Chapter 24
Emery
November
She’s marching toward me before I can even step out, blocking me from exiting and motioning me to open my window.
Here we go … “At least let me come inside and pay.”
“It’s already paid for. I’m not fighting about this with you today.” She thrusts the bag toward me.
Paid for and then some, based on the weight in my arms as I set it on the passenger seat.
I groan with frustration, searching for Sarah through the window so I can spear her with a glare. I texted her on my way home to ask that she set aside a shepherd’s pie for me to pick up, not wanting Annie involved for this very reason.
“How is Holly’s investigation going?” Annie smoothly diverts.
“Not great.” Schmidt and Terry are still reviewing the facts and chasing down leads but so far, nothing is getting us any closer to finding her.
“But they’re satisfied with Logan’s alibi? I mean, they won’t be coming to question him anymore?” She wraps her arms around her sweater-clad body, and I can’t be sure if it’s to mitigate the cold or to ward off her worry.
“I can’t see any reason for them to, no.”
Her chest sinks with visible relief, but her brow is still furrowed.
I realize this ambush is less about free food and more about the need to talk. “What’s going on with Logan, Annie?” I haven’t talked to him since Thanksgiving. Has something happened?
She sighs. “No … I don’t know. I had such high hopes when he came home, and now I wonder if I’ve set myself up for disappointment and him for failure. Maybe I’m pushing him too hard.”
“You have to remember where he’s been for the last twenty years.”
“Believe me, I never forget. Not spending my Sunday afternoons writing letters has taken some getting used to.” She hesitates.
“Sometimes I think I see my boy in there. And other times, I’m not sure who Holt brought home.
” She flinches as if admitting that about her son physically hurts.
“He seems so closed off, uninterested in life. He won’t open up about things that happened in there. ”
“It can take years for convicts to find their place, if they ever do. He’s lucky to have the family he does.”
“But how can he build a life for himself? He’s refusing to even leave the property now.” She blinks back tears in a rare display of fear and vulnerability. “I’m worried about him, Emery. I really am.”
“He’s going to be okay.” I say this because we all have to believe that, not because I necessarily do.
“I know things between you two are … complicated.”
My chuckle is weak. “That’s one way to put it.” She never asked about my abrupt departure from their porch, but I’m sure she and Holt have figured out the gist of it.
“He’s always trusted you, though. And he seems more open around you.” She hesitates. “I get the sense that Logan is hiding things from us.” She watches me as if looking for signs to confirm it.
Not from us. From her, specifically. I can’t betray Logan, and besides, Annie knowing doesn’t help or change the situation. But I also can’t lie to her. It’d be like lying to my own mother. I choose my words carefully. “If he is hiding something, it’s not anything you need to worry about.”
“But—”
“I won’t let anything happen to him, Annie. I won’t.” Even if Logan and I aren’t currently on speaking terms.
Her head bobs. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Just keep trying with him. Keep giving him opportunities to do things, to help. Don’t give up on him.”
She reaches in to squeeze my shoulder. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“I don’t know what any of us would do without you.” My mind wanders every once in a while to a dark place where we lose Annie, like how I lost my mother far too soon. The agony I feel at the mere thought only cements how important the role Annie plays in all our lives.
“Get home. You’ve had a long week.” She marches toward the market doors, hollering over her shoulder, “Three hundred fifty degrees for forty-five minutes!”
I smile as I watch her disappear inside, thinking how that white barn is a perfect physical monument to Annie Landry’s tenacity.
Years ago, in the wake of Jay’s and Logan’s crimes, the Landrys lost standing in the community. Vendors stopped buying their bison meat. Butchers and restaurant owners had all heard the news and were steering clear. The situation left Annie and Holt facing financial hardship.
Annie insisted there were sympathetic folks out there, people who weren’t standing by with a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers for those answering to the Landry name.
So, she had Holt and my father drag one of their old sheds to the end of the driveway, along with a fridge and a small chest freezer, so she could sell cuts of meat and fresh eggs to anyone who wanted it, no middle man.
People are fickle, hard stances even more so.
As time wore away at the gossip and judgment, and word about the stand spread, more people started making the weekly trip out to the countryside.
The farm-to-table concept was catching fire, and bison was becoming the healthier, leaner option.
Annie was already an accomplished baker, and she started adding pies to the stand menu, and then preserves, as well as maple syrup from the trees they tapped on their land and honey from the hives she started nurturing.
She became a Jill of All Trades, keeping her hands and her mind busy with new projects.
Finally, the Landrys were welcomed back into the local industry.
That was around the time Jon joined the fold. He came from a ranching family out west, holding a degree in agriculture in one hand and a cowboy hat in the other, and he had grand ideas. Not only did he want to grow the herd size, but he was adamant that they go digital.
Sarah, who had dropped out of Western to come home after the tragedy, has always been savvy with marketing, designing a ranch logo at the ripe age of seven with her pencil crayons.
She set up social media pages for the store and a website for the ranch, sharing everything from insights about raising bison to the family’s history in Cold River.
Jon started posting videos about everyday life and managed to grow a following online.
Together, they have helped breathe much-needed new life into North Country Bison—both figuratively and literally, as Sarah seems pregnant almost as often as she isn’t.
Five years ago, with Jon’s goading—or relentless pestering—the Landrys replaced the shed with a large, permanent kitchen and store down the road, still on their property but away from the main house.
It has its own parking lot that is bustling most Saturdays, when people from all over come for meat and eggs, but also produce, cheese, and floral arrangements from local vendors, and ready-to-cook meals made by Annie and Cheryl, a lovely lady from their church who works for the Landrys.
At holiday time, people can preorder turkeys from Oakridge Farm.
In the fall, the Shepherd family from two concession roads over drops a wagon full of pumpkins, and people come to pose for pictures in front of it before shopping for their Thanksgiving pies and jack-o’-lanterns, perhaps catching a glimpse of the famed bison herd in the distance, now one of the largest in the province.
Not only has Landry Market become a bustling hub for local businesses, it’s a shining example of one woman’s perseverance and continued faith in people, even when many of them showed her none.
And one day, I will figure out a way to pay for a damn meal from here without Annie circumventing my efforts.
With a heavy sigh of frustration, I head home.