Graceful airbourne hawk

The clip-clopping of horse hooves on asphalt snapped Ava out of her day dreaming as she sat out in her Jeep in front of the Paradise Cafe. She glanced into the rear view mirror of the Jeep and saw another one of those odd black boxes on wheels being pulled by a handsome quarter horse. Ava waited for it to pass then started her engine and slowly backed out of the diagonal parking slot.

She headed west back in the direction of the motel. She was met with a steady stream of motorized vehicles interspersed with more horse and buggies heading into town. As Ava crawled along at a turtle’s pace behind the horse and buggy in front of her, the slow pace began grating on her. She was a city girl and addicted to things moving fast.

Ava was not only born in a city but raised in a series of them. City life is all she’d ever known. Urban life was her blood. When your father is in the diplomatic core and married to an  ambitious woman, it meant a different posting every couple of years. Those postings took them all over the world everytime to a new city.

Sighing out loud Ava settled down and accepted she wasn’t going any where fast for the time being. She’d put the time to good use studying Eden a bit.

All the stores appeared to be grouped together in the tiny business district in the heart of town. There was The Farmer’s Store, The Handyman’s Store which Ava took to be a hardware store since it had a barrel of rakes and hoes out front. Of course the Paradise Café and the Eden Community Bank, a small brick structure that looked like a playhouse to Ava. She saw no ATM machine nor drive-up window. In the parking lot horse and buggies were parked along side cars and pickup trucks.

Ava gazed down quiet side streets where more of those giant trees she’d encountered earlier while riding with Anne Pine draped their branches over the street forming great arched canopies of green foliage.

Suddenly, Ava found herself turning onto one of the side streets. She slowly drove past fine old, impeccably kept Victorian homes. Some were three stories high with ornate barge boards and detailed bric-a-brac while other’s were small, quaint cottages.

Ava loved Victorian architecture. It had a humanity to it that so much of the contemporary architecture lacked. Ava recalled the many hours she and Chris spent strolling the old neighborhoods back in the city where the Victorian houses had been saved from developers much as Chris had saved the amazing Victorian building he lived and worked in.

Ava had wondered out loud during those walks what it must’ve been like to grow up in a real Victorian house. How, as a little girl, she would’ve loved to have had a bedroom way up high on one of those third floors, or even in the attic!

These big houses here in Eden were set back from the street. Some surrounded by large lawns bordered with ornate wrought iron fences while the smaller cottages with their intimate yards were overgrown with beautiful climbing vines and skirted with a blooming array of summer flowers. Ava recognized lavendar colored Melva and iridescent blue delphiniums. Lupines thrived, blooming in every color imaginable.

Everything is so restful around here, thought Ava. Time seemed to slow down to a healthy resting heartbeat. The calm seeped deep into the very marrow of her bones.
Bringing her sight-seeing to a satisfying end, Ava returned to the main street leading out of town. She spotted the Red Delicious Inn up ahead. Instead of turning in she drove to Sawmill Road, the narrow side road that bordered the motel just beyond it. The same road she went jogging on last night. She turned on to it and accelerated.

As she drove Ava again admired the lush green dumpling shaped hills surrounding her.She felt cradled by them. There was something reassuring about them and the narrow valley that Sawmill Road meandered through. Ava was learning that around Eden, few roads ran straight and true for long. The countryside was laced with horse and buggy roads with those inevitable deep knee-bend turns.

Ava came upon the great old pines she’d passed last night. They looked even more ancient in the daylight, some had bent and gnarled trunks. Rounding the bend she focused hard watching for a road sign that said ‘Carefree Lane’. To think that Ava had jogged right past here last night. She couldn’t have been more than a quarter of a mile from the property Chris had purchased in her name.

According to the Mapquest directions, Carefree Lane had to be coming up soon, thought Ava. “There it is!” exclaimed Ava outloud.  Turning right again she proceeded down an even narrower road. Suddenly Ava was filled with trepidation and slowed the Jeep to a crawl. What was she about to find? For so many months she’d been haunted by questions she couldn’t find answers to. This property might give her some of those answers. But, wondered Ava, would they be answers that gave her desperately needed peace of mind or worse, would they end up tormenting her more than she was already.

Here it was - the driveway. Ava stopped, pulled the emergency brake on and got out of the Jeep to take a look at the number on the weathered mailbox. She was looking for 321 Carefree Lane. She took her sleeve and rubbed away some dust on the side of the galvanized metal mailbox. She could barely read the numbers painted in a slightly unsure hand on the side of it. Ava made out the numbers - 321.

She turned and studied the wooded drive that obscured everything beyond. Her heart began pounding. The muscles of her body grew rigid with tenseness. She wanted to turn around, go back to the motel, check out, and return to the city. Moving forward down this drive seemed an impossible feat for Ava. High overhead a hawk let out it’s scream. Was it welcoming her or was it a warning to turn back?

Ava wished she hadn’t made such a hasty decision to come to Eden in the first place. Brent Atwell was right. There was no reason to rush. Ava could see now that she hadn’t given herself enough time. Maybe she should take it now. But no, she’d come this far and she would see it through especially after all she’d been through to get to here.

There’d been the hours of relentless driving on the Interstate arriving in Eden well after dark wound up so tight she went out for a jog to relax. Then there was the accident and waking up in a stranger’s bed this morning not to mention the delivery of Katie Miller’s new baby. No Ava had to go down that drive - NOW.

She got back in the Jeep and turned into the drive. Seconds later she broke free of the overgrown foliage. Ava turned off the engine and sat staring for a good minute. Lowering her head she wept.