Chapter 3
God, this was a nightmare.
Like most horror movies began—I’m guessing, seeing as I’d never watched one—I’d just gotten off the phone with my mother.
Mom had been downright gleeful as she’d informed me that she, my dad, my siblings, and their partners were all planning to fly from Ohio to Vermont to visit me for Christmas this year.
“You’ve had some time to settle,” Mom said cheerfully. “We can’t wait to see your new home. We’re so proud of you, Joe.”
Rather than feel all the warm-fuzzies most probably would in this situation, I was full of terror.
I could read between the lines. “We’re so proud of you, Joe” was something I’d been waiting to hear my whole life.
The words sent me flying for all of six seconds before I came crashing down to cold hard reality.
After the way I’d messed up the first time I’d moved out, I seriously hadn’t expected to hear that so soon, and over the phone no less. I didn’t mean to be pessimistic but…I had no doubt, Mom’s visit was a test as much as it was a sign of love.
A test I was bound to fail.
As I studied my skewampus living room floor, the mold stain on my ceiling, the holes in the drywall, and the archway that led into the pretty much useless kitchen, I couldn’t help but despair.
Nothing about my life was easy, and this just…took the cake.
Gripping the single mug I’d brought from my childhood home in Ohio tight, I pushed my panicky feelings aside and got to work.
Cataloguing what was wrong with the space was a daunting task.
Just like I’d done when I’d arrived and realized the orchard needed more work than advertised, I decided to make a list. A list was a good starting point.
It’d let me know how big the project was going to be and help me plan for what needed to be done first. I didn’t even want to think about my practically non-existent budget.
The checks I’d had rolling in from this year’s harvest had been only a fraction of what I could expect from later years. I hadn’t had many apples to sell, given the state of the farm, but even a small harvest was better than no harvest.
The contracts Jason had helped me—no. No.
The contracts that I had set up helped a lot in the money department, but it was still nowhere near enough to take care of the amount of renovation my house needed to meet…livable standards.
I’d been penny pinching for years to save up for this.
It was my dream.
Everything I’d ever wanted.
And it would mean absolutely nothing if my mom was disappointed in me.
Mom was gonna arrive. She’d take one look at how I’d been living. One look. Her eyes would fill with pity.
Her respect—begrudgingly won—would disappear. She’d pat my back and her “I’m so proud of you” would quickly morph into something along the lines of, “Oh…Joe,” and an offer to return to living in their basement, where I was “better off.”
She’d think I couldn’t handle myself.
And she’d be right.
That thought caused me to stumble right into the doorway that led out of the bathroom. I’d been gathering tasks for my list, and luckily for me, it was the least abused space in the house. Mostly just needed a new layer of paint, maybe, and for the pump in the toilet to be replaced.
It also happened to be the last room I was inspecting.
Which meant the next step in my very important plan was to scout out what kinda supplies I’d need at the hardware store, get prices, and see what I could believably accomplish. There was a pit in my stomach before I took a single step.
Like I knew something bad was coming.
I dodged one of the floorboards that looked about ready to crumble to dust like I had every day for the last few months. I danced around a rusty nail sticking out of the baseboard in the hallway. And then out the rickety front door I went.
My pulse was racing as I moved across the yawning porch.
Yawning, because that’s the sound it made every time I stepped on it. This horrible almost-sigh.
“I am so screwed,” I muttered as I kept moving. “No.” No, I wasn’t. I could turn this around. I just…I just didn’t know how yet.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care about where I lived. What I’d cared more about was the apples. The apples that’d been sorely neglected.
When I’d arrived in June, the orchard had been overgrown, brambles and wiry grass swallowing the trunks. Some trees had up and quit, wood blackened, not a flower bud or leaf in sight. But most of them? Most of them were thriving, even if a bit wild.
Patrick and I—along with a farmhand named Jordan who was home from college—had broken our backs getting them taken care of before I’d ever thought about taking care of myself.
It was a big project for three people, even with a smaller farm.
There was always something to do.
Always another task that needed to be completed before the day was over.
I had no idea how I would’ve managed if I didn’t have Patrick and Jordan around. The truth? I probably wouldn’t’ve.
Maybe that’s why Jason’s offers to help me were so goddamn infuriating. Because I’d come here to do this on my own—and there wasn’t a single task I’d accomplished without someone else there.
