A tale of one january, p.1
The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, page 1
“On par with Olive Kitteridge! But where Olive woos, Eva Gordon captures. MacKillop’s characters landed in my bones, guts, heart—and took up residence. A poignant, utterly beautiful story of perspective and hope.”
—CHERYL GREY BOSTROM, award-winning author of Sugar Birds: A Novel
“A story about aging, caregiving, friendship, parenting, nostalgia, and dementia—and a delightfully memorable and flawed character who has made her fair share of mistakes in life. There is the kind of patience in the plot development and character disclosure reminiscent of the writings of Marilynne Robinson.”
—JIM HEYNEN, author of The Fall of Alice K.
“Splendid! A novel full of life and transformation, as charming as a New England cottage by the sea. You can’t help but fall in love with spunky, hard-edged Eva Gordon and the others connected to Try Again Farm. Anyone living with regrets will appreciate the gentleness and grace of this story, and the permeating sense of love will stay with you long after the final page.”
—CHRISTINE KINDBERG, author of The Means That Make Us Strangers, Christy Award winner for YA
“A stirring story of both great sorrow and great love … that reminds us that love is indeed redemptive. Much like Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon gives us a woman who begs to be hated but who, page by page, we find ourselves unable not to love.”
—KATHERINE JAMES, author of A Prayer for Orion and Can You See Anything Now?
“With lyrical and heartwarming prose, The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon masterfully captures themes of redemption and renewal in person, home, and land. Prepare to be endeared to the unlovable and contemplate the profundity of the grace of memory.”
—KATHERINE ELIZABETH CLARK, author of Where I End: A Story of Tragedy, Truth, and Rebellious Hope
“The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon is an engaging and timely novel. Well-written with a dose of humor and poignancy, you will fall in love with this cast of characters who create a misfit community. MacKillop tackles the difficult issue of aging, regret, and memory loss, with hope for second chances.”
—ANGELA CORRELL, author of Grounded
“Her memory may be rapidly failing, but seventy-five-year-old Eva Gordon’s sharp-tongued wit is ever-intact as she navigates nagging regrets and unspoken desires. Readers of all ages will recognize the enduring challenges of living with difficult childhood memories in an increasingly inscrutable present and will root for Eva, even in her harshest moments. Linda McKillop’s The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon is a big-hearted family saga, suffused with grace and kindness, featuring a cast of appealing characters who would be right at home in Jon Hassler’s Staggerford or Richard Russo’s Empire Falls. A quiet triumph of goodness.”
—ADRIANNE HARUN, author of A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain
“A gently acerbic, absorbing, and deeply compassionate look at the disorientation and dislocation the elderly often face in their last years, and at those who face it with them. Eva is a captivating heroine, both prickly and poignant, and MacKillop is a wise and canny writer.”
—SUZANNE BERNE, author of The Dogs of Littlefield
“Linda MacKillop has created a cast of endearing characters that will touch your heart. She captures the essence of what dealing with memory loss looks like, but with hope and humor. I relished her beautiful writing style and ability to elegantly convey Eva’s thoughts and emotions. A gem of a book.”
—TERRI KRAUS, author of The Project Restoration series and Farmhouse Retreat: Life-Giving Inspirations from a Rustic Countryside
The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon
© 2022 by Linda MacKillop
Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., 2450 Oak Industrial Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505. www.kregel.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without the publisher’s prior written permission or by license agreement. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
The persons and events portrayed in this work are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Linda MacKillop is represented by and this book is published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., www.wordserveliterary.com.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-8254-4732-7, print
ISBN 978-0-8254-7785-0, epub
ISBN 978-0-8254-6938-1, Kindle
Printed in the United States of America
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To Bill,
my love
One
ON THE MORNING OF EVA Gordon’s escape, the sun sat crisply in the New England spring sky like a promising sign.
She tilted her head as her granddaughter’s Jeep whined through the shifting gears on its way up the street, carrying Breezy to her teaching job at Hingham High School. When the sound of the engine faded farther into the distance, Eva quickly stripped off her pajamas, then donned a long-sleeved blouse, plaid skirt, a sweater, and a light spring jacket, with her winter coat over the entire ensemble. After she pulled a suitcase from underneath the bed, she stuffed pre-folded clothes into it, packing the leftovers into plastic grocery bags. There, her closet would be emptied inconspicuously. She would need her medications, hygiene items, a little snack for the bus, and definitely her glasses.
Her heart pulsed with the anticipation of it all. She gave her well-endowed chest a good tap to get her heart back into rhythm, ran a comb through her short gray curls, then tied the bags to her luggage, dangling them hither and thither off the sides. The excitement actually made her mind feel clear.
She lugged the baggage to the front hall and left it by the door. In the kitchen, she positioned a goodbye note to Breezy propped against the coffeepot on the kitchen counter where her granddaughter would be sure to see it. After making sure the dog was inside, she gazed outside at Breezy’s garage, where her granddaughter had helped her set up her furniture refinishing shop after moving all the tools and supplies from Cape Cod. Eva would be leaving unfinished work, but Breezy could bring it to her later, once Eva got settled at home.
