Chapter 7
The next morning Sterling got up and got dressed in the bunkhouse, then sauntered over to the main cabin, where he poured himself a cup of coffee. He joined Toby, who was already busy prepping hash browns by hand. Sterling frowned. “Surely a food processor would be a faster way to do this.”
“Yeah, probably is,” Toby agreed, with a shrug, “but we ain’t got one, and this way is easy enough.” Toby passed him a potato and the grater, along with a cutting board and a knife. He pointed at a pile of raw russets. “Peel the potatoes in this stack and then grate them up, please.”
Sterling laughed. “That’s why it’s easy enough because you just rope us all into helping.”
“If you’re eating, you’re helping,” Toby stated, without rancor.
Sterling smiled, put down his coffee cup, grabbed the knife and began peeling potatoes, one by one.
“Will you do anything about that aunt of yours?” Toby asked, a few minutes later.
“I don’t know. … I wasn’t prepared to deal with it at all, until I got hurt,” he shared. “And, even then, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go there, you know? But as I look around here and realize how good it would be to have my own place, it makes me wonder.”
“Exactly, and, if you have rights to something, you should have it.”
“Do I though?” he asked, with a wry look. “I didn’t get a copy of the will. I didn’t get anything.”
“That’s why you need to go talk to that lawyer.”
“And I do have an appointment to see him, but—”
“No buts,” Toby railed. “If you aren’t fighting for yourself, who else will?”
He winced at that. “Ouch. That feels like a low blow.”
“You can take that blow at any height you want,” Toby said, “but you’ve been bending over backward, helping a lot of people in life, so sometimes you need a little bit of help yourself.”
Sterling groaned.
Toby wagged a finger in his face. “Now, Sterling, you listen to me. This lawyer of Timber’s is good.
He’s very good, and he’s been working with veterans for a long time.
He says he’s seen a shocking number of us taken advantage of and treated like second-class citizens, which is all the more insulting considering the conditions and the sacrifice required to be in the military,” he stated, staring at Sterling.
Toby continued. “We have spent an awful lot of time out there in some pretty unbelievable conditions, at least in some cases and specifically in your case. Yet you come back home to find out people took advantage while you were gone, and it’s just not right.”
“No, it’s not, but, for all I know, she’s lived there for so long that she has the legal right or something.”
“Yeah, and maybe a judge would see that completely differently, considering she sent her nephew into foster care.”
Sterling snorted at that. “She didn’t even question that decision. I don’t think she thought about it for even a moment.”
“Right, and that’s another reason why you need to at least talk to the lawyer, and he should get a copy of your mother’s will.”
“Only if it’s been filed, and we know that sometimes what people say is completely different.”
“Oh, I know, and that’s also why I’m telling you that you need to fight for yourself.
I understand why you’re here and what you’re after,” Toby stated, “but that property is a place for you to call home, even if you choose to sell it and get something else. It doesn’t sound like she’s doing very well with it anyway. ”
“I don’t know whether she is or not,” Sterling noted, “and that’s not something I could just step in and run anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter. She’s lived rent-free for all these years, and she’s probably worried that you’ll come back and tap her on the shoulder one day.”
“I doubt it,” he muttered. “She’s probably been storing away all kinds of evidence over the years as to why she shouldn’t have to give it up.”
“Maybe so, but that’s not up to her. It’s entirely up to the legal system.”
“The lawyer appointment is today,” Sterling shared reluctantly.
Toby nodded, clearly pleased. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. Let us know how it goes, and maybe stay in town long enough that you can do a pickup for us too.”
Sterling laughed. “Sounds as if that’s the deal for anybody who goes to town, right?”
“Absolutely. Almost anybody who goes to town gets to do a pickup,” he stated, with a grin.
“Even if it’s just groceries, you know there’ll be something else that I need.
And Timber always needs stuff,” Toby shared, shaking his head.
“So expect a big long list of errands, but sometimes it’s ready so you can just drive up, and they load it for you. ”
“Oh, I like that,” Sterling said. “Giving me a shopping list that’s a mile long though isn’t so much fun.”
“But if it gets you cinnamon buns at the end of the day, you won’t argue, right?”
Sterling eyed him in surprise. “Is that a promise?”
Toby laughed. “I’m not sure I’m willing to make it a promise at this moment,” he teased, “but I certainly can’t do them without the groceries.”
