Chapter 9
This morning, after checking on the fox, Sterling decided to work on a construction team, his mind partially on all he had learned and the rest on Chelsea, the cousin he had never met.
He had thought to quiet his mind with this more repetitious work, rather than training some of the dogs.
His plan wasn’t working. It was such an awful concept to think that Chelsea was battling her own mother and her dodgy boyfriend without any help, but it happened so often that it wasn’t really unexpected.
It’s just that, from Sterling’s perspective, he would not want anyone else to live that way.
Worried and yet not sure what he could even do about it, he continued to work through the morning. When he came in for a late lunch, Toby frowned at him and asked, “You doing okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just thinking through some unexpected updates that have thrown me a little bit,” he replied.
He walked over, poured a large glass of water from the big jug that sat on the counter, and told Toby what Lindsey had found out.
“My grandfather is alive. Aunt Penny lied to the foster home people about that, in effect lying to me. Plus, my cousin Chelsea is hiding from her mother and her mom’s sleazy boyfriend.
Someone slashed all four of Chelsea’s tires, right in the middle of town and in broad daylight.
Lindsay saw true fear in Chelsea’s gaze, yet she wouldn’t ask for help.
Lindsey is checking up with Chelsea today and will find out where Grandpa is.
I’ve got mixed feelings about seeing him, but I’m actually more worried about Chelsea right now. Is that weird? I don’t even know her.”
Toby stared at him. “Good God.”
“I know, right? I’ve been separated from them, so I haven’t had anything to do with any of them. I knew my aunt had a daughter, but it never seriously occurred to me that the daughter might not be involved in this property mess. I had just automatically lumped them together,” he acknowledged.
Toby remained silent, just letting Sterling talk.
“It really never occurred to me that Chelsea might be a decent person, much less be in trouble from her own mother and her dodgy boyfriend,” he shared.
“And of course that in trouble part really got to you.”
“Yeah.” He winced. “Yesterday I would have said that I didn’t have any family and that I didn’t give a crap,” he stated. “Today it’s a struggle to say that, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Her car tires got slashed?”
“Yes, Lindsey helped her out and drove her to work. She’s doing a practicum at the hospital, just finishing off her nursing training.
Apparently her mother didn’t support that path, but I don’t really know the full story on that part of it,” he said.
“But it doesn’t seem as if her mom particularly cares what Chelsea wants at all.
Maybe the mom’s all about control. I don’t know. ”
Sterling shrugged. “Maybe Aunt Penny’s got some irrational hate toward healthcare workers, or maybe it’s just the fact that, with such a skill, her daughter may just take off and move somewhere else, and maybe Chelsea needs to.
Maybe money is a part of it. That seems to be a theme for my aunt.
Maybe Chelsea just needs to get away so she can have her own life. ”
“I’m sure she does,” Toby said.
Timber came in quietly behind Sterling and asked, “Do you think she’s okay?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Lindsey plans to check in on her. Of course I don’t know her, and she doesn’t know me,” he noted.
Toby suggested, “Maybe you need to introduce yourself.”
Sterling frowned at Toby.
He shrugged. “Hey, she’s got no one from the sounds of it, or at least nobody who gives a crap, and I can already see that you care about her.”
“I don’t know what I feel,” he argued. “Plus, that’ll put Lindsey in a difficult spot.”
“Not really. At the moment we don’t even know for sure that Chelsea’s your cousin,” he pointed out. “All we know is that a woman who could be family has potentially run afoul of someone.”
“Yeah, apparently so.” Sterling shook his head. “What the hell is wrong with the world?”
“If everything was good and right about it,” Timber noted, “I wouldn’t be setting up this place.” He faced Sterling and nodded.
“No, you wouldn’t have to, would you?” Sterling asked. “And then the world would be a much nicer place for everybody.”
“Not to mention the little matter of what we all went through in the service,” Dwight added, joining them in the kitchen.
“As it is, the world can be a pretty messed-up place, and we can only work with what we have,” Timber pointed out, turning to address Sterling. “I get that you may not be ready to introduce yourself to her, yet she might need you to.”
“I have to decide what my involvement will be,” he noted, “and I really don’t have an answer to that.
