Colt
I haven’t stepped foot inside this shed since I was sixteen, and the smell certainly hasn’t improved.
A layer of dirt and pollen covers every tool, including rusted lawn equipment I’ve never seen operational.
Grabbing a shovel, I nudge a pile of dried leaves, ensuring a copperhead isn’t sleeping inside, but nothing stirs.
My eyes fall on my old man’s buzz saw and I give it an awkward pat like it might have the answer for this mess. But it’s been silent since my dad left.
That shithead took off in the middle of the night and left behind my mother, his two sons, and a broken-down truck. He didn't even leave a note. Just a half-finished birdhouse he’d promised to build for my birthday and a stack of unpaid bills where a father should be.
I run my hand over the worktable, and my fingers come away filthy.
Brushing them off on my jeans, I bend down to inspect the table saw.
Despite the neglect, she might have a little life left in her.
I continue maneuvering around the cramped space, examining what else might be of use back at Camp Inwood.
I’m not a carpenter yet, but I will be soon enough, especially under Gunnery Sergeant Taylor, now retired, but you wouldn’t know it the way he maintains his tools.
That man treats plywood with more respect than church folk do their pastor.
And he’s been generous enough to teach me what he knows, like how to join a dovetail and how to plane and sand oak until it feels like silk.
But my dad taught me the basics long before that. He taught me how to swing a hammer so I wouldn’t ruin my wrist. He taught me how to respect the grain of the wood. And then he taught me how to leave.
Two years later, my brother, Warren, followed suit. The day he graduated high school, he packed a bag and hit the road before the ceremony even ended. I was fourteen, standing on the porch, watching his taillights fade. I don’t think he even looked back, and I don’t blame him. Not anymore.
I glance toward my mom’s place, at the rotted siding and grimy windows. Its mere existence is a weight in my chest. I think it has been since I was old enough to realize home wasn’t safe. After all, I’m the one who stayed to manage my mother.
Eventually, though, I found my way through that front door too.
I traded in secondhand clothes for a combat utility uniform and joined the Marines.
Suppose I figured the soil from a half dozen different countries might wash the Holly River silt off my boots.
But shit happened, as it always does, and now I’m here again.
The shed doors screech as I yank them shut and turn toward the house, gravel crunching underfoot.
The bank says this one-point-five acres of weeds belongs to me and Warren now.
And since Warren is off finding himself in Oregon and hasn't answered my texts in months, it’s become my responsibility to sell it.
I should have done exactly that directly after the funeral.
But I couldn’t stay then. The thought of Mom dying here alone filled me with guilt so paralyzing I felt immobilized by it.
It didn’t make sense to me, grieving someone who made my life miserable.
So I returned to Camp Inwood the moment her casket was lowered into the ground, as if I could somehow outrun the fact that she was gone.
But now, despite being determined to avoid this place, I’ve found myself back here.
And the reason why is folded inside my wallet.
The air is stale inside the house, the curtains drawn tight. Despite the limited light, I can still see and smell the dust, and I know without looking that every sink and shower is crawling with mold. It’s a dump, just like I remember.
The hallway floorboards creak under my weight.
I’ve put on thirty pounds of muscle since I last lived here, and sometimes I feel alien inside my own skin, especially in this house.
Pushing open the door to my childhood bedroom, I pause.
It’s exactly the same—faded posters of classic cars, a mattress without a headboard, and a busted beanbag my dad plucked off someone’s curb.
I sit on the edge of the twin-sized bed as if it’s someone else’s, and then lay back, my head hitting the flattened pillow.
My feet hang off the end, and for some reason, that makes me smile.
I like the idea of not fitting here anymore.
And then, just as quickly, the smile fades.
Because I know that’s not the way I should feel.
My eyes flick to the open sea bag squatting near the bed. It’s the only thing I brought with me from base. A stack of envelopes peeks out from inside, their edges worn from being handled.
