by A. E. Radley
She shook out her arms and legs, then bent in half, wrapped her arms around each other, and let blood drain to her head while her back stretched. Then she got out of the stretch, walked across to the boxes, and pulled her little essential oil kit to her on the peninsula. She opened the top and the melding smells hit her like a wave. She closed her eyes. Breathed. Then she opened them again, took out a bottle, unscrewed the top, and tilted it upside down with her finger over the stopper. She put a dot behind each of her ears. Satisfied, she put the bottle back into the kit, closed it up, and slid it back where it would stay indefinitely.
“What’s next?” she asked the quiet house. The furnace growled itself on again. “Yeah, I know. There’s so much left to do,” she answered, and went back to unloading the boxes.
CHAPTER 5
Jesse woke early in the morning when Misha jumped on her chest. She tickled him and wrestled him playfully off of her onto the other side of the futon on which she had fallen asleep, then glanced around the rest of the room. Wyatt was curled up with a book in a white wicker chair in a corner that got a good amount of sunlight through the thin curtains of the large front window.
“Good morning, bookworm,” Jesse said, then stretched and sat up on the futon. Misha clambered into her lap again. She wrapped her arms around him, gave him a heavy squeeze, and he dropped his head back on her chest. “And good morning, monkey.”
“Good morning, Mama,” Wyatt said, but she didn’t take her eyes from the book.
Jesse watched her with wonder. Even though it was harder for her than typical kids her age, Wyatt never stopped trying to learn to read. She might still mix up some letters of the alphabet, but she was further than the special needs teacher at Wyatt’s old school ever thought she would be at this point. Jesse set her jaw. Wyatt didn’t need a teacher to hold her back, and neither did Misha. He had his own issues, but who didn’t?
She resolved, as she had months before when she decided to make the move, to teach them both herself. With a telecommuting job that required her in the office only a couple of days a month, she knew she could swing it. Wyatt and Misha were always well-behaved for babysitters, so as soon as she had someone hired, she could set up a recurring visit so she could go into the office. Otherwise, it would be her, her kids, and their big, new, isolated house in the woods.
“Want me to read to you?” Wyatt asked.
Jesse waved her over. Wyatt got up to bring her book over and Jesse nudged Misha to one side so she could welcome Wyatt onto the futon on her other. She put an arm around each child. “We’re listening.”
Wyatt mouthed a few of the words silently, then started. “The cat ran…” She frowned. “What’s this letter?” she whispered.
“F.”
“F… f… or… for!”
“Yep.”
“The cat ran for the doll -”
“Ball.”
Wyatt squinted, then gave her mother a knowing smile. “Ball. It’s a b, not a d.”
“Right.”
Jesse listened as her daughter read the book to her and thought about the life they were just beginning. Moving had been hard, but Jesse knew they had to get on with their lives. An hour later, they ventured out into town for the first time since they had moved from the only home any of them had ever known. The snow wasn’t easy to drive in, as she suspected, so she took her time driving down the winding, white-draped roads through tall outlines of trees passing on either side of her. The kids stayed quiet. Instinctively, Jesse thought, they could tell she needed their cooperation.
She decided on a whim to stop at the first store she saw, which happened to be a hardware store. She set the parking brake, unbuckled the kids, and bundled them both into the store as quickly as she could. When they got in, Misha’s eyes went wide and his mouth opened in wonder.
“What?” he asked, stupefied into a one-word question as he let his eyes flit along the aisles lined with tools and other hardware.
“This is a hardware store,” Jesse explained.
At the sound of her voice, a man popped up behind the counter and favored her with a tight smile. “Can I help you, Miss?”
Jesse smiled back. “Thanks. We just moved to town, so we decided to take a look around, and you were the first store on our route.”
He nodded and his smile loosened into something almost approaching friendly. “You must be the family Cara was talking about.”
Jesse felt heat creep up her neck to her jawline at the mention of Cara and wondered at her strange physical reaction. “Maybe so. She helped us out of a whiteout the other night.”
He laughed. “From what I hear, you lost track of yourself in a little storm.”
It was her turn to smile tightly. “We didn’t deal with a lot of snow down in Texas. Rain was much more common.”
“Sounds likely. What can I do you for?”
Jesse tried not to blanch at the familiar phrase as she put Misha down onto his feet but grabbed his hand to keep him near. It made her feel too much like she hadn’t gone far from home, and that was exactly what she was trying to avoid – more of the same. “Since I’m new to this kind of climate, I was wondering if there was anything you might suggest I buy that I might not think about myself.”
He tapped his chin, then climbed down from behind the counter and headed to the opposite end of the store. “You got kitty litter?”
“I don’t have a cat.”
He guffawed. “It’s not for a cat. It’s for the cold.” He grabbed a large container and hefted it up. “What else?” he asked himself. He glanced around the store. “Got a scraper?”
“I have that.”
He nodded. “Good on ya. What next?”
