One year later
Lorri wondered if she’d ever get all the moving boxes unpacked. If I haven’t missed what’s in these boxes in a year do I even need to go through them? She considered putting the rest of the boxes in her SUV and taking them straight to the landfill.
That was the easy thing to do, but her sensible side won in favor of possible donations. So, she’d gone through one box each morning, and that had already made a significant dent in the pile. She could even see the dresser in the guest room now.
Today, since she’d taken the day off to lunch with her girlfriends in Raleigh, she grabbed a smaller box and carried it to the living room to sort, toss, or donate.
It wasn’t until she set the box on the coffee table and ripped the tired tape from the top that it registered what was inside.
“Personal” had been written in blue marker that had faded so much it was hard to read.
The paper on top caught her eye. A third-grade report card. Not her personal things, but rather her brother’s. Jeff’s. This was the box of things Mom had given her in an attempt to smooth over the rift that had formed between Lorri and her parents the year following Jeff’s death.
I’ll never see it your way, Mom.
She lowered herself to the couch still clutching the report card, which wasn’t a card at all, but rather a folded piece of yellowed paper. Why didn’t I toss this box out before?
She flipped the paper in her hand. When Jeff was in the third grade they were still as close as two siblings could be. Inseparable. People often asked if they were twins. Mom dressing them alike hadn’t helped with that.
Lorri opened the report card. The grades were good, just as she’d remembered. He’d always been a better student than her. The teacher wrote that he was well-liked, cheerful, and had a great aptitude for math. Something she didn’t. She remembered shopping for school clothes with Mom and how Jeff could rattle off the sale prices in a snap. Fifty percent off she could do in her head, 10 percent too, but that was the limit. When it came to mathematics Jeff had no limits.
She realized she was smiling as she lifted a stack of school pictures out of the box. Random sizes, misshapen from being cut with kitchen scissors. No teeth in second grade. Football jersey in fifth. Braces in seventh. If only Mom and Dad had known what a waste of money that would turn out to be. By junior high Jeff’s hair was shaggy, and his smile had faded. There weren’t any pictures from high school.
Did any of us notice the subtle changes? Were there warnings that we missed?
Jeff’s high school report card recorded the changes. He wasn’t focused. Skipped class. Didn’t participate. Temperamental. Late. Unapologetic for outbursts. Disrupted class.
He got his first DUI at the age of nineteen.
He went to jail the first time at twenty-two. Just the on-ramp to years of suffering for all of us.
Tied with a silky blue ribbon was a stack of letters he’d written from jail to Mom, and one to Dad. The one to Dad had been crumpled up, then smoothed back out. She wondered if Jeff had crumpled it up and then decided to send it, or if Dad had done it.
Why did you give these to me, Mom?
Shuffling through the box, she found receipts from when her parents had put up the house as collateral to post bond to get Jeff out of jail. She’d never known about that. What else didn’t I know?
She’d hated what his reckless actions did to their family. It was hard to watch. After the car accident, she turned away from him completely.
Unable to push back the curiosity, she opened one of the letters and began to read.
Her thoughts about him needing psychiatric care instead of rehab only grew stronger. The highs and lows. The anger. The apologies.
She dropped her hands into her lap. Did I ever hear him say he was sorry? Did I give him the chance to say it?
She now believed he’d suffered from his bad choices and problems too.
Through tears, the words swam in front of her. She wondered how many times her mother had held these letters, cried into her hands over them. Keeping them to herself must have been hard.
Reaching into the box, Lorri took out the last stack of papers and a large envelope.
Mister walked over and laid down in front of the couch, pressing his chin on top of her feet.
Looking into his deep chocolate eyes, she felt comfort. She pressed her hand to his neck. “Thanks, Mister.”
The summarized list of all of Jeff’s offenses read like a history book. Dates as far back as junior high. Charges as wide and varied as the age range they covered.
The letter Jeff wrote to their mother after he’d been charged with manslaughter was worn. The ink smudged against the soft, faded paper from time. The words were honest, and raw. A sincerity that she’d never seen from her brother.
A tear traced her cheek, settling at her lips. What a horrible thing to live with, knowing his neglect took another life.
Her heart hurt for Jeff rather than because of him.
The transcript from the trial shook in her hand. There was a letter from the family that she couldn’t bear to read. She’d hated Jeff for this since the day it happened. She hurt for them all now.
