The dim interior of the barn already felt warm when Win awoke, one late-July morning, a few weeks after he and Jim arrived in Sleepyside. The weather in the last few days had taken a decidedly unpleasant turn, being both hot and humid. As had become the custom, Win noticed that he was alone.

He prepared to get up and start his day, mindful of the fact that it might be the last time they had to sleep there. Jim and his new friends had worked hard at cleaning out the junk and getting the house roughly clean. An electrician had given the okay to reconnect the electricity only yesterday and all they needed now was for the power company to make the connection. That might take some time, but the house was at least as clean as the barn, now, and it was almost time to move.

“Oh, good. You’re up.” Jim appeared in the doorway, visible only as a silhouette. “I’ve got breakfast cooking, but I wanted to go and pick some things up before it gets any hotter. Can you keep an eye on it?”

“In just a couple of minutes,” Win answered, while he fastened on his prosthetic leg.

Jim nodded and left him to it. They met a short time later by the cooking fire.

“I’ll be back soon,” Jim promised. “I’m just going as far as Manor House.”

Win frowned. “What for?”

“You’ll see when I get back,” Jim called over his shoulder, as he headed for the old Ford.

The door slammed after him, indicating clearly to Win that he had annoyed his son. He sank down onto one of the chairs of the outdoor setting that his old friend Matt insisted was surplus, though it looked brand new to Win.

A qualm had run through him when he heard Jim’s destination. For weeks, now, Win had been sure that Jim was interested in one of those two girls, but he wasn’t quite sure which of them. Could it be Matt’s daughter? Did he really want Jim to chase after the pretty heiress? Would she even be interested in someone like Jim?

Win shook his head and struggled to his feet. He needed to keep his mind on the job at hand and not on idle speculation. He gave the eggs a poke, frowning down at them as he tried to keep his attention from straying away.

By the time Jim returned, the simple meal had already been ready for nearly ten minutes. Win had almost finished eating. When he heard the pickup bumping its way up the drive, he returned Jim’s share to the fire to reheat.

A few minutes later, he heard his son’s footsteps approaching.

“It’s ready when you are,” Win told him, once he came close enough. “Did you get what you wanted?”

Jim nodded. “I’ll unload it right after I’ve eaten. I’m starving.”

He served his food out onto a plate and began to eat.

“Do you need any help moving things?” Win asked, then gritted his teeth against a cutting remark as Jim looked at him in astonishment.

“No, it’s fine,” Jim answered, once he’d finished his mouthful. “Trixie and Honey are coming to help me. They’ll help me unload the truck.”

Win frowned at the thought that two teenage girls were more useful than him, but he didn’t say anything to Jim about it. In fact, he didn’t say anything else at all for several minutes. His son did not seem to notice his disgruntled expression, or his silence, so intent was he on devouring his meal.

The two young women arrived just as Jim was scraping the plate clean. He swallowed his last mouthful and set down the plate.

“I’ll clean up,” Win promised, after calling a greeting to the girls. “You can go and get started in the house.”

“Are you sure?”

Win nodded. “I’m fine. Go.”

The three disappeared in the direction of the house and Win set about heating the washing up water, washing the dishes and extinguishing the fire. By the time he had finished and walked over to the house, he noticed that the bed of the pickup was empty. Whatever Jim had brought, he had already taken it inside.

Win entered through the back door and paused a moment to listen. Upstairs, somewhere, he decided, and headed for the stairs.

Pausing at the top, he glanced along the hallway and caught sight of his son. Jim was leaning against the doorway of one of the empty bedrooms, looking down at Trixie. The heat in that gaze drew a shiver up Win’s spine. The uneven sound of his footsteps must have caught Jim’s attention, for he tore his eyes away from the young woman in front of him. She, in turn, glanced over her shoulder and then slipped inside the room.

So, that’s how things stand, Win mused to himself. I was wrong: it’s not Honey, it’s Trixie.

Torn between relief, disappointment and some other feeling that defied identification, he crossed the rest of the distance to where Jim still stood.

“How’s it going?” he asked, as if he had noticed nothing.

“Pretty good,” Jim answered. “This room’s going to be my study. I’ve got a desk and a bookshelf. All I need now is a chair and I’ll be set.”

“And where are you intending to sleep?”

An uncomfortable look crossed Jim’s face. “I don’t think I want to be up here. At least, not until we’ve done a bit more work on it. And since I’m going to prioritise the main floor, I think I’ll probably have to take the dining room.”

“Not the study?”

Jim shook his head. “That’s going to be your room, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure?”

