“So, what story do the people in town like to talk about the most?” Roy asked, breaking the silence. He knew the townsfolk must have spoken poison about him after he left, about all the problems he caused in town with his antics when he was going through his phase of rebelling against his father and soiling the good name of Pastor Burns, and Roy found it hard to blame Cora for her judgment of him when she had only been told one side of the story.
“Excuse me?” Cora responded to his vague question.
“Oh, come on. I know they talk about me. The wild son of the pastor who pulled pranks around town and embarrassed his father’s good name.”
“And do you think that’s funny?” Roy noticed that Cora had not actually answered his question.
“I mean, some of them were a little bit funny.”
“What could possibly be funny about skipping church on Easter Sunday to light fireworks in the town square?” Cora fumed, clearly ruffled by the reminder.
Roy couldn’t help but wince at that one. He wasn’t surprised that antic came to her mind, since it was her own father who took him down to the station after that prank. It wasn’t one of his finer moments. He and his father had gotten into a huge argument about his future as pastor, and Roy felt like he was unwilling to listen that he didn’t want to be a pastor. His father had made the comment that he was just rebelling against his God-ordained path because he was a teenager looking for attention.
It angered Roy to not be heard, to be brushed off just for being young, so when his father was busy greeting all the parishioners as they entered the church, Roy had snuck away. He decided, the way only an immature teenage boy would do, that he would show his father what it really looked like to try to get attention.
“Yeah,” Roy conceded. “That one was a little over the top.”
Cora huffed in some semblance of agreement but didn’t respond, and Roy thought it was best not to continue that particular conversation.
It was sunset as they got closer to town, and he began to recognize some of the familiar sights—old barns and abandoned storefronts that littered the outskirts of town. The nostalgia combined with the preexisting pain of grief was almost too much to bear, but he was determined not to let Cora see him weakened by emotion.
He watched the sky fade to purple and magenta hues over the peaks of the mountains in the distance, and his entire body relaxed at the pure, comforting sight. Roy didn’t find it so hard to believe in a God that held the power to paint a scene so beautiful it could momentarily numb the pain of grief. It was never so much the idea of God Himself that turned him away; rather, it was the people of God, their judgment, disapproval, and inability to see any good in him. That perhaps he had something to offer the world or their community beyond being the next pastor of Lakewood.
Roy was relieved when, by the time they reached the town proper, it was fully dark, as now he would have night’s disguise to shield him the people who would love nothing more than to gossip about the return of the late pastor’s wayward son.
He didn’t need to ask Cora where she lived. He knew well how to get to the sheriff’s house, once making it a point to know this information so that he would know exactly where to avoid when he was playing his childish pranks around town in those last couple of years before he left—particularly after the fireworks incident.
He stopped the wagon several yards away from the house, not wanting to be spotted by the sheriff. Cora climbed out of the wagon with ease, and he was relieved to see that her ankle seemed to be feeling better.
“Make sure to stay off it as much as you can for at least another day,” Roy found himself compelled to offer this bit of unsolicited advice even though he knew she would reject it coming from him. “Keep it elevated with a pillow when you sleep and keep some cool water or ice on it, if you have any. It might feel better now, but it will probably hurt worse in the morning.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Cora said stiffly, which Roy accepted as an improvement to a complete dismissal.
He was ready to make the long journey back to the place he now called home, to push this day to the back corner of his mind and resume the life he had carved out for himself in Wheats Ridge, where he would grieve his father quietly and then go about his work.
But instead of walking toward her house, Cora held out an object in her hand, prompting Roy to receive it.
A long, brass key.
Roy didn’t reach for the key, instead staring at it as if it were a foreign object rather than something that sat in his pocket since he was old enough to be trusted with a key, something that he would recognize anywhere.
“This is the key to your father’s house,” Cora said. “Toyourhouse. Your father left everything to you. It’s yours—all you have to do is accept it.” Cora’s voice was soft now, and she was nearly pleading with him to accept the offer. Roy could tell this was important to her, that she had made some promise to his father with whom she had formed such a strong bond. He had to admit that he admired her dedication, but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t belong here.
“You keep it,” Roy said firmly. “You were closer to my father in his last years than I ever was in my entire life. Consider everything he left rightfully yours. I’ll sign any papers I need to in order to make that happen.”
“No!” Cora shouted, stamping her foot in defiance, only to wince, realizing that she had stamped her hurt foot. “He wantedyouto have everything, Roy! You were his son, and you were the only thing on his mind when he took his last breath. He loved you, Roy.”
Cora’s usual, fierce tone of voice had dissolved into despair, and for the first time, Roy saw tears in her eyes. It was almost as if she needed him to accept what his father left him for her to have closure for her own grief. He was sympathetic toward her, but in the end, this was between him and his father, and there was a lot Cora just didn’t understand.
“You don’t get it,” Roy said, his frustration mounting. “Have you ever considered that you have only heard one side of the story?Hisside? And that there might be a valid reason for why I feel this way, for why I don’t want to accept that key?”
Cora hesitated, and Roy thought for a second that she might be considering what he said.
“Here’s one part ofhis sideof the story that I do know, Roy Burns,” Cora said, using his full name for emphasis, her voice more resolute than ever. “Before he died, your father said that you were good. Those were his exact words.”
Roy’s hands froze on the horse reins at those words, the last thing he would have expected her to say.Your father said that you were good.Roy shook his head.
“You’re telling lies to try to get me to do what you want,” Roy mumbled, but deep down he wanted her to be telling the truth. Silently, he was urging her to continue, to tell him more about his last moments.
