Mind Games

“The little yellow house. She likes your oatmeal soap. Rem mowed her yard in the summer all through high school.”

“She always had cookies and sweet tea for me. Is she okay?”

“She is. Getting up there, though, and a widow these last eight years. Used to plant a big garden, and raise some beef cattle, keep chickens. Nowadays, she plants small, has some help with that. She sold off the cattle. Too much for a woman alone nearing eighty. I suspect some past that, as she won’t say.”

“If you want us to give her a hand this summer,” Rem began, and Lucy patted his hand.

“I expect she’d be grateful. She asked me to come see her, talk some business, so I did. She’s got fifteen good acres where the house sits, the old barn and such, the fields, and some wooded land where the stream goes through. She wants to sell off all but five, hoping to keep that in the family when she passes, and wondered if I’d have an interest in those ten acres.”

“What would you do with ten acres?” Thea wondered. “Nearly a mile away?”

“About three-quarters of a mile, and I’m not thinking of it for me.” Lucy smiled out at her land. “No, this is enough for me. Five acres for each of you, though, that’s interesting to me. You’d have a place to plant a home, build a house that suits you, if you’re still of a mind to. Sell it, if you change your mind. Either way, a good investment, I think. It’s good land, and I’m selfish enough to like it’s close.”

“Buy five acres,” Rem murmured.

“The business major’s mind’s working. There’d be legal what all. Survey, right-of-way, as you’d need to put a road back to your properties. She’d toss that right-of-way in. I’m going to say it’s hurting her heart to see the land go wasted. You’d need wells and septic and getting the electric back there. It’ll take time, but if you have an interest, you have that time, and you have the money to make what you want of it.”

“What do you think, Thea?”

She looked at her brother. “I’m trying to think about something I never thought about.”

“Thinking’s what you should do. Why don’t the two of you take a walk on down there, have a look, have that thinking and talking-about-it time. And, Thea, you have other things to tell Rem.”

“What?”

“Not yet. I’m thinking.” Thea got to her feet. “Let’s take that walk.”

Lucy whistled for the pups. “I’ll take them inside so they don’t trail you.”

They hadn’t reached the road before Rem spoke. “I want to buy it.”

“Rem, we haven’t thought about it for five minutes. You’ve got three more years of college.”

“It’s a good investment, and one we can see and feel. One we can use. And you’ve only got one more year. Making the deal, getting a lane put in and the rest, getting a house designed and built? That’ll take longer.

“You’re not going anywhere, Thea. I know you.”

She looked out toward the hills, the woods that climbed them.

“No, I’m not going anywhere. I guess part of me didn’t want to look past living at Grammie’s little farm.”

“Well, look now.”

When she did, she could imagine herself, maybe a pretty cottage, gardens, and the quiet of it. She could keep chickens, maybe a goat or a milk cow.

“Why do you want it?” she countered. “And don’t say just for the investment.”

“Because this is home. I wouldn’t build on it, at least not for a long while. Grammie can use my help, with the little farm, with managing her business, and with the rest. I’m nowhere near ready for a house, but you are.”

“Maybe.”

“What are you supposed to tell me?”

“After we look at the property.”

And it was so damn pretty, she thought when they stood on the road that looked over it.

The yellow house stood well back from that road, and its porch sagged more than a little in the middle. Thea could see where the roof had been patched.