Jesse watched as he talked to himself and gathered supplies. At some point, he left everything he had collected in the middle of an aisle and went to grab a shopping cart. When he came back, he had it loaded down with a few large items. Jesse glanced it over, decided she didn’t have any of it, and nodded her assent at the purchase. He rang her up and she ended up spending a little over fifty dollars. It was more than she expected, but as he explained each item, she realized he was doing her a favor. She thanked him.
“No need for it. Cara already vouched for you, and if Cara likes you, you might be someone worth knowing.”
He handed over her change and she tucked it away. Then she arranged the kids around the shopping cart and prepared to head out.
“Want me to help you?” he asked.
Jesse studied the contents of the basket, then glanced at her kids and back at him. She smiled sheepishly. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” he said.
He came back around the counter and grabbed the shopping cart handle and gestured for her to lead the way out of the store to her car. Jesse picked up Misha, grabbed Wyatt’s hand, and started toward the door. Wyatt pushed the door open with her free hand and Jesse thanked her as she held the door open for the shopkeeper.
“Good kid. Who says she has to be ill-behaved just because she’s slow?”
Jesse ignored him while Wyatt’s eyes bugged with the strain of trying to ignore him herself. They had faced similar before, they would face it again, and they both knew that it wasn’t worth the effort to try to educate him. Jesse led the kids to the car, plunked the baby down into his seat, and instructed Wyatt to buckle him in. Then she opened the empty trunk to start loading up their new supplies.
“Allow me,” he said with a nod of his head. “Go on and get in the car. You can’t be enjoying this weather, being from Texas.”
Jesse didn’t argue. She got into the car, and as soon as he had loaded the trunk, she started it up and rolled down the driver’s side window. “Thank you for your help,” she said with a smile. “We appreciate it.”
He leaned in and smiled. “Not a problem.” He slapped a hand on the hood of her car. “You stay safe out there, you hear? And say hello to Cara for me if I don’t see her first. Name’s Jim.”
She doubted she would see
Cara again, but she nodded and rolled the window back up. The cool engine indicator turned off and she twisted the knob to turn on the heater. It started to warm the car immediately and Jesse was thankful she kept the car in such good condition. It was something she had to thank her father for, so she made a mental note to do so as soon as she got home.
“Where to next?” Wyatt asked.
“Wherever the road takes us,” Jesse answered. “Is everyone buckled?”
“We both are,” the girl answered.
“Then adventuring we go again,” Jesse called out cheerfully. She just hoped their next meeting was a little more inclusive and a little less backwoods.
She didn’t have to drive far to get to the next store. Her next stop was a grocery store and she was thankful that she might not end up with only one choice for a local to speak to during her shopping. The last store had been a little much. She unloaded the kids and rushed into the store as a strong wind blew icy fingers through her coat and down to her bones. Her teeth were chattering when the doors closed behind her.
She grabbed a shopping cart, tucked Misha into the child’s seat, and buckled him tight. Then she cleaned the handle with a disinfecting wet wipe, cleaned all their hands with a second, and tossed both out in the trash can beside the door. Feeling safe that none of them would contract the flu from the shopping cart, she started to push it into the store with more than a little trepidation.
“Welcome to the Grocery Shopper. Can I help you?”
The old man who called out looked like a better-dressed copy of the man at the hardware store, and Jesse couldn’t help her mouth dropping open. He grinned at her expression.
“I guess you have been to the hardware store already,” he said. “My brother, Jim, owns it. I’m Bob. You’re new in town?”
Jesse sighed and smiled. “How did you guess?” she joked. “I just finished at the hardware store. The resemblance is striking.”
“Aw, don’t say that. I always thought I was the more attractive of us both.” His eyes lighted on the kids, Wyatt in particular, and his expression softened. “Well, I didn’t see you there. What’s your name?”
Wyatt glanced at her mother, and Jesse nodded for her to respond.
“Wyatt, sir. It’s nice to meet you.”
His smile grew wider. “What manners! I didn’t expect it.”
Jesse braced herself and felt Wyatt’s grip tighten almost imperceptibly.
“Kids your age normally don’t have any manners. It’s nice to see your mother is raising you right. Is this your brother or sister?”
“Brother!” Misha said too loudly. “I’m a brother.”
“That you are,” the man said. “I can see that now, but I don’t like to presume.” Misha cocked his head at the unfamiliar word and the old man laughed. “I mean I don’t mean to guess. That’s what presume means.”
The boy nodded. “I Misha.”
“Misha, it’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Meet you.”
Jesse smiled. “And I’m Jesse. It’s a pleasure.”
“All mine,” the old man said. He leaned forward with something in his hand. “Do you mind?”
Jesse took what turned out to be two stickers with the store’s name on them. She handed one to each of the kids and warned them, as she always did, to only stick them on their own belongings. Both children nodded and Jesse thanked the man.
“My pleasure. What can I do for you today, Jesse?”
“We’re just here picking up supplies and meeting people. I wanted to introduce myself around in case there is anything I need to know about living here.”
He nodded and rubbed his dry, calloused hands together with a sound like sandpaper over an old board. “Well, you stopped and saw Jim, so I know he would have handled getting you all he could.”
“He was great,” Jesse said. She doubted it would be in her best interest to bring up his brother’s downfalls, so she smiled instead.
