36. Kate #2
Inside smelled of woodsmoke and lemon oil. One big room downstairs—kitchenette, table for two, couch facing the stove. Loft bedroom above. No television. An ancient rotary phone on the wall. A small black satellite box blinking green beside a stack of burner flip phones still in plastic.
“Generator’s in the shed,” Vega said, dropping my bag.
“Wood’s split and stacked. River’s fifty yards west if you want fish.
Cell service is a spotty. Wifi’s encrypted, password’s on the fridge.
Council pings any digital signature tied to you, they’ll know in thirty seconds and you’ll be gone before they finish the trace.
Your cell is at Drew’s. It has to stay there”
She pointed to a laminated sheet taped inside the pantry door:
? Check stove damper 2× daily
? Fill kerosene lanterns by noon
? Burner phone #1 = Vega
? Burner phone #2 = emergency evac
? DO NOT LEAVE THE PROPERTY LINE
“That’s the tree with the orange ribbon,” she added, nodding out the window. “Step past it, you’re on your own.”
I swallowed. “How long?”
“Until the heat dies or the council does. Could be weeks. Could be never.” She softened a fraction. “Place is yours. Make it home.”
The van crunched down the hill. Silence rushed in like floodwater.
Night one—I built a fire with shaking hands, fed it too much kindling, coughed on smoke until I figured the damper.
The stove crackled, warm and alive. I sat on the couch with a mug of tea gone cold, listening to the river argue with rocks outside.
No city hum. No Drew humming off-key in the shower.
Just wind in the pines and the occasional owl asking who I was.
By night three—I found the rhythm. Wake at dawn, split kindling, haul water from the pump. I used the analog phone to dial Vega’s burner. She asked me if I was dying then hung up when I said ‘emotionally.’
Night seven—I stopped flinching at every creak of the beams. I cooked trout on the cast-iron skillet, ate at the table with the window cracked so the river could keep me company.
I wrote Michael’s name on a scrap of paper, fed it to the stove, watched the flames take him.
The ache was still there, but smaller, like a bruise instead of a broken bone.
I didn’t know if Drew had signed off on this exile or if Vega’s “people” had simply overruled him. I didn’t call to ask. The quiet was doing its work—stripping me down to the raw edges, forcing me to sit with them.
Some nights I climbed the loft ladder and lay staring at the rafters, moonlight striping the quilt. I whispered apologies to the night: to Michael for letting go too late, to Drew for using him in the dark, to myself for thinking safety was a place instead of a choice.
The council never came. The snow did—soft, relentless, erasing the dirt road until the cabin floated in its own white sea. I shoveled the path to the woodpile, breath fogging, cheeks stinging. My hands blistered, then callused. I stopped dreaming of penthouses and red silk.
One morning I woke to absolute stillness.
The fire had burned to embers; the river had frozen mid-sentence.
I stood on the porch in Drew’s old robe—watching my breath hang like a ghost. For the first time in months, the ache in my chest felt…
manageable. Not gone. Just quiet enough to hear something new underneath.
Hope, maybe. Or the space where hope could grow.
I went inside, added two logs to the stove, and started coffee on the propane burner. The satellite router blinked steady green. I could call Vega. I could ask about Drew. I could beg a ride back to the casino, to noise and danger and the man who’d carried me out of the dark.
Instead I sat at the table, wrapped my hands around the warm mug, and listened to the cabin breathe with me.
The days settled into a hush so complete I could hear sap rising in the pines. One morning, I woke to find a large box waiting on the porch. Vega’s idea of a supply delivery, apparently, though the handwritten note tucked beneath the lid belonged to Gertie.
Get back to work. Miss you… G.
Inside were pantry staples, two bottles of wine, thick wool socks, and enough dog treats to keep Amber loyal through spring.
Beneath them, wrapped carefully in one of Gertie’s old scarves, lay a stack of blank sheet music, sharpened pencils, and the worn leather notebook I’d left locked inside my study.
I ran my fingers over the cover.
Gertie hadn’t specified what kind of work she meant. She knew I had business to conduct and people trying to dismantle everything I’d built. But she also knew the difference between the work that kept me occupied and the work that once made me feel alive.
Amber nosed through the box, found the treats, and sat beside me with immediate purpose.
“At least one of us knows what she wants.”
Her tail swept across the floor.
I carried the notebook to the small table beside the window and opened it. The first pages held fragments written years ago—unfinished melodies, abandoned lyrics, notes that ended midway across the staff. I hadn’t looked at them in so long that they seemed to belong to someone else.
Outside, snow slipped from the branches in soft, sudden falls. The cabin creaked around me. Somewhere in the woods, water moved beneath a thin layer of ice.
I picked up a pencil.
For several minutes, I stared at the empty page.
Then, faintly, a sequence of notes began moving through my mind. Not the grief-stricken music I’d written as a child. Not the songs I’d sold before life became complicated.
Something slower. Deeper. A melody carrying summer fireworks, casino lights, and the silence of a midnight spent without the man I loved.
I lowered the pencil to the paper before it could disappear. Sometimes I heard notes… melodies… I jotted down what I could before the music in my mind faded again. When that happened, I picked up the draft paper and started sketching the land.