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“Maybe I should drive you,” Levi’s mother offered, rising from the oak dining chair where she’d been seated, drinking a cup of coffee in her sunny kitchen. The house, originally built back in 1910, looked Victorian on the outside and used to look that way on the inside as well. About six years ago, his mother had taken an interior decorating class with a friend. The two of them had turned the inside of the house into something that came straight from one of the ladies’ magazines his mother so enjoyed reading.
She’d gone for a western theme in the living room with leather couches and chairs that had what appeared to be wagon wheels on the ends of them. The end tables and even the chandelier had a wagon-wheel theme.
The white kitchen cabinets had been removed, and new wooden cabinets had taken their place. Levi and his father had both been more than a little surprised to discover his mother had selected all pink appliances. Every time she opened the door to the pink oven, Levi wanted to laugh. It looked like a doll house kitchen, but his mother was a good cook, so he couldn’t complain about the results, even if the color scheme wasn’t one that he particularly appreciated.
“I’ll be fine, Ma, but thanks for offering.” Levi tried to keep the irritation and exasperation out of his voice. Since he’d returned home almost six months ago, his mother had babied and coddled him until he thought he might implode.
After three weeks of her well-meaning but incredibly annoying care, he’d decided to move into the house vacated by his uncle’s family on the other side of the farm. The house gave him some much-needed privacy and quiet but kept him close enough to check in with his parents every day. He typically ate dinner at their house and often breakfast, which seemed to please his mother immensely.
Since his uncle’s house, a Craftsman home that had been built in the 1920s, had sat empty so long, it had needed a lot of work and updating, but it had been a project that had helped Levi in body, mind, and spirit. He’d found something therapeutic in pounding nails and ripping off old shingles. During the winter months, his father had helped him with much of the needed work, but he deferred to Levi about every decision that was made in regard to the house slowly turning into a home.
One thing Levi knew for certain: he had no interest at all in letting his mother help him decorate the interior. She’d handed him a box full of wallpaper and paint samples as well as interior decorating magazines a few weeks ago. He’d taken a glance at the funky colors and tossed the whole thing in the garbage. He needed calm, peaceful surroundings, not poppy red walls with school bus yellow furniture and lights that looked like they came from outer space.
He had plans to restore the house to how it initially looked when his grandparents had built it fifty years ago, and nothing in the home had been bright red or yellow, or even that sickly shade of avocado green that seemed to be growing in popularity. He certainly wasn’t going to allow his mother to turn the kitchen into her idea of a pink or turquoise baker’s paradise.
Everything was already planned out in his mind, if not on paper. The bedrooms upstairs had all been painted, as had the rooms downstairs. For the most part, he’d chosen white paint. The large living room, dining room, and foyer he’d painted a light, almost buttery yellow hue, accenting it with white trim. His dad had told him it looked like something from an architectural digest, which pleased Levi immensely. He’d given the big bedroom on the main floor a soft, calming shade of blue that made him think of a springtime sky. The kitchen walls had the barest hint of green, contrasting nicely with the white cupboards he’d recently installed.
Levi had hired an electrician to rewire everything and install a new furnace. His father’s friend, a plumber by trade, had come a month ago and updated all the plumbing, even adding an outdoor sink on the back porch, where Levi could wash up before he trailed mud or dirt into the house.
Maybe someday he’d have a wife who appreciated that, but he doubted it. A woman would have to be completely desperate or entirely crazy to want to get mixed up with him. Levi felt like he’d returned home less than a whole man, one with nasty burn scars up his arm, a deformed stump for a hand, and nightmares that often plagued him even during the daylight hours. A sound or noise, or even a smell, could unexpectedly yank him back to his time in Vietnam, leaving him disoriented. Sometimes he’d awaken after completely blacking out. So far, he’d done his best to hide his troubles from his parents.
Occasionally, he found himself irritable and short-tempered, particularly with his mother, for no apparent reason. Then again, his father hinted that Stella Gibson could try the patience of a saint from time to time.
Levi smirked as he recalled his father’s sage words of wisdom, then turned away from his mom lest she see his humor and prod to unearth the reason for his smile.
“I promise I can drive to the appointment and back with no trouble, Ma. I’ve done it any number of times.” Levi started to pour a cup of coffee, then decided he was jittery enough without adding caffeine to his system.
“But this is the first time you’ll be driving your new pickup in Boise, honey. You have to shift it.” She grabbed an imaginary gear shift and shoved her hand forward while stomping both feet to the floor. If that’s how she handled a vehicle with a clutch, it was no wonder his father never asked her to help drive any of the farm equipment.
Levi rubbed his good hand over the back of his neck, doing his best to hold back the testy words that danced on his tongue. “I’ll be fine, Ma. Now, is there anything I can bring you from town?”
“Are you sure you don’t mind, honey?” Stella rose from the table and retrieved a pad she kept by the wall telephone located near the kitchen door. She tore off the top page, added a few things in an ornately flourished script, then held the paper out to him.
“I’m happy to run by the store for you, Ma. It’s on my way home, anyway.” Levi took the piece of paper and stuffed it into his shirt pocket, then moved a step back. “I better get going.”
“I’d be happy to drive you, Levi. It would just …”
“Stell! Leave the boy be,” Gary Gibson said as he stepped into the kitchen through the back door and tugged off the dusty John Deere ball cap he wore on his head.
Levi nodded once to his dad and then hurried out the door before his mother changed her mind and went with him.
He was nearly to the new orange and white Chevy pickup he’d parked at the end of the walk when he heard the screen door squawk behind him. He looked back to see his father grinning at him. “Can you run by the equipment shop on your way home, son? I phoned in an order for parts for the 4020 tractor. It should be ready to pick up on your way home.”
“Sure thing, Pop. See you after a while.”
His father lifted a hand. “Take your time. No need to rush. Maybe you’ll meet a pretty girl or two and want to take them for a soda or out for lunch.”
“Right on, Pop.” He might have sounded enthused, but Levi thought the odds of him meeting a girl who would give him the time of day were somewhere between zero and none.
He started the pickup and headed down the long driveway toward the road that would take him into Star. One of the reasons Levi had chosen this particular model of pickup was due to the slim steering wheel. It was easy for him to wrap his left finger and thumb around it, leaving his right hand free for shifting or fiddling with the radio to pick up the signal, which was what he did as soon as he hit the main road.
When his favorite country station came in relatively clear, he relaxed against the leather bench seat embossed with acanthus scrolls and listened to Johnny Cash sing about a boy named Sue. The song was funny and clever and made him grin as he slowed when he hit the outskirts of Star and drove through town.
From classes in school, he knew Star had been one of the earliest settlements in the Boise area. A settler named Ben F. Swalley had arrived in 1863 with a team of oxen pulling his wagon and claimed three hundred acres of land along the Boise River, about a mile from where the town was now located. Other settlers joined him, and farms began to sprout up all around the area. One of the later branches of the Oregon Trail that crossed the river near Boise passed through the town. Portions of that early Oregon Trail corridor became a road connecting Boise to the town of Caldwell. A stage route eventually followed the road all the way to Umatilla, Oregon, and the Columbia River.
The town of Star got its name, though, from the first schoolhouse built on land donated from Swalley in the 1870s. One of the settlers sawed out a star and nailed it to the schoolhouse door. The star became a landmark for travelers, and the community became known as Star. The town was incorporated in 1905 and established the city limits four miles in all directions.
Levi’s fourth-grade teacher, Miss Emma, would be proud he’d remembered all the local history she’d drilled into his head.
