge amount of your total time, I hope you remember them as some of the sweetest. No one knows us like you do. And now it’s time to say goodbye. The boxes are packed. Dad’s coming with the moving trailer tomorrow. And I’m trying to be okay with saying goodbye. But we’ll move on and you’ll move on. And I hope your next stretch of years is just as sweet. You will exist forever for us in photographs and stories and memories. But this chapter of our story ends tomorrow and a new one will begin. I’m excited for it, but it’s truly bittersweet to leave such a loyal friend behind.

Love, Cassidy

The letter had been hidden. Not well, but it had been hidden. The living room had been done in wood paneling, probably in the seventies, and painted many times since then. Now it was being forcefully removed. Behind a loose piece had been this letter. I was alone that day, in my brother’s newly acquired house. I was sweating and cursing up a storm at the crummy old house. But then I found this piece of paper, torn from a spiral notebook, and folded neatly into quarters after the letter had been handwritten in loose flowing letters.

After reading it, I gave the old place a little slack. I dropped my hammer onto the nubby gray carpeting and went upstairs. I wanted another look at the animals. I was glad we hadn’t painted over them yet. The little jungle room was going to be my niece’s. She was hoping to paint it purple. The hold-up was the specific shade of purple. She and I stood in front of paint chips at Home Depot for a good twenty minutes debating the point. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Brooke was a serious girl. Every decision was a major one with her, and maybe it wasn’t a bad thing, but we’re talking about a shade of purple. You can’t really go wrong with purple. Periwinkle, indigo, violet, lavender. Once on the wall, I knew she would love any of them. But try convincing her of that. We had semi-decided on periwinkle but hadn’t gone as far as making an actual paint purchase. That level of commitment would take another twenty minutes, at the very least, of standing in front of paint samples.

The point was, the animals that had watched over this woman’s newborn babies were still there. Of course my brother and I had assumed it was a child’s room. But it was different now. The woman who wrote the letter had obviously loved the animals; leaving them behind was painful for her. And now here we were about to slap some periwinkle on them. I looked at each animal. They stood proudly in bushy green grass in front of a brassy blue sky filled with cottony white clouds extending to the ceiling. The elephant was gray with pink toenails. He (she?) wore the brushstrokes of the artist. I imagined Cassidy’s husband working tirelessly while she looked lovingly, pregnantly, on. Their dreams were about to come true. They would soon have a baby to make a home of the tiny little jungle they’d created.

I was getting overly-sentimental. It sucked that this family was ousted from their home, but what could I do? It wasn’t like I owned the house, and I could just find them and knock on their new door, wherever it was, and offer them their house back. It was my brother’s house. It was the new start he and his family so badly need. His wife Tess left him and my niece and nephew last year. He was practically catatonic until I heard about this house and told him about the great deal he could likely get when it went to auction.

Foreclosure, awesome! But not at all awesome for Cassidy. How had I not thought of that? I guess in my mind they’d been the people who hadn’t kept up with their bills and had to live with the consequences. But having read the letter changed things somehow. Cassidy had a name, and the most beautiful handwriting I’d ever seen.

Whatever Cassidy’s family went through, what Denny and his family went through was probably worse. He managed to buy the house and I offered to help him completely remodel the old wreck. He could have just moved in, but my brother needed therapy. Working with his hands was one of the best ways for him to get back to feeling okay. When his first marriage ended, he helped me finish my basement. It worked wonders for him. So he and were I spending every possible moment making this broken-windowed, shitty-floored, ugly-walled house into a haven for his little family.

Brooke and Tucker were awesome kids. One hundred percent Denny, and zero Tess. I’d been there for him. And for them. I’d picked Brooke and Tucker up from school, and I’d driven them to soccer and dance. I loved doing it. But I hated that woman for making it necessary.

I didn’t always hate Tess. We really got along quite well. But then she left them. There was a note. She needed some time for herself. She was in no position to be a mom. Nothing that explained how she could walk away from three of the most amazing people I knew.

The kids were always closer to their dad, but of course their hearts were broken. My heart broke for them. But I was totally confused. How did my sister-in-law just go seemingly psycho overnight?

Several months ago Denny tried to explain it to me as we sat under the stars on his wide, friendly front porch. Lena, you didn’t really know Tess all that well. There was a lot more to her than the person you laughed with at family dinners.