Win had been certain that Jim would choose that room for himself. He had admired it while they worked on getting it cleaned out and spent considerable time on making sure it was clean. It had not crossed his mind that Jim’s effort might have been to make his father comfortable and not himself.

“You need somewhere that’s on the lower level,” Jim explained. “Even when we’ve done up this floor, it’s not going to be ideal for you. And that’s the most private of the downstairs rooms. Or, it will be, once I’ve put up some blinds or something. You might need to move out again at some point, so that it can be properly redecorated, but I think that’s going to be yours for the duration.”

“That’s very well thought-out,” he answered, not quite knowing what else to say.

Jim shrugged. “I can sleep anywhere. And I’ll probably move from room to room as we work on them.”

“So, what’s next on the agenda?”

Jim gestured to the stairs and they walked down together. “I think I’ve got most of your room set up. You can take a look at it and I’ll move anything that needs moving. And then we can start moving your stuff in.”

“Sounds good,” Win answered. But as they entered the room, he blurted, “Where did all that come from?”

“All what?” Jim crossed the room and opened the small, free-standing closet. “This is one of the things I brought this morning. “It was getting thrown out from one of the staff bedrooms at Manor House. It’s not great, but I thought it would do, for the moment.”

“Yes, but what about everything else?”

Jim looked around the room in surprise. “What do you mean, everything else? Those drawers are from one of the guest rooms upstairs. I’ve cleaned and repaired them. I found the side table in the living room under a pile of junk. It’s been re-varnished, but I didn’t do all that great a job of it and I’ll have to try again, sometime. I forget which room I found that picture in. If you don’t like it, I can change it for something else.”

“The picture’s fine.” Win looked pointedly at the one item in the room which Jim had not explained. “But where is this bed from? I thought I told you not to buy anything.”

“I didn’t. That’s the other thing I brought this morning.”

He frowned. “You can’t tell me they had an entire spare bed, that they just wanted to get rid of.”

“But they did,” Jim answered. “They’ve had a change of staff and the new person is bringing some of their own furniture, including a bed. And, according to Honey, there’s nowhere they can store this. So, I said I’d borrow it. I thought you’d be pleased.”

“At the thought of sleeping in an actual bed?” He cast the bed in question a long glance. “A bed which, as far as I can see, has no broken springs, or mysterious stains, or body-shaped indentation in the middle? That’s my point. It just seems too good to be true. It’s so clean; it looks entirely out of place in this ramshackle, old house.”

He walked over and gave the iron frame a little shake. It did not wobble, or rattle, or squeak. He put his hand down on the snowy-white mattress with its pillow-top. Beneath that extra layer of padding, the mattress felt firm, just how he liked them.

“You need to look after your health better,” Jim told him, and Win’s breath caught to see the underlying emotion in his son’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he answered. “I am pleased, or at least, I will be when I can convince myself that it’s actually real.”

His son grinned, the shadow of fear and grief hiding itself away once more. But that shadow had transferred itself to Win. In that moment he was reminded of his own selfishness. He tended to think that Jim was all he had left in the world. But Jim only had him. And he had so little to fall back on, if his father wasn’t there to help and support him.

I need to take care of myself, he resolved. Because what happens to Jim if I don’t?

While Jim wasn’t looking, Win began the task of moving his few belongings inside. He started with some of the things that he’d rather that Jim didn’t see. One of those items was the newspaper he’d salvaged from the clean-up, the one where the mystery key had been hidden – the key which Trixie still insisted would open something important and which Jim dismissed as unimportant.

He wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep the paper a secret. And he still had no idea why his uncle had kept this particular issue. Over the days since the find, Win had looked through it several times, but to no effect. He just could not find a reason why it should be important.

Perhaps, if I made a list of dates that I know, it might become clear, he decided. On his next trip to the barn, he fetched the box of documents he had brought with them, as well as the ones that George Rainsford had given Jim. Instead of continuing with moving in, he sat down at the desk. Twenty minutes’ work later, he had jotted a rough timeline of his uncle’s life, from his birth 89 years before, to his recent death. None of the dates matched the newspaper, but quite a few remained unknown.

The closest thing to this is the accident, he mused. So, what happened six months after Perry died, but eight months before Jim was born and two-and-a-half years before Aunt Nell died that caused him to keep that particular newspaper? Peregrine Frayne had been Win’s cousin, and his uncle and aunt’s sole heir from the time that Win had fallen out with his relatives until that young man’s death in a car accident. Win did not know their testamentary situation between his cousin’s death and Jim’s birth, but had always felt sure that the will had not been in his favour.

