Chapter Five #3
He returned with my worn canvas bag about five minutes later, and I pulled out my uncle’s will. “My uncle has passed,” I said.
Burns’s face showed little surprise. “When did it happen?”
“Almost a year ago.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What? Why haven’t you told anyone, child?”
I glared at him for the last comment. “Well, I thought you could help me explain.” I pushed my uncle’s handwritten will across the table, and Burn’s pulled out a pair of reading glasses before he opened the oversized envelope.
“I see,” he said thoughtfully after he was finished reading the first scribbled page. “I am to assume you have done as he requested and buried him where he specified?”
“Exactly where. He went over and over it with me.”
“Do you understand the rest of the will he had drawn up?” he asked.
I shook my head. I had tried to read it a few times, but all of the legal mumbo jumbo made it difficult for me to understand.
Sometimes when I was tired and couldn’t sleep, I read it knowing full-well I’d pass out by section two, but I wouldn’t tell Mr. Burns how boring his writing was. I had manners, after all.
Burns thumbed through the copy of the paperwork he’d drawn up. “Basically, your uncle has left the two hundred acres of your family’s land in your name, claimable upon your eighteenth birthday. Which is when? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Two years ago today.”
His eyes went round. “We will have paperwork to sign back at my office then. I have to tell you one odd request he had. You will be unable to sell the land for a minimum of one decade, or ten years.”
A lump swelled in my throat, making it hard to swallow, much less breathe.
I would be stuck in that haunted house for another ten years of my life.
I wasn’t finishing my sentence there. I was only beginning it.
I clenched my hands together under the table.
My uncle had been kind enough to give me a home, and then cruel enough to drown me with it.
“The police will have questions about his passing. How did he go?”
“In a pool of vomit on his bathroom floor. He drank himself to death, sir,” I said, void of emotion. I had tried so hard to say the sentence without reliving the horrific scene on the cold morning I had found him.
The sharp inhale of breath from the lawyer told me my reaction to the question wasn’t normal. But then again, what about me was?
“I’m sorry,” he said. He opened his mouth to say more but couldn’t seem to find the words he wanted.
Trying to avoid thinking of the morning Uncle Brady had died proved fruitless.
After Burns talked privately with Clancy and Young, they grilled me for every detail of the day my uncle had passed.
I was raw and vulnerable after having to share so much of such a terrifying and private experience.
It was the first time I had said the words out loud or talked to anyone about it, and the admission hurt more than I thought it would.
“You’re free to go,” Clancy said ungraciously after I had worn my voice thin talking.
“I am?”
“Caleb woke up and explained that you were trying to save him. The doctor confirmed it was a bear attack,” Young explained.
I stood to leave, and Burns opened the door for me.
Clancy’s voice sounded harassed behind me. “Don’t leave town, Miss Fletcher. We’ll still be investigating your uncle’s death and the reasons you waited a year to tell us.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, sounding tired and sad, even to myself. “It seems I’ll be stuck here forever.”
Clancy didn’t look any happier about it than I was, and I thought of Bora Bora for the hundredth time tonight.
“I don’t have much money, Mr. Burns. What do I owe you for everything?” I asked as we stopped by the front door to the small police station.
“Absolutely nothing. Your uncle already paid me to set up his will and make sure it was carried out. You have done most of the work for me.” He started to leave but turned back around. “Mira, I think I should be present if the police question you about your uncle. Please call me if they do.”
The clinic where Caleb was being treated was just down the street, but it might as well have been a million miles away.
I stepped out into the dark. Clouds blocked out the moon and stars and cast shadows over everything.
Fitting for my mood. I began the long walk alone, and when the streetlights ended, I pressed the sad memories of Uncle Brady’s death back where they belonged.
****
Caleb
A hundred people and no one came to visit me in the clinic.
Nearly the entire town had turned out, and it left me exhausted. Humbled and appreciative, but by the time the last of the visitors left on the third day, I needed a vacation from bed rest. Everyone visited, but I didn’t feel any connection as I received their well-wishes and thoughtful cards.
Sure, I smiled, shook hands, and laughed at jokes, but my eyes were drawn to the door and my mind distracted. I could lie to myself and say I sought escape, but what my searching eyes really wanted was the silhouette of someone I knew would never—could never—visit me here.
A hundred people and no one came.