Chapter 3 - Tessa
The house smells like old wood and apples that were put away and forgotten.
I’ve been here a few days, and it still feels like I’m walking through an old photograph. The edges are a little soft, and the colours are too warm. When I move, dust lifts in sunbeams like I’ve disturbed something sacred.
After placing my bag at the foot of the stairs, I made my way into the kitchen because kitchens tell the truth about a house.
The old wood-burning cookstove sits nestled in the stone fire back, black as a night sky with scuffed silver edges where hands have brushed it for years.
A kettle rests on one back burner, a cast-iron skillet on the front, like someone used them yesterday and set them there to cool and never came back.
Bold wooden beams run overhead, and the space is a mix of dark woods and stone.
A massive butcher block island is the centrepiece of the space.
I move further into the space, my hand drifting to edges and divots in the wood that tell their own story.
A smaller farm-style table sits off to the side in front of a big window overlooking the now overgrown brush.
I place the basket and envelopes on the table and continue to scan the space.
One mug sits on the counter by a window, clean but turned upside down to keep the dust out. Practical, like him.
I don’t rush. I’m not built that way.
I take in my surroundings and let the memories come.
My finger drags against the dust-covered surfaces.
Intuitively, I open a drawer and grab a knit washcloth.
I run the damp cloth along surfaces, let the repetition calm my head.
The cloth comes away gray, then lighter, then almost clean.
The window latch sticks and then gives; cold air slips in, smells like thawing pine and earth.
The view from this window hasn’t changed.
A wide-open field, a thin fringe of trees, the suggestion of a river beyond.
There’s a shallow basket by the back door, I imagine Dad keeping his keys in it. I grab the envelope and empty it into the basket; neatly labelled keys, with masking tape and careful block letters, tumble out. FRONT DOOR. BACK. BARN. TRUCK. MAILBOX. SPARE.
Of course, he labelled them. Of course, he made it simple. It makes my chest ache in a way I don’t have a name for.
I leave the basket where it belongs as I walk deeper into the house.
The hallway is narrow. The runner rug is worn down the center where feet have passed a thousand times. I flick on the light; it buzzes alive and casts everything in a thin gold.
Upstairs, my childhood room still wears the same wallpaper, small blue flowers on cream.
Time has peeled it in long curls near the window, like it’s unwrapping itself for me.
He never changed it. Not the crooked bookshelf with pencil marks on the side where height was measured and then argued over, not the hook on the back of the door where I used to hang my backpack.
I press my palm against the wall. It’s cool and a little soft, like it’s tired.
“I’m here,” I say to no one. I am not sure if it is sentimental or a fact stated aloud because it helps me keep moving.
The bathroom mirror has spots. The light over it hums. In the linen closet, towels and sheets are folded in the same tight stack my father used to do, corners aligned like a ceremony. The living room, a TV older than me, a recliner moulded to one body, and an old crochet throw draped over the back.
I don’t try to rewrite history while I walk. It isn’t who I am.
My parents were a mess together. My mother chased more like it was oxygen; my father loved silence like it was the only honest sound left.
They pulled, and I was the rope. I grew up, moved, and worked.
I went to learn what I like to do with my hands and my time.
That’s how I ended up in a vet tech program, a year in, exhausted and happy in the way good work makes you.
Back in the kitchen, I set the key basket down and pick up TRUCK. It’s heavier than the others. A memory moves through me, and I grab the barn key too.
Outside, the yard gives under my boots, the top inch of earth thawed, the rest still winter-hard. The barn door sticks and then slides with a low groan that echoes. Inside smells like oil and hay and something comforting.
Shafts of light fall through the slats and lay pale stripes across the floor.
Tools hang where I remember them being my last time here, wrenches lined up smallest to largest, a hammer with the handle wrapped in electrical tape, mason jars of screws and nails.
The workbench still has an old radio on it, the dial set to a country station he always swore sounded better “when it had to fight to come in.”