She put everything back into the box and folded the top to secure it. She couldn’t dispose of this box. Not yet. She carried it upstairs and tucked it in the attic access. She might never open it again, but it had a place.
The large clock on her studio wall showed she was running late. She rushed to her bedroom and pulled out an outfit from the very back of her closet. One that had been a favorite when she lived and worked in Raleigh and had to wear professional clothes.
A dab of makeup and a few twists of a curling iron to snazz up her hair and she was ready to go when the doorbell rang. Mister gave out a security woof and positioned himself about six feet from the door.
She raced past him to the front door and opened it. “Tinsley, thank you for watching Mister today. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
Lorri was as nervous about leaving Mister behind as if he were her newborn child. Neighbors for a year now, Tinsley was the first neighbor Lorri met when she moved to Mill Creek Highlands, and that was all because of Mister. Everyone wanted to get an up-close look at the huge dog.
“I’ve looked forward to this all week. It’s like a vacation for me.” Tinsley made her way over to Mister and pressed her hands to the sides of his face. “I love this guy. We’ll be just fine, won’t we?”
Mister’s face scrunched into fat wrinkles around her delicate hands.
“If I’m home he’s good as gold,” Lorri said, “but when I leave him alone for any longer than an hour he chews something up or rearranges the furniture. I don’t know if he gets stressed or bored, or if he’s punishing me.”
Tinsley wrapped her arms around his thick neck. “Are you inviting doggy friends over and throwing parties when Mommy’s not home?”
“That explains it,” Lorri said with a laugh. “One time he dragged the comforter off of my bed to the middle of the living room so he could sleep on it in the sun. I swear he had a master plan. Seriously, I’d love to be in that dog’s head for just one day.”
“I think you’re going to need a nanny cam to figure this one out. He looks innocent to me.” Tinsley gave him a little scratch. “Is someone framing you?”
Mister responded with a head toss that sent his jowls flopping. He shifted his gaze between them as if he knew they were talking about him.
“He’s pleading innocent,” Tinsley said. “He’s totally smiling at me. Look at that.”
“That’s because you spoil him as much as I do.”
Lorri and Tinsley had met the first Sunday Lorri attended the church around the corner. Tinsley had sung a solo that morning and Lorri had stopped her in the parking lot to tell her how much it had moved her. Two days later Lorri crossed paths with Tinsley again while walking Mister through the neighborhood. That’s when they realized they were neighbors.
Mister stared up at Lorri. With that black mask framing his face he always looked like a kid dressed up for trick-or-treat—well, mostly treats. “He’s still a puppy in so many ways. That’s easy to forget with him being so big,” Lorri explained.
“As a mastiff, he’s still a puppy until he’s almost three,” Tinsley said. She would know. She was in her last year of veterinary school. “I’ll take great care of him,” Tinsley promised. “We’ll be fine. You get on out of here.”
“Oh gosh. I hate to leave him.” All 180 pounds of him. He was so tall now that she didn’t have to bend down to pet him on the head.
“Don’t worry,” Tinsley said. “We’ll go out back and exert some energy.”
Lorri laughed. “Shouldn’t take long. He’s not much of an athlete.”
“I have to know, what made you select this breed?” Tinsley asked. “I love understanding how people pick a dog for their family. It must cost a fortune to feed him.”
“I wouldn’t have picked a giant breed. My ex-husband surprised me with him on Valentine’s Day. I’m glad he did though. He’s the best dog and he’s huge, but his heart is too. Leaving Craig behind was easy, but I couldn’t bear to leave Mister.”
“Well, I think you picked the right guy. You go have fun with your friends. You must be going somewhere very nice. I love that dress.”
Lorri glanced down at her outfit. Around here she was usually in jeans. This dress had been her last splurge at Kearsy’s Boutique before she moved from Raleigh. “It’s more for the company than the place.”
Tinsley’s brows shifted, and Lorri quickly realized she thought she’d meant she was going on a date.
“Not like that. Just an afternoon with old girlfriends. We used to meet up in the same restaurant every week. It’s been too long since we’ve gotten together.” Her friends would be dressed nicely, like she used to when she worked from the office. Being home-based had spoiled her. These days yoga pants, comfy tops, and blue jeans were the uniform, and it had turned out to be a nice perk. Only if she showed up for lunch in jeans today, the girls—other than Pam—would think she wasn’t doing well after the divorce, and that was one rumor she didn’t want spread all over town.
“If you decide to stay overnight, no worries. Just let me know.”