Reaching down, I pull one out. The paper is velvet-soft, the handwriting feminine. I don't need to read the words to know what they say—I’ve memorized them over eight years and three deployments.
I read a few lines anyway. A tentative smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. Then I catch myself and tuck the letter back into the bag.
My phone buzzes, vibrating against my thigh.
I fish it out and see a photo from Dalton.
Dalton was a fellow linebacker back when I lived to hit people under stadium lights.
We weren't best friends, but we were brothers in the way only a locker room can forge. Now, he owns Holly Hall, the only bar in town worth its salt. He’s sent a picture of a beer sitting on a mahogany bar top. There’s an empty stool in front of it.
It’s a clear invitation, and I’m grateful for it. Hell, I’d accept it if I didn’t have a mountain of paperwork I needed to get through.
I stand and head for the kitchen. The sun is dipping below the treeline, casting the room into shadows. I reach for the light switch and flip it. Nothing happens.
“Dammit,” I mutter.
I forgot that I called the utility company and had it turned off after the funeral.
The water’s off too, then. Walking to the window, I yank the flimsy curtain aside.
Then I collapse into a chair at our wobbly kitchen table and open the folder the realtor sent over.
There are disclosures to sign, titles to transfer, and a dozen different ways for the state to take a cut of whatever pittance this place sells for.
I’m twenty-seven, but looking at these papers, I feel eighty. My back aches from the drive down, and my head is heavy with the kind of exhaustion sleep doesn't fix. I start on the forms, my pen scratching against the paper in the dim light.
I work for a couple of hours, checking comps online to see which nearby listings the realtor is referring to.
I’m using the flashlight on my phone to see, propping it against a salt shaker.
It’s pathetic. A grown man sitting in the dark, trying to sign away his meager inheritance by the light of a cell phone.
It’s near midnight when my phone buzzes again. Dalton has sent another photo. This time, there’s a shot glass sitting next to the beer.
I huff a laugh. Dalton always was a persistent bastard.
Standing, I shove the paperwork back into the folder, grab my wallet from the counter, and make for the door. I’ve made enough progress for one night, and a beer sounds like exactly what I need.
The walk to Holly Hall takes me through the center of town.
As I walk, my eyes dart to every shop I pass.
Even though most are closed, I still find myself looking for her.
I know where she lives, or rather where she used to live.
I could walk the three blocks over and check if her car’s in the driveway.
Or if the light is on in her bedroom window.
But I haven’t worked up the nerve. When I came back for the funeral, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming into town, not even Grant.
Even though it’s a small town, it’s big enough to hide in when you make it your mission, and that’s exactly what I did.
The last thing I wanted was to broadcast my mom’s passing, because then the same people who’d gossiped about her habits would’ve asked me how I felt.
How I was doing. I couldn’t handle the hypocrisy.
As I pass the town square, I notice everything is already decorated for the festival that’ll happen in November.
People here live for festivals. They spend all year planning bake-offs and parades and town-wide picnics.
It’s a bubble of manufactured cheer that I liked as a kid.
Now, it feels like people desperate for a diversion.
I know one person in particular who loves it though.
She even made her own costumes when we were kids, though her parents disapproved of her spending time on such endeavors.
She used to drag me to the apple cider stand and make me drink the stuff until I was sick.
Just the thought of her excitement lifts my spirits.
Makes me feel something other than numbness.
But then I remember that’s all ancient history. Being in the military has given me a new perspective, and it goes like this—people are shit and evil exists. And no amount of decorating can disguise that truth.
I reach Holly Hall and head inside. The music hits me first, followed by the smell of fried chicken and cheap beer.
A country song blasts through the speakers as couples scoot across the dance floor.
Near the bar, people laugh and smile, talking over one another with such merriment that I want to turn around and walk right back out.
Dalton spots me and grins, teeth white against his beard. He comes around his bar just enough for us to do that awkward bro-clap—part handshake, part hug.
"Look what the cat dragged in.” Dalton slides the beer and shot glass toward me. "Thought you might have crawled into a hole and died."