A tarp sits in the corner, soft with dust, thrown over something tall and long.
I catch the edge and pull, walking back. Dust flares and I cough, and there she is: a baby-blue Chevy with a wide chrome smile and rust freckles along the rocker panels. My knees go weak with the memory that hits.
The first time I was tall enough to ride shotgun, he made a ceremony of it. Opened the passenger door and tapped the seat like he was knighting me.
“Big enough now,” he said, chin tipped like he was proud but pretending not to be.
I beamed so hard my face hurt. We drove slow, windows cranked down, old country soft through a station half static. Wheat in late summer bowed toward the road; he drummed two fingers on the wheel in time. He didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. I read his quiet like other kids read books.
I slide into that seat now, leather worn and smooth with use, and let the memory lay itself over me like morning sun. The tears come then steady and stubborn.
“I would’ve helped,” I tell the empty cab. It’s not a plea. It’s a statement. “Even if we never fixed us, I would’ve shown up for you.”
Even after how our last conversation went.
I didn't let go. I sent letters from everywhere I travelled, an olive branch for him to still be connected to my life. I wrote about colicky foals and stubborn goats and the way my hands learned new work. I left a number. And yes, a note about the account where I posted pictures from the places I worked, from the life I was living. Not because I care about hearts or follows, because sometimes the simplest way to say “I’m okay” is in a picture of you being just that.
Sunset over a vineyard, apple picking, and my acceptance letter to school.
Moments in time that felt important to me.
I scoot across the bench seat, into the driver’s side, and turn the key.
The engine gives me a cough, a sullen half-turn, then nothing.
“We can fix you,” I say, and pat the dash.
Back inside, I make small circles of progress.
The kettle earns its keep; the cast iron gets scrubbed and dried, and seasoned.
I open a few windows to trade the house’s stale breath for fresh, new days.
I dust the mantle over the fireplace and find a pair of reading glasses folded and set neatly on a book of trail maps, as though he’d planned a walk he never got to take.
Judy stops by near sunset with a bundle of split wood hugged against her chest. She sets it by the cookstove and acts like she didn’t notice me blinking away the last of the fresh set of tears.
“Nights still get a bite,” she says, smiling. “Dean and Brody always cut extra. If you’re staying a few more days, you’ll be glad to have it.”
I thank her and mean it. She hesitates at the door, then adds, “We meet for coffee with a few townsfolk every Sunday at Clara’s, around eleven.
Nothing fancy. Just catching up, talking about what the next book we should read is or Diane's next fundraiser. Join us if you want to catch up or if you need anything.”
“I’m not much of a coffee-club person,” I say, then catch myself. I know she is trying to welcome me into the fold, and I don't want to push her away. “But I might stop by. I need a mechanic for the truck, and someone to keep an eye on the place when I’m in Summit City.”
“Dean will set you up,” she says, like that’s a solved problem. “And between the people who will be there on Sunday, we know everyone in the surrounding towns.” She pauses for a beat and then speaks more softly. “You look good here, Tessa.”
“I’m not staying. Not yet,” I answer. It’s not stubbornness, just a fact. Everything happened so fast, I am still working through it. “I’ve got school.”
“Then we’ll see you when we see you.” She taps the doorframe like a blessing and heads down the steps.
The second night, the house shifts a little toward me, like a dog deciding I might be worth trusting. I unearth an old iPad on the kitchen counter, plugged into a socket that buzzes if you look at it wrong. The case is cracked; the glass is smudged. I almost put it back, then didn’t.
It takes three tries to wake up. When it does, there’s one app open, nothing else on the screen. My thumb hovers even though I already know what I’ll find.
My account sits there, the one I mentioned once in a letter. WanderingRoots. My posts are saved. Albums labelled by the places I’d written from.
I put it back where I found it and stared out the window, trying to put the pieces of our shared past together.
