Page 92 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

Nobody had. They’d taken pictures beside this ridiculous sign instead. I brushed another layer of dust away.

“That was always by the driveway.” Beau’s voice was quieter than usual in the large space.

I nodded. “Pops put it out September first every year.”

“Rain or shine?”

“A Hurricane warning didn’t stop him once.”

“Sounds like him.”

“He said bad weather shouldn’t interrupt tradition.”

“That also sounds like James.”

I looked at him. There were strange moments when hearing someone else remember Pops felt like finding a photograph I didn’t know existed.

Meme remembered the man she married.

I remembered the man who raised me.

Walter remembered his best friend.

Apparently, Beau remembered pieces too.

None of us had known the exact same version of James Rome.

There was something comforting about that. Pops hadn’t vanished completely when his heart stopped. Pieces of him had scattered all over Willow Creek.

I lowered the sign carefully against the wall. “I haven’t been in here since before he died.”

Beau didn’t ask why, and I was grateful because I knew I wouldn’t find the right words.

Two hay wagons sat near the back wall beneath sheets of dust. Their wooden sides were still painted the deep burgundy Pops had chosen years ago, though most of the finish had faded. The tractor rested beneath a green tarp. Plastic storage bins filled one corner, many labeled in Meme’s handwriting.

LIGHTS

PUMPKIN CARVING

BONFIRE

KIDS GAMES

There were folding tables stacked against the wall and several wooden cutouts Pops used to place throughout the hayride trail. A witch. A black cat. A scarecrow missing half an arm.

Beau walked deeper into the barn. I stayed near the door. Not because I wanted to. Because my body hadn’t figured out how to move yet.

He pulled the tarp from the tractor, and dust instantly rolled into the air. I coughed and waved it away. Underneath sat Pops’s old green John Deere. It looked smaller than I remembered. Everything from my childhood did.

Beau walked around the tractor, studying it without touching anything at first. “Is this the one he used for the hayrides?”

“One of them. There used to be another.”

“What happened to it?”

I shrugged half-heartedly. “Sold it.”

“When?”