by Penny Reid
“Hey, Ash, Momma’s talking about someone named Jackson.” Roscoe said this from the doorway. “Do you know who she means? She keeps asking if you’re out with Jackson.”
“Is she awake?” I moved toward the doorway, but Roscoe blocked my path.
“No, Ash. You need to eat. She’s not really awake, just talking in her sleep, I think.”
“She’s not talking about Jack Jackson James, is she—that little twerp who followed you around?” Billy asked this as he put napkins at the place settings on the table.
“He wasn’t a twerp. He was my best friend.” I crossed my arms over my chest, but felt only a slight twinge of defensiveness.
Jackson and I had been best friends all through school partly because I’d never been very good at making friends with other girls. He and I just got along so well because we were both oddball social outcasts. In my experience growing up in small Hicksville nowhere Tennessee, little girls were mean, adolescent girls were cruel, and teenage girls were ruthless—but that was probably true everywhere.
Plus, Jackson James was the sweetest, kindest, most amazing boy in the entire world...until the end of our senior year when he dumped me.
I was stunned when that happened. I wasn’t in love with Jackson—not in the passionate or romantic way that books and movies tell you is real—but I had come to rely on him. He’d been my first everything: my first kiss, my first boyfriend, my first first. And when he dumped me just before college, he cut off all communication. I was so devastated over the loss of my best friend that it felt like I’d lost a part of myself.
Over the years, the feeling of loss had dwindled to a slight ache, mostly related to nostalgia. I’d come to view him as another example—in a long line of examples—of why men were as trustworthy and reliable as tampons made of sand.
“Oh, please.” Duane rolled his eyes. “Jackson James is an asshole. I still don’t know why you gave him the time of day. You could have had any guy in a hundred-mile radius, and you didn’t give anyone a second look except that dipshit—and he was a scrawny little bastard. Didn’t he play something stupid like the clarinet or something?”
I gritted my teeth. “It was the oboe, and he was really good.” For some bizarre reason my gaze searched out Drew’s and found him watching me. When our eyes met, he didn’t look away. Therefore, I did.
Jethro grumbled as he placed the utensils around the table. “Real men play instruments with strings, like a guitar or a bass.”
“Or the drums. Those got no strings,” added Cletus.
“He just wanted to get in your pants,” Duane said and shook his head, obviously having worked himself into a temper of disgust for my childhood best friend.
“Duane Faulkner Winston.” Jethro’s voice held a hint of warning. “Quit being ugly. That was disrespectful. Apologize to Ash.”
Momma had given each of us her favorite authors’ surnames as our middle names. Mine was fine, Ashley Austen Winston for Jane Austen. But I felt a little sorry for Billy, because his full name was William Shakespeare Winston.
Duane placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ash. I didn’t say it to be mean. It’s just that everyone in town wanted to get in your pants, and that guy was the worst. It’s rough having a beauty queen as a sister.”
“Lots of guys to beat up,” Billy mumbled under his breath as he finished placing the napkins.
I frowned at Billy and could feel my neck heat with embarrassment, but I addressed Duane’s apology. “It’s okay. I know you weren’t trying to be mean. But Jackson really was my friend. I knew him when we were kids.”
“You mean you felt sorry for him,” Duane insisted. “He was a reject. You were the only one who was nice to him.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, feeling abruptly tired. “I think I’m going to go lay down.”
“But you haven’t eaten,” Cletus argued from behind me.
“I’m sorry…I’m just not very hungry.” I was already walking toward the hallway that lead back to the den.
When silence followed, I thought I was home free. But then I felt a hand catch my wrist and pull me down the hall in the opposite direction of the den.
“I said….”
“I heard you.” Drew’s voice was like tempered steel, his eyes silver and flashing, and he had rendered me momentarily speechless. His presence was overwhelming. Despite my various states of exhaustion, I couldn’t resist checking out his well-formed backside as he led me through the family room, out the front door, and onto the porch.
Once there, he let me go, but he stood between the door and me, his arms crossed over his chest, his face grim. Then, he stalked toward me.
I blinked at him, at the door, at the brightness of the early evening sunlight. My brain told me it had been more than a week since I’d been outside. When my brain also told me that I needed to pull myself together by voluntarily taking showers, eating three meals a day, and finding a way to keep in regular contact with my friends in Chicago—basically, to rejoin the land of the living—I told my brain to hush.
Drew was glaring at me, each of his steps bringing us closer, and his jaw was set. I mimicked his stance, though I backed up as he advanced. I’m sure the effect was pathetic. I was tired. I lacked the physical and mental energy to argue with anyone.
However, it seemed that my body did not lack the energy required to become hot and flustered at finding myself suddenly alone with Drew.
“You’re sleeping on the cot in the den every night, aren’t you?” His words sounded accusatory, and his jaw ticked.
I scrunched my nose at him, taking another step away. “Yes. I am.”
“I told you that you and your brothers would take shifts. I don’t want you sleeping in there every night. You need to take better care of yourself.” His tone was straddling the line between angry and agitated. He stalked closer.
