Chapter 3
As I watch the worn-out hat and equally worn blue jeans saunter back across the yard, I barely know what to process first. My head feels like it’s about to explode.
He’s the police chief? That guy? And there’s truly no conceivable way to connect to the internet here?
And Kevin knew this and sent me anyway? I’m supposed to exist here with a landline and nothing else.
Is there even regular network TV? Or do the mountains keep that out, too?
This is the perfect little getaway spot?
No wonder it came for free. Kevin must have really wanted me out of his hair to send me here for the whole summer.
In this moment, I scarcely know what to do. Part of me wants to march into this little yellow house and call Kevin and give him a piece of my mind. Another part of me wants to just get back in my car and go home.
The second option, though, has some serious drawbacks, like the workers showing up tomorrow at seven a.m. to rip my house apart inside.
And without a job to go to, I wouldn’t even have a place to escape the remodeling.
I suspect that becoming some sad, wandering person searching for places to go every day would not help my current state of mind.
Of course, Kevin and Patrick have a guest suite at their house. Me showing up with a suitcase is pretty much exactly what Kevin deserves, in my estimation.
But Patrick doesn’t. And he probably doesn’t need an uninvited houseguest at the moment, given all that he has going on.
Sydney doesn’t have a spare bedroom at her condo, but she does have a couch. And ... a boyfriend who’s probably sleeping over sometimes, and none of us would feel comfortable with me being there for that .
What it boils down to in my heart is ... I just don’t want to be a nuisance anymore, a person who’s in the way. I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted. And right now I don’t feel especially wanted ... anywhere.
Standing there in the middle of nowhere, wearing an ugly hat to cover my ugly hair, with no place to go but this shabby little abandoned house, remembering all the people back in Cincinnati who think I’m strong and resilient and happy, I feel like I’m ... none of those things. I feel alone.
Almost as alone as when my parents died while I was in college. It’s different certainly, in so many ways. But it’s a familiar feeling. One I never wanted to feel again.
I suffer the urge to just get back in my car and cry. At least it’s a familiar, private place to lick my wounds.
But what good would that do? Besides, I hardly ever cry, so I’m not gonna start now. This situation is pathetic enough without a total breakdown.
Thus, once again, I regroup. I take a deep breath, walk up onto the old concrete porch, reach under the black rubber welcome mat that looks right out of 1975, and pluck up the promised key.
Inside, it’s pretty much what I expected at this point. I see hints of bygone charm in arched doorways, a redbrick fireplace with a dark wooden mantel, nooks and cubbies tucked in here and there. But like the exterior, it’s all in pretty serious need of a makeover.
A glance out the sliding glass doors in back brings the lake into distant view, but I’m too miffed right now to even step outside and investigate.
After all, I’ve envisioned a cozy couch, a big-screen TV, and hours and hours of losing myself in other people’s drama—real or made up, I didn’t even care.
What I’ve got instead is a just so-so couch, a not-especially-big screen, and probably very little to watch on it.
Shallow as it may seem, I’m still trying to get over that particular disappointment.
On a fridge that was state of the art twenty years ago, I see a slip of paper that says “Matt,” with a phone number, beneath a Kentucky-shaped magnet.
I already dislike that this man Kevin never even mentioned seems to be my lifeline for all things Lost and Found.
Is he really the chief of police? More like some Old West lawman wannabe with that silly hat of his.
Then, just when I think I have late Grandma Mabel pegged—typical sweet older grandmother who wore sweatshirts with cows or sheep or teddy bears on them, went to church every Sunday, didn’t get enough visits from her grandchildren, and cooked up a storm of meat and potatoes in this small galley kitchen—she throws me a curveball when I open her bedroom door.
I’m gobsmacked to find a room covered from top to bottom in blue skies and clouds. All four walls and the ceiling, too. Only the floor is spared, but it’s sporting sky-blue carpet, so maybe it really wasn’t.
I’ve seen rooms with accent walls like this, but I’ve never seen one where every surface is meant to make you think you’re up in the sky.
At first I think the overwhelming look is a very detailed mural, but a closer look reveals that it’s wallpaper.
As a decor choice, it hovers somewhere between garish and a step too far into whimsical.
