I think Dad truly started letting go of his control of the store and ceding daily operations to me twelve years ago when one of the first decisions I made after graduating college and returning home was to contact the schools and arrange the science fair program. He didn’t see the value in it, until the initial bump in sales following that deal continued to grow with parents admitting they wanted to shop with us if we were that vested in their kids.
Loyalty.
Something I prize, something woven into the very fabric of my family’s history.
Something I wish others valued as much as I do.
Something that got my heart shattered—forgetting that loyalty isn’t a universal trait in others.
Chapter Two
Desi
“…and today’s weather in Maudlin Falls will be mostly sunny skies, with highs in the low seventies and lows in the mid-sixties tonight. Don’t forget, WMFF listeners, today at two, the Maudlin Falls Methodist Ladies are meeting over at MF-Squared for theirOrchids, Oh My!class. All are welcome, and it only costs—”
I punch the radio’s power button to silence Terry Hackworth mid-sentence. I was doing okay listening to it until that. I changed from satellite radio over to the local station when I stopped for gas in Colley after getting off the Interstate around dawn.
That was a mistake.
The change in radio station, I mean. Not getting gas.
Last night, I stopped about an hour north of Colley and stayed at a large hotel where I felt reasonably sure no one would know me. I wanted to remain incognito today for as long as possible.
Mostly because I’m a chicken. I still don’t know how to approach Tomas.
I drive along in silence for a few minutes with nothing more than the sound of my Range Rover’s tires smoothly gliding along the apparently fresh asphalt of New Falls Road. The road’s name is a little misleading because it’s at least twice as old as I am, and I’m thirty-six.
Looks like the county finally got around to repaving the old two-lane road sometime recently. Which is one of the reasons why I decided to drive my SUV down here in the first place instead of flying and renting a car. I thought I’d need it while dodging potholes the size of fricking VW Beetles.
I wonder what other changes I’ll discover that have taken place over the past three years?
That’s not a question I seriously want my soul to ponder because I’m here first and foremost to do myjob. Get in, get out, preferably as quickly and quietly as possible before I can even think about dealing with anything else. I reserved a hotel room down in Sarcan for tonight because it’s closer to Webley, the county seat, where most of my business will take place.
Plus it means fewer chances of me being clocked by anyone in town before I’m ready to deal with those ramifications.
I can’t help looking for other changes as I drive. I spot a freshly painted barn, another farmer built a new pole barn. Yet another has a new-looking section of fence stretching along the road to keep his placid cows safely contained in his picturesque pasture.
Mostly, though, it looks remarkably unchanged from when I last drove this road three years ago, only then I was heading the other direction.
And everything looked blurry, because I was crying.
I’m still twenty minutes outside of town when I slow and take a left turn, down a well-used dirt road running beneath a thick canopy of old oak trees arching above it. Old Falls Road.
This all appears achingly unchanged, miles of woods with glimpses of pastures and fields through the rare break in the trees.
I’m glad to see no one sold the surrounding land and turned it into a housing development and closed it off to the public.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m parking in the rustic clearing the locals all use for this purpose. At this time of morning on a weekday, there’s no one else here. I’d counted on that when I let my body click into autopilot and head down here.
I get out and quietly close the door, hesitant to disturb the still air with the sound. Nearby, I hear the falls softly rumbling, where the Maudlin River burbles and slides around craggy rocks before dropping twenty-five feet to continue its journey through Maudlin Falls and points beyond.
It sounds like a home I can no longer claim. Perhaps the last true home I ever knew.
Or, if I’m really honest with myself, maybe it was theonlytrue home I ever knew.
The hand-painted sign still sits slightly askance on an old 4x4 post at the foot of the trail. As I walk past it, I reach out and touch the sign’s rough, faded surface, the way I have hundreds of times before.
The way he always used to.
