Nana had been the perfect mix of refinement and down-home warmth—just what someone like Janelle had needed the most back when she was a shy, somewhat uncertain little girl. The old woman had been one of few solid anchors in Janelle’s chaotic childhood. On some level, Janelle knew she had even modeled herself after her grandmother, trying her best to always be composed and polished—the sturdy shelter against the strong storms of life.
Janelle’s eyes now traveled over Connie again. She had no idea what Pops saw in her. How could he possibly have loved and been married to Nana for almost four decades and now date a woman like this?
“Bill talks a lot about you,” Connie continued, still smiling. “He’s very proud of his ‘baby girl.’ That’s what he calls you, right?”
Janelle nodded absently.
“I think that’s why he did it. He said he only wants the best for you.”
“Yeah, well, his ruse worked. I’m here!” Janelle’s eyes went wide with sarcasm. “Like a fool, I came running to the rescue.”
“You weren’t a fool. You did it because you love him. Bill would appreciate that.”
Oh, what the hell would you know?
Janelle looked away, annoyed to be having this conversation with a total stranger, with Pops’s clandestine lover. She’d rather talk to the man himself.
“So where is he?”
“If I had to guess, back at his cabin. The last time I saw him, he was—”
“I’ve called his cabin five hundred times, he’s not there,” Janelle snapped.
Connie tilted her head, a patronizing gesture that made Janelle want to smack her.
“Well, honey, he wouldn’t answer if he knew you were calling. He wanted you to come. I guess he figured if he didn’t answer, you’d get riled up and check on him yourself. Which is what you did, right?”
Janelle paused. Connie did have a point. She watched as the older woman pushed her sandwich plate and beer aside. She rose to her feet.
“That’s all right, though. Bill can’t hide from me. I’ll track him down and end this nonsense. It’s about time you two hashed it out.” Connie did a little shimmy and tugged her hip huggers back up her curvy hips. She grabbed a wool coat slung over the chair behind her and motioned to Janelle. “Come on. Put your coat on. We better get going before it gets dark.”
Janelle bristled at Connie’s tone. Who was she to be ordering her around? But Janelle had to admit that she didn’t have much of a choice. She didn’t know how to get to Pops’s cabin. Connie did, and she seemed to be one of the few people in town willing to take her there. Reluctantly, Janelle also rose from her chair and put on her coat.
A few minutes later, Janelle was trailing behind Connie’s beat-up Silverado down Main Street. The major thoroughfare that had been teeming with people less than an hour earlier now seemed to be all but deserted. Only the ghostly shell of empty tents and stalls remained.
Janelle made a left when the older woman made a left, then another left, then a right before turning onto a quaint street bordered by Victorian and Craftsman-style houses with small front yards and white picket fences. A wind chime hung underneath one of the porches, a series of dangling ballerinas pirouetting frantically in the wind that was picking up ferocity. A “Trump/Pence 2016” yard sign caked in a layer of ice was in a neighboring yard, dipping toward the ground.
Behind the silhouette of the houses, the sky had darkened even more and not just because the sun had almost finished its descent behind the mountains. It looked like a storm was coming, bringing either heavy rain or more snow.
As they drove, Janelle saw the first drop hit her windshield, then the second. They looked like ice chips. Suddenly, it seemed like the sky was ripped open. The car was pelted with freezing rain.
The houses disappeared. It was harder to see Connie’s truck in front of her now. Janelle turned on her headlights and windshield wipers and leaned forward to peer at the road, or at least what part of the road she could make out around the Silverado’s rear end.
She felt the pavement give way to snow and mud before she realized that they were no longer on the main road through town. The car began to bump over the rough terrain, and Janelle got the sensation of riding a bucking horse. It looked like someone had created a makeshift road back here years ago—carving a path just barely wide enough for a truck to fit through. The pine branches scraped at the windows as they drove, like prying fingers begging to be let in. The headlights of the Silverado and her Jetta danced off the canopy of trees above them, casting gloomy shadows in the branches. Janelle still didn’t know what she thought of this Connie woman, but she was at least grateful to have someone driving the path with her. At least she wasn’t alone out here.
Janelle said a prayer of thanks when they finally drove through a clearing and pulled onto the snowy gravel driveway leading up to her grandfather’s cabin. But her shoulders fell and her spirits plummeted when she realized that none of the cabin lights were on. Pops’s truck was nowhere to be found. It looked like Connie had been wrong; Pops wasn’t home.
She shifted the car into park and gazed through the rain-splattered windshield at the cabin that loomed in the car’s headlights.
“You’ve gotta be joking,” she murmured, her voice barely audible above the squeak of the windshield wipers, the steady hum of the car’s heater, and the patter of rain on the car windows and roof. “Pops, you live here?”
The few pictures she had seen of his home hadn’t done it justice—and not in a good way. It was, in fact, a real log cabin, unlike the Victorians and old Craftsman-style houses they had passed on their brief ride through town. It was one story with a brick chimney that towered over a roof that looked like it was made out of galvanized sheet metal. The cabin seemed less like a welcoming vacation retreat and more like it should be on the set of Friday the 13th. Paranoid, Janelle felt like at any moment a guy with a hockey mask would come charging at her through the front door.