Tell me who she really was, Den. We should have talked about this years ago. I tell you everything.

Yes, you definitely do. Do you think I enjoy being the keeper of your deep dark secrets, Lena? I mean, really... Denny raised an eyebrow at me, and sipped at his black coffee.

Back to the point, Denny. What have you not been telling me about Tess? I pulled my fingers through my long hair as I habitually did.

She’s just always been a little...crazy. She cried. She screamed at me. I never knew why. And then she would be amazing. She would have an entire weekend of being awesome. And then we’d go back to psycho-Tess.

I really wished you’d talked to me, Denny.

The thing is, Lena, no matter how crazy things were with Tess, I was still pretty much happy with my life. Sure, things could have been better, but I had the kids. I had my job. Denny shrugged, and I almost believed what he was saying. But not quite. He set down his coffee cup and peeled at the paint curling off of the porch swing.

Maybe that’s my problem, lately. For years and years I had Sam to focus on and now he’s gone. And I’m left all alone with his prick of a father.

I’ve said it before, Lena. Just leave that douchebag. Please. The fact that you’re still married to him is frankly kind of disgusting.

My brother told me to leave my husband in his usual mellow, laid-back tones. But there was a fire in his eyes when we managed to fall into this topic. It was a fire that told me no matter how okay he may sound about it, he was ready to kick Chris’s ass. Even though my friendly baby brother had never been in anything resembling a fight, I knew he could take Chris without struggle. And I also knew that watching it happen would be one of the coolest things ever. But that was all fantasy. In the end, we were all grownups. And my marriage was my mess to deal with.

Denny and I had this lovely heart-to-heart about nine months before I found the letter in the wall from Cassidy. And on the front of my marriage, nothing whatsoever had changed. Chris was still cheating on me. And I still pretended I didn’t have a clue it was happening.

Although, I had decided that this was not a one-way street. The very moment I met some hot young twenty-something with a cougar complex, I would definitely be taking him as my lover. And that would make everything okey-dokey. Then I would no longer be the sad victim in this story. I did miss sex, after all.

* * * *

I waited in the driveway of the elementary school in high anticipation. My excitement at showing Brooke the Valentine Cave (whatever that meant) letter was a little ridiculous. I guess I didn’t have a lot of reason to get excited those days. I saw Tucker first. This was the norm, because Tucker didn’t seem to know how to walk. In his personal transport repertoire were jogging, running, hopping, bouncing, and galloping. Walking didn’t happen. His slightly shaggy dirty-blond hair bouncing along with him, he flung open the door of my Explorer.

Hey, Auntena! Tucker cried as he jumped into the seat, buckled himself in and pulled out his DS all in one slick well-practiced motion. That was the last we would hear of Tucker for a while. He was fully engrossed in his virtual world before I saw his sister moving cautiously through the parking lot. She was an exact replica of me thirty years ago. She had thick honey-blonde hair, big, green eyes with a thick fringe of lashes, and a cute little upturned nose, with a pretty splash of freckles dancing around it. Brooke was such an adorable girl. Not that I thought it was a great look thirty years ago. I thought I was the most hideous twelve-year-old ever. Doesn’t every twelve-year-old?

I took my niece and nephew back to my house. Chris and I lived two blocks from my brother and his kids. Our house was in a cookie cutter subdivision that I couldn’t stand. It was row after row of average-sized houses with monstrous garages. Yard after yard with nary a tree in sight. The color palettes were limited to beige, taupe, gray, and the occasional splash of burgundy or navy. We happened to be one of the bolder houses. We were gray with burgundy trim. We also boasted a lively array of hostas out front. My thumb was the exact opposite of green. I would call it a black thumb, but that analogy screams frostbite to me. Let’s just say hostas were the only plant I could manage, and leave it at that.

Inside, my house no longer looked like it belonged in the most boring cul-de-sac in town. I had a bit of a passion for painting and decorating. I’m not claiming my rooms should have been photographed and splashed on the pages of a magazine. I’m just saying that there was very little in my home that would be described as beige or neutral. I was always in the middle of painting one room or another. I experimented with whatever painting technique I’d read about in my House Beautiful or Martha Stewart magazine. The place looked pretty lively. And luckily, Chris didn’t give a shit about what the house looked like. That was one of the perks of having an adulterous scab for a husband. He tended to try to keep me happy in other areas. Sometimes, things didn’t go well, and it was back to Home Depot to start the whole thing over again. I thought a chocolate brown and mint green bathroom might be fun at one point. I was really wrong about that. I swear I gained ten pounds on Andes mints that month.

