Chapter 28
Mr. Godfrey and some man I’d never met were yelling at each other.
“I’m telling you I did not drop that tree! Don’t accuse me of …”
“I’ll accuse you of what you’re guilty of! You did this last time we were up here and now I can’t even get out to fill my truck with fuel and get out of this shithole town!”
The other man, after having a few more choice things to say that I was glad Teena wasn’t old enough to understand, finally jumped in his truck and took off back the way he’d come spinning mud back and coating Mr. Godfrey and not doing my Tahoe much good either.
I got out and said, “Hi Mr. Godfrey. You okay? Mind if I cut this enough so I can pass?”
“I didn’t drop this tree!” he yelled at me.
Sometimes all you can do is ignore someone’s attitude. “Uh … yes Sir. I know. I heard you tell that man. But it’s from the corner of your drive sooo … I’m just asking permission to cut enough so I can get by. I’ll even haul off the mess I make.”
He sniffed and wiggled his nose. Made him look like an over-sized, cranky rat. “Well, it is my tree.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Hmm. If you cut it into lengths I suppose I can allow you to take some of it off.”
“Thank you Mr. Godfrey. I appreciate it.”
I wanted to roll my eyes but what are you going to do with some people? Besides, I could see that the tree had heeled up at the root ball … or what was left of it … and hadn’t been “dropped” like the other guy accused.
The tree wasn’t particularly large, about eight inches thick, but it was tall; over fifteen feet until the bottom limbs and then the branches at the top added another eight to ten feet to that. It had gotten top heavy, died, and then the muddy ground didn’t give much for the shrunken root ball to hang on to, so it toppled over in the wind that had kicked up. My chainsaw with its new chain went right through the trunk without a problem. The road was muddy so that was more of a pain than cutting had been, especially when I had to pick up the wood and load it into the back of the trailer. In addition to the trunk, I cut the branches that were as big as my wrist into lengths and put them in the trailer as well.
“Mr. Godfrey? Do you want me to leave the rest of the trunk here for you to pick up for your fireplace?”
“Fireplace?! I am not a fool! I don’t have one of those death traps! Between fires and carbon monoxide poisoning those things should be outlawed. They’re archaic and horrible for the environment. I use a furnace like God meant men to.”
“Er … then would you like me to haul off the rest of this wood and get it out of your road?”
“I’m not paying you,” he said giving me a cold look.
“No Sir. It’s … er … just neighborly.”
I had caught him off guard. “Oh. Well, that’s true. I pick up the trash along this road so I suppose I should get something out of it.”
“Er … yes Sir.”
“But leave that brush over in the ditch for the animals. The damn utility company trimmed all the small branches out of the lines and who knows what they did to the habitats for the small mammals and birds. But no one listens to me.”
I just looked at him waiting to see if he was going to say anything else. It was like watching a MadTV skit.
“Very well, I suppose I’ll let you … this time. But you’d better not forget to leave the brush for the animals.”
“No Sir I won’t. Where do you think the best place would be for the brush?”
He made a bit of production of showing me where he wanted it and how he wanted it, but the cold had him taking off for his house with another warning to do it correctly or I’d hear about it.
I had just finished dragging the last of the brush into the pile Mr. Godrey wanted me to make when two trucks came at me from either direction. The same one from further up the road and Winn’s truck coming up from the direction of town.
“Trouble?” Winn asked after rolling his window down. I didn’t even get a chance to answer before the other guy jumped out of his truck and started cussing me for helping Mr. Godfrey because he had called the cops and I destroyed the evidence. I let them both know I’d had enough and wasn’t going to listen when I started up my chain saw with one crank and went over to get the last of the trunk cut into lengths I could carry.
The man came at me and I turned with the chainsaw still going. “You know,” I yelled. “Even the dumbest crayon in the box knows not to rush someone that has a chainsaw in their hands.”
The guy backed up and then backed up a lot faster when Winn grabbed him by the scruff and pulled. I ignored them both and finished what I was doing. The other man and his truck sped off down the road and Winn just shook his head.
“Sorry about that,” he told me. “Friend of the family. He was thinking of buying the cabin but turns out he’s got money problems and my stepdad doesn’t want to hold a note for him. I guess he couldn’t talk Dad around like he thought and got butthurt. He’s leaving and …”
“And going to be sorry if he does. The traffic on the highway is getting bad.”
“You come from town?”
“Overton,” I told him without further explanation.
“I’ll get the wood. Just drop …”
“I can do it,” I told him.
He sighed. “Did I do something to piss you off?”
“’Scuse me?”
“Or maybe that rumor I heard about Munroe’s lawyer is true.” When I didn’t bite he added, “It goes something to the effect that …”
“I don’t know about a lawyer being involved. But if that is what Faye Dunn is saying this time that’s the second guy that she’s thrown under the bus for having a letter sent threatening to take Teena away from me.”
“What?! And what’s Faye got to do with this?”
