Songbird Season Read online

  “I’m not hungry.” Frank put his head in his hands.

  “Now, this tells me we have a serious problem.” Miriam was trying to stay positive, but failing. The worry on her face made Melinda’s stomach churn.

  “How could this all go so wrong?” Bill stared out at Main Street, as if hoping an answer, or any clue, would suddenly appear. But there was nothing there but a beautiful early-spring day, and two cars parked in front of the library.

  “Well, Main Street’s not on the straight-and-narrow, if you will.” Melinda joined him at the window. “Most towns are usually plotted square on a grid. Could Main’s diagonal have caused some sort of surveying error?”

  “It’s possible,” Glenn said. “Way back when, they didn’t have the sophisticated equipment we do now. And who knows why it wasn’t caught, that second time around.”

  “That oldest map, the edges are very brown and tattered.” Frank turned in his chair. “You know, I’m wondering if it was stored away in a different place, way back when, and no one bothered to check against it. And if it was just that one error between these lots, it had no bearing on the rest of the town.”

  He came to the window. “See how City Hall is directly across the way, a straight shot? The 1900 map shows the placement of the buildings as well as the lots, and it has our entrance and the one for City Hall just a little bit off from each other.”

  Melinda was closest to the door. She tried to square her feet, and looked out through the window in the top of the oak frame.

  City Hall’s entrance seemed to be a bit to the right. But then, was she really centered behind Prosper Hardware’s door? She took one step over, then back. Was it different now? She couldn’t be sure. “I think maybe it’s off to the right.”

  Bill came to stand behind her. “I agree that things don’t line up, but I think it’s skewed to the left. But I’m taller than you, so maybe …”

  “Oh, this is nonsense!” Aunt Miriam grumbled, but joined them on the mat just inside the entrance. “I’m shorter than both of you, and I can’t tell a darn difference either way.”

  “Maybe if you hop on one foot.” Bill started to snicker. “And make three turns to the left …”

  “If only it were that easy,” Miriam sighed. “Oh, I’m almost afraid of what Jerry has to say about all this.”

  There was an elderly man, looking confused and agitated, waiting in front of the post office when Melinda ran out to pick up their lunch. Suddenly, it occurred to her he could have witnessed Frank’s meltdown. And who else might have seen it? News spread fast in Prosper, and twice as quick if it was bad. They might need to come up with some story to keep the talk to a minimum, at least until they had more answers.

  She hated the idea of lying to people, of putting on a show. Why not just be honest, get out in front of the gossip? But then she thought of what Auggie would do with this sort of information. Oh no, they needed a plan, and fast. She glanced down, and got an idea.

  “Where’s Glenn?” The man barked, squinting in the bright sun. “I know those government employees have it really easy and all, but he should’ve been back from lunch by now. And he left the post office wide open. Why, any nut could’ve just walked in.” He crossed his arms. “I’m out of stamps, you know.”

  “He’s at the store.” Relieved that the man seemed to be in the dark, Melinda’s smile was genuine. “I’ll run in and tell him you’re waiting.”

  The Watering Hole was packed and noisy, just the way Melinda hoped it would be. Maybe no one saw anything, and she’d be in and out in a flash. Jessie Kirkpatrick, who ran the restaurant with her husband, Doug, waved her over to the counter. Her arms full with take-out bags, Melinda almost made it to the door.

  “What’s all that fuss going on out there?” one of the men at the bar hollered in her direction. The other four turned on their stools in a synchronized motion that would have made Melinda double over with laughter on any other day.

  “I saw Glenn and Frank getting into it, for sure,” another man said. “Shouting and carrying on. They’ve been friends for, what, at least twenty years?” The other guys nodded. “Can’t imagine what would have them riled up like that.”

  Jessie widened her eyes at Melinda. I’m sorry, she mouthed, then reached into the kitchen pass-through for another lunch order.

