Page 37 of Plentywood
“I just think this is a mistake,” I muttered, imagining the people who lived here not having the lifeline that the Hawthorne clinic provided. “It seems… well… unkind.”
“Are you planning on staying in Plentywood?” he asked.
“Well, of course not.”
“Then there you have it,” he stated. “No money for the theater, either. Is that all?”
I must have taken too long to respond. The phone went dead. I pulled my cell phone away from my ear, turning the face of theiPhonetoward me. My father had hung up. No goodbye. No call again soon or see you at Christmas. Not even a fuck you.
The room was as quiet as I was as I looked around the perfectly restored space. The walls were adorned in wallpaper from the period of its construction. Newish, but still reflective of the late 1800s era. The antiques that I’d originally scoffed at had grown on me over time. The past month had found me thinking about my family’s history and our place in this small town.
Standing and moving to a window that overlooked the town, I felt sick to my stomach suddenly. How could I tell my patients what late next spring held for them? Where would they go fortheir care? What about Agnes? She was older. She’d be fine. But the welfare of the townsfolk had me concerned.
You’re out of here in eleven months, Ben.“Yeah,” I mumbled, staring out the window as Mr. Insley trimmed a hedge near his sidewalk. His neighbor, Mrs. Klonter, was swinging on her front porch, moving her hands here and there as she yelled toward Mr. Insley. She was probably adding her two-cents worth to the levelness of his hedge. I imagined they’d had this routine for many years every time he trimmed what I thought were boxwoods.
I turned and faced the office I occupied, crossing my arms and sighing deeply, thinking about Hunt. “He already hates you because you’re leaving in less than a year,” I whispered. “Nowwhat are you going to tell him?”
I heard a honk from a vehicle outside and turned back to the window in time to see the Sheriff drive by, his hand waving out the window of his SUV as he drove by the two elderly people to his right.
I wouldn’t rush to tell him just yet.My heart betrayed my better sense while my mind mulled over the prospect of revealing the news to a town of people who had been nothing but kind to me since my arrival four weeks ago.
“What to do? What to do?” I muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Hunter
Eighteen Months Ago
Ihadn’t blinked in over a minute. Staring at the wall behind the television and keeping count between blinks occupied my time. Two, maybe three, minutes of distraction kept me sane. Blink.
“Shit,” I muttered, returning to regularly programmed grief.
I figured it must be after six PM. The sun was long gone. The temperatures outside were freezing, and I still stared at a blank TV screen. My eyes moved to the kitchen, where a calendar hadn’t been turned in six months. June. The month my life ended. My will to live ended. The world ended. At least for me.
People had celebrated New Year’s like all was good. Like Christmas, I hid in the darkness of my house. Well, actually, I’d hid that June too, then the rest of the summer, the fall and the turning of leaves, and now I was facing winter. Alone. Still.
My pain was marrow-deep. There’d be no escaping this horror show. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. As a deputy in a small town of less than a thousand, I could take the time needed to heal. That’s what the Sheriff had said. He knew I was hurting. He also knew that I was the best deputy he had, often telling meI was sheriff-material myself. I’d laughed. I’d never be back to work.
I’d talked myself out of killing myself earlier today. Just like yesterday and the day before that. Truthfully, I couldn’t tell if it was getting easier to not choose suicide as an out, or easier on myself that I was surviving so far.
When you fall in love with someone and decide that they are your person, you never imagine what life would be if they were suddenly gone. No one gives advice beforehand. No emergency kit to open if the day comes. But after? Sure, they line up, shake your hand or hug you, but their advice on how to move forward is new to your ears. No one has ever told you how to survive death. School doesn’t teach that lesson.
My heart still beat. My lungs still expanded and then deflated. The microwave kept time, and my beard kept growing. But other than that, life stood still for me. I’d cried. I’d screamed in the darkness of our bedroom. I’d closed my eyes and begged God to let me awaken from the nightmare where Mark had died.
Nothing worked. Jill tried her best, at the same time making me feel guilty about her love and caring, because she’d lost her brother. She hurt too. She’d lost her dad and her mom. Now her brother. Why did shit like that happen to a person?
A slammed door from a vehicle alerted me to company. I stood and pulled the edge of the blinds, looking out toward the driveway. Charlie was here for the fiftieth time in six months. I sat back down and decided to do what I did every time he’d shown up before. Ignore him.
Him knocking on the door only made me more resolute. Charlie would knock. Then he would try to talk sense into me through the wood of said door. He’d bitch and moan and swear this was the final time he was going to check on me. And then he’d leave me alone until the next time.
Suddenly, and with violent force, the front door came crashing into the living room. “What the fuck?” I screamed, rushing to stand. “Holy fucking shit, Charlie. You fucking asshole!”
I rushed him and he sidestepped me, slamming me into a wall. “I’m done with your bullshit, Hunt,” he hissed, gripping the back of my neck and pushing me down the hall. “You smell like fuck and this house is gross.”
I fought him but was weak from lack of food and lack of giving a shit about living. “Who gives a fuck, asshole?”
He shoved me into the bathroom, me falling in a heap to the floor. “Get outta of those disgusting boxers. You smell awful and look ten times worse.” He reached into the shower and turned the water on, stepped back, and began removing his clothes.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
