The Duchess of Idaho

1. Chapter 1-2

James slammed the back of the car shut while Sarah put her arms around her daughter.

“What you’re doing for Annabelle is a wonderful thing, Grace. While she is an acquired taste, as your father said, she is getting older and it’s good for her to get to know her only granddaughter.”

“If you ask me, she’ll outlive us all,” James said.

Sarah shook her head at her husband. “I think she’s using the cleaning as an excuse to get Grace to come and see her. After all, she’s lived in that house her whole life and all of a sudden now she decides to downsize!” Sarah stepped back and looked seriously at her daughter. “You don’t have to go, Grace. It’s nice that she’s asked for your help, but don’t feel obligated. Or I can go with you if you’d rather.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I don’t mind. I need something interesting to do this summer and maybe you’re right. Maybe as I rummage through her house I’ll find some antiques worth something. We can get an appraiser to look at them on Antiques Roadshow.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

Grace hugged her mother again. She was about to step into the car when her father stood in front of her.

“Say good night, Gracie.”

“Dad, seriously?”

“Say good night, Gracie.”

Sarah laughed. “Just say it, Grace. Your father won’t give up. He never has yet.”

Grace stretched her arms toward James. “Fine. Good night, Gracie.” She hugged her father, glanced back at the turquoise-colored house with the bay windows facing the ocean, and got into the driver’s seat. She turned the ignition, pulled into the road, and waved good-bye.

After Grace spent a week with her university friends in P-Town, she drove six hours, taking the I-5 North to the I-84 East through Oregon into Idaho.

Once she was surrounded by the rural landscape there wasn’t much scenery to occupy her thoughts, nothing but grass, mountains, and spindly trees. Her car was the only vehicle on the road until she neared the farmlands—long green patches populated with haystacks and horses. Grace smiled at the raw yellow ochre and emerald green angles of Van Gogh’s pastoral scenes.

After a while she felt lonely, as if she were the only person in the world. In the distance she spotted an open-back potato truck, but it was moving so slowly she had to pass it before she began driving backward. Soon she encountered other cars, but the sense of isolation remained. In California, the freeways were five lanes wide and everyone drove as if racing to cross the some imaginary finish line. Here, there was one lane in either direction. Motorists, unconcerned with the unruly spuds that occasionally rolled onto the highway, continued at a snail’s pace. Most were older, retired, and driving well under the speed limit, their cars older models that needed a good wash.

Finally, the town of Nampa appeared on the highway signs. As Grace neared her exit she noticed a fire-engine red farmhouse sitting by its lonesome in a field of tall grass under a jewel blue sky, similar to another painted scene, perhaps from Monet. Loitering near the farmhouse were some brown cows, content with their lot as they chewed the cud. Grace enjoyed the impressionist-like scenery, but instead of feeling comforted she thought she had descended on some unknown world where she would never quite feel at home.

She tried to shake off the heaviness as she took the exit for North Franklin Boulevard. The weight returned, however, when she realized that she wasn’t sure what to expect when she came face to face with Annabelle Alexander, her grandmother by blood though she had only set eyes on the woman once in her life. Grace didn’t know much about Sarah’s mother. Grace knew her age, 85, and she knew Annabelle’s maiden name was Emerson. Grace had that one vague memory from when Annabelle had come to California for a visit around the time Johnny was born. Grace knew that Sarah and Annabelle had never been close. Mother and daughter shared a brief phone call on holidays, and Grace and Johnny knew to expect an envelope from Annabelle with a $20 bill on their birthdays.

Well, Grace thought as she turned down Happy Valley Road. I guess Annabelle won’t be unknown much longer.

The GPS voice said to make a left near the gas station with the dinosaur logo, and Grace found her grandmother’s home in the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. Sarah had told Grace that she couldn’t miss the house, and there it was, a two-story structure that looked like something out of Little House on the Prairie with its front-facing brown bricks and wooden log walls. The shutters and awnings were forest green, and the slate-gray front door faced the road at a caddy corner. Grace parked on the gravel driveway and marveled at the odd shape of the house—a square front with an adjoining rectangle that stretched toward the mountains. The other houses in the neighborhood, newer and more modern, were fairly spread out, allowing for a sense of space between the properties. The loneliness Grace felt driving into Idaho returned, and she wondered if she made a mistake coming after all.

She walked to the white fence in front of the house and saw a backyard with well-manicured grass, flowers, a vegetable plot, and a horse stable with two horses, one gray and one white, both leaning their heads outside as though gauging the weather. Grace made her way to the front door and stopped, unsure what to do. Should she call Annabelle to let her know she was there? Before Grace could decide her grandmother threw open the door.

“Well, Missy? Are you coming in or are you going to stand there like a lump on a log?”

Grace exhaled and stepped past the front door that Annabelle held open for her. Grace wasn’t sure what she had been expecting of her grandmother, but this formidable woman wasn’t it. Grace had been thinking more along the lines of a bent-over, downward-looking elderly woman in a wheelchair maybe, or possibly someone shuffling along with a walker. Annabelle Alexander pulled her painted-on eyebrows into a frown as she studied Grace. Grace studied Annabelle just as intently, looking for something, anything that resembled her mother and finding nothing.

