by T. K. Chapin
“I’m going to chat with Nick,” I said to Jennie and Todd. Lizzy and Isaac had already made themselves comfortable back in front of the television set, but they kept glancing back at Todd and me as they whispered between each other.
“Okay,” Jennie replied. “Could you grab the hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom first?”
“I thought I didn’t need it yet?” Todd said. “The paramedics just put on my bandage I have now.”
“We’ll keep it out here for you so you don’t forget.”
“Okay,” Todd replied.
“Sure, I’ll get it.” Walking through the hallway to the bathroom, I saw family pictures filling the walls on both sides of me. If only I could have my family back, I thought to myself. I missed them so much and there was nothing I could do to fix that. Entering the bathroom, I couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of my reflection as I went to open the medicine cabinet.
My goodness I looked awful. The bruises were already showing themselves, and there was even a gross hint of yellow tint in one of my eyelids. I couldn’t keep myself from crying as I saw my broken reflection in the mirror that day. How was I ever going to move on? I wondered as I fetched the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton balls from the medicine cabinet.
Returning back to the living room, Jennie saw my tears and stood up wrapping her arms around me. I couldn’t help myself from crying into her shoulder. It was one of those cries that are rarely experienced in life; Uncontrollable, unrelenting episodes that consume one’s entire being as a person and seem to break them down to the core of their humanity. Everything poured out of my soul in that moment on, her shoulder, and it was in the form of tears. By the time I had stopped crying, her shoulder was drenched.
“You’ll get through this Dear… You need to just hang on. Dale and I both believe you will come out of this stronger than ever,” she said into my ear as she softly patted my back.
Pulling away from her shoulder, I wiped my tears from my eyes. “Thank you.” While I didn’t have a particular fondness of my aunt and uncle, they were good people and what she did for me in that moment would live with me forever. She showed me a glimmer of the love I so desperately needed. Breaking away from our embrace, I needed a distraction, so I headed to Nick’s room upstairs. The stairwell that led up to the bedrooms was just off the living room.
“Go away,” He replied to my knock on the door.
“It’s me Claire.”
A moment later the door swung open. “Hey Cuz, long time no see,” he said as he dropped his wireless headphones to around his neck. Looking at me again, he said, “What happened to you? You look horrible.”
I didn’t want to explain, so I just replied with an easy and short answer. “Life…” I collapsed onto his bed and then sat up on the edge of it.
“Dang…” He paused for a moment as he sat down in his chair in front of the computer. He swung the chair around to face me and came closer. “Guess you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Nah…” My words trailed off as I looked at my phone. “Woah, I have cell reception out here?”
Nick grinned. “Sure do. My Dad put up a booster that covers this area pretty well.”
“Nice.” Directing my sight to the triangular window that was in his room and overlooked the forest, I said, “Is Copper’s Cove pretty close to here?”
“Yeah, it’s just through the woods a few miles.”
“Sweet,” I replied. My left cheek burned with pain as I tried to force a smile. The soreness from my injuries was beginning to become more evident. Nick looked uncomfortable with my bruises as he shifted in his seat.
“I’ll kick his butt; just give me the address of where that scumbag is at.”
Shaking my head, I replied, “He’s in jail… I’m sure he’s being taken care of in there.”
Nick stood up and hugged me. “Are you going to be staying with us? We have a room right across from mine that you can have.” He pointed over towards his door.
“No, I’m just here for Todd… for tonight.”
“Where are you going to stay?”
“Probably with a friend in town… No offense, but I can’t really deal with God and church right now… and that’s pretty serious around here.”
Nodding, he replied, “Yeah.”
“Claire?” Todd shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
Standing up, I went over to the doorway and replied, “What?”
“I wanna talk…”
“Okay.” Turning back to Nick, I said, “I’ll see ya around.”
“Sounds good.” He put his headphones back on and sat back down in his chair to face the computer.
Shutting the door behind me, I journeyed down the stairs and into the living room to find Todd in tears while he sat on the couch.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I sat by his side and hugged on him.
“There was an ad on television for Dad’s old work and it just made me sad…” Wiping his tears he continued, “I feel so dumb…”
My heart broke for my little brother as I held him. It’s a horrible feeling to have when someone you love is hurting and there is nothing you can do to make them feel better in their moment of sadness. I tried to encourage him, “Don’t feel stupid Todd, it is okay to be sad. I am always here if you need me to talk or just for comfort.” I said. He nodded and wiped his tears as I wrapped my arm around him. He let his head rest on my shoulder as our conversation went quiet and we began watching TV.
Within the hour Todd had fallen asleep and my arm had followed suit. Slipping my tingly arm out from behind his head, I was able to get up from the couch. Going into the kitchen, I caught the tail end of a prayer that Jennie and Dale were having amongst themselves.
“Oops,” I said, stepping back out.
“No, that’s okay Claire, come on in,” Dale said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“We were done, you can come in for whatever you were after,” Jennie replied.
“Just a drink… kind of parched.” I quickly went over to the cupboards to look for a cup. As I searched, Jennie stood up and joined my side.
