Chapter Six
Everett
After my meeting with the consultant, I make the fifteen-minute drive back to the farm with a dull ache at the base of my skull. I’ve got a huge problem on my hands and no clue how to solve it.
But I find my thoughts drifting.
Even though I’ve got way more pressing questions to answer, it’s Mila Ferguson on my mind as I turn into the driveway of McKean Cherries. Was it her I saw in town?
I take the long dirt road that winds through the farm, past barns and outbuildings, past the farmhouse where I grew up, past the sycamore tree where I caught Mila before she hit the ground.
The memory makes me smile. How old would she have been?
Ten? Twelve? I picture her back then, a skinny kid with knobby knees, long red hair, and all those freckles.
Just another one of the girls my kid sister ran around with in those days. I barely paid her any attention.
Until the summer I came home from my sophomore year at MSU.
Suddenly she was eighteen and hot as fuck.
She was still hanging around with my sister a lot, but I’d see her alone at Tart and Soul.
Back then, the bakery was a McKean family business, locally famous for the miniature cherry pies bursting with fruit from our orchards.
Tart and Soul wasn’t always on my delivery route, but that summer, I started checking the schedule to look for Mila’s shifts.
And if I happened to take care of the bakery’s deliveries those days…
Well, I’m sure it was just a coincidence.
Her cheeks would turn so red when I called her “Freckles” or asked who she was dating or teased her about falling out of that tree. Not once did she ever flirt back.
Which was why I was so shocked that night.
I pull up next to the cabin at the back of the McKean property, a small rectangular building with just one bedroom and bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a living room.
It’s small and sparsely furnished, but it’s plenty of space for me and Merlin.
He greets me with classic yellow-lab energy when I come through the door, overjoyed and eager to play.
I’m starving, but I grab the leash and take him outside.
When I can’t ignore my empty stomach any longer, I drag Merlin back inside, feed him, then open my fridge, hoping for a miracle.
Like maybe my dog’s namesake has been here while I was gone and magically stocked the shelves with delicious, nutritious foods that can be assembled with minimal culinary skills.
Merlin trots over, also hoping for some wizardly intervention.
Alas, it looks the same as it did yesterday.
Condiments, a takeout container of petrified lo mein, and some shredded cheese that has probably expired.
Merlin pokes his nose around and gives me a disappointed look.
Exhaling heavily, I give his ears a scratch and shut the fridge.
“Come on, boy. Let’s go see what’s cooking at the house.
” Mom can always be counted on to feed me.
I know, I know. At thirty, I should be feeding myself. But I hate grocery shopping and I can’t cook, and in exchange for letting me mooch meals in her kitchen, my mother expects me to take care of the house, which I do.
We leave the cabin, Merlin in the lead. Occasionally, he’s distracted by a squirrel or bird or rabbit scurrying across the road, but only because he wants to make friends. He weighs nearly a hundred pounds, but it’s all heart.
I study the house I grew up in from the back as we approach it.
Built by my great-grandfather, it’s a two-story structure with white clapboard siding that’s been painted so many times the corners aren’t even sharp anymore.
A deep wraparound porch hugs three sides, its pine floorboards worn and grooved in the high-traffic areas.
It isn’t a showplace by any means—the upstairs hallway tilts, bedroom doors have to be jammed shut in the summer, windows rattle noisily during storms—but it’s withstood over a hundred Michigan winters, and I appreciate that kind of resilience.
As I step onto the back porch, I recall all the summer days I went running out the screen door, its squeak and slam behind me like a fond farewell.
All the winter mornings I trudged out to shovel a path.
The ball games on the lawn. The snowball fights. The mud pies. Good times.
Of course, there were bad times too. Dark times that made me want to leave this place and never come back.
But I try not to linger on those. You play the hand life deals you.
The tantalizing aroma of meat and potatoes greets me as we enter the kitchen, and my stomach growls. My mom is pulling something from the oven.
“Hey,” I say as the door bangs shut behind us.
“Hey.” She sets a large, steaming dish on the stovetop. “Did you smell my cowboy casserole from clear across the yard?”
“Must have. Got extra?”
“Don’t I always?” She pulls the oven mitts off her hands. “Make yourself useful and set the table while I put a salad together.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I grab two mismatched plates from a cupboard with a door that hangs slightly crooked off the hinges and make a mental note to add it to the endless list of things that need to be fixed around here.
“How was your meeting with the science guy?” she asks.
“Not great.” I open the silverware drawer and grab two forks. All the cutlery in this house is mismatched, too.
“What was the news?”
“What I expected. Soil sampling showed contaminants at levels exceeding state standards.”
“But they tore down the old foundry decades ago.”
“Doesn’t matter. It was there for eighty years, and it left a mark.”
“How’s the Hart family gonna feel about that?”
“Pissed. They were expecting this to be a straightforward donation of the property for a community center. Lots of warm and fuzzy press to combat the perception that they profited at the expense of community health for a hundred years.” Reaching over her shoulder, I steal a crouton from the salad.
“But you can’t build a community center on a contaminated site. ”
“No, I guess you can’t. So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
We fill our plates and take them to the table. Mom is moving with a pronounced limp. When she sits, she lowers herself gingerly into the chair, her expression tight with pain from her fibromyalgia.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Going up and down the stairs is getting a little rough.”
“The new medications aren’t helping?”
“I don’t like how they make me feel.” She shifts uncomfortably in her chair.
“How’s that, pain-free? Mom, Doc prescribed them for a reason.”