“No. I’ll be back. It’s an easy drive.”
“You better go before your little boy here realizes something is up and starts whining,” Tinsley teased. “You know how kids can get at this clingy age.”
“You’re right. I’m gone.” Lorri turned her back on them. She had a pang of guilt as she started her car and backed out of her driveway. This must be what a mother feels leaving their child behind on the first day of school.
She loved her new little house. What it lacked in square footage it made up for in charm and acreage. It was like living a storybook life.
Every house in Mill Creek Highlands had a southern-style wraparound porch, and a healthy outdoor lifestyle was encouraged with amenities like the clubhouse and sidewalks. From the moment she saw the watercolor rendering of the neighborhood in a spread in Our State magazine, she’d daydreamed of living there. Each custom home was unique, but they were all farmhouse chic.
Lorri’s house had vertical wood and batten siding in a modern sage green with golden brown cedar shakes that set off the color of the stacked stone. The community had all the twenty-first-century luxuries, including a central solar-panel farm for the eighty-acre neighborhood and a hydroponics program run by students of North Carolina State at the farmers market. The off-campus curriculum yielded stellar results and the residents were rewarded with premium produce.
Tinsley, as a grad student, helped manage the hydroponic farm and market project. Her parents lived in the neighborhood and Tinsley stayed with them fairly often out of convenience.
Lorri fished her sunglasses from the bottom of her purse. She loved her new life and her more relaxed schedule, but her friends acted like she’d moved to another country. To be fair, it was different. A sleepy town with an old-timey Main Street and town square. People in Dalton Mill even had a different accent. It had taken Lorri over a month to get used to it enough to quit asking people to repeat themselves.
Lorri and Craig had lived in their last house for over five years, but she’d be hard-pressed to name more than two or three neighbors who lived on their street. One of them was Charlie Girbons. She only knew his name because he was the head of the HOA. Charlie was always citing someone for a violation. When people mentioned him, it was accented with a groan, sometimes even an eye roll.
There was no HOA in Mill Creek Highlands, and she’d taken full advantage of that by planting a double order of portulaca around her mailbox just like the ones Charlie had made her dig up back in Raleigh. It was a nice housewarming gift to herself. Since she moved in she’d met every person on her block and could name them on sight.
Mister had plenty of room to wander within the fence line of her property, but she liked walking him and stopping to chat with the neighbors, and he was quite the social butterfly. He became so excited when she got the leash out. His short tail wiggled and wagged as he leapt from paw to paw in anticipation. He was such a chill dog, although Miss Kenner’s tiny Jack Russell intimidated him. He’d sit and turn away from that yapping dog as it snarled at him, threatening to chew the ears right off of Mister’s head. It was comical actually, because Mister could fit the little terrier in his mouth if he wanted to.
Lorri turned her Mercedes G-Wagon onto the main road. She needed a car that was big enough to haul Mister around, and it didn’t hurt that it was one teensy step up on Craig since he’d always wanted one.
She’d heard through the grapevine that he and the new girlfriend were on a bit of a budget. She snickered at the notion of Craig watching his pennies. He’d never been good with money. Good luck with that.
As she drove, she thought of her new life. Her only regret was not balancing her life and work as well as she’d planned now that she was working from home. If anything, she was working more than ever, but she planned to tackle that.
Step one was transforming the loft into a studio. It had taken a few months, but it was everything she’d dreamed of. The light in that room was perfect for painting, even though she hadn’t found the time to make a single brushstroke yet.
Why was it that the promises she made to herself were the easiest to break? I’m going to sit down and paint something new this week. She kind of wished she’d used this day off to stay home and paint instead, but it was too late to change plans now.
As she approached the four-way flashing red light, she pressed her foot on the brake and glanced both ways before proceeding, more out of habit than really looking, because no one was ever coming.
A horn wailed out one long blast from her right.
She slammed on her brakes, stopping inches from a pickup truck.
Her fist to her heart, she sucked in several quick breaths before waving an apologetic hand. It was her fault, and she knew it. “I’m so sorry,” she said, but there was no way the person driving their truck could hear her. The windows were too dark to make out if the driver was waving back or cursing her. Probably the latter, because the loud diesel swung wide, then sent a puff of black smoke into the air as it sped down the road.
I can’t believe that just happened. Her heart pounded. She brushed her sweaty palms against her dress and took a moment before finally crossing the intersection. One mistake. One split second could’ve changed everything.