Ah, so many good things to come—warm days and time spent in the outdoors with hands in the soil once again, tending roses and hydrangeas, maybe planting a few tomato and pepper plants after she arrived back on Cape Cod. And walking the beach. How could she forget walks on the underpopulated beach? She didn’t exactly have a place to stay on Cape Cod—yet—but she would work that out when the bus arrived in her old town.
At least there’d be no more city noise or knocks on the front door at all hours of the night by Breezy’s needy students. Eva tiptoed out the front door and peered at the driveway. Mabel Maguire’s car wasn’t there. Mabel, the nosy, meddling upstairs tenant who attended church with Breezy. With no sign of Mabel today, Eva thumped her overstuffed roller suitcase down the concrete front steps of Breezy’s two-family home, down the walkway, and out to the sidewalk, hurrying as quickly as possible—as much as a seventy-five-year-old woman could hurry. She wanted to get to the Cape before the planting season ended. She sketched a rough garden plot in her mind.
But then, right there at the beginning of her journey, the bursitis in her hip decided to kick up with an achy, nagging pain, arriving like a reprimand that old people shouldn’t be traipsing around on long journeys. Eva hesitated. She could turn back and grab aspirin from the bathroom medicine cabinet, but she was in a rush and didn’t want to be caught if Mabel returned home from her morning errands. Once Eva got going, surely the exhilaration of the escape would act as an anti-inflammatory and dull the ache.
At the edge of the sidewalk, she leaned toward the street, scanning beyond the aged maples and elms that lined the road, on the lookout for Breezy’s Jeep or Mabel’s huge Buick. A small sedan car turned the corner at the end of the congested city block, but no one else. Breezy should be halfway to school by now and soon engrossed in teaching the troubled lot of her theater students. Only a few more weeks, and summer vacation would arrive.
A young mom, wearing yoga pants and sweatshirt over her tank top, turned from her home onto the sidewalk, probably to walk the young children trailing behind her to school just a few blocks away. She pushed one of those gigantic strollers big enough to fit an entire family. Even a small terrier sat in one of the seats. Farther down the street, a male commuter walked through his front gate, lugging a work bag for the train trip into the city.
The only cars on the street sat bumper to bumper along the sidewalk, as if kissing, leaving little room for Eva to squeeze through. She stayed on Breezy’s side of the street, heading in the direction of the main thoroughfare where she would turn left, go straight, and eventually get to the bus station. She had practiced the trip over and over in her mind. Her neighbor, Mr. Cho, glanced at her briefly without speaking, then returned to watering his plants.
She had unintentionall
Eva shrugged. She needed to focus on her trip. She took off at what would be just the perfect pace. Not too fast to look like someone running from a captor, yet not too slow to be seen by Mabel or anyone else who might recognize her and call her granddaughter. She tried to blend in with the morning commuters by slipping into their fluid lockstep to the train station. No one would confuse her with a businesswoman on her way into the city to work in a high rise. Instead, people could confuse her with a homeless person leaving the shelter for the night, what with the way she’d tied the Stop and Shop grocery bags to her one large roller suitcase, the crinkling plastic sounding like a hearty bonfire when a gust whipped in from the side.
As she rushed, the wind suddenly blew the bags and they slapped against a tall man wearing some kind of security uniform. “Watch it!” he said over his shoulder while still walking in the opposite direction.
Eva ignored his scolding and continued on her way. No need to let any unnecessary attention interrupt her morning plans.
Maybe because of her rushing, this was a memory morning. Some mornings were empty mornings, offering only a blank mind with familiar words vanquished, memories scattered. On those days, her gaze passed over so-called familiar objects in her granddaughter’s house but their names escaped her. Not only that, sometimes she found herself thinking about nothing at all. She’d simply settle into an awareness that her mind was blank, the day was warm or cold or rainy. She was hungry. People were around her. But these thoughts never appeared as words.
Other mornings, like this one, were filled with a rush of memories, a consistent flow of stories and people playing like a video of her past, complete with a soundtrack of familiar voices returning with the good and the bad. As she rushed down the sidewalk, the memory of a tossed suitcase and spilled contents, including her favorite teddy bear, overwhelmed her mind. She let the memory come, its sounds and textures filling her consciousness and blocking out the present moment, taking her back to her earliest memory—one that had haunted her repeatedly over the past seven decades.
Three-year-old Eva watched her impoverished parents prepare to leave on the day of their move to New York City. Left to remain with her grandmother on Cape Cod, she shivered as cold air swept over her skin as she hid behind the Windsor chair, staring at the open front door. It looked like a mouth waiting to gobble up her weeping mother and angry-faced father.
