And for some reason she saw the image of that man again, burned into her mind.
This was not the triumphant morning she’d envisioned. It wasn’t even 9:00 a.m., and she felt frightened, challenged and embarrassed.
And slightly scraped raw.
Mascot.
That’s grim.
She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders.
She was notgrim.
She was amiracle.
She walked down the pathway that carried her to the broad steps that led up to the grand entryway of the museum, and with each step she tried to picture pieces of the morning falling away.
With each step, she turned her focus to what was real. Right in front of her.
This building had originally been a common area for the town. A place where the citizens could hold meetings, weddings. Parties. So much of the foundational town history had occurred within those walls. And now it stood as a testament to educating people about how the town had been created.
She stood in front of the tall black doors to the museum for a moment. She hadn’t been back here for a couple of years, and she was suddenly awash in nostalgia. She could remember getting a special release from school to do presentations at the museum during Heritage Days. When fourth graders from schools in the surrounding area would come and do state education for days. Pear Blossom was one of their sites because of its strong historic programs, living history and intact historic buildings.
They guided the kids through presentations on the Oregon Trail, on the origins of the state’s symbols—birds, flags, animals—and gave demonstrations on churning butter, washing clothes and baking. She had worked in nearly every station throughout the years, and for some reason, standing there, she wanted a bottled coffee and a can of Pringles. Because it was the snack she had brought with her every day when she’d been sixteen. And the memory was inexorably tied to the location.
She had always found that funny. When she went on a road trip she always wanted a bag of Ritz Chips, which were hard to find in grocery stores now. When she went back to the Rochelle house—where she had done living history during the summer at fourteen and fifteen—she wanted a chocolate muffin and a bottle of tropical juice, which was a terrible combination, but for some reason it was what she had had as her snack then.
England had been scones and cream tea. France crepes with honey and croque monsieur.
Vastly superior to muffins and juice.
But still, this memory, this moment, was so visceral she could hardly breathe past it. It was strange, the things that became part of your personal history. Perhaps Sentinel Bridge was understandable. Muffins and juice was a little bit odd. But it was all those things that made up a person, she supposed.
And what about the things that came before? The things that she didn’t know about.
One thing she knew for certain, as a student of history, was that you couldn’t know everything of the past. It was impossible. You could do your best to piece together clues, but you could never really know what people had been thinking. Who they were.
She had accepted that about her own life.
She was fine with it.
The museum was shockingly cool and lit darkly in the entryway. The walnut floors were scarred and shiny, the chandelier that hung overhead worked—wavy glass, likely original. Ruby loved old glass. Imperfect, full of bubbles and wobbles. She heard footsteps coming from one of the back rooms, easy because the place was hushed like a church, and a moment later a woman with short, steel gray hair and loose-fitting clothing befitting a historian, in Ruby’s opinion, smiled as she approached her. “You’re early.”
“Hi, Dana,” Ruby said. “I couldn’t stay away, now that everything is set.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
Dana didn’t hug her. But Dana wasn’t... Huggy. Of course, Ruby also didn’t find her to be terrifying the way the rest of the town did.
Her eyes were pale and sharp, and her voice was clipped. She was obsessed with history, things in the past, and not at all as interested in things in the present. But, given her life, Ruby couldn’t blame her. Ruby didn’t pity her—Dana was far too sturdy for that. But she was... Aware.
Because along with her gauzy shawls, Dana had a grief that wrapped itself around her like a garment. It was just there. It didn’t matter if you knew her story or not. You could feel it. A part of her as much as her blue eyes or the lines around her mouth.
Ruby could remember feeling drawn to her from the first time she’d ever seen her. It had been at Pear Blossom Elementary when Ruby was in kindergarten, and a couple of kids from the high school had come in pioneer clothing to do a demonstration on what it was like in the Wild West days of the town. Ruby had been riveted. Gold panning, laundry, butter churning, tin punching. She’d wanted to learn more about all of it.
Dana had been the one overseeing the activities, and so Ruby had known she was the one she had to talk to.
She hadn’t even noticed other people avoided the unsmiling woman. She hadn’t even noticed she was unsmiling.