The driver’s-side door to the Silverado flew open. Janelle watched as Connie tugged her jacket over her head, hopped down from her pickup truck, and raced toward the cabin, getting doused with rain as she did it. Janelle realized with dismay that she would have to follow her. She turned off the headlights, plunging the world around her into momentary darkness. She quickly tugged her key from the ignition and opened the car door, making the overhead compartment light come on. She was no longer lost in pitch black, but now she was being pelted with stinging rain. She let out a girlish squeal as the icy cold water soaked her shoes and then her pants within seconds. Janelle tugged the hood of her parka over her head and slammed the driver’s-side door shut. By the time she climbed the steps of the porch, her parka was a wet, soggy mess.
A motion-detection light burned bright. It had clicked on soon after Connie climbed on the porch. Janelle looked around them. From this vantage point, the cabin looked a lot less menacing. Her grandfather’s rocking chair sat a few feet away from the front door. She could see light blue gingham curtains in the window.
Beside her, Connie dug into one of her coat’s pockets. She pulled out a key.
She has a key to his cabin, Janelle realized, slightly irritated. When did Pops give her a key to his cabin?
Connie pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Janelle followed. She was hit by a familiar smell that made her smile despite her unease: the warm, reassuring scent of her grandfather’s cologne. It calmed her.
Connie reached along the wall and turned on the light switch, revealing a tidy living room with a chartreuse-and-gray plaid couch, a leather recliner, a scarred wooden coffee table, and two end tables that featured old Tiffany-style lamps. Janelle frowned at the deer head over the brick fireplace mantle and the line of cowboy hats hanging on the other side of the living room.
“Bill!” Connie shouted before marching from room to room.
As Connie did what was bound to be a fruitless search, Janelle shut the front door behind them and removed her soaked coat. She hung it on
a hook, hoping that it wouldn’t leave a puddle on the floor. Then she walked into the eat-in kitchen, which was small, but clean, with oak veneer cabinets and two bar stools at the Formica breakfast counter. The oven and refrigerator looked like they had seen better days. They were tan, instead of black, white, or stainless steel like most modern appliances. She opened the refrigerator and gazed at the minimal amount of food on the shelves: a loaf of bread, bologna, horseradish mustard, and wilting lettuce.
Typical bachelor fare, Janelle thought before shutting the fridge door.
“Bill!” Connie shouted again, making Janelle roll her eyes.
He’s not here! Can’t you see that? Where would he be? Hiding in a closet?
She watched as Connie marched down the hall and pushed open another door, revealing what looked like Pops’s bedroom. Connie didn’t hesitate before walking inside, like she had been in his bedroom hundreds of times before.
That fact irritated Janelle even more.
“Bill, where the hell are you?” Connie muttered before walking back into the living room. She flapped her arms. “He’s not here.”
“Obviously,” Janelle mumbled under her breath.
“He should be here! He was leaving Deadwood last night so he could get back here and be up bright and early. He said so. He was meeting some guy who was supposed to come and fix his generator.”
The two women fell silent. Janelle surveyed the cabin again with a sweeping glance.
“Maybe this was the rest of his ‘plan,’” she said, making air quotes, “. . . you know, to disappear for a few days.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Connie shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “If it was part of it, he didn’t say a damn thing to me.”
Connie sounded angry, but she looked far from it. She seemed to be gnawing the inside of her cheek. Her dark brows were knitted together. She looked . . . worried. Finally, someone else besides Janelle was worried about Pops. It gave her some sense of relief. It thawed the iciness she felt for Connie, at least temporarily.
“Frankly, none of it makes sense, but it doesn’t seem like Pops was being very rational yesterday.”
He had made up a lie about disappearing in the mountains to keep her from marrying Mark, to get her to finally come to Mammoth Falls. It seemed so absurd and far-fetched, but within the context of the Pops she knew and loved, it made perfect sense. This was the same man who had proposed to his wife only three months after meeting her. This was the same man who started a furniture store that specialized in Mennonite handcrafted furniture simply because he had purchased a bed from the local Mennonites and liked it more than any piece of furniture he had ever owned. And this was the same man who almost twenty years ago just decided to travel to South Dakota on a whim and disappear there for almost a year. Pops would later return to D.C. and in the same dramatic fashion announce that Mammoth Falls was his new home.
Needless to say, Pops had a reputation for impetuousness. Janelle thought he had tempered those impulses in his old age, but she guessed she had been wrong.
“Look, I’ll . . . I’ll wait for him. Maybe he’ll come back home tonight or tomorrow. I’ll wait, and if he still doesn’t come home”—Janelle hitched her shoulders—“we can go back to the police chief and tell him that maybe something really is wrong.”
Connie slowly nodded, now looking as lost as Janelle felt. She pushed her dark hair back over her shoulder. Some of it was wet and clumped together, thanks to the rain.
“All right,” Connie said. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow if he doesn’t call me first. Bill keeps a spare key to the cabin in the kitchen drawer if you need it.” She walked toward the front door then paused. “Are you going to be all right out here by yourself? I can stay here with you if you—”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Janelle said quickly.
