Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
“The Artist Formerly Known As, to be exact,” I said.
“I thought he changed it back before he died.”
“He did, but this album came out during that time period. My mom was a huge fan. I guess her aunts were too.”
Jason smiled. “Well, I also am a big fan, so crank that up, and we can party like it’s 1999.”
I laughed and turned the volume up, not resisting the urge to dance that took over and enjoying the infectious beat. Jason joined me, and for a song, we simply danced together in the living room of a house that I felt like was coming alive. Memories trapped in the walls seemed to seep out, and though I hadn’t experienced them, it was like I could feel them.
Long days and party-filled nights, music and friends and food and laughter. Prince on the record player and lights being strung from the banister to celebrate the holidays. Red and green for Christmas and the wild-looking orange-and-black ones for Halloween. They would play and laugh and dance in this space, and I wanted to bring that feeling back. I wanted to honor them, the aunts I never really knew, by doing what they always did and enjoying the farm and those on it the way it was clearly meant to.
Poor Maisie, I thought. To have left this place of light and love because it hurt her to be so alone. I could imagine how dark and quiet this place would be if it were just one person in it. I didn’t blame her. But I also never wanted to make that mistake. This house was meant to love and to be loved in.
After our song, I let the music keep playing as we wound our way through other rooms. A back room on the top floor looked a fair bit like one of the bedrooms in the trailer. The hoarding tendencies must have started before the other sister died. Boxes and boxes of what looked like loosely thrown together paper turned out to be records. Sales records and purchases and business operations. Taxes. Loans. Receipts of a million trees being bought by happy people all over Tennessee who would come for miles to visit the farm in Ashford.
In one box was a framed newspaper page, and I stared at it for a long time. I recognized my mother, there with her aunts onstage as the mayor handed them a business of the year plaque. It had clearly been a point of pride for them, but I guessed they took it down when my mother left. Just like when Maisie moved to the trailer, they couldn’t bear to remind themselves of the sadness, so they locked it away and tried to move on.
I took the picture with me and brought it downstairs to the room with the record player. There was an open space above it with a nail still in the wall. Carefully, I placed the newspaper frame into place and hung it there. I felt a strong emotion overwhelm me as I stepped back and looked at it. Once again, my mom and her aunts were together in the home they clearly loved, listening to Prince again.
Smiling, I went back upstairs and found Jason sitting on the floor, going through a few papers in his hands from a tote that lay open at his feet.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Blueprints,” he said. “Detailed plans and manuals on how they ran the business. It looks like they were preparing to sell the place at one point and decided not to go through with it. They wrote up a ton of instructions on how to run a Christmas tree farm, and there are papers in here from some company that tried to buy them out. It must have gotten really close to happening too.”
“I never knew that,” I said.
“Yeah, it looks like it got to the point of handing over keys, and they went back on it. The next year, they made twice as much as the year before, so their instincts were right. I guess the price of lumber went up or something, because the company that tried to buy them is a megacorp now. They must have done a bunch of purchases like that back then.”
“What’s this?” I asked, picking up one of the papers.
“It’s the most recent statement from the farm being open,” he said. “It’s really wild because it looks like they were successful all the way up until they closed the doors. It’s like the place just shut down out of nowhere.”
“That date,” I said. “I know that date. It’s the year they found out one of the aunts was sick. She died only a couple of months later. Maisie must have just shut everything down immediately when her sister got sick and then never opened back up again.”