Chapter 5 - The Standard of the Ridge
The sun rose over the Blue Ridge Mountains at 6:45 on Sunday morning, casting a long, golden light across the red-tiled roof of the small cedar cabin David and I had rented three miles outside of Front Royal. The valley below was covered in a heavy, white sheet of river fog that muffled the sound of the morning logging trucks, leaving the air clean, cold, and smelling of dry hickory smoke from our stove.
David sat in the wicker rocking chair on the porch, a thick blue wool blanket wrapped around his waist, his left hand holding a mug of peppermint tea against his chest. His face was still thin and pale from the blood loss, the deep lines around his mouth showing the strain of the six-day surgical recovery, but his eyes were clear, dark, and fixed on the small gravel path that led down to the creek.
"Maisie’s boots are dry," he said as I came out through the screen door, carrying a plate of honey toast and sliced strawberries for the girls.
"The doctor said she can start wearing the regular shoes by Tuesday, David," I said, dropping onto the low stone step beside his knees. "The skin on her ankles is completely closed now. The silver cream cleared the remaining frost blisters without any secondary scarring."
Through the low windows of the cabin room behind us, the sound of Ruby’s laughter rose—a high, clear bubble of noise that was followed by the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of Maisie’s bare feet against the pine floorboards as they chased our old golden retriever around the wood stove.
"Did you hear from the county clerk?" David asked, his hand coming down to rest on the back of my neck, his fingers warm and rough against my skin.
"The Elmwood house goes to public auction in February," I said, my eyes following a red-tailed hawk that was currently circling the pine trees near the ridge line. "The utility board cleared the title under the corruption act, and my mother’s attorney has already filed the bankruptcy papers for her personal holding company. She’s moving into a one-bedroom senior apartment near the highway in Manassas next week."
"Did she call you?"
"She called on Friday night from her sister’s house," I said, my thumb tracing the rim of my coffee cup. "She said she had left three of my old childhood scrapbooks in the attic bedroom and she wanted to know if I could come down to clear them before the state movers arrived. She told me that if I didn't come, she would leave them on the curb with the old mattresses."
"What did you tell her, Clara?"
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the small, pink plastic smartwatch Maisie had worn through the sleet, and laid it flat on the cedar rail of the porch where the morning sun could hit the scratched glass of the screen. The battery was dead, the internal memory was clear, and the data had already been transcribed into forty pages of federal court exhibits that would remain in the Alexandria records office long after the house on Elmwood Terrace had been demolished for a new commercial bypass.
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"I didn't tell her anything, David," I said, my voice steady, unhurried, and perfectly separated from the memory of that white door. "The coordinates have been cleared. We’re out of the loop."
I stood up from the step, picked up the plate of strawberry hearts from the table, and walked back inside the cabin where my daughters were currently building a fortress out of the old wool blankets, their small, pink fingers reaching out to grab the bread before the sun could clear the edge of the glass.