I’ve chilled out my manic decorating while helping Denny with Valentine—I mean his new house in Stansfield. Chris had already mentioned a distinct lack of paint fumes. I kind of missed it. At least I had Denny’s place to concentrate on.

We drove past Denny and the kids’ house on the way to mine. Their house is in a much more desirable location. They lived in a cute little neighborhood with old houses surrounded by maternal trees protecting everything with their branches, branches proudly dressed with hanging birdhouses and bamboo wind chimes.

Denny’s house was older, but he’d done a lot of work on it. It was country blue with crisp white trim. He even built the quaintest of little white fences to go around the yard. It was all for sale, of course. There was no reason he couldn’t have stayed. But he wanted a fresh start. He wanted a place with no memories of Tess: a bedroom she’d never slept in, a kitchen she’d never thrown a plate in and a yard she’d never run screaming into before curling up on the grass and crying.

I had to think of the Valentine Cave letter. Yes, it was the house my brother’s family had brought two babies into, and put up their first Christmas trees, and ate first birthday cakes by the fistful. But the bad memories were over-powering.

After I talked to Denny about it all those months ago, I wanted to see how Brooke was doing. It was after school and she was doing homework at my kitchen island while I worked on dinner. So, how are you doing, Brooksy?

Great. These spelling words are ridiculous. Piano? Really? She didn’t look up from the sentences she was writing.

I kind of meant life in general. Not your less-than-challenging homework, I pressed gently on. Brooke wasn’t the kind to open up, but I wanted her to know I was there for her.

Oh, you mean about Mom, she said with a sigh, tapping her pencil.

Exactly.

Dad takes good care of us, Auntena. We’re doing okay, Brooke said carefully.

I know that, sweetie. But...is it hard not having your mom around? Do you miss her? The questions seemed trite, but I just wanted her to start talking. And she didn’t for a while. I waited patiently, though, because I could tell she was thinking about her response. She kept her eyes on her pencil, which she rolled back and forth on the table.

Mom was hard to live with, but I do miss her. There are just some things that Dad doesn’t do the way I wish he could. But he can’t, because he’ll never be a mom.

Like what? I felt like I was dealing with a skittish colt, and she would flit away at any moment.

Hugs. Mom hugs are very different from Dad hugs. Moms become soft all over when they hug you. It’s like you just have softness and love all around you. But when Dads hug you, it’s all strength and protection. I miss the Mom kind.

I’m sorry, Brooke. I wish she was still here to hug you, I said quietly. I ran a hand down her hair, and patted her back. She looked at me with her round eyes, as if deciding whether she should continue.

I’m not sure if I do. I know I should. But even though Dad is so sad right now, life is kind of easier now. We don’t have to worry what she’ll do anymore. Brooke roughly wiped a tear away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and went back to her homework.

* * * *

Brooke, Tucker, and I carried our things into the house. Tucker immediately grabbed his favorite spot in the living room in the big, overstuffed blue chair.

I need to show you something, Brooke, I said in a conspiratorial tone, as we went out to the kitchen. She took her usual spot, as I grabbed the letter from my bag. I found this in your new house while I was working down there last night. I haven’t shown anyone else yet.

I handed her the letter and watched as her expressive eyes scanned slowly down the handwritten words. I was afraid tears would spill out of them as she covered her mouth and her expression was one of disbelief.

Can I keep the animals? were the first words out of her mouth after she finished reading it.

Of course you can, I answered. Does this mean no more debates over the merits of amethyst versus eggplant, and lilac versus lavender?

Auntena, this is amazing! Do you think there are more? Brooke was excited. She has a penchant for old mysteries (think Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle.) To Brooke, this was a real-life mystery. I didn’t realize what I was getting into when I showed her that letter.

Denny picked up the kids a little after five, as usual, and I was a little sad when they were gone. I closed the front door and headed to the kitchen to figure something out for dinner. I drummed my fingers on the cool counter as I stared into the contents of the cupboard. I churned out a boring dinner of goulash. Chris came in just as I was finishing it. We didn’t eat together often, but it looked like I was in for a treat that night.

Hey, Chris said, heading to the fridge for a Pepsi.

