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Chapter 10: Night

            Teresa looks at the clock on her laptop.  It is late, 11:40.  She has been writing for over two hours.  She rubs the back of her neck, rolls her shoulders.  With the computer shut down, Teresa gets ready for bed.  She makes sure the flashlight is on the nightstand before turning off the bedside lamp. 

            Sometime before dawn she is awakened by a dream.  Unlike most of her dreams, this one is clear and realistic, not murky with nonsensical events.  At first in the dream, she is at the park with her father, a stocky, swarthy man with thick black eyebrows.  Then the man changes into a taller, leaner person with brown hair and piercing blue eyes.  He is holding the reins of a small tan horse.  The Teresa of the dream knows him as her father.  His love for her lights up his eyes like small flames.  He lifts her up onto the butterscotch pony and begins to lead her around the circle of green grass. 

            “Oh, Da,” she says to the man.  ‘Is she mine to keep?”

            “Yes, my little love, she’s yours to keep.”

            Teresa awakens with her cheeks wet with tears.  She feels for the light switch.  Her chest is aching with yearning for this man, this dream father she adores whose eyes are alight with love.  Oh, how she longed to see that look in Father’s eyes.  Teresa wipes her face on the edge of the sheet. 

            I tried so hard, she thinks, but Junior got it all.  She recalls Junior as he was when he joined the Army.  He was a head taller than Father, with smoldering black eyes and a shock of wavy brown hair.  When not in uniform, he always stood with an attitude, hips cocked, thumbs in his belt loops.  He’d been a handsome man.  His death drew a dark curtain over all their lives.

            Teresa lies awake until she hears the birds begin their dawn symphony.  Two cups of tea help to chase away the night fog, yet the heaviness of loss is hard to dispel.  She decides to walk about the grounds before her morning work session.  The wrought-iron garden gate is open, and the gardener is kneeling on one of those kneepads avid gardeners like to use.  He is wearing the same crushed felt hat, but the pipe is absent.

            “Good morning,” she says, even though the morning still feels soggy and disjointed. 

            “Ah, good morning to you.  A fellow early bird, I see.”

            “Yes.  I’m Teresa.  Staying in the Garden View Suite.”

            “Yes, yes.  The writer from America.”   He removes his earth-smudged right glove and holds out his hand.  “Names Braithewaite.  Morris Braithewaite.”  His fingers are calloused and dry; it’s like holding stale toast.  In the bright morning light, Teresa makes him out to be at least seventy-five, maybe much older.  He has that leathery look of folks who have spent years in harsh weather.    Teresa is startled by the name he offers. 

            “Braithewaite?  As in the smuggler family that Margaret belonged to?”

            “The very same.  My grandfather bought back the property during the Great Depression.  Land was going for a song then.”  His eyes twinkled.  “But we’ve given up the wrecking, at least for the time being.”

            Teresa smiles with him.  “Did you grow up here at the Manor House?”

            “Oh, no.  Just spent holidays here.  It was a bit too rustic for my taste.  That was before the museum, before the cottages were added on.”  Mr. Braithewaite pulls his pipe and a lighter out of his breast pocket. Teresa watches as he sucks the flame into the tobacco until it is well-lit.    Mr. Braithewaite raises the pipe.  “My only vice,” he says.

            “And Margaret, the ghost.  Have you encountered her?”

            “Never.  But I keep my dress sword underneath the bed.  Deters intruding spirits.”

            “I’d like to hear more about the Manor.  Sometime.  If you’re willing,” Teresa says.

            “Certainly. You can find me here most mornings.  It’s good for me to take a bit of a rest and have a chat.  These old knees are not what they used to be. “

            “Thanks.  Well, I should go back to my work.  It’s nice meeting you, Mr. Braithewaite.”

            “Likewise.  Ta.”  He salutes her with the stem of his pipe, then lowers himself back onto his gardener’s knee pad.