  “Oh, they were just looking at the sidewalk, is all.” Melinda gave the men a smile and a casual shrug. “You know, that awful winter we had really made the cracks worse.”

  By the looks on their faces, she almost had them on board.

  “Frank’s got this idea that he’d like to do some improvements out front, maybe put in some brick pavers. Something historic, you know? Glenn thinks that would be really expensive.” Before the men could ask any more questions, she hurried out.

  The burgers were juicy and the fries crisp, but it was a quiet trio that stared at their lunches in the upstairs office. Only Bill, remaining at the register, didn’t let the day’s shocking discovery get in the way of a good meal.

  “It’s just as well you made up that story,” Miriam sighed as she dabbed a fry into her pile of ketchup. “We don’t need this getting around town until we know what’s what.”

  “Tell me again.” Frank propped his head in one hand. “What is it I want to put in front of the store?”

  “Brick pavers.” Melinda took a sip of her soda. “You know, to spruce things up. Maybe in a nice herringbone design? This is an old building, after all. I told them Glenn thought it was dumb, and that’s why the two of you were having such a heated conversation.”

  “Works for me. I’ll call him and let him know. He’ll pretend to be outraged, if anyone asks.” Frank picked up his phone.

  “Will Glenn really go along with this?” Melinda whispered to Miriam. “I’m sorry, it just came to me. I didn’t know what else to say.”

  “He’ll follow Frank’s lead. Glenn loves to gossip, but those two have been friends for a long time.”

  Jerry soon came up the stairs, a tube of blueprints under one arm and a laptop bag over his other shoulder. He was still wearing his spirit gear from that morning’s pep rally, but his face was pale.

  “I looked at those old maps.” He lowered himself into the empty chair at the table. “You’re right, Frank, there’s a discrepancy there. And these newer ones,” he pointed at the plastic tube, “all follow the 1900 dimensions. As do the most-recent digital files I have here.”

  He powered on his computer, and Frank turned away and covered his eyes.

  “Oh, my God. Jerry, I don’t need to see all of them, I believe you. And I saw it for myself.” Suddenly, his anguish was replaced by anger.

  “I just don’t understand how this happened! Why didn’t anyone catch this? I mean, it was over a hundred years ago but, wasn’t anyone paying attention?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that.” Jerry shook his head. “Been wondering it myself. As for the building next door, it hasn’t changed hands for decades. Someone out of state owns it, a family trust. They pay their taxes, so I guess we don’t pay them much mind. And Prosper Hardware, it’s been in your family for over a hundred-and-twenty years. If there had ever been a sale, maybe it would have …”

  There was a moment of ominous silence, then Frank was on his feet.

  “So what you’re saying is, it’s our fault this was never fixed? Just because our business has stayed in this town for four generations?” He pointed at Melinda. “I mean, for five?”

  “Frank.” Miriam was out of her chair and wrapping an arm around her husband’s shoulders. “That’s not what he means. He’s just …”

  “It is exactly what he means!”

  Jerry said nothing, just looked at the table.

  “This is the city’s fault!” Frank was nearly crying now. “I don’t care if the survey was last year or a hundred years ago, the city’s in charge of it. You’d better check those maps again, Jerry, and see what else you can find.”

  “I’m sorry.�
� Melinda said to Jerry. “It’s been a rough day. He’s been really upset and …”

  “You’re damn right about that! And I’m not paying for this mistake, Mayor Simmons.”

  Jerry flinched, but then he set his jaw.

  “Let me remind you, Frank, that I’m not the only city official in this room.” He jumped to his feet and shoved the laptop back into its case, then rolled up the maps with so much angry force that Melinda was afraid he might tear one.

  “If you want to play that card, fine. But you’re hurting yourself in the process. You’re on the city council now. You can’t play both sides here. You’d better remember that.”

  Frank’s face turned red, but he stayed silent. He snatched up his soda and started for the stairs, his angry footfalls echoing on their wooden treads.

