If I want to see Great Aunt Addie now, I have to go at dawn. And not just because of my day work, but because there’s so often other people around. The outside of the church is restored, the scaffolding’s all down, and now it’s all about the inside.
“Marianna’s windows are beautiful, aren’t they?” I said, enjoying the early light coming through them.You wouldn’t think a ghost could radiate smugness, but I’m here to tell you that Miss-Kirk-to-you did just that.
“Yes. At last the building looks like it should.”
“Remember what it looked like when I first arrived here?” This time she definitely shuddered.“All too well.”
“I did a good job though, didn’t I? As much as I could manage, anyway.”I’ll say this for Addie, she will give praise where she thinks praise is due.
“You did. Without your determination, I don’t think this would have happened.”
“Tell me some more about the town. I see the changes here, but not in other places.”“Where do you want me to start?”
“Oh – the other graveyard.” That figures. “How is that progressing?”
“It’s progressed,” I said happily. “Apart from some of the fencing still needing replacing. It’s green and lovely, and I even saw butterflies there the other day.”
“I’ll tell you where else looks amazing – Grandpa Geo’s garden already. I can see it from my garden, and it’s beautiful – there were great swathes of daffodils earlier on, and he keeps saying, That’s just the beginning. Wait and see what I’m going to do next. Georgie says you can’t move in the house for plants in pots everywhere.”
I’ve never known Addie to be so interested in the town before. Usually it’s people – me, Lachlan (which I totally get) and Blake (which I don’t) and then Old Tench, Bess Preston, Artie and now Grandpa Geo, because they were some of the last children she taught when they were young. But today’s quiz was all about place: the Sears Roebuck Natoma house that we were doing up as a museum piece, how were the plans for repairing the ones on the either side of it going on…?
She was a bit sad when I told her that the old furniture store had been turned into something else, but perked up when I told her that one half of it was going to be a realtor.“We’re going to have a sign sending anyone who’s seriously interested up to Minnie’s and she’ll phone round and find someone to go and man or woman it. But at the moment, really it’s there to put the idea of moving here into people’s heads as a possibility.”
“But what will people do for furniture?”“Well, there’s all those second hand and antique stores in Newborough, where Blake and Georgie found the stuff for his place, or if we want new, there’s IKEA.”
Boy, that was a mistake. I had to spend half an hour explaining flat-pack furniture. And even at the end, she wasn’t convinced.
“But surely it falls apart if all it is held together by are these dowels..?”
“What about the school?”I thought back to how it had looked when I first showed Patience round it – how long ago now? Four years? Five?
“…and this year they’re growing herbs, strawberries and edible flowers. Last year it was pumpkins and sunflowers. Richard and Janet Preston were busy telling me about all the different insects that are appearing in the insect houses – and Barnabas, Patience says, is obsessed with making compost. Although she suspects that he just likes an excuse to get really dirty!”
“There are two chess tables now outside, and a library with computers in it! No internet yet, of course, but all the older ones are learning how to touch-type, and they write stories, do maths puzzles and all sorts of other things on it.”I think Addie was beginning to glaze over when I got onto computers.
Or maybe not. Maybe she was just thinking, because after a while she started talking again.“I taught in that school for nearly fifty years. I started at fifteen as an assistant – and when I’d saved up enough money, I did my teaching exams and became a proper teacher. I taught so many children…”
Addie almost sounded…sad? Nostalgic? Regretful? Very un-Addie – I’m used to Miss Super-Brisk. Did she regret what she never had? But she answered that question with her next non-breath.
“Some of my old school friends used to ask, didn’t I wish I’d got married and had children of my own. What they didn’t understand was that every child in the town was my child when they were in my classroom. And I taught their children, and their children’s children…When I finally retired, I was never lonely. So many ex-pupils, so many people I knew and who knew me…”
“And then the town died and everyone left.”I was seriously blinking back tears now.
“Only Tom Tench remained – he always did have a stubborn, obstinate streak.” That was the Addie I knew!
“But now? Now life is coming back into it. What’s happening over on the other side?”
The stained glass windows are by Sandy at ATS3
Clara and Miss Adelaide Kirk and the church were made by AlphaFen (now AlphaFFrog) and can be found here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310815