But the older man was more shrewd than she thought. “Jim is a little rough around the edges, but he means well.”
“Am I so easy to read?” Jesse asked with a blush.
He shrugged. “I watch people for a living. I should have been a psychiatrist.”
“Maybe so. Is there anything in particular you think I might need to pick up? I’m from Texas, and we have so little snow there that I actually got stuck on the way into town.”
His face lit up and he clapped his hands together. “That’s right. Cara told me she pulled a new family out and got them home. That was you, then.”
“It was.”
“You got the Cara seal of approval. She told me you’re a good woman with good kids, and I believe it. You’re out in the old Lautner place?” She nodded. He grabbed a yellow legal pad of paper and a pen, then started writing. He tore off a scrap of the paper on top and handed it over the counter. “There are a few tricks to keeping a place like that up. You’ll want to grab these things in addition to your regulars: your nonperishable prepared meals, crackers, cans or jars, a manual can opener, and of course, cocoa powder and marshmallows for hot cocoa.”
He winked at Wyatt. She grinned back at him, then turned her face up to watch her mother. Jesse winked at her, too, and the girl beamed.
“Thank you for your suggestions,” she said, and held up the piece of paper. “I’ll definitely pick up all this now. Where would you suggest I go when I leave here?”
“If I had to direct you one way or another, I would have to say Phillie’s place is your next stop. You can meet everyone else later; no one has moved out of this town in the last decade, and none of them are looking to start now. But Phillie practically runs this place. She knows everyone and everything in this town. Without her, I don’t know what we would have done through the winter of ‘94. She’s been a sort of unofficial matriarch since.”
Jesse couldn’t hide her delight at the thought of a matriarch leading the town, and she grinned up at the man. “Thank you so much for this,” she said, holding up the slip of paper. “And thank you for the advice. We all three appreciate your help.”
“Glad to be of service,” Bob the grocer said as she started to walk away. “You come back soon.”
Jesse’s shopping trip through the Grocery Shopper was a quick one. Not only had he given her a list, he had arranged it in order of the aisles he probably knew like the back of his hand, so her trips down the aisles were seamless. She was checked out by a young woman popping bubble gum and wearing a jean jacket with a name tag that said Mervin. She didn’t ask if the girl was borrowing the name tag. She paid, loaded her groceries up, and headed straight in the direction Bob had pointed.
Phillie’s place was a giant truck stop with oil stained pavement and the smell of exhaust wafting through the air like an unwelcome perfume. Big rigs were parked on either side of the store and lined up in even rows, and they were also piled two trucks deep next to the gas pumps. Wyatt pointed to an eighteen-wheeler painted with a beer logo of a little girl in pink. Jesse nodded but hustled both kids into the warmth of the store as quickly as possible. When she got inside, it was her turn to gawk.
“Welcome to Phillie’s,” called out a vaguely familiar voice, and when she turned away from the giant display of phone chargers in every color, size, and shape, she found herself almost face to face with Cara.
“What are you doing here?” Jesse said without thinking. When she realized what she had said, she blushed up to her hairline and shuffled Misha from one hip to the other. He squirmed to be let down, but she didn’t let him. “What I mean is, I didn’t expect to see you here working. I thought you worked for the tow truck company.”
Cara’s eyes gleamed with something Jesse couldn’t identify, but her mouth was stretched into a wide smile. “I do. Phillie’s Tow Service.” She indicated the store. “She owns this place, too, and when she gets busy, I come lend a hand.” She bent down and held out a hand to Wyatt, who took no time pulling away from her mother to shake Cara’s hand. “How
are you today, Miss Wyatt?”
“I’m fine, thank you. And yourself?” Wyatt said without missing a beat.
“I’m well, thanks for asking,” Cara said back. Jesse felt butterflies wiggling in her stomach as Cara stood up and held out a hand to Misha. “And how is this young man today?”
Instead of welcoming the touch, Misha turned his head and buried his face into Jesse’s neck. Jesse tried to pull him out, but the more she pulled, the harder he buried himself. She gave Cara a sympathetic smile, which Cara returned. Then Cara straightened and regarded the three of them from their brand new boots to their warm knit caps.
“Having a good time in the weather?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“It has been an enlightening experience,” Jesse answered. “I have met some interesting characters so far today. I started at the hardware store with Jim, who was… interesting.”
“He thinks I’m stupid,” Wyatt said with a roll of her eyes.
Cara laughed out loud. “I can’t imagine anyone thinking you’re stupid.”
“It’s because of how I look,” Wyatt told her. “People think Down Syndrome means stupid.”
“Well, we know better than that, don’t we?” Cara asked. Wyatt smiled and nodded. “Who else did you meet?”
Wyatt piped up again. “We met Bob. He was really nice.”
“That will be Mr. Bob to you,” Jesse warned.
Wyatt acquiesced. “Mr. Bob at the grocery store,” she repeated.
“And did he send you here?” Cara asked Wyatt.
“He did. He said Miss Phillie runs this town.”
Cara grinned. “Truer words were never spoken. Would you like to meet her?”