Page 25 of Wed By the Lumberjack

Chapter Eight

Dixie Rose, three days ago

It’s raining and it has been for hours, following me from the chapel all the way to the cemetery where the grave was a quarter full of muddy water. Had I found the money to lay Gran to rest sooner, I would’ve avoided the dreary weather, but things have always been tight, and Gran’s funeral wasn’t the exception to that life-long rule despite the triple shifts I’d picked up.

I keep telling myself that Gran’s in a better place now. She doesn’t mind the coffin that’s little more than a plywood box. The most important thing is that I was able to buy the plot next to her late husband, my grandfather, who passed away during the war far before I was born.

As I ascend the rickety front steps to Gran’s cabin, well, my cabin now, a feeling of peace washes over me. I thought I’d dread coming back home. Dread the acceptance that Gran’s really gone for good. But the bright yellow paint of the cabin’s exterior feels so safe and comforting that I actually feel relieved to stick my key in the lock and enter the only true home I’ve ever known.

When I left Moonshine Creek, and Douglas first brought me here, I dreaded what was to come. I mean, I’d been torn away from the only friends I ever had, and the only space place I had to hide from Douglas without so much as a goodbye.

The faces of Ash, Kai, Cole, and especially Heath, haunted me for months. In my teen years when social media became more popular, I tried searching for the boys online, but if they had social media profiles, I was never able to find them.

Then I told myself when I turned eighteen I’d visit Moonshine Creek again. I’d go to the treehouse and then I’d go to Forester Ranch and it’d be like I’d never left. But that was childish thinking.

Gran was constantly sick and she needed me to keep the lights on in our tiny cabin. I felt like it was the least I could do. The woman had saved me from her abusive son one Sunday when she visited me at the motel Douglas had moved us into.

She took one look at me and took me with her without asking a single question until I was ready to talk. She was my savior, the one person Douglas wouldn’t fight. He didn’t have respect for his mother, but he did fear her, and that fear was enough to keep him on the other side of Whiskey City until another brawl and a murder charge finally had him locked away.

That’s when I finally got brave enough to speak to Gran. Then the police. Then the courts and jury who added child abuse onto Douglas’ second-degree murder charge, earning him an additional nine years on his thirty-five-year sentence. And at his age of fifty-two that was a life sentence.

But I didn’t need to worry about Douglas anymore. Or Gran now that she was resting comfortably.

Now I could...

I could...

I haven’t thought about what I’d do once Gran was gone.

I think back to Moonshine Creek. Back to those boys, my saviors who are probably married now with babies and whose lives didn’t have space for an acquaintance from 15 years ago.

Heath flashes before my eyes as I slip off my shoes and take off my dripping coat.

Is he married?

I shake my head. What did it matter? Heath probably doesn’t even remember me.

I’m about to bypass the old couch and head into the kitchen when something on the armrests stops me dead in my tracks.

Feet.

Long, bony feet covered in hole-ridden socks.

There are mini whiskey bottles littering the floor, and little holes burnt into Gran’s beloved crochet blanket that always rested on the top of the couch. One hole is smoking, like he’d just outed a cigarette the moment I stepped through the door.

How? That’s all that comes to mind.

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