I shrugged though it was hard to see under the coat I was wearing. Teena was asleep in her car seat with her mufflers on her ears so I didn’t need to wear the big coat but my old one was hanging on me because I’d lost more weight. “Doesn’t matter. I took care of it with the County Health Department. And have a letter to prove it. I need to get going.”
“Hey now. You can’t say something like that and not tell me the rest of the story.”
“Why not?”
“Huh?”
“Why not?”
“Well … okay, you have a point but …” He made a face. “Celeste told everyone to shut up and leave it alone, that the facts were probably different from what the rumor was. That mean she knows?”
“That means that what happened isn’t anyone else’s business. That I took care of what someone tried to do and have proof that the lies that were told were just that, lies. Beyond that what your family gets up to is none of my business anymore than … just forget it. It’s over and done with.”
“Done or Dunn?”
I made a face. “Really?”
“Okay, so that wasn’t my best line. About Faye …”
“Do I need to stick my fingers in my ears and go la-la-la for you to get the message? I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Whew. Faye must have really stepped in it. I’d heard that she and Emma Jean had some big blow up of a fight.”
“I know I’m going to regret this but who is Emma Jean?”
“Cindy’s half-sister from her Mom’s first marriage. She isn’t a Dunn.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t touching that one. Trying to figure out how people were related in this area is like trying to take an AP Physics exam without a calculator. “This is like being back in high school,” I muttered.
“You’re still in high school,” he said with a grimace.
“Technically. Technically I’m also in college. Though what that has to do with the price of tea in China I don’t know. Look, I need to get Teena home. It’s getting colder … and damp. They’re promising snow before midnight if not sooner.”
“I’ll follow you and help you unload that wood.”
“I don’t need …”
He sighed again. “Obviously not but it would be a kindness if you’d let me.” I gave him a suspicious look. He shrugged and explained, “Mom and them brought some friends up this time and I’m not exactly fun to be around when I come in stinking like work and mess up their party vibe.”
“Seriously?” I asked like he was looking for pity.
He made a face and said, “You have no idea how serious.”
I decided free labor wasn’t something to turn my nose up at since I had all the wood and the groceries to take care of, plus the freeze drier that weighed more than just a little bit … try over two hundred pounds. “Fine. But you mind helping to carry a few other things through to the deck? I don’t want the wood to get damp and make the fireplace smoke. Once was enough. And I have something that would be easier to move with two people as well.”
He followed me back to the cabin. The wood brought no comment but the freeze drier brought a couple from both of us until I thought to use an old rolling mechanics cart my dad used to have a compound miter saw sitting on. Then as a thank you I fixed him some cocoa.
He looked around. “You’ve been doing a lot of work. Who did you have helping you?”
“No one.”
“No one?”
I just looked at him.
“Er … is that no one it is none of my business, or no one no one.”
“Both,” I said throwing a napkin at him and rolling my eyes. “I’m not helpless you know. Why would I need help to clean up and organize stuff?”
“Well, I wasn’t asking about that though having been there I know this must have been a lot of work. I was asking about the hardy board siding you put on that section where the freezer is.”
“Same question. Why would I need help? I grew up doing stuff like that.”
He pointed to my textbooks stacked on the table. “Those books and you with a hammer and nails in your hands don’t go together.”
“Why not?”
It took him a moment to answer. “Just doesn’t seem like it should.”
“Is this a guy thing?”
“A whut?”
“A guy thing. Where you think just because I’m not a guy I shouldn’t be able to do things like use a measuring tape, chop saw, and paint brush. You didn’t get all cross-eyed because I used a chain saw just now.”
“Even my mother can use a chainsaw. I guess …” He made a face. “Is this a girl trap?”
I shook my head. “I don’t play those games. Mostly ‘cause I don’t know how and think they’re nothing but stupid on top of stupid.”
He was silent for a moment then asked, “How you getting’ along?”
“Fine. Why?”
“’Cause I’m askin’. I didn’t find out until today that Monroe hurt you.”
“He didn’t … oh … you mean the black eye.” I shrugged. “It looked worse than it was.”
“That’s not the point. Celeste said you didn’t go to the Thanksgiving service or take the baby to the Angel Breakfast either. In fact she hasn’t seen you around town at all except maybe once. Smith said you haven’t been to the hardware store since … well since it happened. No one has seen you.”
“And that’s a problem why?”
“It’s … how rumors start.”
“No. Rumors start because people are nosey and just have to bump their gums to feel superior to other people.”
“Wow. You really are pissed.”
I sighed. “No. I’m just done. And pleeease don’t start with the jokes. It’s not funny. I’ve just had enough of the Monroes of this world. And the Fayes. And all the rest of the stupid they perpetuate on other people. I’ve got responsibilities. And I don’t want people like that taking aim at Teena regardless of their reasons, and I definitely don’t want her growing up that way. I’m it … the only thing that stands between Teena and all the crapheads and their craptastic crap.”
“You could have friends to help.”
“I had friends. Didn’t work out too well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I looked at him and finally figured it out. “You don’t know do you?”
“Know what?”