“Right here,” she said, opening the cupboard nearest to the sink.
Smiling at her through the pain that was throbbing in my cheek, I said, “Thanks.”
“You want to talk about what happened?” Dale asked from the table.
“Not really,” I replied over my shoulder. I pushed the cup into the water dispenser in the fridge door. Stopping I looked back at him, “No offense or anything… I’m just here for Todd.”
“You don’t want to move out here?” Dale asked surprised.
“Not really…”
Dale looked towards the living room and said, “You know you’re always welcome, and I think your Brother would do a little better if you were here Claire.”
“Yeah…” My words trailed off quietly into an awkward silence between us.
Dale kept quiet and excused himself from the kitchen table. As he left the room and headed upstairs, Jennie turned to me at the fridge. “Dale’s just trying to do what’s best for Todd… he’s not trying to upset you.”
Another onslaught of pain coursed through me, this time it was emotional, and it was crushing me under its pressure. My parents were dead, and I was left with responsibility over Todd, or at least that’s what I was beginning to feel like I had. “I can’t be his Mom,” I said, choking on my words. “I’m just a kid!” I added.
“Nobody is saying you need to be his Mother dear… We were just saying you’d do good to be out here with him.”
“Well, I can’t,” I said firmly as I wiped my tears away. “I can’t do that for him.”
Sitting down at the kitchen table, I shifted the conversation, “How’s Todd been doing out here anyways? He said you guys were treating him well.”
“He’s been okay… he plays with the kids and stuff, but every so often he just wants to be alone. He seems real
ly sad at times...”
Glancing back at the living room, I thought of Todd. He was so broken and hurt, just like I was and I couldn’t do a single thing to help him. “I see…”
“He’s been enjoying church a lot. He and Nick went fishing with Joshua, a kid from church a few days ago.”
“Joshua Meyer?” I asked surprised.
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Yeah, he goes to my old school in town…”
“Oh that’s neat. He comes with his Grandma and Grandpa to church out here.”
“Oh.” I paused for a moment, thinking of a way to stop talking about Joshua. He was kind of the reason why Matt got so angry with me. “How did Todd like fishing?”
“He said it was a lot of fun… but I don’t know if that’s true or not. I think he’s trying to be happy in front of us because Nick said he was pretty quiet the whole time fishing.”
“That’s just Todd. He’s just kind of a quiet kid.”
“Well then, maybe he did have fun.” Jennie smiled warmly as she reached her hand over to mine. “You are more than welcome to come stay here Claire.”
“I know that… You guys really need to stop telling me that, I get it. I just don’t want to go to church and stuff.”
“Our household goes to church,” Dale said coming back into the kitchen.
“Why force people into doing something they don’t want to do though?” I asked looking up at Dale.
Sitting down to the table with Jennie and I, Dale looked me in the eyes. “The definition of family, at least to Jennie and I, is a group of people with the same values and goals in life.”
“So forcing people into doing that-”
He interrupted me. “We don’t view it as ‘forcing’ we view it as anyone in this household must respect the values and goals that the overall family has. We can’t make people believe what we believe, but if they are living under our roof, they’ll need to respect our values.”
I was pretty confident at the time he was a control freak that wanted everyone to do whatever he wanted them to do. I blew him off and ended the conversation right there. “Okay. Well, I have somewhere to go… so I’m not going to stay here.”
“That’s fine,” Dale replied calmly. “I do ask you visit some though… for Todd’s sake.”
“I agree… seeing him today I realized I need to be around for him more.”
“Good,” Dale replied.
“We love and care about you,” Jennie said. “Even if you don’t believe how we do… That doesn’t make us care about you differently.”
“Thank you.”
The house phone rang, interrupting the conversation. Checking the caller ID, Dale looked over to Jennie. “It’s Callohan. I’ll take it outside…”
“Okay,” she replied, sighing heavily. He grabbed the phone and went out the front door.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ve been having some issues with a cattle sale that Dale was involved in a couple weeks ago. The man who bought the cows from Dale said there were some sick ones in the bunch.”
“Oh…” I replied, confused to what that meant.
“Basically the guy is trying to blame Dale for the sick ones, even though they were perfectly fine when they were sold.”
Coming back into the kitchen, Dale gave Jennie a kiss on the cheek before hanging the phone back up. It reminded me of the last morning I saw my parents. I had no idea that was the last kiss my father would plant on my mother’s cheek in front of me. And even though I saw it a million times, thinking back on that one morning made me start to cry again.
“I don’t know why I’m crying so much!” I said. “Everything sets me off!”
Dale came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Some days will be rougher than others Claire. It’s just part of the process. And after today’s events… you can expect to have some tears.”
