Mother Naomi
Although six-year-old Scott Donnelly did not know the meaning of the derogatory names his father called his mother or understand the accusations she hurled at him, the boy was old enough to sense the anger and hostility that permeated the small Cape Cod house in Puritan Falls whenever his parents fought.
At first, whenever the family tensions erupted, Scott would seek the sanctuary of his bedroom closet, but soon the arguments escalated, and the raised voices penetrated the thin wooden doors. The shouting got so bad that one day the little boy, intent on running away from home, tiptoed into the kitchen and out the back door.
The woods at the end of the cul-de-sac on which the Donnelly clan lived seemed to be the best route of escape, but after walking for what seemed like hours, Scott realized he was hopelessly lost. All around him were trees, and he had no idea what direction would lead him home. Frightened, the little boy sat on a large boulder, buried his head in his hands and cried.
"What's wrong, little one?"
Scott's head shot up at the sound of the soft-spoken voice. The woman standing above him was very old, at least in the eyes of a six-year-old. The hair piled atop her head was snowy white, and her face was lined with age.
"I can't find my way back home," Scott sobbed.
"Come to my house. It's just a short walk from here. I'll give you milk and cookies, and then I'll show you the way back to the road."
The boy hesitated. Well-meaning adults often warned him not to talk to strangers and most definitely not to follow them should they offer to take him somewhere. Still, since he could not find his way by himself, he had to trust someone.
Just as the old woman had told him, her house was within a short walking distance. And what a house it was! It looked like it had come from the pages of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale book. It had a thatched roof, pastel-colored wood shutters on the diamond mullion windows, flower boxes full of colorful blossoms and a stone chimney through which a trail of smoke emerged.
Upon entering the cottage, the old woman led Scott into the kitchen, a room filled with the delightful scents of cinnamon and cloves. She poured him a glass of cold milk and gave him a plate of freshly baked snickerdoodles.
"Would you like me to tell you a story while you're eating?" the elderly hostess asked.
The boy nodded his head in reply, not wanting to speak with his mouth full.
The old woman sat down in a wooden rocking chair by the fireplace and began her tale, a story that captivated the little boy. In an age of video games, LeapFrog and Disney movies on DVD, few children were entertained by the lost art of storytelling, but then few people knew how to spin a tale as well as the old woman did.
"It's time for you to go now," she announced after finishing her third story. "It will be getting dark soon, and no doubt your parents will begin to worry."
While the little boy wanted to go home, he also wanted to hear more stories.
"Can I come back sometime?" he asked.
The old woman beamed at his request.
"I'd like that very much, but we've got to hurry now."
In a surprisingly short period of time, Scott was walking down his own street, his home in sight. When the tired little boy entered through the back door, he could hear his parents still arguing in the living room. Far from being worried at his disappearance, they were not even aware that he had left the house! He went upstairs, put on his Batman pajamas, climbed into bed and fell fast asleep.
* * *
It was not until three days later, when Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly got into their biweekly argument, that Scott returned to the fairy tale cottage in the woods. During his absence, he must have developed an internal GPS, for he had no difficulty finding the quaint, cozy, little house.
"Ah, it's you again, Scott!" the old woman exclaimed when she opened the door. "Why don't you come inside? I just made a big batch of brownies."
"With nuts?" the little boy asked.
Affecting an air of indignation, she replied, "Is there any other kind?"
After handing him a dish of brownies frosted with fudge and covered with a generous helping of chopped walnuts, she went to the icebox and took out a pitcher of cold chocolate milk.
"How did you know my name was Scott?" the boy asked.
"Because you look like a Scott, just as I'm sure I look like a Naomi."
"Is that your name?"
"No, it isn't, but you can call me that just the same."
"I'm not supposed to call a grown-up by her first name. My parents said so."
"Then you can call me Mother Naomi."
"Okay. Could you tell me another story, Mother Naomi?"
"I surely will. I know plenty of them."
For the next two hours, Scott sat in front of the rocker, listening to the old woman's tales with rapt attention. Then when the clock chimed four, Mother Naomi rose from her chair.
"Come on, Scott," she announced. "I'll walk you back to the road."
"Do I have to go?" the boy cried. "Can't I stay here?"
"Good heavens! What would your parents say?"
"They wouldn't care. Last time I came here they didn't even know I was gone."
Mother Naomi put her arms around the boy and hugged him.
"You poor child. That must have made you feel just awful."
Scott nodded his head, and the tears began to fall.
"There, there, little one. Whenever you feel lonely or unwanted, you just come here, and I'll make you cookies and tell you stories."
