Sitting at the kitchen table, Allison began to look around. The toaster needed it’s crumb tray emptied, the pile of bills next to the fridge needed addressing, the dishes needed to be washed and the dinner needed to be cooked. At forty years old, Allison sat on a chair in her kitchen feeling as if she were living someone else’s life. How did this house ever become what it was? She barley remembered unpacking the boxes, it all looked vaguely familiar to her. There were things, familiar things, that she had collected throughout her adult life, but suddenly none of it seemed to belong to her.
Put water on for pasta, get kid’s sandwiches ready, set table, Ryan likes a glass of wine with dinner, put blue stem glass out. Walk twenty steps to sink, rinse forks before setting on table, walk twenty steps back, fork on left, knife on right. It was a tape she played over and over in her head daily. A glance at the oven clock told her he would be home soon. She smoothed out her clothing, never wrinkled, never sloppy. Today she wanted to be wrinkled, she longed to be sloppy, just once she would like to be less than perfect. Maybe then, just then, the outside would match how she felt inside. The key made it’s familiar scratching noise in the door and Allison walked to the door to greet Ryan as the kid’s yelled for him from upstairs.
Ryan McJames stepped out onto the field and all eyes fell on him. The team cheered their pitcher onto the mound, a no-hitter was in the works. Ryan with his usual swagger walked out onto the field scanning the stands. This was going to be the day he had been waiting for. Scouts were in the stands, local newspaper reporters waited by the fence for a few words after the game for the weekend ‘ink’, Ryan was going to strike the batter out. The pitch was hurled, the batter missed, the clock read 90 miles and the game was over. Ryan McJames just bought himself a scholarship, a ticket out of this place, a step closer to his destiny. The team rushed their hero, throwing his hat into the air, the stands were lit up with cheers. Ryan was going to break her heart, but somehow he didn’t care, he knew what he wanted.
Dust flew up like a cloud as the car came racing down the road. Allison jumped up, checked herself in the mirror, smoothed out her clothing and raced for the door. The air was thick and dry, the wind hadn’t blown in a few days. The trees wilted in the heat, birds splashed around in dirty little puddles on the road to keep cool, Allison wiped her face as she swung open the door. With her auburn hair, blue eyes and slight build, she was the sweetest thing Ryan had ever seen. He had first noticed her in the stands across the field at a senior pep rally. She was standing in a group of girls, but she was the only thing he had seen. It was early in the season, he was still training, football was still the major sport at school.
Allison hadn’t even noticed him, she was more concerned with Jill’s story about her date with Chris. Jill was Allison’s best friend, her blonde hair rested on her shoulders which made her constantly fling it from right to left like a pendulum. Chris had asked Jill out to an after-game party and Jill was full of stories. Allison didn’t like Chris, she as a rule, didn’t like jocks. Jill on the other hand liked all kinds of guys, Chris was just another one on her short order list. The after-game party had turned into a major after-game-after-party hook up and Jill was going on and on about the way Chris kissed. The whole thing was beginning to get on her nerves when Ryan came into the stands to talk to her. Allison stepped back as far as she could into the crowd, the last thing she wanted to do that day was talk to a jock. The rally was just about to end when Ryan finally reached her tier in the bleachers. Jill was finishing up her graphic account of her night with Chris when Ryan gained entrance into the group. Ryan McJames had set his eyes on Allison Blake, and Ryan usually got what he wanted.
On the third Friday of every month Allison went to visit her grandparents. Today was Thursday and she was getting ready to make the drive out of town. The brown suitcase that was stowed under her bed was now laying open on top, clothes thrown across it waiting to be packed. Gram usually liked Allison to wear a dress to church so she had chosen a light blue one for that weekend. As she scanned her room to take inventory of what needed to come with her to Davidson, she noticed herself in the mirror. Generally speaking, she never liked what she saw in the mirror, but lately Allison started to see something appealing looking back at her. As a young girl Allison had been awkward and what her mom liked to call sporty. It was rare to find her in a dress or a pink top. Much to the dismay of Rachel Blake, whom had fancied herself a real girlie girl, Allison preferred jeans and a ripped top. Jerry, Allison’s brother had to hide his converse sneakers from his little sister , which she preferred over her black MaryJanes.
Jerry was seven years older than his sister and Allison idolized him and his friends. Jerry let his little sister tag along after their dad had moved away. Allison had cried herself to sleep for weeks after their mom had told them daddy wasn’t coming back. A few months after the divorce Allison heard he had married a girl from his office, she never heard of him again. Jerry and Allison were all that Rachel Blake cared about, she threw herself into motherhood. Mrs. Blake was always class mother, or a member of the school board. She never missed any of Jerry’s games and she sat patiently at Allison’s dance lessons. Allison didn’t have the heart to tell her mother that she hated dancing school and loathed the time her mother spent up at school. There wasn’t a place in school that Allison could go that she wasn’t Jerry’s little sister or Rachel’s little girl. By the time she entered High School, Jerry had moved out and Rachel Blake had thrown herself into her real estate career, Allison was finally finding a place of her own.
Jill and Allison giggled as they talked about Ryan McJames, after all who did he think he was some baseball god or something. Allison assured Jill she was not going to accept his invitation to the movies. When Ryan had asked her the other day she had brushed it off as if he was asking her to join a group. Ryan had felt the sting of rejection, she could see it on his face, but she wasn’t going to get all mushy in the movies with this demi-god. Jill answered her phone, it was Chris trying to finalize plans for the movies, Allison reminded her that she was getting ready to go to Davidson and that she definitely would not be going. Jill told Chris to pick her up at 7 pm Friday night at her house and to please let Ryan know Allison was not attending.
