Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“Jesus, Mom. Really?”
She laughed and pushed the button on her pen. “I’ll take the money from the sale and do something good with it. Maybe I’ll go back to school.”
The money would be gone in less than a year. And not on school or any other endeavor that might improve her circumstances. He knew her too well to imagine otherwise. But what could he do? He certainly didn’t want the property, and he knew she needed the money, even if it was only a temporary fix after too many years of bad choices. “Okay. It still needs to be cleaned up, though, or no one’s going to buy it for a decent price. I’ll put aside anything I think you might want and take the rest to the dump.”
“Take it all to the dump. There’s not a thing inside that hovel that I want.” She took another pull and seemed to consider something. “Unless it’s valuable. Then we’ll sell it.”
“I doubt there’s anything valuable in there. Grandpop would have sold it long ago. That’s all he did.” He’d collected junk and sold it for a higher price if he could. He obviously hadn’t gotten rich doing it, but he’d made enough to pay off his mortgage and take care of himself, such as it was.
“I know,” his mom said. “But still, you never know. There might be something good buried under all that mess.” She paused for a moment and then gave him a cheeky smile filled with her unique charm, the small part of her that nothing and no one had managed to dampen, despite her own best efforts. “Same with me, right, kiddo?” She winked as she took another hit of her vape.
“So, when do you want to scatter his ashes?” he asked.
“Whenever. We could do it over the lake.”
“I think there are laws against that.”
“Perfect. That prick never met a law he minded breaking.”
“Fair point.”
She stood up and poured herself a cup of coffee, added some milk from the fridge, and sat back down as she stirred it. “We could release some butterflies,” she said after she’d taken a sip. “There’s a butterfly farm across town near Bristol Lake called Flutterfly something.” She gave him an assessing look and paused before saying, “That girl runs it.”
His heart gave a little dip. And there was the information he’d forced himself not to look up. Cami ran a butterfly farm that did butterfly releases, among who knew what else. Was that actually a bona fide business? “What girl?” he asked, just because it felt good to pretend.
She continued to look at him.
He massaged his jaw, deciding not to bullshit a bullshitter. “I’m surprised she still lives here. Or that she moved back.”
“She never moved, far as I know. I drove past her a few times over the years. There’ve been follow-up TV shows and articles about their family. Never an interview from her, from what I can tell but . . . folks are interested, you know? They want to know that things turned out okay.”
He nodded. Maybe he wasn’t so surprised that she’d never left town. The last time he’d seen her, she was about to give birth. She had to have had it hard in the aftermath. He felt a moment of guilt about the way he’d dismissed her the day before. Then again, he hadn’t been mean. He’d just been decisive. He and Cami had no reason to fake cordiality. And frankly, he’d been miffed about the way she’d stifled laughter when she’d looked at him standing on the rickety porch and even more annoyed by her mention of bygones. It felt both impossible and far too easy.
And yet . . . he hated that his body reacted to the sight of her yesterday and the mere mention of her now. Hated the way his heart sped and his hands felt itchy. Hated the way she made him feel all these years later, even with so much water under the bridge.
So many years ago, before everything fell to pieces, Cami had inspired him to make some self-improvements. The military had taken him the rest of the way, and he’d found that he was right about muscles and confidence opening up a man’s social opportunities. He’d been with more than a few women over the years, even if they’d been mostly casual, but he didn’t think even one of them had left him feeling half as elated as he’d felt that summer day after a short conversation with Cami.
He’d never, ever disclose that to a soul. He barely liked admitting it to himself.
“So no on the butterflies then?” his mom asked. And he knew she was probing, but he really didn’t have anything to say about all that. It had happened. He’d left it behind. Now he was back, and he supposed he should expect to be confronted by it in some small measure anyway. But . . . other than that, there was nothing to say. He hadn’t thought about Cami Cortlandt in a long time. Butterflies, though? She ran a butterfly farm? He’d never have imagined that. He looked back over to his mom. He was about to say that his grandpops probably hadn’t cared for butterflies anyway, but with all those flowers, he must have tolerated them at least. “I think we can do without a butterfly release. He’d shit a brick over something so romantic.”