He looked at the dates again and decided that his uncle and aunt would not yet have known that Jim was on his way. Communication had still been strained at that stage and they had not been told the news for another few months.

After several more minutes staring at the information he had gathered, Win shook his head. This secret would have to wait for another day. He did not yet have the slightest idea about it. And there were still more things to move. Tucking the papers away in a drawer, he returned to the task of moving in.

That evening, they ate their meal at the kitchen table. Jim had cooked outside on the fire, since there still wasn’t any electricity or gas, but after all those days outside the simple act of eating at a table seemed a luxury.

But they were both weary from their day’s work, and Win had spent far too much time brooding about his uncle. Jim made some remark about Trixie and Win’s temper flared.

“I don’t think you should be encouraging her to be here so much,” he told his son. “It isn’t right, the way you’re acting.”

“What did you just say?” Jim replied, with a surge of temper to match. “The way I’m acting?”

A frown crossed Win’s face. “I don’t like the way you’re behaving towards her. She’s barely out of high school and you’re treating her like–” The warning look on Jim’s face was enough to make him reconsider his words. “I mean that we need to respect our neighbours here.”

“She is our neighbour,” Jim replied, not quite meeting his father’s eyes.

Win rolled his eyes. “I meant her father. I assume that he’s the one who actually owns the place. I don’t want to annoy him. If he sees you in any kind of situation like I saw today, he might decide to chase us out of here with a shotgun.”

“I told you, Dad: I haven’t touched her,” Jim ground through his teeth. “I meant it, too. Literally. I’ve never touched her.”

“But–” Win stopped. It was true that the pair had been standing quite close together when he saw them that morning, but it was possible that there could have been a space between them, however small. There was a difference – however trivial – between undressing her with his eyes and doing the real thing. Win took a moment to reconcile his son’s denials with his earlier impression. “Okay, I believe you.”

“Thanks,” Jim muttered, turning his back.

“But that doesn’t mean I condone your behaviour,” he added. With a slight guilty pang, he remembered a few indiscretions of his own, not least of which with Jim’s own mother. Still, he consoled himself, he can’t say that I’m not speaking from experience.

Temper flaring out of control, Jim snapped, “I didn’t ask you to condone my actions. I’ll act as I see fit, whether you like it or not.”

“Simmer down,” Win urged, seeing he had gone too far. “You’re right, of course. You can act as you see fit. But please remember that I’m only trying to help. I don’t want to see you repeat my mistakes.”

Jim eyed him for a long moment, then asked, “Was it a mistake to marry Mom? To have me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

“Well, was it?” Jim challenged.

Win looked away, into the past. “The mistakes happened before that,” he admitted, at last. “And, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have done things very differently. But, no, it wasn’t a mistake to marry her. And it definitely wasn’t a mistake to have you. You have always been loved and wanted. I just wish…”

“What?” Jim whispered, when he didn’t finish.

He met Jim’s eyes. “I wish we’d been enough for her. Enough to want to keep living for.”

Jim nodded and they shared a few minutes of silence, remembering the one they had lost.

A few days later, Jim picked his father up from work, arriving nearly ten minutes after he was supposed to.

“Who was that?” Jim asked, the instant Win got in the car.

He took a moment to do up his seatbelt before answering. “Just a colleague of mine.”

“What’s her name?”

He shot Jim a look, but he kept his eyes on the road and did not notice. “Her name is Caroline Jennings. She does a similar job to me, but she’s been there almost ten years. I’ve found her very helpful.”

“And friendly?” Jim prompted. “You seemed to be getting along very well.”

“We were talking about work.” He decided to turn the conversation back on Jim. “How many girls did you have over today?”

“Dad!”

“Ah, so more than one.”

Jim made an angry noise. “There were five visitors, today. Trixie and Honey were there, of course, and they brought their friend Diana and Trixie’s older brother, Mart, and Regan’s nephew, Dan. And you can meet them all on Saturday, because Honey has invited us to a picnic by the lake.”

“Us?”

“Yes, most definitely both of us. She wants us to meet all the neighbours. And she apologised at least three times for not doing this earlier.” He paused to concentrate on the traffic for a moment. “I told her it didn’t matter, because we weren’t originally going to be staying for long.”

“Are we staying for long?”

Jim shrugged. “Longer than I originally intended, for sure. Permanently? I still haven’t decided.”

Win nodded and they lapsed into silence.

“Who else is going to be at this picnic?” he asked, some time later.

Jim glanced at him in surprise. “She didn’t say. Does it matter?”

“It matters if I’m there as the only older person among a bunch of teenagers.”

“I’m twenty!”

“That’s near enough as makes no difference.”