“Right, got it. One of those subtle messages that says, Do what I ask, and I’ll take it under consideration. I get it.”
“Oh, I’m more than considering,” Toby said, “and I make them on a fairly regular basis, but I can’t make them if I don’t have what I need.”
At that, Timber stepped into the kitchen and asked, “Make what? What don’t you have stuff for?”
Sterling looked over at him and said, “Toby’s torturing me with the thought of cinnamon buns.”
Timber grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Are we having cinnamon buns today?”
“No.” Toby’s response was quick and concise. “Dwight doesn’t feel so good. So he can’t be in the kitchen until he’s feeling better. Plus, I can’t make cinnamon buns unless somebody is going to town to get supplies.”
“I can’t,” Timber stated. “I’ve already got a couple meetings today.”
“I’m going in to see that lawyer today,” Sterling shared.
“Well then, you’re it,” Toby declared with delight.
“Yeah, apparently I am,” Sterling muttered. “Who knew that was a game you guys played here?”
Timber nodded. “It’s only a game because there’s always stuff to be picked up, and it’s not necessarily a job anybody wants to do on a regular basis,” he explained. “So we all do it and spread it around. That way it’s not such a pain to one person.”
“I’m happy to do it today,” Sterling said with a smirk, as he looked back over at Toby, “particularly if cinnamon buns are involved.”
Toby just laughed and repeated, “Can’t do it without the stuff.”
“You’ll have to start pretty fast though,” Timber noted, with a big smile. “Better just keep that already on the back burner.”
“Right,” Toby muttered, “as if I’ll ever be able to. Not with you guys inhaling food faster than I can make it.”
At that, Timber asked him, “Do you need some temporary help in here?”
Toby shook his head. “Dwight will be healthy in no time. And I’m too ornery and set in my ways. The only one who wouldn’t piss me off or who I wouldn’t kick out of the kitchen would be Jared.”
“I can ask him to come in and give you a hand.”
“He wouldn’t appreciate that much. He’s far too excited about whatever he’s building over in the main bunkhouse.”
Timber laughed. “Yeah, we’re finishing off the bathrooms and the multiple showers.”
“He would not be impressed if I hauled him out of there to help me in the kitchen.”
“Maybe not, but he loves cinnamon buns as much as the rest of us.”
With a big grin, Sterling announced, “If I’m going to get cinnamon bun ingredients, I need sustenance.
” He grabbed some food that Toby was serving up on big platters.
Sterling smiled as he took it to go. Just as he stepped out the front door of the main cabin, he came to a halt.
He turned and yelled out to everybody, “We’ve got llamas all over the front yard, particularly in the driveway.
I can’t leave for cinnamon bun supplies until they are all corralled. ”
Next came a shuffle of feet and the scraping of chair legs on the floor, as the men gathered here stood and raced past Sterling. He had to chuckle. The temptation of cinnamon buns worked on everyone, it seemed.
On his way into town with the list of errands in his pocket, Sterling wondered why, after all these years, he was finally contemplating doing something about his mother’s property—or at least looking into it.
Part of it was that he was back here again.
Even more so, he’d seen Timber’s place, having all that space, having land that you could call your own and could never get kicked off of was important to Sterling, becoming even more so.
When he tried to explain it to the lawyer later this morning, it didn’t take long for the lawyer to get it.
The attorney nodded. “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that tale,” he shared. “Should we end up in court, the judge will quite likely ask why you waited so long.”
“Once I became of age, I went into the service and was mostly overseas for many years. Then I got injured, and I was recovering for a long time. I’m just now out of rehab,” he explained.
“When I was released, I became acutely aware that I really had no place to go. No home to go to. I met my friend Timber when we were both in the military. We’ve kept in touch with each other.
He has an animal sanctuary called the Haven nearby, and he invited me there for as long as I want to get busy doing something at least, while I figured out what to do with my life.
The navy was my career. Now I need a new one.
Since I’ve been here, I keep thinking about Ma, and it occurred to me that I never got a copy of her will nor even the chance to know what it said.
I don’t know how my mother’s property, the farm, was left to my aunt, when I remember Ma speaking about it all being mine someday.
After my mother died, I lived with Grandpa a short while.
I don’t remember Grandma at all. After Grandpa’s death, I was quickly bumped into foster care, and the rest of the family cut me off. ”