I shrugged, my back hitting the porch post. I couldn’t retreat further.
“Fine,” I said.
I’d learned, growing up, that if I said fine, people usually left me alone because they thought they’d won. Then, I ignored their wishes and did whatever I wanted to do. This approach also worked well with physicians when they got a bee in their boxers.
I could sit tight, say fine, wait for the narcissists to tire themselves out, then go back to my business; or I could try to fight back. Fighting back never worked. It was like trying to hold back a bursting levy with duct tape and a plucky can-do attitude. Better just to let the tide wash over you and ride out the egomaniac storm.
Drew was now two feet away. “You say fine, but I know you’re going to go back in there and sleep on that cot again tonight.”
I gave him my stone face. This wasn’t any of his business. I wasn’t his business. What I did or didn’t do wasn’t his business. But for some reason, my brothers and my momma had invited the entitled Dr. Runous into their lives and given him the reins.
I could do nothing about that, but I didn’t have to like it.
Brow furrowed, mouth stern, eyes piercing, Drew stepped closer. I was forced to tilt my head backward to maintain eye contact, and my silly heart began to pound out a staccato rhythm.
Whether I liked it or not, whether it was convenient or not, Drew’s proximity affected me. I was awake to him now, fully aware. I might have been barely going through the motions and neglecting my personal hygiene; nevertheless, he was an irritating reminder that I was very much a woman, and my body responded to silver-eyed, fictionally handsome men—especially when this man seemed to make it his mission to look after my momma and brothers.
“Ash, Sugar, you need to take better care of yourself.” His voice dipped, deepened, and became soft and coaxing. He lifted his hand and pushed the hair behind my neck, his hand lingering for a beat. The back of his fingers brushed against my shoulder down to my elbow, making me fight against a shiver.
Then, abruptly, he snatched his hand back as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing.
/> “Don’t call me Sugar, I’m not your Sugar.” I said this dumbly and without energy, my neck hot and itchy. I had the strangest, most insane desire to press and/or rub myself against him. He was so ludicrously manly and gorgeous and swoony.
“You can’t hide the sweetness, Ashley. It’s not something to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not sweet.” This emerged somewhat breathlessly.
“Yes. Yes you are. You are working yourself to ragged taking care of your momma. You’re so sweet you’re giving me a stomach ache and cavities.” He said the words as though he were both impressed and aggravated, and he said them suddenly, as if he hadn’t planned to speak them out loud.
He was looking at me with the same intensity he’d employed that night in my room when Sandra was sizing him up. He was looking at me like I was sugar, like I was cake covered in frosting, and he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to bite me or lick me first.
I held my breath as I watched him, wondering what he was going to do, wondering if I would stop him. His eyes grew unfocused as he gazed at my lips, our heads inching closer.
The sound of voices from inside the house broke the spell, and Drew stiffened. His gaze moved over my face like he was surprised to see me there. Drew must’ve disliked what he found because his scowl intensified and his eyes narrowed into slits. Then, abruptly, he turned away.
His tone was clipped and low as he said, “Infuriating woman.”
With that, he disappeared into the house, his exit punctuated by a slam of the screen door.
I released the breath I’d been holding and would have staggered if I hadn’t been leaning against the porch post. I decided to wait a minute to give my body time to simmer down before I went back into the house. I definitely needed to simmer down. Drew had my heart beating a million miles a minute; he made my chest hot and my belly disconcertingly—yet deliciously—achy.
After several deep breaths, I took a few steps toward the house only to be greeted by Cletus poking his head around the screen door followed by two plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.
“Hey, baby sister, I have food for you.” Cletus’s warm hazel eyes and affectionate words softened my heart more than a little. He gave me an imploring smile, and his tone was imploring as he said, “Come eat with me on the swing. I’ll tell you about my auto shop.”
Just like that, faced with sweet Cletus, I surrendered.
I inhaled then released a steadying breath, my hands falling to my sides. “Sure, Cletus…that sounds nice.” I took my plate and sat on one end of the swing.
Chapter Eight
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”
― Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water
“When was the last time you went outside?”
“What?” I said, squinting as I glanced from my backlit eReader to my brother Billy. I had a gray spot in my vision from staring at a bright screen in a dark room for too long.
He glanced at Marissa. Even with the lingering gray rectangle clouding my vision, I saw them exchange a look. Her lips pressed together, her eyebrows raised meaningfully, her eyes slightly narrowed.
Marissa the traitor.
Billy’s eyes widened, then he looked at me and growled. “That’s it. Get up.”
He didn’t wait for me to move. He walked around my mother’s hospital bed where she lay asleep, and he pulled me from the recliner by my elbow and steered me out of the room.
Billy didn’t stop until we were at the bottom of the stairs, and he only stopped then because I tugged my arm out of his grip.
“Wait a minute!” I spluttered, “Would you just hold your horses?”
His expression was impatient and irritated. “What?”