Fixing up the house had been put on the back burner.
To be frank—I didn’t really mind the mess. It was just me here. Nobody to impress or concern with the holes in the wall and malfunctioning appliances. And if I never let anyone inside the house, no one was going to see it anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Besides, I wasn’t home much aside from sleep.
I didn’t cook.
Didn’t have time for TV.
Didn’t have time for anything except work.
During my very few free hours, I’d hike in the woods. Birdwatching. Sent Roderick—my buddy back home—a picture of an acorn, or a tree, whatever cool thing I discovered, and went about my day.
Most of my free time I spent running errands, popping into the town limits—most often to be bombarded with questions I never knew how to answer.
People in Belleville, Vermont, were a lot like the people back home in Chesterton.
Friendly.
Kind.
Nosy.
And the nosiest of all was Jason. Tall and gangly, my first impression of him had been far from positive. He’d been a peeping Tom. Spying on me when I least expected it. When my guard was down.
Scaring off the magpie I’d thought of as a good omen. Then bombarding me with questions—and making me feel like a total idiot. Offering me help like he took one look at me and knew I was hopeless.
Since then, my opinion of him continued to be rocky.
He was pushy. He was too smart for his own good. And no one and nothing was safe from Jason and his chatty mouth.
I’d done my best to be closed-lipped around him.
This was my chance.
My one and only chance to get people to take me seriously. Back home, I’d been regarded as a bit of an idiot. I’d caught the tail-end of jokes. Joe the himbo. Baby Milton. Joe the inept. Joe the clumsy, inexperienced—you get the picture.
No one had ever let me forget homecoming and the fact I’d puked on Olivia. They looked at me and saw a giant toddler. Their pity when I’d returned home after failing as a farmhand was palpable.
I didn’t want to be seen that way here.
For the first time in my life, I could be anybody. I had one more shot to prove to my family—and myself—that I could do this.
And I didn’t need Jason, and his animated hands, or his flashy smiles—didn’t need his help. I wasn’t weak.
I kept my distance as best I could.
I didn’t understand him—couldn’t understand him. His motivations were murky at best. I’d been nothing but cold, and yet he…he wouldn’t leave me alone.
He was like a dog with a bone. All I had to do was breathe and he thought it was an invitation to offer me the shirt off his back. I’d never accept. Couldn’t accept.
Because if I did, I’d be admitting that I couldn’t take care of myself, after all.
The hardware store was busy for a Wednesday.
Patrick and Jordan were taking care of the farm so that I could focus on the task at hand.
I’d managed fifteen or so minutes of wandering the aisles, writing down prices on my paper, before I’d been bombarded with newcomers and the shop had gone from blissfully empty to headache-inducingly full.
The longer I spent in the store, the more sure I was that the cost of renovations on my house was going to be astronomical.
I’d barely gotten halfway down the page and already couldn’t breathe.
By the time I got to the end, I was full-on hyperventilating.
Money signs danced in front of my eyes. Making my vision splotchy. Making my heart race. Making my hands clammy and—I dropped my list, only to bend over and pick it back up with clumsy fingers.
“Last year was so cute!” a woman gushed, arms full of tarps as she walked by me. She nodded and smiled my way, but was otherwise too occupied to notice me panicking.
Thank god.
I smoothed out my list, continuing down it as I eavesdropped on her conversation. “Do you think Ms. Daisy is going to be able to pull off The Grinch? I mean, it’s a bit different, don’t you think? When last year, she wrote the whole thing.”
“It’s easier to use a pre-written play,” the man beside her disagreed. “I think she’ll do just fine.”
“Oh, I just can’t wait to see what the parents do with the little Who-people’s hair!” Another person cooed. “I betcha anything they’ll go all out.”
There were a half dozen people in line all of a sudden. A whirlwind of activity. All of them were carrying a variety of Christmas lights and lumber. Apparently, the local community theater was going all out with the holiday play this year.
It should’ve been cool to see the town banding together to get the set built. Instead, the sight of the lights was just another reminder of Mom’s visit and the impending doom of the holiday season.
Like a slap to the face.
The last item on my list was the flooring I’d need to replace. I’d need a quote for that—to do some actual math. But…Jesus. Just imagining how much that was going to cost made me feel like I was going to die.