The road to Davidson was easy to navigate, Allison had driven it so many times she could do it in her sleep. A statement she refrained from making in front of her mother, who felt it necessary to remind her young daughter that sleeping behind the wheel was a bad idea. Allison pulled out of the drive and begin her trip, counting the mile markers, mile 68 only 30 more to go. The scenery started to change and Allison could feel her shoulders relax and her mind clear. Emma and Richard Ruland met their granddaughter at the door, taking her bags and offering her up some much needed kisses and hugs. All was right with the world at Cobblestone Cottage, Allison could forget about her daily life and just let her grandmother fuss over her and spend time painting in the barn with her grandfather. Those visits were her refuge from the sadness she saw streaked across her mother’s lined face and the emptiness she felt inside since her dad had left.
Cobblestone Cottage sat on 5 acres of what Allison liked to call heaven. The house shone with it’s white paint and blue shutters like a beacon on the road. The roses grandpa Richard and Allison had planted when she was a little girl lined the white picket fence. Gram’s bird houses and feeders hung from the large pines lining the front of the property. Emily the cat spent many a lazy day on the padded chairs of the gazebo in the yard. This year the groundhog was especially fat, eating the apples from the tree that sat near the pergola. The yard had 1 acre cleared, the rest had been left woodsy and had served as a place for Allison and Jerry to build forts and skip stones in the stream the meandered through the property. The house was not really a cottage, it had 5 bedrooms and a large kitchen, but Emma had fancied it a cottage in England and named it such. Allison liked the whimsy of the name and always told her friends she was off to the cottage for the weekend. After her father left she spent the entire summer at Cobblestone Cottage playing in the woods, leaving treats out for the deer and forgetting the heartache that faced her at home.
Emma Ruland dried her hands on her apron and urged the girl inside, the smell of apple cinnamon muffins wafted through the house. Grandpa was already buttering the hot muffins and placing a glass of cold milk out for his granddaughter when Allison entered the kitchen. “How was the ride, did your car do alright on this trip?” Richard asked as he passed the warm buttered muffin her way. Taking a bite and letting the butter run down her check Allison assured her grandfather that her car had done just fine. Richard had already decided that he better have a look under the hood of that old clunker to make sure Allison wouldn’t need to call roadside assistance on her ride home Sunday night. Allison knew her grandfather liked to play around with engines so she didn’t tell him she had just had the car in the shop. Emma joined her at the table, “So dear tell me about school, how is that friend of yours Jill doing, still boy crazy?” Allison gagged on her milk as she attempted to find the best way to tell her gram that Jill was indeed more boy crazy than ever, and that she herself might be a little boy crazy, over one boy that is.
The cool night air came rushing into the upstairs bedroom where Allison had spent that glorious summer. She could now lay in the bed and reach her feet up to the slanted roof while lying on her bed, a thing she did often. Emma had recently repainted the room and purchased new linens for the bed, Allison ran her fingers across the duvet. It was light sea foam green with a shell motif on it. The sheets were cold and crisp, not like at home, the sheets there were all stiff and itchy. Cynthia, the stuffed toy rabbit she had slept with since she was 3 sat in her regular spot in the white captains chair. The pine tree that could be seen from the eastern window swayed in the night air, a dove cooed in the distance, sleep came quickly that night, as did the nightmares.
A sweat began to form on Allison’s brow as she slept, she was running again, running away from something. The limbs on the trees were whipping her in the face as she ran through the woods. Jerry was calling her name and urging her to hurry up. She looked down and saw her bleeding feet crunching the leaves beneath them. The voices behind her were getting louder, she tried to run faster but her nightgown kept getting caught on the underbrush. Jerry was so far ahead of her she couldn’t keep up, a scream began to form in her throat. “Allison, honey, wake up.” Gram was standing over her bed gently urging the girl out of her nightmare. “Oh gram, I had the dream again, that horrible dream, running and running, I couldn’t catch Jerry.” Allison was panting as she explained the details of the all too familiar dream to Emma. A cold glass of water had been placed on the bedside table and Emma urged her granddaughter to have a sip. The two sat together for sometime, Emma sweeping the bangs from Allison’s forehead as she had done every other time the dream woke the house up. Sleep swept over Allison once again and Emma quietly crept out of the room leaving the door open a crack allowing Emily the cat to enter and jump up on the bed.
Richard was already in the barn setting up canvas and paints for the two to spend some time painting. Emma was going to the vegetable stand and then off to a woman from the local congregation for lunch. The better part of the day belonged to Richard and his girl. Allison liked that her grandfather in all his stature enjoyed spending time with her painting in the barn. She had received her first brushes from him 10 Christmases ago and the two had shared a love of painting ever since. Today the subject would be a still life, a vase filled with flowers, an orange and a few books had been set up on a nearby table, draped with a Provence table cloth. Allison quickly began to mix her palette, burnt sienna, chocolate brown, red, cerulean blue, daffodil yellow, white and black for shadowing, and paint thinner for diluting. Allison began to set up her canvas, watching as her grandfather’s knowledgeable hand swept across the canvas with such confidence and grace, that Allison wondered if she would ever be as talented an artist as he was.
Richard Ruland was a tall burly man, with a full head of salt and pepper hair that still turned the heads of the ladies in church. Allison would ignore the redness of his checks when the older women would fuss over him during fellowship time after service. Emma Ruland paid no mind to those ‘old crows’ as she called them. “Richard Ruland, don’t you be getting fancy on Pheona McBride you hear me, her raisin bread will break all of your veneers right out of your mouth. Woman can’t bake a decent bread to save her life.” Emma would remind her husband as they left church and headed back to Cobblestone Cottage. Richard liked that his bride of over 40 years still got her back up when another woman set her sights on him or offered him over baked bread with raisins. Allison loved to watch the slow dance of romance that her grandparents had developed, she wondered why marriage was so hard for others and yet so easy for some.
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