A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) Read Free

Benefit Auction, as well as the Altar Guild, the Children’s Library Advisory Committee, the Neighborhood Association, and the foremost list-maker in all of Texas, say that she didn’t have a plan. Someone must have crossed our wires.” He laughed, and I smiled. Even in my darkest moments, the sound of Garrett laughing has cheered me.
    “I know. It isn’t like me, but, as you’ve probably noticed, being myself hasn’t been working out too well for me lately. I thought I’d try being someone else, someone spontaneous and unpredictable.”
    “I see,” Garrett said with a television therapist twang. “How’s that working for you so far?”
    “Well, I haven’t even crossed into Rockwall County yet, so it’s a little too soon to tell. At the moment, I feel better than I have in quite a while, but it can’t last. Right about now, your dad is being told by some moving-company cowboy that I kicked him out and refused to set a date to move, which means it won’t be long before Rob will be calling my cell phone to ask if I’ve lost my mind.” I chuckled. “I don’t know. Maybe I have, but do you think I should tell him?”
    “Don’t bother. Bet he already knows. I always did,” Garrett teased, and then his voice became more serious.
    “Listen, Mom, I’ve got to get back to work, but I think it’s great that you’re getting away for a few days. You’ve got plenty of time before you need to move, so don’t worry about it. If it comes down to the wire, I’ll jump on a plane and fly out there to help you pack.”
    “Thanks, honey. You won’t need to do that; I’ll be back in plenty of time to move, but I appreciate the offer.”
    I hit the end button on the phone. Glancing into the rearview mirror across the pancake-flat landscape, I could see the downtown skyline marked by air-conditioned temples of commerce shrinking in the distance. I turned up the volume on the radio, drowning out the tinny, computer-generated version of “Your Man” that always played on my cell phone when Rob called, and kept driving northeast.
     
    The young policeman stared, waiting for me to answer the question.
    “What brings me to Connecticut? Just a whim.” I shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to see the fall foliage.”
    He nodded slowly, probably wondering if he should have me take a Breathalyzer test but apparently deciding against it. Maybe I reminded him of his mother.
    “Well, I’m sorry your vacation is starting off on a sour note,” he said as he wrote, “but as fast as you were going, I really don’t have a choice.” He tore the ticket off the pad and handed it to me.
    “Welcome to New England, Ms. Dixon.”

2
Evelyn Dixon
     
    S tanding in the middle of downtown that day and turning in a slow circle, I decided that New Bern, Connecticut, looked exactly as a New England village should. I still think so.
    The tallest building in town is the Congregational Church. It stands at the narrow, western end of the Green, an imposing façade that dominates the landscape, as if anchoring the town to the Almighty, reminding the residents of the meaning of the word “omnipresent.” With its evenly spaced doors and windows aligned beneath the exact center of a white wooden belfry, it is a monument to symmetry. Next to it, and painted in the same simple white clapboard as the church, stands a line of antique homes, probably from the late eighteen hundreds, on smallish lots. They are nearly identical, two-storied and rectangular in shape with wide porches and high-pitched roofs and, at least in comparison to the grand mansions that line the village’s main east/west residential street, Elm, rather modest.
    The lots on Elm are large, some measured in acres instead of feet, and the homes sitting on them represent a variety of architectural styles—Colonials, Federals, Greek Revivals, and Victorians. Historic plaques on the homes list dates of construction stretching from pre-Revolutionary times to post–Civil War, the