“Huh. I thought Celeste said that people knew … or some people knew. That Uncle Tink had been, in her words slinking around up here, raising suspicions and spreading my story. You even said you read it in the newspapers online when you went looking and I even told you but … you still don’t really know.”
“Yeah, Tink Halsey was around while they were moving stuff in here. That’s how I found out about your aunt.”
“But you don’t know the rest of the story?”
“Appears I don’t. Thought you told me, or I thought you did.”
I tried to find the words to tell him, to just get it over with, but I couldn’t. Instead I opened my laptop, found one of the news articles that was closest to the truth that was published in the aftermath of the trial, and pushed it over to him and picked up Teena and walked down to the basement to start a fire, change her diaper, and feed her in the rocking chair I’d moved down there to have a place to sit. When I was finished, I put Teena down to sleep and walked back up expecting Winn to have let himself out. I nearly jumped a mile to find him staring out the kitchen window.
“I thought you’d be gone.”
He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me. Then he said, “You’ve never said anything about the scars or my limp.”
“None of my business and it doesn’t seem to get in your way. Besides you gave me the details when you explained it was during the DC riots.”
“Use to get in the way. Not so much anymore. Took a while. It’s going to take a while for you too.”
Oh boy. “Winn …”
“I’m sure no one has gotta explain that to you. You’ve been through stuff before. Big stuff a kid shouldn’t have had to.”
“Yeah, life sucks but unless you want to do nothing but sit around feeling sorry for yourself you have to learn to deal with the suckage.”
He finally turned around and there was a troubled look on his face. “Don’t let the bastards win Edie.”
“I’m not,” I told him.
“Yeah … yeah you are. Their win may not be obvious to you right now but take it from someone who knows. Shutting yourself off is just another type of being a victim. Don’t be that. As much as it sucks to get out there, especially on days when people don’t want to let you let go of the past, you still need to. They’ve taken enough from you. Don’t let ‘em take any more.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
He shook his head. “Not giving you one. But I’m not kidding when I say I’ve been there. I had people I thought I could depend on … a person I thought I could depend on … turn their back because they couldn’t handle that I was never going to be what I was before the riot and that Molotov cocktail. If you think the scars are bad now, back then they … they were raw and terrible to look at. It hurt like hell when she did that. Other people that … that I needed to help me instead could only see the damaged person I was and my lost potential. My mom still flinches sometimes when she forgets and is suddenly faced with it again. If it wasn’t for my stepdad I don’t know where I would be right now but even he … look, I just get it that people can be hard on you even when they think they aren’t. But you still need people.”
“Don’t.” It was a command he didn’t listen to.
“Take it easy. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m not asking you to join the Garden Club or walk down the aisle at the First Baptist Church. But … at least keep the drawbridge down for a few people. It’s not gonna kill you and … and as hard as it is to believe right now, it’s what you need to do. Just think about it.”
I sighed. “You’re here aren’t you? Stop pushing.”
“I’m not. You need female friends to offset …”
“No. You can stop right there. Male. Female. Doesn’t matter. In case you didn’t get it from that article it was my best friend that helped to set me up. A lot of the girls that I thought of as good friends knew what was planned and went along with it. They knew. And a couple of them were there, laughing … participating. So no, it doesn’t matter what the gender is. People suck.”
“O…kay. Look, I’m not punching your buttons to hurt you or hack you off. There’s been enough of that. Just … just …”
I just wanted him to stop. “Fine. Whatever. But I’ll do it on my own time and in my own way. Got it? I don’t want to be … set up or … or …”
“I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t like it when people did it to me, even if they thought they were being nice or helpful. I got real good at avoiding the blind date set ups.” He snorted. “Got to be where they had to scrape the bottom of the barrels and the girls didn’t even have ‘a good personality.’ I got the ‘compassionate pity’ thing enough to make me want to punch a few people out.”
“Road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
“Yeah it is,” he agreed. “All I’m asking is that you think about it.”
“I already said I would didn’t I?”
“Okay.” He sighed. “Look, I’ll check on you tomorrow …”
“I do not need a babysitter.”
“I’m not being one smart mouth. This is your first winter on your own and this is going to be a bad storm. I’d feel like a jerk if I didn’t at least do that much. If you can be nice to Crazy Ol’ Man Godfrey despite how he is, is it so hard to understand that I’m doing this just to be nice as well?”
I looked at him and then shrugged. “Okay, nice I can accept. I don’t accept pity or anything else.”
“No. That’s not what you’ll get from me. Are you used to snow at all?”
“I can drive in it if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t exactly live in sunny Arizona before I moved here.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Not to mention you don’t need to be out driving for the next few days. There’s gonna be lines down, trees down, and the road down to the highway is going to be slick and muddy and it isn’t smart to be driving on it when it is like that. There could be a wash out or slide. Could be nothing but a sheet of ice despite it being mostly gravel up this way. It’s happened before. And we might lose power.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t have any heat in this place. What were they thinking? You’ve got a baby.”
“Uh … look, I moved down to the basement. It’s warmer down there.”
“You can tell me no, but … you mind if I take a look?”