  “Please don’t mind him,” Miriam told Jerry. “He’s beside himself. We’ll reach out to the other property owner, talk to our attorney. The other people will want this fixed, I’m sure. We can split the cost, whatever it is. The paperwork, a new survey … It’s just a mistake, I know. A simple mistake. There’s got to be a way to fix it.”

  Jerry nodded. “I hope so. Trouble is, all that ‘fixing’ is not going to come cheap.”

  As exhausted as she was, Melinda was glad Prosper Hardware was buzzing with customers that afternoon. It gave her something else to think about, something to keep her mind off Frank’s discovery and his ugly treatment of Jerry, one of his oldest friends. She hastily finished the spring window display, her creativity and enthusiasm drained away by the day’s drama. It was a relief when the clock struck four and she was able to escape, drive out of town and leave it all in her aunt’s capable hands.

  “Miriam’s right,” she reminded herself as she turned off the county blacktop. “This can be fixed. It’s not the end of the world.”

  Hobo’s happy bark reminded her that not everything in her life was in disarray. “Hey, buddy, I see you were a good boy today. All of my laundry is right where I left it this morning.”

  When she heard the temperature was supposed to hit sixty degrees that afternoon, Melinda had been unable to resist resuming one of her favorite farm habits: Hanging her laundry on the clothesline. That morning, she’d washed a load of sheets and blankets and had them clipped to the lines before she left for work. It was a little early in the season, and the damp linens had been icy in her hands as she’d fumbled with the clips, but the bright sunshine had done its work while she was away.

  As soon as she changed her clothes, Melinda came back out with her laundry basket and set it in the still-brown grass by the first metal pole, which was just beyond the back porch. The second post was down by the far border of the garden.

  Stormy appeared around the corner of the garage, gave the plastic basket a quick sniff, and jumped in.

  “Hey, are your paws clean?” She leaned down to give him a pet and gently lift him out of the basket. “I’m sure they aren’t.”

  Sunny ran up from the barn at the sound of her voice. His eyes wide with caution, he gave the flapping sheets a wide berth and hurried for the safety of the picnic table.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what this is about,” she told him. “I know we haven’t done this in a while. All winter, the clothesline was just our guide to the chicken house and back in all that snow. But now, we can use it again.”

  She unclipped a flat sheet and slid it off the line, then stretched her arms to square it and fold it. She held it close to her face, closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. It smelled like … well, she didn’t know what to call it: spring and fresh-cut grass and flowers and warm breezes all rolled into one. Which was magical, as two of those wouldn’t arrive for several weeks yet.

  “City people pay good money for stuff that makes their linens smell just like this,” she told Hobo, who ran over to give the basket a once-over sniff before he disappeared around the back of the house. Adding the sheet to the bin, she hoisted the basket to her hip and moved down the row, reveling in the fresh air and signs of spring all around the yard.

  While most of the day’s warmth had already faded, the sun was still bright in the west. Tiny buds were already pushing out on the bridal wreath bushes along the north side of the garden, and delicate leaves were forming on the two pussy willows near the hydrant. With its snow blanket melted away, the garden’s soil looked damp and heavy. She sighed, as Horace had told her it would be early May before she should plant anything. The earth had to dry out, and the threat of snow was not yet past. But that was over a month away! How could she wait that long?

  The store’s shipment of seed packets included a few varieties of herbs as well as vegetables. What if she started some of those in pots? They could soak up the sun on the west side of the house when the weather was fair, and be brought inside the back porch whenever winter threatened a temporary comeback.

  As she folded a blanket, Melinda pondered Frank’s discovery. On its own, it was a bizarre, unusual occurrence. A rare mistake, but yet a simple one. Only those two properties seemed to be affected. It wasn’t like the whole town of Prosper was off-kilter. Those five feet were but a silver-of-a-fraction of the blocks that made up the little community. And as Miriam said, it could all be set to rights with a new survey and some extra paperwork.

