Page 46 of First Chance

The last chain link gate opens thunderously as I step through it with lead in my shoes. Ten years. It’s been ten years since I’ve been outside of these prison walls.

The trees look different, the air feels crisper when you’re breathing it in freely.

I’m afraid to take another step. As if one wrong move will get me thrown back into the hell I just escaped. All that I endured over the past decade was for nothing, and now my entire life is ahead of me, stained by my misfortune.

“Well, are you going to stand there gawking or are you going to give your old man a hug?” My grandfather’s voice is like wind chimes and the creaking of a rocking chair on a summer day. Like home.

“Pops,” I barely breathe the name out before his arms are around me, and the tears fall. I can’t make another sound as I dampen his T-shirt. Ten long years without a hug from the man who means everything.

He should be standing here with my grandmother, but I’ll never get the chance to hug her again.

We lost her while I was in this damn prison and I missed everything. I couldn’t comfort my sister or support the man who raised me. I didn’t get to say goodbye to the woman who was more of a mother to me than my own mom.

But I’m free now.

I have the chance to repay my grandfather for so many debts, but most importantly, for how tirelessly he fought to set me free. He drained his life’s savings to get lawyers and special litigators. He hired private detectives and extra hands at the sanctuary to keep things running while he’s been focused on all his efforts for me.

“I’ve got to tell you, Loch,” he starts once we’re nearly home, back up the mountain where I was raised. “This place probably isn’t how you remember. Some things have gone to the back burner while I’ve been… Preoccupied.”

“It shouldn’t have been like this, Pops.” I rub my hand across my head, the stubble scratching my palm. I’ve kept it short since the first week I was locked up. My size made a target, and one scuffle in the yard was all it took for me to eliminate any leverage they could get.

“Now, listen. Life can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. We don’t always get the easy route; that’s the way it is. You can’t keep focusing on the past. We’re moving forward the best we can. That’s all we can do.”

Keep moving forward.

How can I?

I lost everything in one day. My freedom, my good name, and the woman I thought would marry, have a family with.

Years of my life are gone, and I’ll never get them back.

He pulls in through tall black gates that I’ve never seen before that connect to a perimeter fence on either side, linedwith barbed wire along the top…

The entire property wasn’t fenced in before, only the bear enclosures.

The barn is in rougher shape than I remember; the sliding doors are propped up on the sides and not attached to the tracks, boards are missing, and there are holes in the side and the roof. It looks ready to collapse.

The trucks parked in the grass with weeds growing up alongside them resemble a wasteland and not a farm. There used to be a chicken coop and goat pens, but they’re empty. There aren’t any animals that I can see.

“How are the bears?” I ask him as I survey the desolate property that once flourished.

“They’re alright. We only have four right now. I haven’t been able to travel to pick up any new rescues.”

“Why not?”

“The trailer’s busted. Can’t keep it aligned.”

“I have an idea for this place, Pops, but you have to trust me. It’s going to take some time and an open mind.”

“Son, I’ve got more faith in you than I’ve ever had in anyone, the Lord included. This place is yours, Loch. You dowhateveryou damn please and I’ll support ya the best I can.” He slaps my shoulder and walks toward the house that he and my grandmother shared for fifty years. The house I grew up in.

I’m going to make this place something for him. I’m going to keep it alive for him. Even as the looming black gates shut behind me and I’m trapped in another cage.

* **

Damn, JoAnna Montgomery.

I’ve lived my life hidden away from the real world for years. I had accepted that I was destined to live in the shadows of society, avoiding glances or being recognized.

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