Shalom stepped off the bus and gazed up and down the small
stretch of her old hometown in Maine, which held only a convenience store, gas
station, and bar. If it weren’t for the bar, there would be no bus stop this close to home, so she
should consider herself lucky. But she still had four miles to go. Shalom
glimpsed the telltale red truck peeking out in the lot behind the bar, bright
against the gray sky, and her stomach knotted. The last time she saw it, her
cottage had burned to ashes. Along
with her mother.
Ben had been the one who stopped Shalom from running into
the flames. Maybe she could’ve
saved her mother. The rational
part of her brain knew it had been too late, but casting blame was easier than
holding the entire weight of guilt on her like a log in her backpack.
She shifted from foot to foot while considering her
options. Ben had loved her mother.
Each time he spoke to her, his faced betrayed his true feelings. He would drive
Shalom without asking questions. Other neighbors would ask, “Did you come all
this way from New York City alone? Where’s your guardian? Did you run away? Just
what do you think you’ll do out there on the edge of the forest with your home
gone?"
He’d understand.
As she took a step towards the store across the street,
drizzle prickled her nose and cheeks. Tendrils of chill had already wafted
through the gaps inside her thin jacket. It would be a long way to walk in the
rain.
Before she mustered courage to take the last few steps, Ben
stepped out from the store. The bells on the wreath jingled as the door closed behind him. A beard covered most
of his weathered face, just like she remembered. He glanced up at the dreary sky before he saw her. She waited for him to notice her, just
a few feet away. His head came down and his eyes widened. He reached her in two strides.
“Shalom, you cut your hair. You look just like… your mother.”
She touched her the edge of her bob nervously and nodded.
Ben’s eyes sparked with questions. But he didn’t ask them,
just like she knew he wouldn’t.
Instead he exhaled in a whistle and said, “You want to go home, don’t
you?”
She nodded again.
He turned towards his truck, and she followed.
After a year away, stepping into the truck was both familiar
and foreign. She’d missed it.
They drove. The only sound was the squeak of the windshield
wipers. The air thickened with
questions unspoken. Any town gossip?
How was Ben since the fire? Was he keeping an eye out on the land she'd inherit in six years?
The only hue besides gray was the crimson of the hood and
the green still clinging to the wintry fields. Shalom covered this length of
road thousands of times, many of them in the very truck she sat in when her
mom’s beat up old car broke down. Did Ben ever start the car? Did it still run? If it didn’t, Shalom figured he
tinkered with it until the car hummed to life again.
Ben's truck passed the familiar trees just where Shalom’s
property began. She wished it were
summer, so leaves would cover the skeleton-finger branches. If it had been a
rainy day like this one on the day of the fire, perhaps her mother would’ve
survived. Ben turned right. The truck lurched back and forth over the tiny dirt
road leading to her house. The garage stood alone. As it loomed closer, its disrepair became starker. Had a year weathered it or was it the new
perspective she had viewing it?
Before the fire consumed her mother, the tiny home had been their refuge.
Ben stopped in front of the garage. Shalom mumbled a thank you before jumping down. Her feet tread on sacred ground. Time and weather had taken most of the evidence of the home and fire away, but her mother's spirit still lingered like fog. Shalom crouched down and grasped a clump of mud, imagining herself as a little girl clasping her mother's hand.
She stood up and wiped her hands together to clean them. Ben's truck waited, idling. She stepped inside. He didn't say, "Where to?" He didn't have to. He put the truck in gear and drove away.
This story is dedicated to anyone who
has suffered a loss in December.
