The Calling Card

My dad found this treasure somewhere amongst old family letters and photographs. Here is the backstory as I imagine it (Nicholas Sparks, what's your offer? :) 

 



 

 

The Calling Card

A splinter lodged into her soft white finger like a stick in a snowman, as she hurriedly stuffed the envelope into the crack of the bunkhouse door. How like life to present such a bittersweet whirlwind on the eve of her return home. When he finally awoke after their adventure, he would find the embossed greeting, a desperate token of fleeting affection from a singular moment of youthful camaraderie:

Envelope:

M. Bellinger

Grace Lammie

Enclosure:

Eagle 1858

When time shall have made deep furrows in thy brow remember where you first met

Grace

***

Black and red specks swam in her clenched lids, as the August sun crawled down through the shimmering birch branches that hung like chandeliers over the black water. When she opened her eyes, the world looked foreign and vibrant- a layer of familiarity peeled back and a newborn world allowed its first breath. Her copper hair swirled in a thousand tentacles and stirred the glassy surface of the pond for the hundredth and last time this summer. Grace wanted to float like this infinitely, a white petal in a black pool in the middle of nowhere- weightless, anonymous.

Fairy giggles shattered the spell and Grace gulped a mouthful of earthy liquid as she scrambled to conceal herself under the surface of the broken stillness. Two little farm boys scampered away through the woods with hollered whoops and twirled her boots by their laces while they set sail with her new paisley dress above their heads. They disappeared like a train and its whistle, chugging through brush, their sirens becoming distant, as Grace clambered to the bank of the pond. She was a mile from the guest house and meant to be on a train the next morning back to Chicago.

Her father had once again sent to her to the countryside for summer, a local housemaid, cook and companion hired to look after her and get her out of his way, while he set out to chart prospective routes for the Milwaukee Road to expand west. He was as hungry as everyone for progress, and as his fortune grew, so did his appetite. To appease her of these annual banishments, nothing was denied his daughter. Grace grew into her teenage years surrounded by and belonging to Chicago’s best. In this moment however, the teenage grudge Grace felt for her father bloomed.

Thick air closed around her body as she left the water. She began a defiant trudge in the direction of the house, determined to shock the God who allowed this immodest walk to befall her. Frogs and birds sang out a dissonant processional as her atmosphere darkened. Burrs and thorns occasionally streaked her pale skin with long red trails, and welts from late summer bugs popped up like drumbeats as she approached the edge of the forest.

***

Matthew had worked for Hinkley the last 3 summers- he searched the surrounding fields for cobblestones, dug and hauled them to the house’s building site and piled them in long lines. The work seemed futile but was steady, and Matthew was determined to finally join his brothers in San Francisco before the great boom was over and done with. He was a little late in all things, born nearly three weeks after he was expected, the last of 8 children, his voice like a choirboy until 16, and presently stuck in the field until dusk.

The neighboring boys erupted into the far side of the field with halloos like coyotes under a full moon. They stopped short when he called out, dropped their spoils and took off toward the farm. The brats had ruined his summer, stealing the bread and jam Mrs. Hinkley so lovingly wrapped up in a linen hanky each morning as he set out, to keep him going.

He dropped his digging tools and started the muddy trudge across the field to pick up what the rascals had abandoned. The summer heat broke slightly as the sun descended to the horizon. It was a welcome respite. As he bent to pick up the mound of fine cloth that blanketed the tall grass, a ghostly figure burst into the clearing with an unearthly shriek. Before he could turn he was knocked cold to the ground by a flying stone.

Red and black specks swam in his vision as Matthew came to, the ghost replaced by a madwoman with tangled red hair struggling to fasten the discarded dress with scraped fingers, feet caked with mud and leaves, profaning like a Milwaukee and St. Paul station agent. As he began to move, the ghost woman whirled around and searched the ground for another cobblestone. Matthew stilled her with hands up, but began to laugh at the sight of this wreck of a lily-white city girl.

“What’s your name?” he offered, recovering.

The girl began to answer, then stopped, her eyes filling, as hysterical laughter began to spill out like rain from a thunderhead. “Grace,” she finally managed.