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 Looking for a little "history"?... a little "dirt"? Well, here's the whole sordid story: |
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Once upon a time in the emerald green farmlands of late 20th century North America, there lived a cheeky but charming little strawberry blonde named Phoebe Fenwick. She wasn't a native. She had been transplanted here, rather rudely she might add, over five years ago from the jumbled river of traffic and sweet chaos in the big city, little bits of industry and commerce still sticking to her jumper. It wasn't her mother's fault and she suspected it wasn't her father's fault either, although she had never had the chance to ask him for he had escaped in the onrush of fortune and glory before she had voiced her first vowel. In fact she wasn't very sure whether she should really be blaming anyone. The situation had worked out rather nicely - well, much more nicely than living in a bachelor flat on Highway #2 nextdoor to Walmart. |
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It was the quiet tragedy of Isabelle Fenwick's death
that finally plucked Phoebe's mother, Susan, from the numbing numbers and
letters of evening shift at the newspaper. What was a college graduate with an honors degree in journalism doing in the classified
ads department anyway? Escaping her parents? Somehow they didn't seem quite so suffocating now that there was only one of them.
And that one of them needed her. Oh, to be sure, Jack Fenwick would never ask for her care just as he would never ask where
the frying pan might have been kept for the last 25 years. Just as he would never ask about the perma press cycle on the washer or
whether to use single or double thread when darning a sock. Just as she would never ask herself how much she needed a real
home and the wide green spaces of her childhood. She arrived on his doorstep two hours before the funeral, dressed in a black business suit, a toddler in one arm and a suitcase of short story drafts in the other. The moving van was a day later and the gentle routine of domestic friction wore itself in within a month or two. Phoebe really didn't understand what had all happened, but then, neither did anybody else. |
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It was a big house. Not as big as her old apartment block on Highway #2, but vast and
rambling like the farmland it was anchored to. It was steadfast like the white and purple mountains to the west in ski country. It
was cool and enveloping like the caressing ocean to the east where the whale watchers sailed. It was friendly and generous like the
nearby rivers where anglers waded. It was smack dab in the middle of tourist country and Susan had some big ideas for it. Independent
income ideas. Fenwick Farm Bed & Breakfast ideas. Jack took to the changes in his life, his house and his farm better than anyone had expected. Maybe the yawning abyss left by Isabelle's death had needed to be filled quickly and on a secret level he was grateful for these two new women who had gushed into his simple routines. Even if his house had been turned into a maelstrom of females and their foibles, they had filled the domestic gap, leaving him free to pursue his interests; his putterings with his plants and his pigs. That left only the generation gap, which could be ignored, and the romantic gap which could not. What was a retired widower to do when his last opening line to a prospective lover was delivered over forty years ago and involved jukeboxes and milkshakes? Obviously, this was going to take a great deal of practice. Phoebe, on the other hand, adjusted to the new situation as one would expect someone with very little past to do. She had been a bit miffed at the packing of her toys, but this was forgiven when they were once again spewed over a new kichen floor and were initiated into their new function of toppling Grandpa onto the nearest furniture. In fact, Grandpa became her best friend, as only a reluctant quarry can do, for as she grew, he always filled the role of empty bean can for her verbal potshots. And just as rifle and target are inter-dependant partners, so Jack and Phoebe developed a relationship that would go far deeper than the stings and skirmishes in their everyday encounters. Things were essentially pretty normal in an abnormal kind of house. That is, until the morning of Phoebe's 9th birthday when a moving van pulled up to the vacant farmhouse down the road. Phoebe soon discovered that she was now neighbours with a very unusual boy named Quentin. |
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Have you ever met someone whom you just couldn't figure out?
Whom you suspected might actually be a genius but doesn't understand income tax? Who can build a Pentium II from scratch but doesn't know who Richard Nixon was?
And doesn't care? Or who rescues worms from rain puddles but can't understand why everyone gets so upset at funerals? Those sorts are not of the
common cloth and though quiet and unassuming, they eventually make the ground rumble with their outrageous honesty. It was Quentin Beztilny who
quickly became the lotus in Phoebe's nasturtium patch; the white lamb in Phoebe's flock of black mambas; the copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls in her
MAD magazine collection. He philosophized, theorized, factualized and spiritualized with the intensity and truth of a child, and so began to
reflect some of the thoughts that seem to be going through the minds of so many people these days. And although he has claimed to be in training
for the position of "messiah", he is very often a normal ten-year-old boy dealing with the trials of pre-adolescent childhood.So, every day, I get to take a peek at the drama and comedy in the lives of the Fenwick Farm
characters, their friends and guests, and even their animals and although they are beginning to take on a life of their own, I still set the scene
for each daily activity. It gives me the illusion of control, if only for the lighting and angle of the shot. Who knows what will happen when Jack
finally gets a steady date, or Susan gets her novel published, or Quentin completes his training? All I can do is cover the story when it happens.- Sandi Lamb Home · Author/Artist Info · Archives · Shopping · Deep Quotes Contact Us · Recipes This page © Copyright 1999, Sandra Lamb |