CHAPTER 6
Unable to sleep that night, I finally forced myself out of bed. Glancing at my phone on the nightstand, I saw it was only six. Dang… it’s super early. I decided to go for an early morning walk to help clear my head. I slipped on my tennis shoes, put my jacket on and headed out the back door. I was a little curious to see exactly how far Copper’s Cove was from their house by foot. As I stepped into the woods, I glanced back up at Nick’s window and recalled our early childhood together. We had a good run back when we were just a couple of kids who were bored during summer out in the country. We’d go down to the Mud Hole and play for hours with all the kids around the neighborhood. Life seemed so simple and easy back then, I wished for a moment there was some way to go back and recapture it.
It had rained all through the night and had formed a crystallized coating of ice on all the tree branches and plant life in the woods that morning.
Only a few moments into my walk I arrived to an opening in the forest I hadn’t recalled from when I was a kid. An old abandoned set of railroad tracks that were covered in moss and dirt under the ice were in front of me. There was no way they had been used in years judging by all the overgrowth on them. Checking my cell phone reception, I saw there was still a bar of reception. Nice, I thought to myself as I continued. Spotting a stuffed bear sitting on the tracks a little further out of the way, I came up to it.
Picking it up, I looked at the bear to see an eye was missing, and the arm was slightly torn on one side. What on earth is this doing out here? I wondered glancing around. Maybe it’s Isaac’s or Lizzy’s, I thought glancing back from the way I had come towards the house. Continuing through the woods, I finally arrived to Copper’s Cove. It was probably right around a two mile trek judging by the forty minutes it took to make it there.
Glancing at the bonfire ashes that were crystallized with ice, I flashed back to the last time I came out there with Matt. Recalling his aggressiveness he’d randomly would show I sort of felt ridiculous for not knowing he was on the verge of snapping. The aggressive arm around the neck, the pulling me in close to the point it hurt sometimes. He would even yank a little harder when a guy would talk to me… It was all so evident now looking back on it. I was so stupid.
Heading back through the woods, my phone buzzed when I got back to the railroad tracks, it was Nicole surprisingly.
“What’s going on girl?” She asked. “I saw you tried calling me a few times last night late, but I was busy with my man. I just barely woke up so I could make it to an appointment at the doctor’s office.”
I choked on my words as I began to cry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Matt…”
“You two broke up? Or what? Talk to me.”
“He beat me…”
“What? Oh my Gosh! That son of…. Ew…. I’m wicked hot right now. Where is he? I’m going to whoop his-”
“He’s in jail,” I said quickly. Letting out another cry as I continued, I said, “Please stop Nicole…”
“Okay… It just upsets me so much!” She replied.
“Me too…” I said softly as I wiped my eyes.
“Where are you staying now?”
“I stayed with my aunt and uncle last night so I could be out here with Todd… he was there when it happened.”
Silence fell across the phone for a moment before Nicole spoke. “I’m so sorry… Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all!”
“What about a place to crash?” I asked.
“Ummmm…. I don’t know if my Mom would be cool with that. You aren’t even in school anymore…” She went quiet for a moment. “Hold on.” A few minutes later, she returned to the call. “My mom said that’d be fine. When do you think you’ll get here?”
“Want to pick me up?” I asked with a desperate laugh as I began trekking back through the woods towards Dale and Jennie’s.
“Ha. My Mom took my keys when they finally found the dent in the car…”
“Snap…”
“Yeah…” Nicole said letting out a sigh.
“I’ll figure some
thing out.”
I was relieved that I could stay at Nicole’s, but trying to get there was going to be difficult. Wonder how she’s going to get to work? There’s no way her mom is just going to give her rides all the time.
Coming back through the woods to the house, I saw Dale was outside on the back porch in a wooden rocking chair. As I stepped up onto the porch, I saw he had a Bible in his hands and he was reading quietly to himself.
“Good morning,” He said glancing up at me. “Have a nice walk?”
“I did…” Holding up the bear, I asked, “Is this Lizzy’s bear?”
Leaning his head to one side as he squinted to see it, he replied, “I don’t think so…”
“I found it out by the train tracks in the woods.”
Smiling warmly, he said, “Bring it over here.”
Walking up to him, I handed him the bear. “By golly, it survived after all these years?”
“What does that mean?”
“This bear belonged to your mother. She’d take it out along with a half dozen or so of her dolls when she was younger… she’d play out there for hours.”
“How’s that possible? Your brother, my Dad, didn’t even know her until college,” I said, looking back towards the woods. “That had to be when you guys were just kids.”
Smiling at me, he said, “Take a seat.”
Sitting down on the wooden bench next to his rocking chair I listened as he explained how my mother lived just up the road from them when they were all kids. They went to the same schools and yet my father never met her until they both attended college at NYU. We were both a bit surprised my parents had never told me about it.
“That’s crazy… but how’s this bear not completely gone and destroyed from all the years?” I asked, looking at the bear in his hands.
“I don’t know… Sometimes you just can’t explain things.”
“Like you?” I laughed. “Hey, speaking of you… could you give me a ride into town? I’m going to stay with my friend Nicole.”
Pulling up the sleeve of his flannel long-sleeved shirt, he looked at his watch. “I need to make a trip into town at about nine o’clock, so in just a little while… if that works for you?”