  So why did the situation make Melinda so uneasy?

  She cringed at the memory of Frank’s harsh words to one of his closest friends, at the way Jerry set his mouth in a hard line and warned Frank to watch his step. During those few tense moments in the office at Prosper Hardware, it was as if a dangerous crack had formed. If they weren’t careful, the gap could widen into a wound that might never heal. Her family’s store had been a fixture in the little community for over a century, but the fallout from this single, long-ago mistake could reach far into the future.

  Her future.

  This was Frank and Miriam’s problem, Melinda reminded herself as she snapped a pair of pillowcases off the line. But as she stood there in the yard, the signs of change all around her, she was reminded of how all-in she really was. The day she’d decided to stay on, to buy this farm and not go back to Minneapolis, she began building a new life with Prosper Hardware as her foundation. It wasn’t going anywhere, so why should she?

  And now, in just one week, the farm would be hers. She’d made her commitment to Horace, to the animals and, just the other day, even to Henry and Anna. It was a promise she’d keep. But maybe she needed to reconsider her career options. What she might do if, someday, Prosper Hardware was no longer there.

  She jumped when her phone buzzed in her jeans pocket. It was her mom.

  “Oh, honey, I’ve heard all about it.” Diane sounded weary. “Miriam called me right away, of course, but I knew you were at work and I didn’t want to disrupt your day.”

  Melinda dropped a handful of clothespins into their canvas bag and reached for a sun-warmed towel. “I just can’t believe it. Who would have thought something like this could even happen?”

  “Or that no one would have caught it before now.” Diane finished her daughter’s thought. “It’s a mess, that’s for sure. I hope this doesn’t get ugly, but from what Miriam said, it already has. Did Frank really threaten to make the city pay for this?”

  “Let’s say he implied it. And Jerry took the hint. It’s just a matter of time, I’m afraid.”

  Diane sighed. “Well, it was bound to come out, sooner or later. I guess I’m glad our parents aren’t here to see this. Both the messed-up maps, and how upset Frank is with Jerry. It’d break their hearts.”

  Melinda pulled down the final sheet and added it to her basket. “I keep reminding myself that the store hasn’t changed. It’s right where it was this morning, the merchandise is still on the shelves, nothing’s different. And we’ve got a plan to keep things quiet, at least for a while. Nobody else knows about this.”

  “Not yet,” Diane said mournfully. “But just wait, that’ll change. Wait until the surveyors show up
and … oh, it hurts my head to think about it. After all these years, nothing is quite what is seems.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Melinda was already half-awake when her alarm clock trilled in the pre-dawn stillness. Hazel jumped off the comforter and landed on the rag rug, her miniature toenails clicking across the oak floors as she rushed into the hall to greet the day.

  Grace stretched her tiny front paws and, with a contented sigh, settled back into her favorite sleeping nook: the dip where the side of Melinda’s head hit the pillow.

  “Not in a hurry, are you?” she whispered to Grace, who began to purr. “Let’s let your sister run downstairs to wake Hobo. I could use a few more minutes of sleep. And do you know what today is? It’s my birthday. I’m forty today.”

  The word sounded so strange to Melinda’s ears. And not only because this was a new decade in her life. Her sinuses were heavy, and her ears were starting to clog. All those long winter months, she’d rarely had a cough or queasy stomach. And here it was, one of the last days of March, and a cold was trying take hold.

  The temperature swings of the past week, ranging from a few days of unusual warmth to a quick round of snow just the day before, had wreaked havoc on her immune system. That, and the stress brought on by the stack of old maps unearthed at City Hall.

  “It can’t be because I’m getting old, right?”

  Grace closed her green eyes and placed a gentle paw on Melinda’s hand.

  “I’m so glad you’re here to reassure me.” She reached for a tissue and loudly blew her nose. Grace raised her head and, giving Melinda an annoyed look, moved to the foot of the bed.