Page 48 of Undone By The Mountain Daddies

I tug on a shirt, slip into my pants from last night, and head across the hallway into his room. But I open the door and find it empty, the covers pulled back on his bed. He should still be sleeping at this time. Weird.

“Henry?” I walk across to the bathroom.

Also empty.

This is strange. The kid loves to stay in bed as long as possible. We’re the same that way.

I walk into his bedroom again to check in his closet. Sometimes he likes to set up a fort in there, but not today.

I pull up the shade to check on the snow. It’s much lighter this morning, and the sunrise is the best it’s been in days. Vibrant colors stretch across the sky as far as the eye can see. It’s beautiful.

And then my chest contracts.

“This is the Orange County Police Department. Am I speaking with Eli Walker?”

“Speaking.”

“Sir, I tried to knock on your door earlier, but there was no answer.”

“I don’t live in Orange County anymore.”

The woman on the receiving end of the phone sighs. “I’m really sorry to be the one telling you this, Eli, but your sister and her husband were in a car collision today.”

No.

I stand on my porch and go cold to the bone despite the warm day.

“They didn’t make it.”

The woman continues speaking, but all I hear is noise that isn’t bringing them back.

Dead. No. It’s impossible.

I can’t live without my sister. It was heartbreaking enough when we lost Dad as kids, but at least I still had Margaret. We were each other’s shoulders to cry on, and now they’re telling me she died the same tragic way our father did?

I refuse to believe it.

Life can’t be that fucking cruel.

I stand frozen on the porch, watching the sunrise, begging it for a miracle as tears fall from my eyes.

My cabin sits on the top of the San Bernardino Mountain range, but I feel as though I’m buried at the bottom, being crushed by granite as it presses me deeper into the earth.

“Sir,” says the woman, her voice cutting through my thoughts. “I know this is a lot for you to take in.”

“Fuck. Henry. Who’s gonna look after Henry?”

Orphaned at one year old.

“I’m coming for him,” I say before the woman has a chance to answer my question.

“Sir, you’ll need to find an attorney and go through the legalities before⁠—”

“I’m Margaret’s power of attorney.”

“I understand all that, but⁠—”

“He’s family.”