Page 7 of Justice & Liberty

It was just Bee and me in the cab of a moving truck, heading off into a new adventure.

I broke the drive into three very long days, partially because I didn’t have the money to go spending on a bunchof motels, and partially because what the heck else did I have to do each day? Check into a motel at five in the evening and watch TV all night? No thanks. So I drove till well after dark each day, making it almost to Colorado on the first day, and well into Nebraska the second.

Tanya called the first night, but I declined and then blocked her. No reason to talk to her. What was there left to say? She hadn’t cared enough to talk to me either before or after cheating on me, and I hadn’t cared enough to stay and try to fix things.

When I pulled into South Liberty, it didn’t feel nearly as much like failure as I’d thought it might. Like I’d told Estelle, I had always expected to come back. Less so as time had passed and things had changed, but South Liberty was...it was still home, in a bone-deep way that I’d never shaken.

Mom’s home—my home—was just outside of town, an old three-story farmhouse that had existed long before the town grew up around it. It had been remodeled many times over the years, and while it could be wonky sometimes, with slightly slanted old wooden floors and lights that flickered when the rain got bad, it also had modern conveniences like central air and even a video doorbell and electronic thumbprint-activated locks on the doors. I would have to contact Mom’s security company to find out about...was there an app for those things?

Fuck me, there was still so much to handle.

But it was the end of a very long day, so it was easiest to start by getting my car down off the trailer, then unhooking the trailer from the truck and setting it aside so that I could get at my stuff.

I turned the truck around in the drive, so that the back was closer to the garage door. That was where I gave up for the night. I wasn’t going to carry boxes when I’d spent six hours driving that morning.

I sure as heck wasn’t going to figure out how to lift a sofa by myself.

So instead, I got Bee out of the cab of the truck, and we headed inside for the evening.

The electricity was on—one of the things I’d managed to make sure was arranged ahead of time, with a single phone call while driving. The house was on a well, so electricity was the only thing I’d had to contact anyone about.

Bee wasn’t the slightest bit put off by our new digs when I set her down—she went straight to the kitchen, where the cat bowls were set out, water still moving through a kitty fountain, got herself a drink, and then went out to sit on the sofa in the living room.

She’d been born on the back porch of this house, and we’d visited more than once, so it wasn’t frightening or unfamiliar. I hadn’t realized she would remember it, but she clearly did, treating it as though the whole of college and living with Tanya had just been a short interlude, and now we were...we were home.

Maybe that was true.

“The cable isn’t hooked up here,” I told her, sliding into Mom’s old glider. Bee perked up instantly, jumping off the sofa and coming to sit in my lap. She always liked rocking chairs, but she couldn’t rock them herself, so she only ever bothered with them if she was sitting on someone who could.

The cat didn’t much care about the cable, not being a television watcher, but half the time I spoke out loud to her just to organize my thoughts. Or maybe I talked to her as though she understood me.

What?

Some people talk to their babies like they understand them, and babies can no more comprehend English than cats. “So I’ll have to call the cable company to get a modemhooked up as soon as possible, but everything else is pretty much handled.”

Mom had already gotten the year’s firewood taken care of, and it was drying against the back of the house. Given the gas heating system we had, it wasn’t even necessary, just nice to have firewood for the coldest days.

Bee opened one eye, and I got the distinct feeling I was being judged, then she looked over toward the kitchen. Ah, toward the empty food dish.

“Yeah, yeah, I need to go to the grocery store, but that’s easy enough. And we still have some kibble in the truck.” I ran a hand through her silky fur, considering the options. Mom had stopped shopping at the local general store a few years back after a personal disagreement with the owner, Lucy Beasley. I couldn’t say I especially wanted to go back, since her daughter had been the closest thing I’d had to a childhood bully.

Not that Jennifer had beaten me up or made my childhood hell, but she had been a snobby brat who’d mocked me for wearing “Kmart clothes” and being poor, and then for being a bit of a tomboy in our teens.

Besides, Lucy herself had been one of the only people in town who had been kind of a dick to me since Mom’s death, watching me when I’d gone into her store, like I was going to steal things.

Yeah, I thought as soon as I got settled in properly, I would make the trek up to Iowa City for groceries. It was less than an hour away, and they had the good stores. I didn’t know how Lucy had pissed Mom off, but screw her anyway.

My mother had been a saint, and if she hadn’t liked Lucy, no doubt she’d been right.

I eventually dragged myself upstairs into my childhood bed. That was something that was going to need replacing at some point. I wasn’t comfortable taking my mother’s bed inthe main bedroom downstairs, but I’d spent my childhood in a twin-sized bed, and it was...well, it was a tiny bed. It sucked.

I woke bright and early, and while there was tea and coffee in the house, there wasn’t a whole lot else. I’d already run into that when staying at the house for the funeral, but until I could get up to the grocery store in Iowa City, I couldn’t do much about it. So I pulled out my phone and crossed my fingers.

Food delivery was available at the house.

Yes!

I pumped my fist in the air and made an order from the closest coffee shop. Sure, it was a national chain of middling quality, but they were willing to send me a bucket of premade coffee, as well as muffins and bagels and cream cheese, so who cared?

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