Hey, I replied, grabbing a couple plates from the cupboard. Do you want salad?

Sure, he answered, pulling the bagged salad and a bottle of dressing from the fridge.

We sat at the table, across from each other, each with a plate of goulash and a dull salad. Neither of us was especially enthusiastic about the goulash, but we didn’t mention it.

How was work? I asked Chris, trying to feign interest. He looked up at me with an empty expression.

Same as always, he replied with a shrug. You?

Stella’s starting to get excited about the Halloween party. I searched for something to say. I haven’t even thought about a costume yet.

I’m sure you’ll come up with something, Chris replied, paying more attention to the salad than our conversation.

Yeah, I said, picking at the last few bites of my goulash. It was bland. It was in desperate need of some unknown spice.

I’m going to be watching the fight at Charlie’s Saturday night. Just so you know, Chris lied, his eyebrow doing the odd thing it did when he lied.

I’ll be in Stansfield with Denny for most of the day. I didn’t want him to think it mattered in the least to me how he spent his time. Chris nodded. He looked as if he wished he could say something more, as he licked his lips nervously. Then he took his plate to the dishwasher, and went to the living room to turn on the television. I watched him as he left the room and felt a combination of disgust and pity toward him. I really didn’t know why he continued to lie to me on a daily basis. Saturday night would find him lying in bed with that awful Macy. It would find me all alone. Chris had as little feeling left for me as I did for him.

Chapter 2

On Saturday morning Brooke and I made the trek to Stansfield to work on the house together. Denny and Tucker were going to a basketball camp, and would be joining us in the late afternoon. Brooke had her favorite notebook on her lap. It had a pink and purple owl on the front cover that she begged for at back-to-school time and promised she would use it every single day, even though it cost ten times what the solid color notebooks cost. Since Brooke rarely asked for anything, I would never have denied her a notebook that was so cute. I would have liked one for myself. And she’d been true to her word. That child was never without her owl notebook.

So she sat in the front seat of my Explorer, pencil and notebook at the ready. So, what are our principal mysteries? Why is the house called Valentine Cave? Are there any more letters? Did the animals have names? Was anything left by any of the other people who lived there in the last hundred years? Brooke wrote her questions feverishly.

It wasn’t a terribly long drive to Stansfield from Dover City. Most of it was a twenty mile stretch of curvaceous car-commercial highway. Well, sweetie, I hope you can find some answers today. I am going to be painting the master bedroom.

You’re not going to help me rip the house apart to look for more clues? Brooke asked in a disappointed voice. Her face made it clear that she had fully expected me to rip the place apart with her.

I wish I could, but your dad wants to move in by the end of the year, so we have a lot to get done. I probably should have informed the little dear that she was along to help me paint, and not play out her own mystery novel.

I cracked the can of Admiral Blue paint. The fumes put a smile on my face. It was my favorite smell in the world. I slowly poured the paint into the aluminum roller pan. It flowed in a fat river of blue and then pulled back into tiny rivulets as I tipped the can back again. This was like therapy for me. I’d painted a zillion rooms in every shade imaginable. But the feeling I got from transforming a white, or otherwise hideous, room into a fresh, crisp canvas of some eager, young color is unlike anything else for me.

I schlepped up to the bedroom in question. It was the master bedroom, if you really wanted to call it that. We’d pulled the carpeting, which had been a twenty-minute job. It had been an ugly square of brown that had been cut to roughly the right shape and flopped down into the space. The room wasn’t large, but it was plenty for a single man like my brother. Now if he wanted to entertain dates in here...well, luckily he’s a very charming guy. The windows were just a travesty. One had a strange little hole right in the glass. I pictured some young suitor in 1979 throwing pebbles at the window. Some stoned kid with jeans, a flannel, and long feathery hair. The other window was just extremely drafty, like every other window in the house. The place didn’t have a single window that didn’t have to be replaced. They’d been ordered and would be installed the following week. Nothing fancy, but no cracks, holes, or gaps a tarantula could crawl through.

I twisted my thick hair into a bun the size of a large cinnamon roll, and secured it with an industrial-strength ponytail holder. Next, I pulled my soft old pink (formerly red) handkerchief out of my back pocket. I tied it expertly over my hair, and I was all set to work. I had just given the wall its first stroke of Admiral Blue when...

