Truth was, I got itchy. Especially since I quit the booze and pills. Couldn’t sit still for too long without feeling like my skinwas trying to crawl off my bones. Something about being in motion, about my shoes in dirt, cleared the static in my head. Being stuck in a car too long made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. So yeah, I walked.
“Well,” the lawyer said proudly and held up a stack of papers. “Got the will here. Wanna go inside?”
I shook my head. There was no reason to go inside and relive the memories of whatever the hell childhood I had growing up.
“Great,” he said, a little too chipper for a man handling the remnants of another man’s life. He sat back down in the creaky rocker, the wood groaning under him, and I gave him a nod before sinking into the chair beside him.
Might as well get it over with.
I turned away from the lawyer in his pressed suit and shiny shoes, and looked out at the cornfields. It was early fall, cool breeze, dry air, the kind of stillness that felt like waiting. The agriculture company that leased the land would be out here soon to chop the stalks down, same as they did every year. Cut it all down, strip it bare, leave nothing behind but dust.
The wind stirred the corn just right, and suddenly I was a kid again, knees scraped, dirt under my fingernails, the sun a blazing white orb overhead.
It was a Saturday—Arthur had passed out in his recliner, beer in hand with some old Western droning on the TV loud enough to cover any trouble. That was when she ran.
She’d only been there two days. Blonde. Small. Eyes that had seen too much for her young age. She didn’t talk much. Arthur liked that. I’d heard him tell one of the caseworkers that quiet girls lasted longer. She got the private room.
I noticed her bag was gone before anyone else. Heard the screen door creak. I didn’t say a word. Just waited until the house was quiet again, then slipped out after her.
I found her deep in the cornfield, crouched like a little animal, hands clenched into fists. She looked up, startled, when I parted the stalks.
“You followed me,” she said.
“You left.”
“He was asleep.”
We stood there for a long minute. Finally, she looked at me and said, “We can be friends if you want.”
I nodded.
“But we can’t ever talk about it,” she added flatly. “He can’t know. Nobody can. You have to swear.”
I didn’t ask why. The whole place was a house of secrets. Of rules no one wrote down but everyone followed.
“Okay,” I said, and we sat there until the sun started to dip, side by side, surrounded by silence and secrets and stalks taller than either of us.
That’s how it started—with an escape, a promise, and a girl named Luna who never liked to be found.
“So his assets are mostly the house, a bank account with a couple thousand bucks, which is all left to you,” the lawyer said, lifting a thick folder off his lap. “As you probably know, he leased the land to that ag company a few years back. They’re offering to buy the whole property now, and it’s worth a good chunk.”
I nodded. Of course he left me the house. There wasn’t anyone else. No one else had stuck around. I was the only one at the funeral. I buried him next to his parents, gave the guy who dug the grave a fifty and left. Couldn’t even get drunk at the bar after. It sucked all around.
“The entire house and land have to sell within the year,” the lawyer added, flipping a page like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Why?”
“Clause in the revised lease. Arthur added it last year, probably when he figured the clock was running out. If theproperty doesn’t transfer ownership within the year of his death, the deal with the ag company falls through. They pull their bid, void the lease, and you’re stuck with the whole damn thing—taxes, upkeep, insurance, all of it.”
I stared at the horizon, jaw tight. “Sounds like something he’d do. One last mess to clean up.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “So, per the terms of the lease agreement and the will, the house and land have to be sold within the year by you and the co-beneficiary. The ag company’s offer is contingent on it being cleaned up and listed by then. Otherwise, the whole deal expires. They want the land ready for full control by next year’s planting season, no hold-ups, no squatters, no loose ends.”
I let out a dry breath. “Figures. Even in death, Arthur’s idea of motivation is a ticking clock.”
Then something registered, a word he slipped in too casually.
“Wait.” I turned to him, my brow furrowed. “Someone else is on the will?”
