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A truck appeared, and she knew Jackson’s window had arrived. “I’ve got to go. The window repair guy is here. Love you.”
“Love you more,” Meg responded.
The click of the call ending resonated in the quiet cabin, punctuating the shift in Amanda’s thoughts. She opened the door to let the repair man in and showed him to Jackson’s room.
She loved how tidy Jackson was and figured that came from his years in the military. His bed was made, and nothing was out of place. She lifted her nose in the air and inhaled. The room smelled like him. He was a mixture of musk and pine and romance.
Leaving the man to do his job, she returned to the living room. A smile played on her lips as she looked around, her eyes taking in everything she’d placed on the shelves, from her beloved typewriters to her treasured books. Even Jackson’s shelf was filled with Louis L’Amour, James Patterson, and a few Poes and Hemingways sprinkled in.
With a sense of purpose, she padded across the room to the closed doors she had yet to explore. These were Bea’s old storage closets, yet to be explored since she’d moved in. Catsby, ever her silent companion, followed her to the closet, his tail curled up high in a question mark.
She turned the doorknob, the metal cool under her palm, and pulled open the door. The scent of time, tinged with cedar and dust, floated out. In front of her were shelves filled with cardboard boxes and covered items, the past tucked away, waiting to be rediscovered. The closet was a time capsule holding relics of Bea’s life, and Amanda felt a sense of reverence wash over her. She was about to uncover pieces of a woman she’d never met who had changed her life in unimaginable ways.
The first box she opened was filled with more Christmas ornaments. Amanda lifted them, revealing painted glass balls, wooden figures carved with meticulous detail, and strings of twinkle lights. Each piece was a snapshot of a holiday season past, the joy and happiness of the festivities held within. As she lifted each ornament to the light, her heart fluttered.
Beneath the box of ornaments, she found a stack of family photographs. She perused them, each image showing Bea’s life. There were pictures of a younger Bea, her face radiant with joy and her eyes brimming with life. Others showed Bea with friends, their faces alight with laughter. There were images of the town. Amanda had to admit that it hadn’t changed much.
“Look, Catsby,” Amanda said, holding up a picture of Bea with a tabby cat that looked eerily similar to Catsby. The cat looked up from his spot on the floor, his green eyes seemingly understanding the significance of the picture. “I bet you would have loved Bea.”
As Amanda delved into the memories left behind by another woman, she felt a deep connection with Bea, a profound sense of kinship. Bea had once been an integral part of this town, just as Amanda hoped to be. The realization moved through her, bringing tears to her eyes as she grasped the immense significance of it all.
Her fingers brushed against a set of recipe cards. She ran her fingers over the handwritten menus, feeling the indentations of the pen on the paper, almost as if Bea herself had just written them.
In her mind, she saw Bea standing in a kitchen that smelled like cinnamon and vanilla, a wooden spoon in her hand as she mixed the ingredients for her famous sugar cookies. The cookies would be shaped like Christmas trees and snowflakes, with a generous dusting of colored sugar. The imagined taste of them on her tongue was so vivid it made her drool.
“This one,” she began, pulling out a recipe card for a Christmas ham. The smell of roasting meat and the tangy sweetness of pineapple glaze filled her senses. “This must have been Bea’s special Christmas dinner recipe. I bet the whole house filled with its spicy notes, and everyone would be waiting impatiently to dig in.”
She continued in this fashion, every object she picked up adding a new story to her narrative. An old photograph showed a younger Bea in a winter coat, laughing as she held a gigantic snowball above her head. Amanda mused aloud about the fun snowball fight that must have occurred that day. She imagined Bea, breathless with laughter, the chill of the snowball in her hands, the taste of snowflakes on her tongue.
Through her narration, Bea’s spirit seemed to fill the cabin, her laughter ringing in the silence, her joy reflected in the twinkling of the Christmas ornaments, and her love in the handwritten recipes.
Amanda lost track of time as she continued to sift through Bea’s treasures. Her mind became a playground of fictional stories, piecing together fragments of Bea’s life, her joys, and her Christmases. She took in the ornaments, a silent witness to the passage of time and the legacies left behind.
Just as she was about to delve into the next box, her phone buzzed, jolting her out of her reverie. The shrill tone cut through the air, capturing her attention. Glancing at the screen, she saw Katie's name flashing, and excitement coursed through her.
“Hi, Katie,” she answered, trying to sound casual, even though she was excited to hear from her new friend.
“Amanda, I hope I’m not disturbing you?” Katie’s voice was as warm as Amanda had expected.
“Not at all,” she reassured, her gaze wandering back to Bea’s belongings. “I was just going through some of Bea’s old things.”
“Oh, that sounds like a treasure hunt,” Katie said. “I’m calling to invite you over to the diner tomorrow. We’re planning the town’s Thanksgiving celebration, and we could use your help.”
Amanda hesitated. As much as she already loved Aspen Cove and its friendly residents, she was a newcomer and couldn't shake the feeling of being an intruder, someone who had yet to grasp the traditions and customs.
“You are as much a part of this town as any of us now,” Katie said as if hearing Amanda’s thoughts. “We’d be thrilled to have your input,” she assured her, leaving no room for doubt. “Honey, in a town as small as ours, everyone’s a newcomer at some point. This is your home too.”
Those words, so simple yet full of meaning, hit Amanda like a gust of wind. Her home. This was her home now. And these people, they were her neighbors, her friends.
“Thank you, Katie,” she murmured, her voice choked with emotion. “I’d love to help.”
“Great!” Katie’s cheerfulness was infectious. “We’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Just as the call ended, the window repairman finished. She paid his bill and locked the door behind him.
The room was quiet now, save for the crackling fire and Catsby’s gentle purrs.
Amanda’s gaze fell on her laptop, left open on the small writing desk she’d placed by the window. A blank page awaited her in the word processing software, its emptiness mirroring the new chapter of her life yet to be written. She was now more than ready to fill those pages, to add her own experiences and her own stories to the rich history of the cabin.