“Holy Moses. No time to drag this out. Give her a hug and let’s get going,” her gruff father’s voice had boomed.
She rubbed her arm where her father had grabbed it all those years ago, yanking her in front of the Windsor chair, grabbing her small suitcase and tossing it across the room, breaking the latch.
Instinctively Eva looked down at her roller bag as she hurried to the bus station. A strap held her suitcase together along with a zipper. No latch or stuffed bear. Right. She reoriented herself to the present moment. Stopping at the next intersection, though, she stepped into the street then jumped back on the sidewalk. How would she cross such a busy street with the whooshing of cars and trucks, with horns blaring and music busting out of radios then fading as the vehicles passed by? Stores lined the street with signs screaming Bring a friend for a free dessert, Cash checks here, or Stop in and let us meet your insurance needs.
After several false starts, she stepped in behind other folks crossing the street on their way to the train. On the other side of the crosswalk, Eva glanced down at her bags to be sure her contents weren’t about to spill.
Her panties lay there on the top of her shopping bag, working their way toward the opening. Mortifying! She could only shove them further into the bag. No time for a permanent fix or she’d be caught by Breezy or Mabel.
With one stolen look down the street, she kept on toward the station but stumbled over a man’s knapsacks and stuffed trash bags strewn across the sidewalk where he sat in front of ACE Hardware.
He jumped to help her before she fell, steadying her by clasping her arm, steering her luggage over to a wooden bench as though she’d be staying awhile. He gestured with his hand, offering her a seat. “You okay, ma’am?” He peered at her more closely. “Did I see you last night at Sheltering Arms?”
“No, you did not!” Eva huffed at the mention of the homeless shelter. Did he mistake her appearance to be on a par with his? “I’m just going on a trip, taking a lot of stuff.”
He released her arm, nodded, and half smiled, holding his eyes shut for just a second longer than a normal blink, an expression that revealed his own knowing and seemed to narrow the distance between their two stations in life. One of his eyes focused farther down the street and one on her. He wore a fluorescent-orange ski coat on this warm spring day, with a thick sweater underneath, carrying the contents of his closet on his back and in worn bags, the same as Eva. His outfit seemed in need of a good laundering.
“I’m in a hurry, sir,” she said, retrieving her bags. “Thank you for steadying me.”
He glanced down, taking a good, long look at her nicely pressed skirt and newish sneakers. “You don’t happen to have money for a cup of coffee, do you?” He blocked her way, moving to the left as she did so, moving to the right when she moved.
When a police officer came out of a nearby store carrying a cup of coffee, the man sat back down and pulled his belongings in close.
Eva took the opportunity to make her escape, dodging other people on the sidewalk, huffing loudly when she found herself stuck behind a slow walker. Glances over her shoulder said she was safe—no one on her trail. Her spirits rallied, buoyed to be saying goodbye to the noisy Boston suburb that couldn’t even provide salty sea air without mixing it with the fumes of buses and delivery trucks. She picked up her pace a bit, rubbing her hip as she walked.
Bumping her suitcase over each split in the concrete, she gripped the handle more tightly to offset an increased wobble in one of the wheels. Hopefully the wheel would make the trip, as it was likely some careless bus driver would throw the bag into the bus’s luggage compartment with little to no concern. She paused. Examining the wheel gave her a chance to steal a quick peek behind her. Had anyone spotted her? There were joggers and mothers with jogging strollers, and men dressed in black pants with white, pressed shirts, those computer bag things flung over their shoulders. Many walked while looking at their phones. Eva would trip on the sidewalk if she read her phone while walking. Of course, she could barely read anything on her phone without Breezy’s help. She had hardly mastered making calls.
She approached a Dunkin’ Donuts, and the coffee smell permeated the air, sparking a sudden craving for the warm beverage and the jolt it offered. But she didn’t have time. She reached another intersection and stood next to one of the contraptions that changed the light to read “walk.” She reached to press the button, but a child’s eager hand beat her to it. When the moment came for her to cross the street, a strong memory of walking to school with her snakelike cousins invaded her mind.
Suddenly Eva was crossing Old Main Street near her grandmother’s house. Daily she walked to school, crossing a street like this one with those hard-hearted relatives taunting her.
“You’re just an orphan, Eva,” her cousin Jake whispered just as a car sped through the intersection, preventing her from fleeing the abuse. “Nobody wants you to live with them. Not even your own parents.”
She only stole a glance at him, enough to see his yellowed teeth stuffed with the morning’s cereal.
She brushed the distressing memory away, focusing on the promising day ahead, taking a gander to the left and right and behind herself. No sign of Breezy’s familiar Jeep or Breezy’s boyfriend, Ian, in his police car. She kept on her straight path. The bus station should be located at the corner just after the chain drugstore.
The farther she walked, the more convoluted the route back to Breezy’s house became. What if Eva never found the bus station? Each side street with their shaded sidewalks and snug yards and houses looked exactly the same.
