EVAN
The lodge is the next place they should renovate, I think sourly, as I lie in the bed and stare up at the water-stained ceiling.
My room is small, with a desk, a tiny dinette, and a dresser that I don’t even have clothes to put inside. In hindsight, maybe I should have stayed behind at the property to get my things, but I was so focused on leaving that I didn’t stop to think about getting my clothes.
There’s a tight bathroom off the main area, and it emits a constant mildewy smell that concerns me. Both the sink and the shower are leaking, dripping steadily, a rhythm that pings in the back of my mind, a constant metronome for my self-pitying thoughts.
Maybe I’d feel better if I had some of my things. A book… or something other than the flannels I’m wearing from the general store.
But I don’t, and the TV doesn’t get any signal. So I just lie on the bed, Blue at my side, listening to the sink and shower drip out oftime with one another. I could fix them if I just went to my truck and grabbed the toolbox. Several times I try to convince myself that putting my hands to work is going to make me feel better, but I can’t find it in myself to try and fix anything right now.
Normally, I’m pretty good at trusting my instincts. And I have no idea how Amy was able to slip past my defenses like that. I fell in love with a woman who wanted nothing else but to take from me something more than just land—my home, my family history, my favorite place in the world.
The only place I felt comfortable being after returning from the Corps.
“Evan!”
I wince, closing my eyes and going very still on the bed, like he might just go away if I ignore him for long enough.
“Evan Thatcher, I know you’re in there!” Gramps’s voice comes muffled through the door, and he hits it with something—his cane. It booms through the hallway and through my room, and if we didn’t know the people who own the lodge, I’d think I’d get kicked out for the noise. “Don’t make me get a key from Edna!”
Edna, the lady at the front desk, the one who’d asked me if I was sure when I said I’d get a room for two weeks and paid up front for it. Now that I’ve seen the state of the bathroom, I understand her hesitation.
I force myself up off the bed and open the door for him, face flat as he pushes inside.
Blue, starved for attention from other people, swarms at Gramps, nudging her head under his hand. We’ve never done anything like this before—never stayed anywhere but the cabintogether. She’s been anxious, stuck between pacing the room nervously and coming to me, trying to comfort me through my obvious stress.
I wish that comfort was working. But each time I look at my dog, I just think of Amy, stuck under the tree, laughing.
“I thought she was a wolf.”
“Can you get out of your head for a damn second?” Gramps grouses, and I realize he’s been talking. I focus back in on him, and he shakes his head, walking steadily—and much faster than he was months ago—over to the little table with two wooden chairs on either side of it. “Sit,” Gramps says, gesturing with his cane, and I obey, letting out a breath through my teeth.
“Carp told me about what’s going on,” Gramps says, matter-of-factly. How Carp knows about what’s going on is beyond me. Maybe one of the cops told him. “He said he’s going to get in touch with the state, see what can be done about your land. Try to get a state rep down to the council meeting.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I can’t stop my tone from being flat. “McKay has been trying to take the land from you—me—us—for ages. Even if this time doesn’t work out, they’re going to keep trying until it does.”
And I don’t know if I can go through any more emotional warfare. It’s one thing to shred their letters and turn away the fuckers who tried to come on my property before.
It’s another to fall in love with a woman who just wanted to take the land from me from the start.
“Hey,” Gramps says, hitting his hand against the table like I’m in a trance and he just needs to break me out of it. “What the hellis wrong with you? You’re a Thatcher. You don’t run away when things get hard.”
“I’m also half of something else,” I point out, and bitter feelings about losing my parents bubble up in my throat. It’s not like I’m actively grieving them, or the childhood I could have had, but it’s always like this.
Anytime something shitty is happening to me, my brain likes to butt in, adding,Also, your parents are dead.
“Brendon is having a brainstorming party,” Gramps says, staring at me intently. “Everyone is going to be there, coming up with what we can do to stop this. Six tonight. You’re coming, Evan.”
I lift my eyes to him, will myself to feel anything but apathy about this. “Sure,” I lie, because it will be easier for me to get him to leave now, and then ignore him later. “Sure, if you want.”
“I do,” Gramps says, sounding pleased. “Bring Amy, too.”
“Amy isn’t coming around anymore,” I say, voice growing hard. I rock back, then stand up from the chair, unable to stay still any longer. Maybe Blue has been pacing as an imitation of my behavior. “Like, ever. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring her up.”
“You don’t seriously think that girl had anything to do with this.”
“She’s not a girl,” I correct, turning to him, frowning. “She’s a woman. Abusinesswoman. And she had a clear objective the first night she drove up to my place. Maybe the entire thing wasn’t some grand scheme, but things sure worked out for her in the end.”