"Close enough," I mutter.
I take the shot of tequila, feeling it burn all the way down. I follow it with a long pull of beer.
"How’s the house?" Dalton crosses his arms.
"Falling down," I reply. "Needs more work than it's worth. Thanks for setting me up with the realtor."
"Everything in this town needs more work than it's worth, Colt. That’s the charm." He grins.
I grunt and turn my stool around to face the room. It’s late, and the music has shifted to something slower, though not at all quieter.
I’m halfway through my drink when I spot a guy, mid-thirties, leaning over a woman at the end of the bar. She’s angling away, her face tight with discomfort. I try to ignore the military instinct to step in and help, and focus on my beer instead.
But then the guy grabs her upper arm, yanking her off the barstool. She stumbles, sending a glass crashing to the floor. Dalton sees it and waves frantically at someone near the back, pointing at the guy. He’s signaling for the bouncer, a kid barely old enough to vote.
I sigh, getting to my feet. “Damn it.”
The man is still shouting at the woman, his fingers digging into her arm, when I reach him. I snatch his wrist, twisting until he breaks his grip on her. Then I shoulder him away. The man stumbles before finding his footing.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?" He sizes me up, taking in the fact that I’m six-foot-three, two-twenty. This makes him pause.
I grab his shirt, yanking him close enough to hear. "You’re leaving.”
"Let go of me,” he slurs, trying to fight me off. “Fucking psycho!"
I lean closer. "If I ever see you lay a hand on a woman again, I’ll break your wrist. And then your arm."
I point toward the entrance and shove him in that direction. “Go.”
He trips, nearly hitting a table, and then scrambles for the exit. "You’re lucky I don’t kick your ass!” he yells over his shoulder.
That gets a laugh out of me, because really, the dude can barely walk. I watch until he disappears through the door and then glance in Dalton’s direction. He gives a thumbs up as he sweeps the broken glass.
The music is still blasting, but the chatter has died down. When I turn to the dance floor, I realize that people are gawking. Immediately, I’m hit with a familiar twist of unease. The one that demands I find a corner, or a bottle, to disappear into.
I’m about to return to the bar when someone steps aside to let a server through. And I see her.
My heart stops.
At first, my brain sees only the past. That eleven-year-old with the ponytail and the paperbacks who used to follow me and her brother around. My best friend’s little sister. The girl whose home and life I intruded upon.
The same girl who wrote me all those letters.
But then someone crosses in front of her, and the illusion shatters. And I recognize then that she’s not what I remember. She’s grown up. She’s a woman. And that fact seems somehow more unbelievable than anything else I’ve encountered these past eight years.
Alice.
Her eyes are wide, fixed on me with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock.
I’m instantly hit with a wave of shame.
She starts moving. Quickly. She swims through the crowd toward me and I brace myself. Because she may yell. She may demand to know why I didn’t answer her letters after everything her family did for me.
But instead, she launches herself at me.
Her arms wrap around my waist, and her face buries into my chest.
I stand frozen, my hands hovering in the air, unsure where to place them. But then, the warmth of her hits me, and with it comes every good memory I have of Holly River.
I wrap my arms around her, tucking my face into her hair, and pull her so tightly I’m afraid I might actually hurt her. For one unsullied moment, the last fifteen years of my life—the deadbeat dad, the deployments, the funeral—it all just... fades away.
My lips find her ear. “Hey, kid.”
Alice releases me suddenly, taking a sharp backward step. I notice the flush in her face, though whether it’s from the heat or something else, I’m not sure.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go.”
“Alice,” I call out.
But she’s already barreling toward the front door. I start after her, because I just sent a drunk asshole out there and the thought of her running into him shoots panic through me.
A woman I recognize from years ago—Maggie?—throws up a stiff hand in front of me. “We’ve got her,” she snaps. And then she and another woman all disappear through the exit.
And I’m left standing there, feeling like I just lost Alice Sinclair all over again.