Eleanor Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Eleanor Whitmore drove the wagon home with her son's coffin behind her. She had wanted to fill this house with grandchildren, not bury the last of her line in it. The horses knew the road without her hands. She stared at the cottage where she had raised him, its ivy grown wild across one wall, its trim cracked and gray. The porch sagged. A shutter hung by one nail. No one had cared for it in years. She stopped the wagon and climbed down. Her knees ached. Inside, the tiled kitchen ceiling had let in water, and the plush wall carpet smelled of mold. Twenty cats met her at the door, winding around her ankles, mewing for supper. They were the only family she had left in this house. She fed them from the last of her flour and salt pork. At the table, she wrote the names of her son's children on a scrap of paper. She had never met them. He had scattered them across the county before he died, sending each to a different aunt or neighbor when money ran short. She did not know where they lived now. She only knew they were out there, and she wanted them home. The next morning she buried her son under the oak he had climbed as a boy. She dug part of the grave herself before a neighbor came to help. When the dirt was flat, she stood alone and made herself a promise. She would find every child and bring them here. She rode into town and went to the newspaper office. The printer looked up from his ink-stained hands. "Whitmore," he said. "I heard about your boy. I'm sorry." "I need a notice," Eleanor said. She set coins on the counter. "A funeral notice. And a call. Every child of my son is to come to the Whitmore home. Print their names. Print mine. Say their grandmother is waiting." The printer wrote as she spoke. "Folks will read it," he said. "Notices travel far." "That's what I want," she said. She rode home with the promise printed and paid for. At the gate a thin stray cat sat waiting. Its ribs showed through matted fur. Its eyes followed her with something like hope. It had no home and no one to feed it, and it looked at her the way she imagined her grandchildren might, if they ever came. Eleanor knelt and held out her hand. The cat pressed its head into her palm. "You too, then," she said. She carried it inside. That evening she sat by the window and watched the road. The notice was out. Her call had left her hands. Somewhere, children who did not know her face were about to learn her name. Now she had to wait, and hope even one of them would answer, in a house too broken to hold them.