Page 48 of The Cabin
She winks at me.
“Also in the duffel are a couple of your, ahem, rather dusty lady happy time buzzy fun helpers.”
I blush. “Tess, really?”
“I was being circumspect in consideration of your delicate sensibilities.”
“Lady happy time buzzy fun helpers. That’s your idea of being considerate?”
She snickers. “NO, but it’s fun to say, isn’t it?” She has the duffel on her shoulder, still. “You need them. You need to use them, Nadia. You are still a sexual being.”
I shake my head. “I’m broken, Tess.”
A sad smile, her hand on my cheek. “I know. He knew you would be, too. That’s why you’re going.”
I can’t fathom leaving this house. “Tess, I…I don’t know if I can.”
“You are.”
“Tess.”
She points at the letter still clutched in my fingers. “Nadia, you have to. You know you do.”
“Yeah, I…” I scrub my face with one hand. “I know. I know I do.” I look up at her. “But I don’t want to be that far from you.”
She laughs. “You can’t get rid of me. I’ll come visit. But I think you need this.” Sober and serious, then. “You need time alone. You need to…well, exactly as he put it. You need to relearn how to live. This is how you do it.”
I sigh. “I guess there’s really nothing else left to do but just…go.”
She nods, points at the kitchen. “Your marching orders are to first make yourself coffee. Second, as big a breakfast as you can manage. You’ve been starving yourself so long it may not be much, but you need to eat. Third, you have to call Doc Wilson and tell him you’re taking an extended, open-ended leave of absence, starting immediately. For health reasons.”
“Okay.” I blow out a nervous breath. “Tess?”
“Nads?”
“Thank you.”
“Anything, anytime, always.”An hour and a half later, I was behind the wheel of my car, fed, caffeinated, jobless, with all my clothes packed in the trunk and back seat of my little red A5. All the lights in my house were off. The garage was empty. The doors were locked.
It felt like I was going on a vacation…alone. It felt weird.
I’d said goodbye to Tess, hugged her at least four times, and then she physically shoved me in the car, leaned into the passenger door and input the address for me in the nav system, pressed “GO,” and kissed me on the temple.
“Next time I see you, you’re gonna be a different person, right?” She palmed my cheek.
“Yeah.”
“You have to invest in the process, Nads. Okay?”
“I will.” I booped her nose. “Get some good dick for me.”
“Oh, I’m getting all the good dick. I might even keep one, someday.”
I laughed. “And the rest of the man attached to it, I hope.”
“Maybe. If he’s nice enough.”
“You’re a dork.”
“Bye, Nads. Drive safe.”
“Bye, Tess-icles, I will. Thank you.”
“Don’t call me when you get there. Don’t text. Just turn your phone off, leave it in the car. If I hear from you, it’s because something went horribly wrong. So I don’t want to hear from you. Okay?”
“I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”
She exited the car, closed the door, and stepped back onto my lawn. Waved.
And I drove away.
Next stop?
The cabin.ResurrectionI’ve been here two weeks. It’s boring, sometimes, but that’s good. Boring is good. I’ve carved a bunch of new pieces, a squirrel, a raccoon, a cardinal, a moose, a little clutch of field mice. I sit and drink coffee on the porch in the morning, sip whiskey at night. Never more than one, because for once I’m not trying to escape.
I’ve cried a bunch. It was embarrassing at first. I’m a man’s man, raised by a man’s man. I drink whiskey and punch sissies, and only sissies cry. But Dad died lonely and bitter, of cirrhosis and misery.
Fuck that noise.
The first time I was sitting on the dock, toes in the water, drinking a beer, it just…hit me. I missed Lisa. Missed her laugh and her voice and her soft curves. And my eyes stung, my nose itched, and then I just couldn’t stop it. And hell, I was alone, right? No one to see, so I just let it go.
And you know what? It felt good, in a weird way. Like I’d been holding it in all these years.
After that, I was as emotional as…well, the only comparisons that come to mind are probably sexist and shitty, so skip ’em. I cried a lot. Just sat around and let myself cry for…me.
I’ve fished. Caught a few lake trout, mostly just tossed ’em back.
Read books—turns out there’s a library next town over, and I got myself a card and checked out some fiction. Westerns, mostly. Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Larry McMurtry. Some historical stuff, a couple biographies.
Mostly, though, I whittle and I carve.
And I wonder about that cabin down the way.
Just sitting there empty, and it feels ominous.