Auntena! You won’t believe this! Get down here! I’m not sure I’d ever heard Brooke’s voice at that volume, so get down there I did.

I nearly tripped down the old stairs, grabbing the wall at the bottom and propelling myself around the corner into the kitchen. What? What is it, Brooke? I was a little breathless.

This, she announced proudly, holding out a piece of paper, folded exactly as the first one had been.

Have you read it? I asked her, grabbing it hastily. I hopped up onto a counter and unfolded the page.

No, I thought we should puzzle it over the first time together. Brooke’s face was over-burdened with anticipation. Her green eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"Okay, here we go...

Goodbye Valentine Cave. It’s my fault we have to leave. I was supposed to take care of my family. I made promises. I broke promises. Cass says we’re going to be fine. That as long as we’re together with Lark and River that we will always be home. It doesn’t matter if we’re living in a barn or a one-bedroom apartment. Together is home. She laughs and says that it was both of our faults. Neither of us can balance a checkbook. We both like to spend money. But she doesn’t know everything. And how can I tell her when she thinks I can do no wrong? Maybe if I make a fresh start, and leave my old habits here, far away from our new life, it will be okay. I will be a new man. One who doesn’t disappoint everyone who loves him. Goodbye, old friend. –Lucky.

"Oh, he is the villain in this story. What do you think he did?" Brooke asked anxiously. She had sidled over next to me and read over my shoulder.

Brooke, this is real life. There are no villains or heroes. Lucky sounds like he’s really sorry for what happened, I explained. But my thoughts were actually running toward wondering if the little twit had already reneged on his word. What could it have been? Drugs? Alcohol? Cock fights? Prostitutes? Some seemed more likely than others.

Okay, where did you find this? I asked my niece.

It was taped to the bottom of one of the shelves in the bottom cupboards here, Brooke said quickly.

Wow. Nice work, detective. I raised my eyebrows at her. Okay, here’s the deal. I’m giving us an hour to find something else. If we don’t, it’s straight upstairs to paint that bedroom. Got it?

Yes! Brooke ran off to another room. I didn’t know why I wanted to find more. So far, all the letters had done was make my heart ache. They’d made me hurt for their situation...but at the same time I’d felt a little jealous. Yes, they were booted from their house. But it clearly wasn’t the place for them. The necessary basic improvements were apparently beyond what they could afford, or what they were capable of doing. But they were clearly more in love than Chris and I had ever been. And they were getting a fresh start to do whatever they wanted to do.

Brooke and I tore around the house like we’d been promised buried treasure if we just looked hard enough. I tackled the bathroom. I felt every surface of the big linen closet, feeling around for loose boards or secret passages or some mysterious quality. Nothing. When I was through with that poor bathroom, I’m sure it felt a certain sense of violation.

I had just opened the back door to give the porch a good once over when once again I heard Brooke’s eternally calm voice shrieking at me, Auntena! Living room!

What is it? What is it? I wasn’t surprised to see the third piece of folded paper. There were no words on this one. It was a crayon drawing in red, green and blue. There was a house-like shape in red, zig-zaggy green grass at the bottom of the page, and scribbles of blue sky everywhere that wasn’t grass or house.

Brooke stared at it for a long time. I didn’t know exactly how or why the drawing hit her so hard, but it really socked her in the gut. She was close to tears. I knew she didn’t want to give in to them, so I suggested we head on up and get to work so we could surprise her dad with a painted bedroom when he showed up later. He would also be surprised that the room was blue, since he specifically asked for off-white or beige.

Are you excited to move here? I asked my niece as I rolled blue onto the sloped ceiling and she expertly did the trim work.

I think the house will be cool when we’re done. She didn’t really answer the question.

Are you looking forward to meeting some new friends here in Stansfield?

"I’m looking forward to meeting some people who don’t know everything about me. People get weird after your mom takes off. You know, I didn’t tell anyone, but they all knew." Brooke looked incredulous at the fact. It really sucked that kids have to learn about this stuff the hard way.

Were they mean about it? I asked gently. It’s so hard with Brooke to know whether to push it or let things go.

No, she answered emphatically. Just weird.

It was time to back off. I tried to goad my concentration back to the roller, thick with blue paint, that was in my hand, but it wasn’t happening. Where were Cassidy and Lucky and their kids? Were they okay? I needed to know. Could I find them? My best friend Stella had helped my brother figure out all