Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Ella
The next day, my mother took her flight back to Paris and promised to visit in exactly ninety days.
That was when the firewood ran out.
James had purchased a small amount of pre-chopped wood with the promise that he’d cut down a bunch of trees on our ten-acre wooded farm and chop more himself. The only heat source in the old 1929 farmhouse was a giant beast of a woodstove that was smack-dab in the middle of the living room.
It was a chilly September evening, and I realized I was out of pre-cut wood.
It was pitch-dark out, nearly eight p.m. and I stood on the porch, glaring at the axe in anger.
This farmhouse was James’s project, and I wanted it too, but not alone.
I wanted it with him, a dozen chickens, some milking goats, maybe a horse in the future. I wanted all of that with him.
Now, I didn’t want any of it. I wanted our old house on Thunderbird Lane with neighbors a stone’s throw away and central heating.
I pulled on my boots and my jacket, hefted the axe in my hand with a growl, and then stepped out into the crisp autumn air.
After marching off the porch, I set a large log onto the chopping block. Then I raised the axe over my head and came down hard.
With a yelp, I jumped backward, almost taking my foot clean off. I’d been about ten inches off from my trajectory.
I tried again and missed.
This was supposed to be James’s job!
I tried again, finally hitting the log, but not hard enough.
Again.
Nothing happened other than my arms hurting and my temper boiling. The axe just stuck in the wood as it started to rain heavily, huge droplets falling on my hair and face.
I screamed in frustration.
Yanking the axe from the log, I tried again. I hit the log hard this time, and it fell to the side, still whole.
All of the anger I’d felt since the moment I’d heard that God allowed my beautiful, perfect husband to be taken from me bubbled to the surface then. A murderous rage rushed through me, and I bellowed at the sky, tears streaming down my face.
“I hate you!” I screamed at God, shame and relief washing over me now that I’d finally let Him know how I felt about this whole thing.
“I hate you!” I broke into sobs, shocked as despair and shame rushed through me at the fact that I’d just screamed at God.
But the pain was too much. It was swallowing me whole, and I couldn’t feel the peace of the Holy Spirit like I normally could.
It was gone, replaced by all this rage and sadness.
“You should have protected him!” I shouted at the sky as I gripped the axe tightly in my fingertips.
“Where were you?” I bellowed, sobbing as I hefted the axe, and one hack after the other, I swung it, just letting it sink into the ground with no real aim, screaming in frustration like a wild lunatic.
“Why didn’t you protect him?” I cried, pounding the ground as bits of grass and dirt flew everywhere, and my arms felt like putty.
I let all of the rage I’d been holding on to be released through that axe.
I screamed and chopped at the dirt until my voice was hoarse, until I heard a twig snap in the woods, and I froze.
My head snapped up, and I locked eyes with…
A cowboy.
A guy in his late twenties, wearing dirty jeans, a flannel shirt, and a brown, worn-out cowboy hat, peered at me from the tree line in the back of my yard. He held a rifle in his hands and looked ready to shoot. He was soaking wet as the rain pelted down on the both of us.
It hit me then that I’d been screaming like a deranged maniac, and he’d probably thought I was being ripped open by a bear.
I dropped the axe, my chest heaving, and he lowered the gun to the ground.
His eyes were wide as he stalked forward carefully, his gaze running over my face.
I couldn’t even care what I must have looked like—mascara streaks down my cheeks, hair a mess, red-faced, and anger seeping through my pores, no doubt. I just didn’t care.
“You alright, miss?” he asked, his hands out to show me he was no longer holding the gun.
If it were any other day, I’d have been mortified, but not today. Today, I didn’t care about anything. Today, I was just angry, with no room for any other emotions.
I stood taller, wiped the tears and rain from my cheeks, and shook my head.
“No. No, I’m not,” I growled. “My husband was murdered and didn’t chop enough wood before he left me forever.
So, no, I’m not okay.” I said the last part with a venom I didn’t normally have and then stalked off into the house, slamming the back door and then trudging up the stairs to the master.
After kicking off my boots, I stripped off my wet clothes, pulled the covers over me, and broke down into sobs for the billionth time.
At this point, I was sick of crying. But at the same time, it was the only thing that felt real.
The house was bitterly cold that night, so I piled four blankets high over me and finally drifted off. The last thing I thought of was the terrified-looking man holding the shotgun while I chopped at the ground with an axe, screaming like a maniac.
James would have gotten a kick out of that. What a way to meet the neighbors, he would have said.