CHARLIE
“So, you working on the ranch again?” the owner asked.
“How’s your pops? Been a while since I’ve seen him around.”
The smile dropped from the owner’s face immediately. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “He was a good man.”
“Right.” The owner looked unsure how to respond. “That’ll be two hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
“Seems high,” Charlie said, mostly to himself.
“Well, the price of stock has gone up, you know. I’d have kept it down if I could.” The owner was defensive, understandably.
“No, I get it.” Charlie pulled out his wallet to pay. “It was just… an observation.”
The owner didn’t seem to buy it, and Charlie didn’t feel like explaining himself further would do much to change the man’s mind.
So, he didn’t. It was a conversational technique he’d used since he was a kid—that being say less.
If he ever detected that a conversation was becoming more of an awkward situation, he would just shut his mouth.
There was far less opportunity to say the wrong thing when you didn’t say anything at all.
He paid for his items and then took them out to his truck without another word.
He secured his items in the back, then began the drive back through town.
Denson Oaks was smaller than he remembered, just a few blocks really.
A few stores, a couple diners; a doctor’s office, a dentist. It was a slow-paced town that hadn’t changed much at all over the years, and that’s what Charlie liked best about it.
Everything was outdated and quiet, as though the most recent renovation had happened back at the turn of the last century.
Even the ranch Charlie had inherited was as unchanging as the town itself.
It looked exactly the way it had while his mother was still alive.
His father was a romantic who insisted on keeping things exactly the way they had been during the happiest times in his life, and Charlie saw no reason to do things any differently.
As he was pulling up to the barn, his favorite horse came trotting up to the fence to greet him. If she’d been a dog, her tail would have been wagging. Charlie stepped out of the truck and figured he’d better go say hello before unloading.
“Howdy, Lena.” He approached the horse and she let him rub the top of her nose before nickering happily.
“How’s your day going? Hope it’s going better than mine.
” The horse nudged his hand, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a baggie with apple slices in it.
He always had treats on hand, just in case.
In general, Charlie found animals a lot easier to understand than most people.
All you had to do was give them a little peace offering every once in a while, and they’d trust you to the end of the world.
All they cared about was whether you were friend or foe.
Beyond that, their expectations were simple and easy.
He wished people would be as straightforward, but they rarely were.
He unloaded the truck and brought his new wheelbarrow to the toolshed outside the barn.
He had a few more chores to take care of before he could get started on the books.
He needed to find more money somewhere, maybe cut some corners somewhere, so he wouldn’t have to take out a loan.
The last thing he wanted to do was go into debt. He’d only just paid off his truck.
At least the old mower was still working.
He fueled it up from a gas can he’d filled up in town while he was there, and he got to mowing the property.
Some people might have called the ranch a liability or suggested he sell it to get whatever money he could out of the land.
But Charlie couldn’t bear the thought. This was where he grew up.
This was more of a home than any other place he’d ever lived.
When he reached a particular tree on his property, he stopped the mower.
The tree stood alone on the land like a monument to his childhood—like a monument to his mother, if he was honest about it.
He had very few memories of her. She’d passed away when Charlie was still young, but the most vivid memories he had of her took place under this tree.
In the heat of summer, Charlie and his mom would sit on a picnic blanket in the shade of the tree and make sandwiches for lunch. “How come we always come out here, Mom?” he remembered asking her.
“Because it’s nice,” she’d answered. “Don’t you think so? Do we need another reason? Look around you, kid.”
He had stopped to do as she suggested. Those were the days when he wasn’t too proud to take anyone else’s advice.
And what he saw around him when he stopped and really looked was nothing short of paradise.
The way the wind rippled through the long grasses around them and rustled the leaves overhead was as good as a symphony to Charlie.
The sun turned everything a vivid shade of green, and the sky was neon blue in his memories.
His mother was an angel as far as he was concerned.
Beautiful auburn hair and warm brown eyes, a gentle voice and a smile that made all your worries disappear the second you saw it.
“What’s this?” he remembered asking her one day.
His little fingers were tracing a pair of initials with a plus sign between them.
The truth was he already knew what it was.
He’d just wanted to hear the story again.
He never tired of hearing it, and apparently, his mother never tired of telling it because she never called him out on the repetition.
“Well,” she said, “your father and I saved up for years for this place. We were both working more than one job, you know, just to buy this property. We thought someone was going to get to it before we could even make an offer, but no one did. It was like we were meant to have this place as our home. So, after we bought it, we left our initials in this tree to remember.”
“Like a tattoo?” Charlie had asked, remembering his uncle’s inked skin.
His mother chuckled. “Sure, like a tattoo for the tree.” He remembered her tracing the letters with her own elegant fingers before a thought seemed to occur to her.
“Hang on.” She’d pulled out a pocketknife she always carried with her and started to carve more letters below the two that were already there.
When she was finished, Charlie looked to see his own initials added below those of his parents. “What’s this for?” he’d asked.
She had given him one of her warm smiles and answered, “One day, all this will be yours. This way you’ll remember that this property is home, and this tree is your family tree.”
Young Charlie had known that wasn’t what the phrase family tree typically meant. He’d had to make one on paper for one of his classes. But he liked this version much better anyway. Even today, he still liked it better.
Charlie hopped off the mower and strode toward the tree.
For some reason, he wanted to run his hands along those initials again.
It reminded him that all the hard work he would need to do, all the sacrifices he would need to make to save the ranch, would be worth it.
This place was where the spirit of his parents still lived.
It was the embodiment of family, the embodiment of home.
As he approached that familiar tree, his presence disturbed a flock of crows gathered there.
His chest tightened at the sight of it. Why had he chosen to visit this spot today of all days?
The birds felt like an omen of some kind, though he couldn’t tell whether it was good or bad.
His father had always been the superstitious type, and no matter how hard Charlie tried to avoid falling into the same trap, he couldn’t quite banish all of it.
The universe always seemed to be sending messages.
If only he could learn how to interpret them correctly.
His father’s confidence, in that respect, didn’t seem to have passed down the same way the superstition had.
He approached the tree where all his childhood memories seemed to mingle, and he found those three initials carved into its trunk.
When he traced them with his fingers, he felt as though whatever bad luck the birds had brought was undone.
Deep down, he knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help himself.
The habit was in his blood at this point.
And maybe it wasn’t the worst habit to have gotten from his father.
Maybe it was a form of hope in a world that left you very little real control.
He decided to embrace the instinct and traced the initials one more time.