"Thank you, Mother Naomi. Thank you so much."
* * *
It was not until Scott's fourth visit to Mother Naomi's cottage that his parents noticed their son had sneaked out of the house. They were both waiting for him on the front steps when he walked down the street toward home.
"Who gave you permission to leave the yard?" his father demanded to know.
"No one. You two were busy fighting, so I ...."
"We were not fighting," his mother corrected him. "We were having a discussion, and that doesn't give you the right to just leave without telling us."
"Where did you go, anyway?" his father asked. "Your mother phoned Kyle's and Andrew's mothers, and neither knew where you were."
"I went exploring in the woods."
"You stay out of those woods," his mother cautioned. "You might get lost—or worse."
Mrs. Donnelly did not elaborate on the nature of the dangers her young son might encounter. He was far too innocent to be told about pedophiles and child murderers.
"Besides," his father added, "there's nothing there for you to see except trees."
"That's not true. There's Mother Naomi's house."
"Don't lie," his mother warned. "There's no house in those woods."
"Yes, there is. It looks like the one the three bears lived in or ... or the witch's house that Hansel and Gretel visited."
The father shook his head impatiently.
"The kid's just imagining things."
"I am not. Mother Naomi gave me milk and cookies and told me stories."
"You know better than to talk to strangers," his mother scolded him. "Now you get in the house and go straight to bed without your dinner. You're going to be punished for your disobedience."
As Scott lay in his bed waiting to fall asleep, he wished he could hear one of Mother Naomi's tales. Since she was not there to entertain him, he tried to make up a story of his own. Surprisingly, the task proved to be much easier than he had imagined.
* * *
Despite the punishment he received after his last visit, Scott once again walked out his back door while his parents were arguing. He ran down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac and plunged through the trees and undergrowth, not slowing until he came to Mother Naomi's front door.
"Aren't you in a rush today!" she laughed.
"I made up my own story, and I couldn't wait to tell it to you."
"Come right in then 'cause I can't wait to hear it."
After gobbling down several sugar-coated butter cookies and washing them down with a glass of milk, Scott was ready to begin his tale.
"Wait," the old woman insisted. "You sit in the rocking chair, and I'll sit on the settle."
While the boy recited his story, Mother Naomi laid her head on the back of the tall bench and closed her eyes. Believing she had fallen asleep, Scott stopped speaking.
"Keep on talking," she said. "I'm listening. I just closed my eyes so's I could make a picture of what you're saying in my mind."
Scott continued with his story, even making grandiloquent gestures as he spoke—although the old woman could not see them. When he announced, "That's the end," Mother Naomi's eyes opened, and a smile lit up her face.
"You have the gift, my child. You're going to make a wonderful storyteller someday."
"Will I have to go to school to become one?"
"I reckon you'd have to learn all them fancy grammar rules if you wanna be a storyteller. But what's more important than book learning, you've got an imagination. That's the number one ingredient that goes into storytelling. It's like the flour that goes into my cookies. Without it, you'd have nothing but eggs, sugar and spices and nothing to hold everything together."
That was the first time Scott felt a rapport with the adult world. He shared a bond with the old woman that went beyond the pseudo-grandmother/grandson routine of milk and cookies and a story told to pass the time. From that day on, he saw himself and Mother Naomi as equals, two kindred spirits wandering through the realm of imagination.
Eventually, however, the little boy began to mature. Other interests interfered with his visits to the little cottage in the woods, and Scott saw his elderly friend less frequently. Just after his fourteenth birthday, the visits stopped altogether.
* * *
One afternoon Scott and his girlfriend, Courtney, were walking home from school, hand in hand.
"I hate this road!" the teenage girl exclaimed as they started their ascent up Naumkeag Hill. "I can't wait until you get your driver's license."
"Even after I get my license, I still won't have enough money to buy a car. My job at Shop 'N Save doesn't pay much."
Before the two teens could make it up the steep incline, it began to rain.
"We're gonna get drenched," Scott declared and pulled his hooded sweatshirt over his head.
"I know a shortcut we can take," Courtney said. "There's a path through the woods that will bring us out onto your street."
It had been a long time since he had entered those woods. He wondered if Mother Naomi was angry at him for abandoning her. Five minutes later, however, Scott found himself on a dirt walkway headed directly toward the Donnelly house.
"That's odd," he mused. "I've been in that woods hundreds of times, but I've never seen that path before. I wonder why Mother Naomi never showed it to me."
"Who's Mother Naomi? I thought your mother's name was Susan."
"Mother Naomi is the old woman who lives in the cottage in the woods."
"What cottage? No one lives in those woods."
