Gran’s overgrown backyard couldn’t be hide Fynn’s childhood memories. His gaze of the present blurred with the recollections of the past. His favorite climbing tree grew unkept and so full of leaves to see the branches.
A melody wafted over the fence, haunting and sweet. He stood rooted, and swayed in time with the heavenly tone.
“That was beautiful,” Fynn said as the last note vanished on the breeze.
A gasp answered him, followed by a sliding door that banged shut.
Fynn stepped into the kitchen. “I think I scared your neighbor.”
“Oh, Fynnagan. Lad, when did you get here?”
“Gran, I came last night. Don’t you remember?”
“Last night?” A vacant stare accompanied Gran’s weak voice. “Yes, of course.” She patted his hand.
He noted the breakfast Gran was making and added more eggs and bacon. “Your neighbor has a lovely voice.”
“Poor girl.” Gran shook her head. “They moved here several years ago after a car accident. She lost her wee brother, and her mother said Jenna’s face was disfigured. Her mother home schooled her, but her parents have moved away. Now I think the lass does some kind of job from home. But she never leaves.”
Fynn glanced over the sink out the window toward the fence. Trapped in her home by fear. That was no way to live.
————
Molly, Gran’s beagle, pawed at the fence and barked several times when Fynn let her out the next morning.
“Hello, Molly girl.” Jenna’s sweet voice slipped through the cracks between the fence boards.
Molly barked twice, her tail wagged furiously. Fynn knelt beside the squirming dog. “Hello.”
A little gasp answered again.
“Please don’t leave. I don’t mean to frighten you. My name is Fynn. I came to visit Gran.”
A long silence answered. “I’m Jenna.”
He almost missed the tiny whisper. “Hello Jenna. It’s my pleasure.”
“Thank you.” The sliding glass door slid closed, though with less force this time.
“Well, it’s a start, Molly,” Fynn rubbed the dog’s head.
————-
Fynn turned off the edger and removed his T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his face.
“You’re making quite a racket.” There was a lilt in Jenna’s soft words.
“The yard hasn’t seen good care since grandda passed. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No. I’m glad Miss Abigail has someone.”
Loneliness tugged his heart at her words. He moved closer to the fence. “I’m between jobs and thought I’d visit Gran for a spell and get my bearings. But things are different than I expected.”
“How so?”
“She’s not the stout Irish woman I remember taking me by the ear when I raced through the house. She’s …”
“Old?”
Fynn sighed, “Yeah.”
Molly scratched on the fence.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.” The smoke detector in the kitchen started beeping and Fynn ran for the house. “Gran?”
————-
An hour later, Fynn dropped with his back against the fence. “You there, Jenna?”
“Is Miss Abigail all right?”
“Yes, just burned cookies. I hate to think what could have happened.”
————-
The days lengthened and evenings filled with blinking fireflies.
“You’re making quite a commotion.” Jenna called in a lull of his pounding hammer.
“I’m building a gazebo, complete with a fire pit for when it gets cooler.”
“Miss Abigail is sure to love it.”
A board held aloft on two cinder blocks now sat against the fence. There Fynn sat and met with Jenna every day. Fynn moved to the bench now, his hand pressed to the barrier he loathed more each day. “No, Gran will probably never use it. I’m hoping for a different visitor.”
The gentle sound of the sliding glass door reached Fynn.
————-
The cozy gazebo complete, Fynn took grandda’s chainsaw and cut away a section of the hateful divide between him and his love. He fashioned it into a gate and rehung it.
“What have you done?” Jenna asked several days later.
He’d missed her. “You are welcome anytime, love. But the latch is only on your side. I can’t open it.”
The sound of the slow-moving glass door met him again.
————-
A crisp breeze freed a golden leaf to float to his feet. Molly ran to the gate and barked. With painful slowness the barrier swung open. A wave of russet hair covered her face.
Fynn raised her chin with a gentle finger. Now he gasped. “Wow! Jen O’Conner.” He stared into the blue eyes that haunted his dreams. “My eighth-grade crush, and the girl I have compared every woman who followed. None equaled you.” His thumb ran over the deep scar that trailed below her right eye back toward her ear with another branch snaking toward her chin to make her smile lopsided. The scar over her left eye made it droop slightly. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, love.”
