1. One Egyptian war chariot, over a year (600 man-hours) in the making, from the glint in Bayliss' eye when he drew Al's name in the Christmas lottery to the date palm relief on the side of the carriage. Single ash axle with custom bronze fittings, sycamore footboard, rawhide lashings. After due deliberation, Bayliss and Everett decided to attach the spokes to the tires with glue and a power drill instead of wet cattle intestines, but as many details as possible are authentic. Except for the spare yoke. There's one for display purposes, accompanied by a set of handsome ink diagrams showing how the little, barely-rideable horses would have been outfitted, and another one more suitable for attaching to undergraduate Classics majors.
The other chariots in U.T. Austin's quadrennial Siege of Dapur are gleefully improvisatory, made of bicycle wheels and sawn-up rubber trash bins, painted in colours no Egyptian ever dreamt of. The head of the department fusses sometimes that Al's astonishing piece of art spends every siege right down in the middle of them, but Mitchells don't make things to lock up behind glass; they believe beauty lies in use. The spectacle officially begins when Professor DeSaussure's chariot rides forth.
2. One backpack-stowable assemblage of circuit boards, clamps, and transmitters capable of remotely hijacking not only the PA system at Asheville High, but the lights in the cafeteria, gym and front lobby.
Nobody got grounded after the Series of Unfortunate Events of '92. Spence and Skipper weren't allowed to leave the house until both of them had passed a written examination procured by a mysterious contact of Uncle Everett's at the local community college covering commercial and residential building codes, and the next time the house expanded, the twins were put in charge of the wiring.
A third of the property now uses geothermal energy.
Nobody in the Griffiths' graduating class can listen to "Scotland the Brave" without snickering.
3. The bucket line of '73. Arid summer, lightning storm, remote farm, dying fir. God-awful night, fire brigade already stretched thin across two blazes on the far side of town when the call came in from the Coopers. Sal patched it to the next station over, but by the time the trucks showed up, there were two lines of Mitchells already on the scene, stretching past the vegetable and flower beds all the way to the creek. Pam Cooper had called Gran'ma first and the station second. Only sensible: the Mitchells were closer, half the clan already in residence for Lorena's wedding. By the time the professionals had their 100-foot line thrown down across the lawn, and their pump and generator running, it was a matter of dousing the smoulder and protecting the nearby trees.
4. Maria met Susie Mae on a Habitat for Humanity project, right after Susie Mae had shorn the skin off her own finger with a screw gun. Susie Mae didn't have any band-aids. "Front pocket of my pack," said Maria, pointing, and deftly relieved her of her weapon and picked the screw up off the floor. By the time Susie Mae had fumbled herself clean, Maria had gone down the entire stud and was lifting a second piece of wallboard into position.
"Augh," said Susie Mae, laughing. "You're just like my cousins."
"Carpenters in the family?"
"A few, yeah. Mostly just a whole horde of Mountain people good with their hands, some way or other. I'm the family perplexity. Only klutz in three generations."
"Screw guns aren't that hard," Maria said. "C'mere, I'll show you."
The wryness in Susie's smile said it was a lesson she'd been shown before; the way she dipped her eyelashes suggested she didn't much mind.
One of the other things Maria didn't take long to learn about Susie Mae was that, dexterity with kitchen knives notwithstanding, there weren't many things she'd eat out of a can. So she did a double take when her girlfriend of two months started unloading grocery bags—until the picture on the side of the tins registered: a fluffy white poodle with a lolling tongue.
Susie glanced over. "There's a stray been skulkin' around out back, past few days. Been luring him closer with leftovers, but I saw that on sale and thought I wouldn't mind eating the rest of my spaghetti myself. Grab a plate, yeah? He usually comes by around sevenish."
The plate went out on the porch, down past the steps, and Maria forgot about it until she was standing at the window after dinner, swirling the mouthful of wine left in her glass while Susie rinsed the bottle and wiped down the counters. "Food's gone!" she exclaimed. Susie smiled.
Maria had a string of evening workshops and errands all next week. The weather warmed. Susie reported over the phone that the stray dog and she had progressed to taking their meals together on the porch.
When Maria let herself into Susie's place on Friday evening, she found the back door open and Susie ensconced in one of her uncle's big, hand-fitted Adirondacks, book in her lap and a watermelon rind sticking out of an empty glass at her elbow. "Step lightly," she called, and Maria paused behind the screen.
An unhandsome terrier was sidling up the lawn.
"Hullo there, dog," said Susie. The dog looked dubious; his food had been moved up next to Susie's foot. Susie went back to her book. The dog braved the dinner plate, then leaned cautiously sideways and sniffed Susie's fingers. Susie let him do that for a while. Then she turned her hand over, unhurriedly, casually, just floatin' in the breeze, and skritched his chin, and when that was permitted, she slid a finger under the dirty bandana around his neck and felt for the tag.
Maria looked at Susie Mae's big, long-fingered hands. Mitchell hands that, unlike any other Mitchell hands she'd met so far—or any in living memory, if Susie were to be believed—grew bored with knitting needles, were hopeless at Maria's pottery wheel and couldn't shape a piecrust if their fates depended on it. She watched the way they smoothed over the dog's scruffy ears, and watched the dog who didn't pull away. Maria fell in love.
5. "This," Cam informed AJ, holding up his finger, "is a ladybug. They're the good guys." AJ reached and swatted, but Cam was ready for him, and the ladybug remained unmolested. "Nope, no smashing. We're gonna take him over to the rose bushes and let him find some aphids to munch on." The house's previous owners hadn't done much with the yard, but they'd had good taste in roses: big, floppy white English something-or-others sprawled across the fence separating the property from the neighbours', all but obscuring it. Cam thought the word "mutant" belonged somewhere in that something-or-other, because they didn't seem to mind being on the shady side of the house, keeping company with the rain barrel and the compost bin.
"There. One happy ladybug." Cam shifted his cane and his nephew and picked up the watering can. He dipped it in the rain barrel and thumped back toward the patio.
It was planting season. Miss Ella and Miss Noreen, broad-hatted and canvas-gloved, spent mornings on their knees, poking holes for squash and nasturtiums. On the other side, Steve cleaned oak leaves out of the gutters while Nancy schlepped topsoil and solicited suggestions for the flowerbeds from the girls.
Cam drew maps.
He had a big enough space to dream with. Big enough for a workshop in the back corner with room for a bench and JD's sawhorses. Cam looked across the lawn, measuring in his mind's eye, and extended the workspace with a patio and covered it in clematis. The oak in the opposite corner (one of the selling points of the house) had tree fort potential. And there were ways that Cam could think of to capitalize on the sunny spots, to grow fruits and vegetables and herbs—a low stone wall or raised beds running the perimeter, for instance—that wouldn't require all the labour to be JD's.
He wanted to be doing. He wanted to have something that he could show to JD, when JD came back. Something both beautiful and tangible, that would say, green and silent and clearer than any speech, See? I didn't just wait for you. I built for you. I was so sure of you that I went right on building our future. Not the one full of sheet metal and code and business contracts, but this. Our home.
"Meh," said AJ.
Cam looked down. "Summed it up, Kiddo. But you gotta work with what you've got."
He rested his watering can for a moment, then hoisted it to its destination: two benches, hauled out and positioned with Theo's help, groaning under big pots of fledgling peppers and tomatoes, thyme and tarragon. Tall enough that Cam could tend them without stooping, hardy enough that they didn't need much tending to begin with. Cam brushed his hand, feather-light, against their fragile green, and let them drink.