Chapter 9
The light clicked on. I clicked it off.
On again. Off.
I stood there like a child discovering a toy, flipping the switch on the LED lamp beside my reading chair.
Each time the light responded instantly.
No generator warming up, no delay, no engine rumble shaking the floor beneath my feet.
Just the soft click of the switch and the immediate glow of the bulb.
I laughed out loud at myself. Forty-five years old, standing alone in a cabin in the woods, giggling at a light switch.
But the joy was real. Weeks of that generator had worn down my nerves in ways I hadn't fully recognized until it stopped.
The constant drone that made thinking difficult, the vibration that traveled through the floor and up through my bones, the propane anxiety that woke me at three in the morning wondering if I'd calculated the burn rate correctly.
All of it gone now, replaced by silence and the soft hum of the inverter in the shed.
I walked through the cabin, touching things.
The microwave clock, finally holding its time instead of blinking endlessly.
The refrigerator running steady and quiet.
The mesh router on its shelf, its lights blinking green, connected to the satellite dish on the trailer and feeding Wi-Fi through walls and over the clearing, all the way to the pond.
The trailer's dish had served me well, but it was time to upgrade. I'd already ordered a proper dish, a more robust unit that would mount permanently to a pole I'd sink in concrete.
With solar feeding the system, I could run it continuously. No more rationing internet time to save generator fuel. No more missing client emails because I'd shut everything down to stretch the propane another day.
The insurance work had picked up in the past few weeks. Summer was always a busy time for insurance work. Nothing too complicated, but reliable income. Enough to cover expenses and, most importantly, start rebuilding the cushion I'd burned through buying the solar components.
I'm flat broke. Never felt happier.
I sat down at my desk and looked at the laptop. Sixteen inches of screen, the keyboard cramped and shallow. I'd been hunching over it for years, my neck stiff by evening, my eyes strained from squinting at spreadsheets.
On a whim, I opened a browser and started looking at monitors. Twenty-seven inches. Thirty-two. Curved screens that wrapped around your field of vision. I hadn't owned anything like that in years. The cramped interior of my trailer made it impossible. But now?
I added a thirty-two-inch Samsung to my cart.
Then, feeling reckless, I started looking at keyboards. Mechanical ones with Cherry switches, the kind that made a satisfying click when you pressed them. I'd used one briefly at the office and remembered the tactile pleasure of it, the way each keystroke felt deliberate and real.
I added one to the cart. Blue switches. They'd be loud, but there was no one here to complain.
My finger hovered over the checkout button. The total made me run numbers in my mind, check my balance on the credit union website. Was this really a justifiable expense?
Hell yes, it is.
I clicked checkout.
Then I sat back in my chair and pictured my setup, laptop hooked to a monitor and an external keyboard. And then I thought about... gaming.
I hadn't played anything more complex than Solitaire since the early years of my marriage. Sybil had walked in once while I was playing some shooter or other. Her expression had been so withering, so laden with disappointment, that I closed the game and never opened it again.
That was probably seventeen years ago now. Gaming had probably changed a lot since then.
I opened another browser tab and started looking at gaming PCs.
The specifications meant nothing to me. Graphics cards with names that sounded like motorcycles. RAM measured in numbers that seemed absurd. Cooling systems that looked like they belonged on a spacecraft.
I laughed again, louder this time.
A man my age. Out in the woods. Thinking about a gaming rig.
But the laugh had freedom in it, a lightness I wasn't used to. These were my choices now. No one to explain myself to. No one to disappoint. If I wanted to spend my evenings shooting zombies or building imaginary cities or racing cars around digital tracks, who exactly was going to stop me?
In the end, I didn't buy the gaming PC. Not yet. But I bookmarked the page.
Then I stood up and stretched and walked to the window. The late afternoon light came golden through the trees, catching dust motes in the air. The solar panels gleamed in the clearing, drinking in the sun and turning it into the electricity that powered the lamp I'd been playing with like a child.
Somewhere out there, Harlan was scheming. The county might try something else. The world hadn't stopped being complicated just because I'd gotten my lights back on.
But right now, in this moment, I had power. In every sense of the word.
I grabbed my phone and headed out the door.
The walk to the mailbox had become one of my favorite parts of the day.