Obviously, if I help Chelsea, I am further alienating Aunt Penny and her sleazy boyfriend.
On the one hand, I am fine with that. On the other?
It will just make this court fight over the farm even messier.
At least that’s how I feel at this moment. I mean, it all came on very suddenly.”
“Life has a way of doing that,” Timber noted, with a big smile, “but, if you wanted to make a run into town, there are supplies to pick up.” At that, he waggled his eyebrows.
Sterling sighed. “Again?”
“Every day,” Timber declared. “I swear to God it’s every day, no matter what we do or how well we plan. So now we just accept it because, if not, we would have to moan and groan. I don’t think we’ve escaped that daily run to town yet. Have we?” he asked, turning to Toby and Dwight.
Both men shook their heads.
Dwight noted, “Nope. So far, between all the different things going on, one way or another, somebody has to go to town every day. In this case, it would make perfect sense for it to be you, since you need to go anyway.”
“And do what?” Sterling asked. “Go to the hospital and talk to her? I mean it’s not as if she’s been introduced to me or that she would trust who I even am, not if I walked up to her as a stranger.”
“Good point, so maybe you should ask Lindsey to give you an introduction.”
He frowned at the thought, but worse yet was the idea that someone might intend to hurt her. “Well, damn,” he muttered.
He was handed a big plate of food, and Toby pointed. “Eat up, and then you’re doing a trip to town,” he declared. “You can think about your options on your way in.”
“What options?” he muttered. “It seems to me as if any options I ever had are probably long gone.”
“They don’t have to be, but that’s a decision you need to come to. Regardless, you can’t just sit here, mulling over what you’ll do. You need to figure out what that is and act on it.”
Sterling nodded and didn’t say a whole lot.
He agreed, but this surely wasn’t how he thought his day would go, and it definitely wasn’t how he thought his life would go.
Did he even want some family back? That was one of the biggest issues he had to confront.
“It’s weird, when you realize you’ve got family, yet you didn’t know you had family and aren’t really sure you want to change it at this point. ”
“I don’t think that choice is there anymore,” Timber smiled, “and neither do you. You just haven’t quite come to terms with it yet.”
“No, I sure haven’t,” he muttered. He sat down at the table with a few of the other stragglers and let it all go for a bit while he ate.
He proceeded to do some decent damage to the plateful of food in front of him, trying to enjoy the banter with the others.
As soon as he was done, he stood up, put his plate in the dishwasher, then nodded at Toby. “I’m heading into town to grab stuff.”
“Good enough. Let me know when you’re ready to leave, in case we need more.”
“You already know the answer to that,” Sterling quipped, giving him a wry look.
“Of course we need more.” Toby snorted. “One of these days we’ll get to the point where we don’t need more.”
Sterling chuckled. “Just not sure I believe you on that point.” And, with that, he headed out to the truck.
When he checked the gas gauge and found it on E, he quickly hopped out to talk to Timber.
Yet he immediately froze at the sight of a family of skunks, now sitting on the gravel, as if taking a break, taking over their driveway, squatting even. In a way, it was kind of prophetic.
So Sterling now had two things to discuss with Timber, where to get gas and how to get the skunks off their gravel driveway.
When Timber heard about the animal antics outside, he had to laugh. “First things first. We have an account set up at the station just before you get into town. So fill up there and tell them it goes on the Haven account.”
“Good enough.” Sterling nodded. “I’ll fill it up.”
“You won’t go far if you don’t,” Timber noted, with a smile.
“As for the skunks, this is a new problem. For today, I suggest you create a new exit, maybe along the tree line to the left, where the ground is mostly grass. Let me know what you find, and we may just order some gravel and have that second roadway set up. Probably need one anyway. As for the trip into town, just take it easy and spend some time resolving some of these family issues. Getting your life together is one of the reasons you’re here, right? ”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he muttered, as he frowned at him. “Since when does that ever just happen?”
“It doesn’t very often, if at all, but you have an opportunity to connect with a good person in the family and maybe even help someone,” Timber reminded him.
“I understand that’s not what you signed up for.
I really do. But, at times in life, when unexpected things suddenly happen, we must decide which side of it we’ll be on. This appears to be one of those times.”