Scott grabbed Courtney's arm and turned her around.
"I'll show you her house, if you don't believe me."
They walked back into the woods, following the route Scott had taken as often as two to three times a week for eight years.
"I don't understand it," the young man cried. "Mother Naomi's cottage was right here."
"My brother and I used to play in these woods when we were children, and there's never been a house here," Courtney insisted.
On the way home, Scott told her about the frequent visits with the old woman, smiling at the memory of the homemade cookies, the glasses of milk and the wonderful stories.
"I couldn't have imagined it all. That would mean that I'm ... I'm crazy."
"No, it doesn't. You first met this Mother Naomi when you tried to run away from home because your parents argued all the time. Your mind created Mother Naomi and her cottage as a means of escaping an unpleasant situation. She was your imaginary friend. Lots of kids have them."
"That's silly."
"Is it? When did you last visit her?"
"Right after my father moved out and my parents divorced."
"That was when you finally outgrew your boyhood insecurity and the need to seek refuge in fantasy."
Scott considered Courtney's theory. It made sense. Maybe he hadn't abandoned the old woman after all; maybe he had simply outgrown her.
* * *
That night in his dreams Scott walked toward the cul-de-sac at the end of his street and ventured deep into the woods. As it had so many times in the past, the thatched-roof fairy tale cottage welcomed him with the scent of cinnamon and cloves and the promise of entertainment at the foot of Mother Naomi's wooden rocking chair. When he crossed the threshold, however, the altered condition of the interior shocked him. The paint was chipped away and the wood rotted. Thick cobwebs hung from the rafters, and there was a hole in the roof that let in the muted sunlight. The kitchen table, rocking chair and settle were all that remained of the old woman's furniture, and they had fallen into a state of disrepair.
A sound from behind startled him. He turned around and caught a glimpse of a wizened old woman who looked more dead than alive, a skeletal form covered by a thin layer of pale skin and wisps of white hair.
"How good of you to come back to see me one last time," Mother Naomi said in a faint voice that quivered with age and emotion.
"Have you been sick?" Scott asked, feeling a renewed onslaught of guilt.
"I'll be all right. Don't worry about me."
"I'm sorry I haven't come to see you lately."
"Don't be sorry," Mother Naomi insisted. "All things have to come to an end. You're not a little boy anymore. You're well on your way to becoming a man. It's time for you to move on."
"What about you?"
"Like I told you already, I'll be fine. I have cookies to bake and stories to tell."
"You're going to need help fixing this place up. I could come by on weekends after I'm done with work at ...."
"Don't bother. It's time for me to move on, too. But there is one thing you can do for me."
"What is it?"
"Become a storyteller. There's a whole new generation of young'uns who'll need the magic of make-believe."
"I will," the teenager promised. "And I'll never forget you or the wonderful tales you told me when I was a boy."
* * *
As Scott grew into manhood, he kept that promise to Mother Naomi. Shortly after graduating from college, he had his first selection of short stories for children published. This was soon followed by a second and a third. By the time he and Courtney were married, he was one of the bestselling children's authors in the world.
By the age of thirty, however, the author grew bored with writing stories for children and tried his hand at a novel for adults. It, too, sold well. After his book reached the top of The New York Times list of bestsellers, Scott was catapulted into a world of personal appearance tours, guest spots on television talk shows and lucrative movie deals. He spent most of his time travelling, and on those increasingly rare occasions when he was at home, he and his wife argued. And as his life began to unravel, the writer sought solace in alcohol.
Given the first novel's success, Scott's agent pressed him to write another.
"I can't do it," the author complained. "I tried, but I just can't concentrate on a second novel."
"My advice to you is to take some time off. Go down to your place in the Bahamas and soak up the sun. Then come back and write that book."
Scott did as his agent suggested, but the time away from his life in New York did little to improve his frame of mind. His blank computer screen continued to mock him.
"It's no use," he groaned and closed the cover of his laptop. "I can't write anymore. The magic is gone—from both my writing and my life."
At that point, he was separated from Courtney, and talk of divorce had crept into their phone conversations. He had always sworn he would never repeat his parents' mistakes; but something went awry, and his life was in shambles.
I'm no different from my mother and father, he realized with profound sadness.
* * *
Escape.
It's what he did when he was a child. When life got too unpleasant, he simply opened the kitchen door, walked outside and headed for the woods. Scott suddenly sat up in his chair. Maybe what he needed could not be found on either a Caribbean island or in the heart of Manhattan; maybe it was deep within the woods of Puritan Falls.