Two hundred yards down the dirt and gravel drive, unhurried, with nothing waiting at the other end but whatever the postal service had brought me. It was almost always junk mail, but I still enjoyed seeing my name and address on the labels.
I had the Merlin app open on my phone, listening to the birds.
The app had been one of the best things I'd gotten. I live in the woods now. Might as well know who I'm living with. From the first identification, I'd become quietly obsessed.
A Pacific-slope flycatcher called from somewhere in the canopy. The app confirmed it. A thin, sharp note, almost questioning. I stopped and listened, trying to spot the bird, but the foliage was too thick.
Then, closer, the stuttering whistle of a Swainson's Thrush. That one I could recognize without the app now. One had a nest somewhere near the cabin and sang most evenings, a spiraling upward melody that sounded like questions asked of the night sky.
I walked on, deeply content.
The drive curved and the entrance came into view. My heart lifted when I saw the white RAV4 parked just inside the turnoff, tucked under the cedars where Grace always parked.
She'd been gone almost a week. I'd noticed her absence the second day of installing the solar panels, when I'd walked down to check the mail and found the spot empty. No note, no warning. Just gone. Which was her right, of course. She didn't owe me explanations. She didn't owe me anything.
But I'd worried.
I walked softly as I approached the mailbox, not wanting to disturb her. The RAV4's windows were covered from the inside with those reflective sunshades, blocking out the light. She worked nights at the motel and slept days, and I knew how precious that sleep was.
I opened the mailbox. A flyer from a chainsaw repair shop in Port Angeles. A catalog for outdoor furniture I hadn't requested and would never order from. An offer for lawn care services that made me laugh.
When I turned around, Grace was waving at me from inside the car.
She pushed open the door and stepped out, stretching, her black hair flattened on one side from sleep. She wore a faded zip-up hoodie and jeans that had seen better days, and when she smiled at me, the smile was tired and worn out.
"Mr. Harmon. Looking very mountain-man-chic today."
I glanced down at myself. Flannel shirt, canvas pants, boots. My standard uniform now.
"Got it all from Costco," I said. "You've been gone."
"Miss me?"
"Just noticed you weren't here."
"Same thing." She yawned, covering her mouth. "I had to deal with some things."
I nodded, not pressing. Grace's life always had gaps in it, places where the narrative skipped over details she didn't want to share. I'd learned to listen to what she said without reaching for what she didn't.
But I could see the week had worn on her. The shadows under her eyes were deeper than before. Living in a car was hard. Working overnight shifts was hard. Doing both at once, with whatever else she was carrying, was the kind of hard that accumulated.
"I've got solar now," I said. "Finished the install a few days ago."
"Yeah? No more generator?"
"No more generator."
"Damn, I could hear that thing all the way down here. I kind of liked falling asleep to that sound. Very emo industrial lullaby."
I laughed. "You know, there's that spot closer to the cabin. Flat ground, good shade in the afternoon. If you wanted, you could park there. Use the bathroom, the shower. Whenever you need."
Grace's expression shifted. Just slightly, just for a moment. Something guarded flickering across her face and then smoothing away.
"You don't have to do that."
"I know."
"I'm fine out here."
"I know."
She looked at me. I looked back. Neither of us said anything. I waited for Grace to work through her thoughts and make her decision.
"Okay," she said finally. "Yeah. That would be good."
An hour later, Grace pulled the RAV4 into the clearing and parked on the other side of the trailer.
She got out and stood looking at the solar setup. The panels in rows, angled to catch the southern exposure. The cables running down into the shed where the batteries stood in their insulated box. The whole system humming quietly, invisibly, turning sunlight into electricity.
"Holy shit," she said. "You actually did it."
"Abner helped."
"Scout too, I bet."
"Scout, too."
"She's hella cool, that one. She even let me hold her gun and said she would teach me to shoot."
"She's a good teacher. I can vouch for that."
Grace walked around the shed, examining the panels, the mounting brackets, the weatherproofing where the cables entered the wall.
"This is legit," she said. "Like, actually professional."
"Abner doesn't do unprofessional."
"You're like a full homesteader now. You should get a YouTube channel and stream your life. Growing your own electricity and shit. Next you'll be churning butter and making soap from pig fat."
"I don't have a pig."