The furniture is painted white—white bed, white dresser, white nightstands, and a small white wooden chair in one corner.
The bedding and curtains are white, too—a creative conglomeration of white lace, white eyelet, and white cotton with white ruffled frills.
Although the rest of the home is graced with old family photos or random chain store art, there are no pictures on the walls in this room—the clouds are the art.
I don’t like it at all, and in fact, I wonder how I’m going to stand sleeping in this room, until I remember that at least it’ll be dark.
But even as I’m mentally maligning Mabel’s extremely bold choices, a part of me is intrigued.
Mabel, there was more to you than I was giving you credit for.
I vaguely wonder what else I might find to tell me who Mabel was.
I begin to unpack my car. Which I guess means I’m planning to stay.
At least until my renovations are done. Unless I make the bad financial move to just spring for a hotel or rental someplace else entirely, it seems like the only real option I have.
This is no longer about being committed to a plan so much as it’s about having few other choices.
Hell, I can’t even google other destinations without venturing to the library the cowboy wannabe next door mentioned or getting some good luck at the Piggly Wiggly.
Upon realizing I brought way too many clothes for the middle of nowhere, I unpack only one of three suitcases into Mabel’s closet, stowing the rest in a corner.
I put Nancy’s gift sun hat on the pegboard by the front door, where it’ll be easy to reach.
I place a keepsake teddy bear from my past, Edgar J.
Growlington III, on the bedside table, feeling bizarrely glad I brought him for reasons I don’t even understand, and I pull out framed photos of my parents, Kevin and Patrick, and Sydney, placing them in the living room.
In the one of Kevin and Patrick, they’re standing in front of a Mayan pyramid, both wearing wide-brimmed hats with drawstrings that make them look more like explorers than city-slicker vacationers.
I sneer at Kevin in his travel hat as I arrange the pictures on a table near the window.
As I tote my toiletry bag into the bathroom—a pink-tiled affair from days gone by that makes me roll my eyes—I begin carving out a plan in my head for tomorrow. Plans, activities—that seems key to surviving this without going stir-crazy.
I’ll call the remodelers and ask them to put a rush on the kitchen redo as much as possible. I didn’t bother with that originally, telling them I’d be away all summer.
I’ll try to find a picturesque locale to take a photo, which I’ll post on my social media if I can find the sweet spot at the Piggly Wiggly, to let my followers know I’m going off the grid for some “me time.” And if the Piggly Wiggly fails me, I’ll sojourn to the library.
I don’t like not being able to connect with people who actually valued me delivering their news, given that they might be the only people who really miss me, but I can’t see any way around that for now.
And then ... well ... I guess I’ll have to figure out what “me time” truly means. If it can’t be movies and internet and texting, I’ll have to think through what it would have been for me in a pre-internet world. I guess I don’t honestly know myself anymore without that level of connection.
Again, I need plans, activities, no matter how simple—ways to pass the days, and the nights.
Doing my time here already seems like it’s going to be much harder than it did this morning when I left.
But I’ll figure it out. I have to. I slept away too many days waiting for the chemo exhaustion to wear off—if there’s one thing I won’t do, it’s sleep the summer away.
When the avocado-green table phone rings, I jump. My first thought: Police Chief Matthew Cordray. Lord, I hope it’s not him. And I instantly miss being able to decide whether to take a call based on knowing who it is.
Reluctantly, I pick up. “Hello.”
“Oh good, you’re there. I was starting to get worried when I didn’t hear from you.” Kevin. Glancing at a wall clock, I see that day has somehow already turned to evening.
“Serves you right,” I snap.
“What? What do you mean? Is something wrong there?”
My jaw drops. “Is something wrong here? Are you serious?”
“Yes. What’s wrong? What’s going on?” He sounds alarmed, like he’s worried the house fell down or something.
“Okay, for starters, no internet connection, Kev? What were you thinking?”
He stays silent a moment. Then finally replies, ever so casually, “Oh yeah. I guess I didn’t think to mention it.”
“How could you not mention that?”
“I guess because ... it’s always just been that way. And when I’m there, I just ... deal with it. There’s actually a spot at the—”
“At the old Piggly Wiggly,” I cut him off. “Yeah, I heard.”
“So you met Matt then.”