I’ve come too far to go back now. I’m getting low on gas and—like an idiot—I didn’t bring any real food with me. I got coffee and a pastry before hitting the road, and that was it. The map on my cell phone tells me I only have a couple more miles to go until I reach the cabin, where a stocked fridge awaits me.
I can do this. I have to do this.
I creep forward, a new flood of determination coursing through me.
Brent would have laughed at me and told me there was no way I was intelligent or resourceful enough to figure out how to get there on my own. “You’re just going to screw this up,” he’d say with scorn. No, wait. Actually, he would have forbidden me to go in the first place. He and Lisa never got along well anyway, and he would have blown up at me for even suggesting a thing like this. I got so used to asking his permission for every little thing.
Thinking of it now makes me want to cry with shame.
Get angry, my inner voice tells me.
“Fuck you, Brent!” I scream into the car, then tap the gas pedal. I’ll never be that woman ever again, and now’s the time to prove it.
I tap the pedal with a little too much rage, and this time, all of my tires hit all of the slick patches covering the road. I turn the wheel, then turn it again, then completely lose control.
The last thing I see is my headlights illuminating a large tree right before I plow into it.
2
Asher Hillsong
“Here you go, Mrs. Morris,” I say, handing the older woman her change. “Need some help with that?”
She hesitates, pursing her lips as she sizes up the new ladder she’s just bought. Her dark brown hair is streaked with gray, and her dark eyes are lined with crow’s feet, but those are the only indications of her age. She’s as strong as someone years younger, and she’s stubborn as hell. Accepting my assistance with anything is not a simple thing.
“Getting pretty slick out there,” I add, nodding toward the window. My brindle pit bull mix, Sadie, whines in agreement as she paces back and forth in front of my hardware store’s window. “If anyone’s gonna take a spill putting that ladder in the back of your truck, I’d much rather it be me.”
“Afraid I’ll sue you, Asher?” Mrs. Morris says, lifting an amused brow.
“You’ll take me for everything I have, plus my shirt and pants,” I reply, lifting my hands.
She eyes me. “I’m a married woman, Asher. Much as any woman in this town would love to relieve you of your shirt and pants, I’d rather you kept them.”
I release a hearty chuckle. Mrs. Morris is a no-nonsense type of woman, but she’s got a little wicked streak that makes an appearance every now and then. She’s also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. When my ex-fiancée decided the small-town mountain life wasn’t for her after I gave her the ring and after she found herself a city boy she much preferred to me, Mrs. Morris and her husband, as well as several other people in town, quietly offered their support and caring in subtle, non-intrusive ways. Mrs. Morris would often show up at the store several times a week with “a spare casserole” she “needed” me to take off her hands. Mr. Morris would pop up on Friday evenings with a six-pack of the excellent lager he makes to “set me up good” for the weekend. Dog biscuits and toys for Sadie would appear on the checkout counter inside the store. When I came back to church after needing almost a year of solitude to myself, the congregation welcomed me back in with open arms like I’d never left. I’m not an overly religious man, but there’s something about being in the same space with a whole bunch of people full of love and kindness to help heal a man’s broken heart.
That, and the beauty of the mountains.
I spent my summers here in Hawk Valley as a kid, and despite going away for college and working in the city, I never forgot the call of the wind in the range, the fresh, clean air way up high, or the feeling of peace and contentment that comes from standing on top of a ridge looking down at the town, at nature, at the beauty of creation. The hardware store was my grandfather’s, and he worked it until the month before his death. The cancer took him swiftly. My parents have been gone since I graduated college twelve years ago, and there was no one else Grandpa trusted to run the place, which is why he left it to me in his will. I left my six-figure corporate job, took my dog and the woman I thought I was going to marry, and moved to the mountains.
I loved it. Sadie loved it. Beth did not.
I bundle up quickly and carry the ladder out to Mrs. Morris’s truck. In the covered bed are a bunch of cloth bags full of groceries. I assume she, along with pretty much everyone else in town, hit up the market to load up on supplies to get ahead of the storm. Normally I don’t close until seven on weekdays, but as the first flakes start to fall, I realize shutting down an hour early would be the wisest decision.
As if reading my mind, Mrs. Morris turns to me with a sharp expression as I shut the back hatch of her truck bed. “You’d better get on home, Asher. That road up to your cabin is tricky on a good day, and this snow is fixing to come down hard all weekend.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with an obedient nod. “Sadie and I’ll be locking up and heading out shortly.”
“Have you got enough food?”
“Just went grocery shopping yesterday.”
“You didn’t buy all that junk, did you? You got vegetables?”
My lips twist. I’m thirty-four, in case you were wondering. Mrs. Morris seems to believe I’m forever a nineteen-year-old college student.
“I’ve got plenty of nutritious food, Mrs. Morris. I thought I’d whip up a big batch of your beef stew and cornbread, actually.”
She gives me a terse nod. “I was going to suggest it myself. Something nice and hot to fill you, and you can eat on it for damn near a week. Freezes well too.” She pats my cheek. “Well, get on home, then. Don’t worry about the store. Everyone’s expecting it to be closed all weekend for the weather.”
I step back and wave as she starts off in her truck. I did a lot of business over the past couple of days. People stocked up on shovels and snowblowers and ice melt and gloves. Bad weather always tends to bring in lots of sales. Plus, I’ve basically got the weekend off, which I can’t complain about.
I whistle to Sadie where she’s frolicking in a mound of snow down the street as I step back inside the store. “C’mon, girl. Let’s go home and have some stew.”
She gives me an excited yelp and tears down the street toward me. I grin. She’s the light of my life, and I should’ve known when Beth asked me to keep Sadie in a kennel right before we split we were doomed. Actually, I should’ve known from the first moment they met we were doomed. Sadie is the friendliest girl in the world, but with Beth, she slunk around like she’d been kicked and always kept her distance whenever Beth was around. But I was too blinded by “love” to see the warnings my best friend was trying to give me. And ever since Beth and I called it quits, Sadie has blossomed.
I lock up the store, set the alarm, and Sadie and I exit out the back. My truck purrs to life and heat flows from the vents. Sadie leaps into the passenger seat and settles back, panting a big doggy smile. I put the belt across her and then myself, hit the wipers, and start off slowly.