Page 12 of Mountain Grump
But the pièce de résistance of the home is the deer head mounted in the far corner of the living room.
The unseeing eyes watching you as you watch TV.
I don’t hate it as much as I did this morning.
I mean, I still hate it, but it does draw the eye toward the back of the house.
To the wall of windows.
My windows.
My windows. Inmy house. Because Uncle Jack is dead.
I press my teeth into my bottom lip as I pass behind the couch.
I’m not going to cry.
It’s aridiculousthing to tell myself since tears are already sliding down my cheeks.
It’s only another second before I reach the solid wood back door, which matches the front door.
Sniffing against my emotions, I pull it open.
The screen door beyond doesn’t have a screen in it, so I just step through the empty frame barefoot, onto the back deck.
The best part of the house.
My house.
Using the back of my hand to wipe at my cheeks, I lower myself onto what I imagine was Uncle Jack’s favorite chair.
It’s sturdy. The same as the one on the other side of the door. Same breathtaking view.
But this chair is slightly more worn.
Slightly more comfortable.
Slightly more loved.
I sniff again. “What a day.”
I want to shut my eyes. Want to close them and pretend the last two weeks haven’t happened. But the sight before me…
I inhale.
Trees surround me, but they don’t reach the deck. There’s maybe a fifty-foot radius of shrubs and patches of grass around the house. But past that… it’s forest. Thick, lush forest.
Nothing like the Vegas landscape I came from.
Nothing like the city.
But that’s not even the best of it.
The forest is just the start.
Because straight ahead, the ground dips.
The trees lower, following the slope of the land down.