“No, it isn’t.” Jim let out an exasperated sigh. “But I’ll find out, if it’s so important to you.”

When they arrived home, the first thing Win noticed was the drawing taped to the kitchen wall. It depicted the house, but with a few small changes. Instead of a derelict wreck, the artist had made the house look lived-in and loved, like it once had, when his aunt had been alive.

“Wow,” he commented, walking over to look at it more closely. “Who did this?”

“Diana,” Jim admitted, grudgingly.

“Honey and Trixie’s friend?” He whistled between his lips. “She’s good.”

Jim nodded. “She’s intending to study architecture. She had plenty to say about the house and she had some suggestions on what I could do to improve it. Like changing the front steps to be like this. What do you think?”

In his mind’s eye, Win tried to picture just how the front of the house used to look. Something about the sketch looked different, but he couldn’t quite pick what it was.

“It’s to do with perspective, apparently,” Jim explained. “She thinks, if I change the width at the bottom to be like this, it will balance something or other better. And she tried to tell me that they were probably like this when the house was first built, but I didn’t follow her reasoning.”

Win frowned, as he tried to remember something he’d heard once, a long time ago. Something about those front stairs.

“I think Uncle James had them altered,” he decided, “and that Aunt Nell wasn’t all that happy about it, but he stubbornly insisted that his way was better. But I can’t, for the life of me, remember why.”

Jim smiled. “Maybe we’ll find out when I’ve rebuilt them like this.”

“You’re going to do that yourself?”

Jim nodded. “Trixie introduced me to someone who can help, but I’m going to do the work myself. Diana’s going to draw me up a plan with measurements, then Mr. Maypenny’s going to show me how to build them.”

“It’ll certainly be more convenient than having to go through the back door all the time.”

“You can say that again.” He glanced around them. “And the next on the list for urgent repairs is going to have to be this kitchen. Not that I’m going to redo the whole thing right away, but it needs a few things fixed for it to be fully operational.”

Win gave the old stove a rueful look. “I don’t know whether that’s safe to use.”

“I’ll deal with it next,” Jim promised. “Right after I have a way to safely get in and out of the front door.”

Win sighed. “This is going to be a big job, isn’t it?”

His son shrugged. “Yes. But I’m enjoying it. And I like living here while we work on it, too.”

I can see that, Win mused, as the conversation turned to what they might eat that night. But I don’t think it’s the house that’s the attraction.

On Saturday, Jim drove them over to the lake, getting as close to it as he could to save his father a walk. Then, to Win’s annoyance, he insisted on leading him by the arm all the rest of the way there. He left their contribution to the feast back in the car, just so that he could put all his attention towards making sure that Win did not put a foot wrong.

“It’s not that uneven here,” Win argued, as they walked along together. “I can manage just fine with just my stick.”

“I don’t want you to fall, Dad,” Jim answered, with that stubborn cast to his face. “I’ll get you settled in a chair and you won’t have to move all afternoon.”

“I can decide for myself whether I move or not,” he grumbled. “And much as I appreciate you wanting to help me, I don’t actually need it, right now.”

At that moment, Honey greeted them and tactfully extricated Win from his son’s custody. She offered him a chair next to Helen and Peter Belden, effecting introductions and seeing him comfortably settled before leaving them together with a brief word of apology at her parents’ inability to join the party. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jim stalk off to pick up the watermelon they had brought.

“It’s good to see you again,” Win told the Beldens. “I’ve been meaning to drop by and see you, but you know how these things go.”

Peter nodded. “We’ve been hearing all about the house from Trixie. It sounds like you’ve had your work cut out for you. I’m not at all surprised there’s been no time for social calls.”

“Jim has done most of that,” Win admitted. “I’ve been going off to work and leaving him to it, most of the time. But he’s doing a very good job. The house is already looking much more like its old self.”

“It’s been such a pity to watch it decaying,” Helen added. “I’m looking forward to it being restored. And I hope that someone will love it, just like your uncle used to.”

“That’s my hope as well.” Win glanced across to the water, where most of the younger generation were splashing about. “Your daughter and her friends have been extremely helpful.”

Helen smiled and got up. “They usually are. If you’ll excuse me, I think Honey might need some help.”

The two men watched her go.

“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” Peter began, sounding hesitant, “but I’m more than a little concerned about my daughter and your son. She says there’s nothing going on between them, but I’m not so sure.”

“I’ve been keeping a close eye on them.” Win grimaced. “I think it would be better characterised as there’s nothing going on between them yet.”

“Ah.” Peter frowned.