The last thing Janelle wanted was for this to turn into a sleepover. Besides, she was still reeling from the punches she had endured today. She desperately wanted . . . needed some time alone to mentally process this mess.
“Have you ever been alone in a cabin in the woods before?”
Janelle almost laughed at her question. Connie made it sound so dire, like she was asking Janelle if she had ever ridden a motorcycle without a helmet or jumped out of a plane without a parachute.
“No, but there’s a lock on the door. There’s food in the fridge. That’s all I need. I’ll be fine.”
She could tell from the look on Connie’s face that she didn’t believe her.
“Okay, if you swear you’ll be all right, I’ll go. But if you need anything, and I mean anything . . .”
Connie dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a business card. She handed it to Janelle.
Janelle gazed down at the laminated card and read the bubbled script aloud. “Hot Threads & Things Boutique?”
“That’s the number to my shop, and my home number is on the back. Call me anytime.”
Janelle tucked the card into one of her pants pockets. “Don’t worry. I will.”
Connie walked toward the front door and swung it open. “I swear when I get my hands on that little man,” she muttered, her voice barely audible above the roar of the pelting rain. She then shut the door behind her.
A minute later, Janelle held open one of the gingham curtains as she watched Connie’s taillights get smaller and smaller, then finally disappear behind a line of trees. She let the curtains fall closed and strolled across the living room where the muffled sound of falling rain echoed all around. She fell back onto the plaid couch and stared at her cell phone, which now sat on the scuffed coffee table in front of her.
She was exhausted and jet-lagged. Her adrenaline high had long ago disappeared, but her headache remained. She wanted to take an aspirin and sleep a thousand years. She wanted to save all her energy for the tirade she would unleash on Pops when she finally saw him either later tonight or tomorrow morning, but before she collapsed, she had one last task. Janelle took a long, deep breath, picked up her phone, and dialed Mark’s number.
“Jay? Baby, you finally called!” he shouted, picking up after the first ring. “I was worried about you!”
The elation and concern she heard in his voice was almost painful. It made her wince.
I should have called him on the plane. I should have called hours ago.
Why had she avoided calling him? What had she thought he would say? She had read too much into their argument. Mark obviously missed her. The same loving, supportive man she had known him to be still was there—thank God!
“Hi, honey,” she said. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner.”
“That’s fine. It’s just good to hear from you.”
At his words, she placed a hand over her heart. She instantly felt a soothing heat spread across her chest.
“So are you in South Dakota? Did you find out what’s going on with your grandfather?”
Janelle hesitated, not quite sure how to explain what she had discovered today. How could she tell Mark that her grandfather had made up a lie about disappearing in the mountains to sabotage his proposal? That wouldn’t exactly endear him to his possible future in-law.
She cleared her throat and began to fiddle with a loose thread in one of her sweater sleeves, mentally imagining the invisible thread that tethered her to Mark. “Well, I know that Pops isn’t missing,” she began.
“See, I told you, baby! Didn’t I tell you?”
“Is that Janelle?” she heard Brenda squawk in the background, cutting into their conversation with all the subtlety of someone wielding a hatchet. “Is she with those hillbillies?”
The warmth in Janelle’s chest went cold. Janelle let go of the thread. “Your mom is there?”
“Yeah, she came over to cook dinner.” Janelle could suddenly hear the banging of pots and pans and the opening and closing of her kitchen cabinets. She heard a door slam. Her refrigerator, maybe? “I told her you were out of town and I was in the
house by myself with nothing in the fridge but party leftovers. She decided to cheer me up with a home-cooked meal.”
“Hi, Janelle!” Shana piped.
“Shana’s here, too,” he added. “She’s helping mom. They’re making—”
“Ceviiiiicheeee!” Shana sang in an exaggerated Spanish accent.
“Ceviche. We’re having ceviche. They thought it would be nice to make it since . . . uh . . . since I don’t eat much seafood anymore because . . . well, because you can’t eat it.”
“Oh.”
Janelle took another deep, steadying breath. She told herself that they were just having dinner.
No big deal.
“That was n-nice of your mom and . . . and Shana.”
“Yeah, I know. Anyway, so when are you coming home? Are you going to try to catch a flight out tomorrow?”
“Uh, probably.”
“Probably? What do you mean probably?”
“Well, I still haven’t actually spoken to Pops. I’d like to talk to him before I leave here.”
There was a long pause, and Janelle could hear Brenda shouting for lime juice and Shana asking how to use the “blender”—more than likely the new Cuisinart food processor Mark and Janelle had gotten as a housewarming present.
“So when exactly are you coming home?” He laughed, but there was no levity in his tone. His voice sounded tighter than a violin string.
“Soon.”
“Soon?”
“I will definitely, definitely leave soon.”
“But what is ‘soon’? Tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? Next week?”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Her headache was getting worse. A dull throb was making its way across her temples like a slow-moving weather front.
“No, not next week. Maybe in a couple of days, but I just can’t . . . well, say anything definitive right now.”
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