I left Seattle letting her know that I’d be arriving and asked if she might be able to see if the electricity and water were turned on or if she had any names of who I should contact regarding that. She’d gone above and beyond that request. She’d not only personally handled getting the utilities taken care of, she’d also had a service come in and clean. When I arrived this morning, I wanted to cry I was so grateful. If she hadn’t, I didn’t want to think about what I would have seen when I opened that front door. It wasn’t like the place was going to pass any white glove tests, but it was habitable. I made a mental note to send her an edible arrangement as a thank you. I added it to the hundred or so other mental notes I’d made for myself over the past three days.
With a sigh, I rested my hands on the white pedestal sink and my head fell forward. It was then that I noticed my glasses sitting on the indentation for the soap. I remembered that I had taken them off when I washed my face in an attempt to wake up right before I’d headed out to the couch to unpack.
Reaching down, I picked them up and put them on. When I lifted my head and saw the reflection staring back at me, I gasped in horror and humiliation. I looked like a cross between a crazy cat lady and a vagrant ghost.
Auburn strands of hair flew every which way escaping from what started as a messy bun but could now only be classified as a disaster bun. My already fair skin was so pale I was surprised I wasn’t translucent. There were dark circles beneath my eyes highlighting the large bags that were currently residing there. And my T-shirt was wrinkled with a large coffee stain down the front.
Mortified didn’t scratch the surface of how I felt. My new neighbor, who I hadn’t even seen but had a voice and presence that had sent my hormones into overdrive, had seen me looking like this.
If I wasn’t completely broke and scared for our safety, I’d get right back in my Explorer and drive for two days straight back to Seattle.
CHAPTER 3
Hank
As I stood in my kitchen and stared out at the Thompson house two words kept running through my mind: one moment. That’s all it takes for someone’s entire life to change. At least that’s how long it took for my life to change.
The first time I’d experienced it happening was a rainy fall night a week after my thirteenth birthday. I went to sleep a kid whose biggest worry was facing Mark Lyons in the little league world series game and whether or not I was going to ask Melody or Kendra Montgomery to homecoming and woke up in a nightmare I was still living.
They say that time heals all wounds. That might very well be the case, but time sure as hell hadn’t dulled my senses or my memories of the day, or early morning everything changed. I’d been woken up by a loud knock on the door and had come downstairs to find Chief Dawson, who was just a deputy then, in the kitchen talking with my Pop. My dad’s head was hanging down and he was sobbing.
Dawson’s hand was on Pop’s shoulder as he repeated, “She’s gone, James. She’s gone.”
“Who’s gone?! Who?” I shouted, even though I already knew the answer.
“Gone where?” I needed to hear them say the words because my mind was spinning as I tried to make sense of what was happening. The last thing I remembered, she’d come in to check on me after I was already asleep. Or at least, I thought she had. It was all blurry.
“Your mama was in an accident. She’s gone.” Dawson said.
“What do you mean gone?” I shook my head back and forth. “What to the hospital?”
“There was a car accident. She didn’t make it. She’s dead.”
Dawson’s blunt statement caused my dad’s sob to turn into the most wretched, gut-churning cry I’d ever heard before or since. He sounded like a wounded animal, which I supposed he was. After hearing that cry, things got blurry.
I still have flashes of memories of my brothers and sister waking up the next morning and having to