“Gabi says I should try water therapy,” she says stubbornly. “They do it at the place where she works.”
“Mom.” I set down my fork and look at her. “You have to take the meds. I’m worried you’re going to fall.”
She tuts as she places her napkin on her lap. “The one messes with my stomach, and the other makes me feel dizzy and confused. It’s like you gotta choose between your body and your mind. If one works, the other doesn’t.”
“So we’ll go back to Doc. There are all kinds of drugs you can try.”
She clenches her jaw and looks away from me. “I don’t want to take anything that can be habit-forming.”
Guilt slips into the cracks of my frustration. In addition to abusing alcohol, my father got hooked on opioids after back surgery.
Which he needed because of me.
“I know,” I say, softening my tone. “But let’s talk to Doc about some other options, okay? You can’t live like this. How are you going to pick up the grandchildren you’re always bugging me to give you?”
She points a finger at me. “You give me the grandkids, I’ll take the meds.”
“Is that blackmail?”
“I’m not above it.” A look around the kitchen has her sighing. She spreads her arms. “All this space and just me to take it up. Three empty bedrooms upstairs! Three!”
“It’s a crime,” I say as I shovel in a mouthful of cheesy meat and potatoes.
Narrowing her eyes at me, she takes a bite of salad. “So how many pies were you offered today?”
“Four, plus a berry crumble.” While we eat, I give her the rundown of Coffee with the Mayor.
“Those two have always been so competitive,” she snickers. “It goes clear back to high school when Judy was named cheer captain and Vera spread a bunch of rumors about her and the quarterback.”
I shake my head as I take our dishes over to the sink. “Do people forget anything in this town?”
“Sure, just not grudges or gossip.”
I rinse my plate and fork and load them into the dishwasher. “Hey Mom, you remember Mila Ferguson?”
“Of course I do.”
“Is Gabi still in touch with her?”
“I don’t know.” She’s silent for a moment. “Things were so hard after…that night.”
“Yeah.” For a moment, I hear voices from the past.
Yelling at the top of the stairs. Rage. Threats. Tears.
Shaking off the memory, I close the dishwasher and turn around to find my mom eyeing me curiously. “What made you ask about Mila?”
“I saw someone in town today who looked like her.”
“Oh.” A pause. “You know, I did hear that Eliza Ferguson is having hip replacement surgery. I wonder if Mila is home to help her.”
A spark shoots up my spine. Maybe it wasn’t wishful thinking for once. But I try to sound casual. “Could be.”
My mother sighs. “I always felt sorry for Mila after what happened. It wasn’t fair, the way everybody made it sound like the fire was her fault.
It certainly wasn’t her fault your father let the insurance policy lapse.
But things that seem perfectly clear now didn’t feel that way back then, did they? ”
“No. They didn’t.” I don’t like thinking about that night or what came after—the upheaval, the loss, and selling the bakery that had been in our family for sixty years.
Dropping out of college.
Taking over the farm full-time.
Watching the new owners of Tart and Soul rebuild a beloved Hart’s Landing institution—one that the McKeans were no longer a part of.
Trying to fix the problems my father had created, protect his reputation, and keep McKean Cherries—and the McKean family—from going under. Pretty sure I didn’t sleep for at least five years.
But I did what I had to do, and I’d do it again.
My mother tries to get up and winces. “Oof. Could you bring me a couple ibuprofen, honey?”
I reach into the cupboard where she keeps over-the-counter meds, shake out two Advil, and bring them to her.
“Thank you.” She swallows them with some water. “Did you ever call that nice girl I told you about from the yarn shop?”
“I must have forgotten,” I lie.
She watches me clip the leash to Merlin’s collar. “I hear Bella’s engaged.”
“I heard that, too.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Not a bit,” I say, and it’s the truth. “Bye, Mom. Thanks for dinner.” As I walk back to the cabin, five words keep circling around my brain.
It could have been her.
Later, I drop into one of the Adirondack chairs on my porch and pull my phone from my back pocket.
My sister’s face appears on the screen. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
“How’s Mom?”
“Not great and not taking her meds.”
My sister sighs and sets the phone on her kitchen counter. I hear the hollow tap, tap, tap, of an egg against the countertop, watch her crack it against the side of a mixing bowl. “I was afraid of that. Because of Dad?”
“I think that’s a big part of it. It’s hard to be firm with her when that’s the issue.”
“I know. I told her we can explore non-pharmaceutical options.” Gabi blows her hair out of her eyes. Another egg gets cracked. “There’s some new research that says green light therapy is effective for fibromyalgia.”
I frown. “What the fuck is green light therapy?”
“You’re exposed to green light for an hour a day. Studies have shown it reduces pain and increases quality of life.”
“Sounds like weird hippie shit to me.”
“It works. And it’s in better alignment with Mom’s beliefs.”
My sister is big on alignment.
“I’ll come up sometime this month and see what options there are nearby,” she says.
“She mentioned the stairs are getting tough—I’m worried about her falling.”
“Maybe you should move in with her.”
“Maybe you should move in with her.”
Gabi sighs. “She needs to do some strength training. While I’m home, I’ll try to find a fitness place where she feels comfortable.”
“Sounds good.” She moves out of the frame, and I hear the sound of an oven door closing. “So what else is new with you?”
“Not much.”
“I heard Bella is engaged.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. I’m happy for her.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Wipes her forehead with the back of a hand. “Do you think you’ll ever get married?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Mom and Dad didn’t make it look like much fun. At least not after a while. I guess I’m just waiting for the person who makes me forget all that.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s how I feel, too.”