I frowned. He looked tired. His suit was wrinkled, and his beard was askew. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“I’m fine, Ash. Except for the fact that my momma’s down the hall dying and my sister, after disappearing for eight years, has returned home just to become a ghost. Other than that, everything is just fine.”
I flinched, partly because the family room was brighter than the den; but mostly because his words scalded the marshmallow wall I’d been trying to build around myself.
I had dropped all of the balls I should have been juggling—specifically, the care and feeding of myself and my family—in favor of spending every spare minute with my momma. She’d even remarked on it, joked that I was hovering, commented that I’d become so pale I was translucent. She called me a glowing white angel sent to take her to heaven.
A week had passed since my strange interaction with Drew on the porch. Since then I’d been pointedly avoiding him and everyone else. Whenever he came into the den to visit Momma, the air seemed to shift. I always ignored it and him by burying my face in a book. Seeing him and being near him made me feel off-kilter.
Something in my expression must’ve made Billy regret his last statement, because his eyes softened a fraction, and he tsked.
But then he growled with exasperation and said, “You need to snap out of it—out of this. You can’t sit inside all day. Plus, you’re not eating, you don’t speak to us, and you don’t even acknowledge when we’re in the same room with you.”
“I don’t?”
“No, you don’t. Since your friends left, I think I’ve heard you say three words that weren’t spoken to Momma or to one of the nurses about Momma.”
He was right. When Momma was awake, we talked, I fed her, I bathed and dressed her, or I read to her. Every day, however, she continued to dispense random bits of perplexing wisdom.
When Momma was asleep, Marissa tried to draw me into conversation.
But mostly I slept, made mental lists regarding Momma’s eating and sleeping habits, or I read. If I remembered, I ate.
Until this moment, my brothers had let me be.
But I sensed that they were waiting for me to step up and demonstrate strength of character and leadership. I didn’t want to, and I honestly felt like I couldn’t. I wasn’t a leader—but I wasn’t a follower either.
I’d reverted to my childhood default; in Tennessee, I was an overly sensitive loner.
Now, as the truth of Billy’s words sank in, my gaze dropped to the floor and I shifted my weight. I saw that my feet were bare and a little dirty. Then I noticed that I was in yoga pants. I wondered when I’d last changed my underwear.
Gross.
“This is it,” Billy said. “This is your come-to-Jesus moment, care of your big brother. You’re going to go upstairs,” he pointed up the stairs. “You’re going to take a shower, because you stink. Then you’re going to put on clean clothes and come back down here. I have an errand for you to run, and you’re not allowed to come back to the house until supper.”
I stared at him, opened my mouth to object, but realized I had no idea what time it was. “Wait, what time is it?”
“It’s almost noon.”
“Why are you home? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I came home during lunch because I was worried about you.”
I flinched, startled. Billy was worried about me. One side of my marshmallow wall melted into goo.
“Get on upstairs or I will strip you naked and force you under that shower myself. No need to knock; nobody is on the schedule for today.”
I nodded, my chin wobbling, my eyes filling with tears.
“And stop being so pitiful.” He said this harshly, right before he pulled me into a hug-and-hold.
I was shoved out of the house, but only after Billy supervised me doing my hair and putting on my makeup. He also picked out my clothes.
He justified all of this overbearing behavior by saying, “We are all worried about you.”
For some reason, this worked. I was discovering that my brothers’ concern for me was my kryptonite
. Maybe I’d run away from them and Tennessee eight years ago out of an instinctual need for self-preservation and a desire to become someone else. They—as a group or individually—could effortlessly wrap me around their index, ring, or pinky finger.
Or maybe I was just feeling markedly overwhelmed, tired, and hungry, and was currently in a state of high suggestibility. Getting dressed, putting on makeup, and doing my hair all felt like going through the motions. I lacked the energy to care.
Whichever the case—dressed in jeans that were now a little baggy, a Mumford and Sons concert T-shirt, and converse sneakers—I was sent on my way. I was soon on the road to the backwoods ranger station; my mission was to give Jethro his provisions backpack.
I mostly knew where I was going. The twists and turns of the mountain road, along with the energy and focus required to navigate them, proved a great distraction. I was almost disappointed when I pulled into the makeshift parking lot for the small outpost cabin.
Billy had explained that this particular ranger station was a one-room cabin set on a hill. You parked at the base of the hill then walked a tenth of a mile (up the hill) to the cabin.
It was a beautiful day, and I briefly wondered what month it was. I decided, counting back two weeks, that it must be the middle of September. The air was still August hot and the ground was slippery from a morning rainstorm. I had to navigate the incline slowly, paying special attention to avoid the particularly muddy areas.
Halfway up the hill I felt the ground tremble in the same way it does when a galloping horse approaches. I stopped and surveyed the clearing.
Then I heard it.
Something was crashing through the forest. And it was large enough to make the earth vibrate. Before I could tell my feet to run, I saw it.
It was a black bear—quite possibly the largest black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest—and it was running right for me.