He wondered if over time his father stayed mad about this, or if he ever saw this engraving over the five years he was gone and thought fondly of him. He wouldn’t have thought so before, but Cora’s admission of what his father said just before he died,Roy was good, was making him rethink everything he thought he knew.
After standing back up, Roy slid the key into the hole with ease, muscle memory taking over as he turned it in just the right direction until he heard the familiar click and pushed the door open.
Roy blinked twice, then three times, as he stood just inside the threshold, the front door still ajar behind him. Everything looked simultaneously exactly the same and entirely different. Although the house had the same furniture and the room was in the same arrangement as it was five years ago, there was an emptiness that wasn’t there before.
His father was supposed to be sitting in his spindle-backed Boston rocker, his Bible open in his lap and a pencil behind his ear, taking notes for Sunday’s sermon. He was supposed to look up at him with a fatherly mixture of relief and annoyance and ask him where he had been gallivanting around at this hour.
But the rocking chair was empty, the foyer room absent of life. His father would never again sit in that chair.
Quickly turning away to block out the memory, Roy made his way up the narrow staircase, the faint and familiar smell of mahogany filling his nostrils as he made his way upstairs. Smell was the most remarkable of the five senses, Roy believed, because of its unique ability to take one back in time and evoke long forgotten memories. He wasn’t well-versed on the science behind why this was the case, but he knew this was his experience. Surrounded by the smell of his childhood home, he was once again a kid, and his father was alive.
The tenth step predictably creaked when he put his weight on it—the step that Roy had trained himself to deliberately skip when he was sneaking in and out of the house.
His hand trembled as he reached for the doorknob to the room at the top of the landing. He wondered what his father had done to his room after his departure; perhaps he turned it into a private study, something Father often said that he needed but never got around to making space for.
But when Roy swung open the door to his bedroom, he was surprised to find it exactly as he left it. Emotional welled up in him as he looked around the familiar room. It was a small room with only the necessities—a wooden bed and dresser, a small wardrobe for hanging his Sunday best, and a toy chest filled with a mixture of handmade toys and occasional treats for a nickel at the general store. His father, surviving on a meager pastor’s salary, was not a wealthy man, but he’d provided Roy with exactly what he needed and even made sacrifices so he could have some extras.
I’m really home…The thought intruded Roy’s mind, and he quickly stamped it out. Despite the feelings of nostalgia brought by the smell and sights and even the creak of the tenth step on the staircase, this place hadn’t been home for five years. No matter what Cora said that his father had told her on his deathbed, the emotional ramblings of a dying man didn’t supersede the words he said when he was healthy and lucid.
If you want to keep living under my room, you will get down on your knees and ask the Good Lord for forgiveness. His father’s words—some of the last words he ever said to him—were almost audible in Roy’s head, as if his father was standing right there, speaking directly into his ear.
As Roy sat on his wooden bed, made by his father’s own hands when he was a small child who had outgrown his crib, he thought about what he had said moments before, the thing had pushed his father over the edge and prompted such a response. It would have been one thing if he were genuinely struggling with his faith and was confiding in his father that he needed help navigating the doubt. Roy had no doubt that his father would have guided him through that dark valley.
But instead, Roy had told his father in a fit of anger that he no longer believed, not because he meant it, but because he had wanted to hurt his father the way he felt his father had hurt him.
They both had said things they didn’t mean that day, and now it was too late for either of them to reconcile.
Roy pulled off his boots and lay down on that old familiar bed without removing the rest of his clothes. He covered himself with the red-and-white crocheted blanket that one of the ladies from church had made for him shortly after his mother had abandoned him and his father. At the time, the blanket had practically swallowed his small body whole; now, it was just the right size to cover his body, and he was surprised to find it brought him the same warmth and comfort.
This was the last place in the world he had expected to be when he woke up that morning to another ordinary day at Morton Ranch, but today had turned out to be anything but ordinary. In less than twenty-four hours, he had learned of his father’s passing, cared for the beautiful young woman—there was no sense in denying that she was indeed beautiful—who brought him the unexpected news that propelled him into grief. Now, he was laying in his childhood bed, mentally and emotionally drained and on the verge of sleep.
Roy didn’t even realize he had closed his eyes until, when he opened them, pale sunlight was streaming through the window. The emotional toll of the previous day had lulled him into a deep and dreamless sleep, and if he were being honest, it was the best sleep he had had in a long time, considering he usually slept in a crowded room with five other men.
Before he even had time to stretch or wipe the sleep from his eyes, he heard sounds coming from the kitchen. His heart raced, adrenaline coursing through him, and he was suddenly on high alert. His father’s death was no secret in Lakewood, and this house had been sitting unoccupied since. It would not be surprising if some miscreants seized this opportunity to rob the house of any items of value that they thought his father had left behind.
Roy threw back the blanket and scrambled out of bed, careful not to make any noise as he made his way downstairs—even remembering to skip the tenth step. He wanted to make sure they didn’t get away before he had time to get his hands on the vile thieves.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and moved toward the direction of the noise coming from the kitchen. But to his surprise, there were no thieves or vandals to catch in the act.
Instead, he came face to face with Cora Williams.
Chapter Nine
Cora’s eyes widened when Roy Burns turned the corner in the kitchen, wearing the same clothing as the day before. His hair was unruly, as if he had just crawled out of bed. She didn’t expect to ever see him again after their less than pleasant exchange the night before, and she certainly didn’t anticipate seeing him in his father’s house of all places. She thought he had made himself perfectly clear how he felt about coming back here.
“What are you doing here in my father’s house?” Roy asked with suspicion, and Cora realized that although she had been coming here every day since the pastor’s death—out of a mixture of habit and the need to feel close to him—in the eyes of Roy, she was nothing more than a common intruder. Her blood turned cold as she realized that she had been caught, and as both her fight or flight response failed her, she was left with only one option—to freeze, and not say anything at all.
“Well?” Roy pressed, still waiting for an answer.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Cora finally said, her words running together as she spoke quickly. “I realized that I had left my handkerchief here the night that your father passed, and I wanted to see if I could find it. It’s my favorite, you see.”
“Your handkerchief,” Roy deadpanned, raising one eyebrow. Cora could tell that he did not for one second belief this pathetic attempt at an explanation—nor could she blame him.
But then it dawned on Cora how odd it was that Roy was standing here questioning her when just the night before he had scoffed at the idea of staying in Lakewood. She practically had to force him to accept the key, and when he finally took it, he did so grudgingly.
“I should ask you the same question,” Cora said, tilting up her chin, her confidence returning. “Why are you here and not back in Wheats Ridge, which you were so eager to return to just last night?”
“That was indeed the plan,” Roy confirmed, moving toward the gas stove to heat some water. “Unfortunately, my horse, Iggy, threw a shoe, so I had no choice but to stay here for the night.” While the water was boiling, Roy began to grind coffee beans, not looking up at Cora as he spoke.