There’s a folder tucked in the end table by the recliner.
I reach for it after cleaning the surface and let a tear fall as letters of mine, worn soft at the crease, topple out onto the floor.
I got to my knees to collect them, the top one from an orchard where the blossoms came late; the edges darkened from being opened and re-folded.
He did look.
He looked in the way he knew how, quiet, steady, alone. It doesn’t excuse anything, and it doesn’t need to. It just loosens something in my chest I didn’t realize had cinched tight.
I stay there on the floor, my back to dad's chair. The letters in my lap, watching the fire dance in the fireplace. I let myself feel it all.
I know what ifs won't solve anything. I know we can't turn back time. But it still stings that we both wanted the same thing and will never get a chance to have it.
By Sunday, I have to head back to Summit City.
Anatomy practical on Monday, four a.m. barn call Tuesday.
Before I leave, I drive into town. The road in is rutted; the river runs fast with melt.
The café bell at Clara’s announces my arrival when I push in, and the room smells like cinnamon and coffee and something yeasty in the oven that’s about to be perfect.
Judy waves me over to a table already half-claimed by stories.
I get introduced to everyone as I join, and more follow.
Diane sits beside Judy, blonde hair tucked behind one ear, clear blue eyes that are kind in a way you can't fake.
A few minutes later, Dean and Dr. Morgan join us, Robert shrugging out of a jacket that smells faintly like aftershave and antiseptic.
They ask about school, and I tell them the truth: there’s a desperate need for vet techs everywhere, but especially out in rural areas; I’m a year in, maybe a year and change if I tack on specialized courses; I like the work. I like being useful. I like getting to work with animals all day.
“You’d never be empty of work here,” Dean says. “Horses, cattle, every dog that likes to eat things it shouldn’t.”
Clara breezes by with a tray, blonde hair knotted up, smile bright enough to qualify as morning. “Top off?” she asks, already pouring. A little voice calls for her from the back, and she says, “Jackson! Aunt Cass will be here to get you soon, buddy,” and she’s gone again.
Judy beams as she talks about her boys. “Adam’ was working kitchens across Canada, but he came back about a year ago and opened a farm-to-table pub that includes so many local farms and makers. Brody is back from Vancouver and has been helping out with... well, just about everything.”
Diane fills in the Morgan tree with the ease of someone who has told these stories so many times they have become permanent.
“Chase is home and has joined Robert at the practice.
Clara, whom you've met, runs this place, and Cassidy...” she pauses, a concerned yet fond look on her face.
“She is back home too, working on a book.”
They tell me about another couple they wanted me to meet, John and Maggie Carson.
They own a ranch about 20 minutes outside of town.
Judy tells me I have to go to Adam's to try the beef the Carson’s ranch provides, before mentioning they have three children as well, Eli, who Judy says was born a few days before Adam, Nate, who is a big-time hockey player in Summit City and their youngest, a daughter named Kenzie, who is still in school just like me.
I ask if anyone knows a good mechanic who won’t laugh when I say I want to keep an old blue Chevy alive.
Dean writes down a name and a number and says he’ll swing by to check on the place while I’m gone.
Robert offers to keep a spare key at the clinic, just in case someone needs to access the place.
They try to convince me I fit here, and I don’t push back because I don’t feel pushed. I just tucked it away with the other things I am working through right now.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, which is as honest as I can be right now. “I have to finish school first.”
Diane mentions a fundraiser event that is coming up at Adam's that I should come to, a great way to catch up with the kids I played with when I was little.
When I drive out of Hawthorne Ridge, the road throws slush up the sides of my car, and the sky is the same pale blue as that Chevy under the tarp. I don’t make promises I can't keep. I make plans and lists and show up where I’m needed.
But as the fields pull away behind me, something small and stubborn settles in the space just under my ribs.
Not homesickness.
A knowing.
Like soil deciding, finally, that it’s time to thaw.