“I didn’t believe it at first either, when Jim told me there was nothing going on. He had a pretty hard time convincing me he wasn’t doing anything wrong.” Win made a helpless gesture. “If it makes you feel any better, I can speak to him again.”

Peter shook his head. “If he’s anything like my sons, that’s the last thing we need.”

Win smiled. “Well, I’m watching, whenever I’m there. And if I see anything amiss, I’ll speak to Jim about it.”

“Thanks.”

A silence fell between them, during which Win gathered up his courage.

“I don’t think I ever really thanked you for what you did for my uncle,” he admitted, at last. “And I also never apologised for putting you in the way of his temper.”

But Peter waved off the matter. “That was no problem at all. It’s what I’d do for any neighbours.”

“I mean it. I really do appreciate what you did, and I’m sorry for the consequences.” He gave a rueful smile. “I guess my uncle might have preferred if neither of us did anything, but I’m glad he didn’t just die there alone.”

Peter nodded. “I’m glad of that, too.”

After that, they let the subject drop and talked of other things. But Win was glad that they’d had the chat. The neglected apology had been weighing on him more than he’d known. It felt good to clear the air.

Over lunch, Win had the chance to meet Trixie’s older brother Mart and younger brother Bobby, Regan and his nephew Dan, Trixie and Honey’s friend Diana, as well as the Mr. Maypenny that Jim had mentioned. Dan and Mart seemed pleasant enough, though neither intended to spend much time in Sleepyside over summer. Bobby made Win smile, remembering his own son at a similar age. He made a point of getting into conversation with Diana.

“I really liked your sketch of the house,” he told her, as soon as an opportunity came up. “It reminds me a lot of how it used to look.”

She thanked him for the compliment. “I’ve been looking for similar houses, to try to get an idea of how it originally looked. And I was interested to look at the floor plan, too. Has it changed very much in the time you’ve known it?”

Win shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve noticed anything that has changed. It was full of junk, of course, when we first got here, but even the furniture was in the same places I remembered.”

They went on to talk about the various rooms, their usage and Win’s memories of how things were in his aunt’s lifetime. Diana asked intelligent questions and appeared genuinely interested in his answers. Win found himself liking her very much.

After that, he chatted with Maypenny, who had known his aunt and uncle in their prime and remembered having seen Win when he visited long ago. The older man drew Regan into the conversation as well and the topic turned to the Preserve, which surrounded them.

“It’s a nice place to ride,” Regan commented. “Your son mentioned that you used to own a horse like Jupiter…”

Win felt a sinking feeling inside. In the past, he would have loved to ride through these woods, or to walk through them, observing the plant and animal life. He missed those days more than he would admit aloud.

“I don’t ride any more,” he answered. “But I’m glad that Jim is getting back in the saddle. Thank you for letting him.”

Regan waved the matter away. “He’s a big help. You taught him well.”

Win smiled. It was good to hear that, and to know that his experiences hadn’t been wasted. Because there was no way he was getting back on a horse again, no matter how much he wanted it.

The party did not break up until after the sun sank beneath the surrounding hills. Win suspected that had the older generation not been present, the teenagers would have happily stayed there late into the night, talking and splashing around in the lake. Even the hungry young men had eaten their fill for the time being, at least, and Win knew that he would not want anything else that day.

He and Jim thanked their hostess, said their goodbyes and set off from the lake.

“I don’t need to be coddled,” Win complained, as Jim tried to take his arm and lead him back to the car. “I can walk on my own, thank you very much.”

Jim eyed him for a moment, then eased back a little. “I’m just trying to help.”

Win took a breath. “I know. But it’s frustrating enough to need help so often. It’s beyond riling to be forced to take help that I don’t even need.”

His son grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Hey. It’s okay.” He let a silence stretch between them. “I’m glad we’re living here together.”

Jim shot a surprised look at him. “Where else would we be?”

“There’s nothing to say that you and I have to keep sharing a household, Jim,” Win pointed out, smiling. “If you’d gone off to college like you wanted, I’d have had to manage on my own for a couple of years, now.”

“If either of us had two cents to rub together,” Jim countered, “we could have done that.”

A wry smile crossed Win’s face, as he climbed into the vehicle. “You have a point. And while I wasn’t so sure about living here when we first arrived, it’s growing on me.”

“Sleepyside?”

He nodded. “And Ten Acres.” He shook his head. “The bad memories were a bit of a problem at first, but they’ve calmed down now.”

Jim frowned. “You’ve never really talked about those years…”

“I didn’t want to think about them,” he admitted. “And I’m not ready to talk about them now, either.” But I will, soon, he added to himself. And then you’ll understand.

The End

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