That wasn’t entirely true. Annabelle had dark eyes and a pale complexion like Sarah. But other than that Grace found nothing that marked them as mother and daughter. Annabelle wore her silver and white hair in an ear-length bob that she brushed away from her face as though she couldn’t be bothered with it. She was dressed in a navy blue housedress with white flowers under a crocheted beige sweater vest though it was June and warm. Annabelle wiped her hands on her frilly white apron as she pulled her lips into a flat line. She looked as though she was about to speak until someone knocked. Outside stood a young man, maybe in his late teens, holding two paper bags of groceries. The young man’s red hair stuck out from under his Albertsons baseball cap, which he pulled over his eyes while he gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the strain of Annabelle’s gaze.

“What is it with people today? Everyone shows up but no one comes in.” The young man stayed where he was, smiling weakly. “So? Are you planning on bringing my groceries inside? If it takes you that long to step over the threshold I can only imagine how long it’ll take you to get all the way to the kitchen. Set those down there.”

“Yes, Mrs. Alexander.” The young man placed the bags on the side table where Annabelle pointed.

“At this rate I might as well have gone and got the groceries for myself.”

“Yes, Mrs. Alexander.”

“And do something about that hair, boy. I don’t know how the manager at your store lets you go running around like you have snakes growing out from under your hat. Who are you, Medusa?”

“Who?”

“All right now, see, there are these things called books. You ought to try reading one someday.”

“Yes, Mrs. Alexander.”

Annabelle grabbed her handbag and pulled some $20 dollar bills from her wallet. The young man nodded at Grace as if to say it’s okay, she does this all the time. Annabelle handed the delivery boy his money, told him to keep the change even if he was late, slow, and strangely Greek-like.

“Go on,” Annabelle said. “Be gone with you.”

The young man said a polite thank you and hurried outside.

“Hmmp.” Annabelle carried the bags into the kitchen. Grace offered to help but Annabelle shooed her away. “We don’t put guests to work in this house.”

“I’m not really a guest.”

“You’re my guest. You’ll be doing enough for me by helping me clean this place out.” Annabelle waved toward the living room with its shelves of bric-a-brac. “The very least I can do is take care of things and cook for you.”

“Thank you,” Grace said. “But I don’t mind helping.”

“Suit yourself.”

While Annabelle busied herself in the kitchen, Grace noticed the dark living room with the wooden paneled walls. This place looks like it’s caught in a time warp, Grace thought. The furniture was old-fashioned, with two tan sofas covered by crocheted star blankets near a matching tan recliner, also covered in a crocheted blanket. A rectangular window at the front overlooked the driveway where Grace had parked while a smaller window near the kitchen overlooked the large backyard. A black cocker spaniel slept soundly on the woven rug near the unlit fireplace. To the right was the kitchen with its olive green appliances. To the left, the rectangle of the house, were the bedrooms, Grace guessed. She peeked into the kitchen and saw the black pot-bellied stove her mother told her about, modernized for electric cooking. In the corner was a breakfast nook with a doily covered table set for two.

“Dinner is nearly ready,” Annabelle said. “If you’re hungry.”

Grace wasn’t hungry but she didn’t want to say no, thinking it was best to stay in Annabelle’s good graces, certain that her grandmother could frighten anyone out of their wits with a single stare. Medusa indeed.

A kettle whistled, and Annabelle gestured for Grace to sit. “You like tea?” Grace nodded. “What would you like?”

“Earl Grey, if you have it.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Earl Grey was your grandfather’s favorite.”

“It’s Mom’s favorite too. And Dad’s.”

“Well well. They have all kinds of things in common, don’t they?” Annabelle chuckled to herself, some in-joke only she understood. Annabelle set a box of Twinings Earl Grey, two tea cups, and a porcelain sugar pot on the table. “Let’s have a cuppa, as my friends from England say.”

Annabelle dropped three tea bags into the porcelain pot and added boiling water. They sat in silence while the tea brewed, and when the air was sufficiently scented with bergamot Annabelle poured the tea into their cups. She sat across from Grace, blowing on the steaming liquid. After a sip she said, “All right then. Stand up. Let me have a look at you, Grace Wentworth.”

Grace was going to protest but decided to humor her grandmother. She stood near Annabelle, who leaned close, squinting.

“All right. You can sit. I’ve seen you. For some strange reason you look like your father to me.”

“When Mom and I are together people tell me I look like her, but I always thought I looked more like Dad.”

“People really say that? Interesting.” Annabelle squinted at Grace some more. “I remember James’ gold hair from when I met him at your parents’ wedding. He’s good-looking enough, I’ll give him that, but there’s something odd about him. I went to shake his hand after the wedding and he jerked away like I had the plague. He apologized, said he had a cold, but he didn’t seem so sickly when he kissed your mother like he was going to suck her lips right off her face.”