Without even bothering to pack a bag or lock the front door, he left his New York brownstone and headed north. He drove for hours, stopping only to fill his gas tank. Finally, he exited the interstate onto Route 692. Then he turned onto the Old Salem Turnpike and headed up Naumkeag Hill.
The street where the Donnelly family once lived looked older and narrower, the houses smaller and more outdated. To his surprise, the cul-de-sac had been replaced with a new road and a housing development. The disappearance of the woods was more devastating to Scott than his parents' divorce had been and even more demoralizing than the break-up of his own marriage. Those boyhood fantasies of Mother Naomi and her fairy tale cottage were more important to him than any of his actual childhood memories. As he stood on the sidewalk in front of a brand new raised ranch home, located approximately on the spot where the path to Naumkeag Road had once been, tears came to his eyes.
When the dejected author turned to walk away, a voice called to him, "You've come back at last."
Scott looked around, but no one was there.
"Who's that?" he called out.
The aroma of cinnamon made his mouth water. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as though he could breathe in the taste of freshly baked snickerdoodles. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in the woods in front of a fairy tale cottage.
"Mother Naomi!" he cried, racing through the door.
The house was just as he had remembered it. The wooden rocking chair and settle invited him to sit down in front of the fireplace, but the old woman was not there.
"Mother Naomi, it's me, Scott Donnelly. I've come back to visit you. Won't you come downstairs?"
While the author stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up and hoping to see the old woman, Mother Naomi appeared from the direction of the kitchen. In her hands she carried a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of cold milk. Although she was still an elderly woman, the face beneath the white braids arranged atop her head was much younger than he remembered it.
"It's been a long time," he said, holding back the tears that threatened to fall.
"You've grown into a strong, handsome man. I hope you're not too old for milk and cookies."
"No way," he laughed.
"And what about a good story?" Mother Naomi asked as she placed the tray and glass on the table beside the settle. "Or perhaps now that you're a famous novelist, you're not interested in my foolish little fairy tales."
Scott took the old woman's hands in his and replied, "I thought I'd outgrown you, but I was wrong. You were the magic in my life. It was you who made me become a writer. All that nonsense about multi-book contracts and movie deals temporarily clouded my vision, but seeing you has brought it all back."
"And what have you decided to do?"
A boyish grin lit up Scott's face, making him appear as young as the six-year-old child who first crossed Mother Naomi's threshold.
"First, I'm going to dunk these delicious-looking cookies into my glass of milk while I sit in this settle and listen to another one of your wonderful stories. After that, who knows?"
* * *
When Courtney Donnelly received word that her estranged husband had been struck by a car and killed, she wept. She had hoped they would eventually reconcile and start that family they had both wanted so much. Now those dreams would never come to fruition.
Against the wishes of the couple's New York friends, Courtney decided to hold Scott's funeral in Puritan Falls and have his body interred at the Pine Grove Cemetery, not far from the old woods where he once claimed to have seen a nonexistent cottage.
After the funeral service, the widow got into her car and drove past landmarks from her past: the home she grew up in, the schools she attended and the houses where old friends once lived. Before heading back to New York, she drove down the road on which Scott lived as a boy and later died as a traffic fatality. She parked her car at the curb, got out and walked toward the former cul-de-sac. A new housing development was constructed on the site where the woods had once been.
As a warm breeze blew against her face, she sniffed. What was that smell? Was someone in the neighborhood baking cookies?
"I'm sorry, Courtney."
The widow's heart raced. Was her mind playing tricks on her? She could not be hearing Scott's voice.
"I wanted to set things right with you. I wanted you to know that I loved you."
Courtney fell to her knees and wept. Suddenly, a hand touched her shoulder. She picked her head up and was stunned to find herself in the middle of the woods. A kindly old man stood above her, offering her his hand. She stared at his face. There was something familiar about him.
"I must have gotten lost," she said. "I don't know where I am or how I got here."
"Come with me. My mother and I have a cottage just a short walk from here. Mother has made a fresh batch of cookies. Why don't you have some with us, and then I'll show you the way back to the road."
Scott Donnelly did not divulge his true identity to his grieving widow. As Mother Naomi had once told him, all things had to come to an end. For him, the end was a thatched-roof fairy tale house in the woods and an eternity of telling stories to generations of lonely children. Courtney, on the other hand, had to move on. Hopefully, she would remarry and have those children she was denied in her first marriage. But even if she didn't, Scott was sure she would find her magic just as he had found his.
Picture in upper left corner is from Thomas Kinkade's Ashley Cottage.
Salem doesn't visit Mother Naomi to hear her stories. He just goes to her cottage for the cookies and milk.
