Page 3 of My Heart Will Find You

The front door opened and out came a man carrying a tray with a frosty pitcher. He was older, seventies, maybe more, but he had a face that was unlined, and he had a wonderful mustache. It was mostly gray but still had some dark in it.

It was a full minute before Etta realized he was watching her and she was staring. “Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” She turned away to keep rolling her case down the sidewalk.

“Will you join me?” he asked.

Etta hesitated. He had a nice voice. But from birth, females were indoctrinated about Stranger Danger.

He seemed to understand. “I’m here alone.” He put the tray down on a table between two chairs. “The babysitter my son hired to look after me didn’t show up. Do you know how to work a washing machine? I can’t figure out where the wringer is. And the clothesline seems to be missing.”

Etta laughed and thought what was more bonding than laughter? “You wouldn’t know where a hotel is, would you?”

“I could look in the phone book.”

This second anachronism made her laugh more.

He smiled. “I have chocolate chip cookies that I just took out of the oven and cold lemonade. I squeezed the lemons myself.” He made a gesture of using one of those tall, old-fashioned presses.

Etta had one at home. He was a man of her own heart.

He held up a big fat cookie and took a bite out of it.

That was the last straw. She pulled her case down the short brick path, then up the few stairs to the porch. The man was taller than she’d thought and older. He looked pale. For all his joking about a “babysitter,” she could see that he probably did need care.

He motioned for her to take the chair on the far side of the table, and he took the other one. “Help yourself,” he said.

She drank deeply of the lemonade and was on her second cookie when he said, “I’m Henry Logan.”

“Henrietta Wilmont,” she answered. “But everyone calls me Etta.”

“We are two Henrys.” He nodded at her suitcase. “So what brings you to Kansas City? Or were you planning to fly somewhere else?”

“I was.” She found herself telling him about her sister getting a job in Pasadena and moving there. “I miss them so much! I know it’s no longer fashionable for extended families to live together, but we did. Dad and Alicia and her husband, Phillip, and their daughter, dear Nola. We all lived in one big old house and got along perfectly. I cooked and Phillip fixed things and Dad took care of anything with numbers. And Nola... Well, she kept us young. When they moved out six months ago, Dad and I...” Etta trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m blabbing.” She stood up. “Thank you so much for this. Could you point me toward a hotel?”

Henry didn’t move. “Denver.”

“What?”

“I grew up in this house. My great-great-grandfather built it in 1874. When I got married, Martha and I moved in here. Our son, Ben, spent his whole life here. When he married, his wife, Caroline, moved in. She’s an architect and she converted the carriage barn in the back into a house for me.” He looked up at Etta with eyes full of sadness. “But she got a job in Denver. A forever job. She’s going to have a baby at any minute. A little girl.”

Etta sat back down. “Oh.” She took a breath. “And you’re living here.”

He nodded. “I’m afraid I’m not made for city high-rises, not physically or mentally.”

She understood his deeper meaning. “Your granddaughter won’t grow up in this glorious house. And you won’t see her every day.”

“No, I won’t.”

Etta’s voice came out as a whisper. “Will they sell this house?” They both knew she meant after Henry was gone.

He started to speak but didn’t. He just nodded.

For a moment they sat in silence.Generations in one house, she thought.And all about to end.

A wave of sadness and understanding seemed to pass between them. Both of them had recently had huge life changes. Neither of them believed they were for the better.

“Ben called me an hour ago,” Henry said. “Everything all over the country is closing, even grocery stores. People are panicking. They’re frightened. I don’t think you’re going to find a place to stay.”

Etta had a vision of sleeping on a park bench. While the weather today was nice, she doubted that a March night in Kansas was warm and cozy.

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