Page 2 of Crumbling Truth
My grandmother in Miami had broken a hip at her last salsa class, and since my parents had both retired in the past year, they’d decided on an extended vacation down south to take care of her during the recovery period. My brother was local, but he was incredibly allergic to cats. Mom had always wanted one, and she finally adopted Toni after Alex moved out.
Toni was her baby now. At least, that was how she’d spun the whole situation, and I’d uprooted my ass to ensure my mother’s feline wouldn’t suffer any irreparable distress in her absence.
So here I was, taking care of the cat and the house. Most importantly, according to my mother, my purpose here was to ensure the widow renting their guest house apartment didn’thave to deal with any emergencies or shovel on her own when the snow started to fall.
The cat I could have refused, but an old lady who needed someone to keep an eye out for her? My parents definitely knew how to exploit my sympathies.
There had been no other vehicles in the driveway when I arrived, so I assumed she wasn’t home. After I freshened Toni’s water and refilled her food dish, I peeked out the kitchen window toward the guest house. It was tucked toward the corner of the property, framed at the back and one side by the giant oak and maple trees. In the thick of summer, the leaves on those trees gave the little cottage a fairytale feel, but in November, the bare branches made it look desolate.
Now that I thought about it, I knew very little about this tenant. She was a widow with some classic old lady name. Edith? Agnes? Something like that. I imagined a sweet, doddering retiree who needed someone around to help out when the snow came, as it inevitably would at this time of year.
If the idea of returning to my hometown hadn’t been so terrifying, I probably would have thought to ask my mother for more details. Instead, I’d numbly agreed to the arrangement, taking advantage of the slow season for my landscaping business down in North Carolina in order to spend two months living in my childhood home while my business partner, Billy, handled everything back in Asheville.
I still wasn’t convinced it was the right choice, but my mother had laid it on thick and I hadn’t had the heart to refuse.
Maybe twenty years of hints and pleading had finally demolished my resistance.
Fortunately, my parents had turned my childhood bedroom into an office and their guest room had a newly renovated ensuite bathroom. No matter how many times they suggested Iuse the master bedroom while I was there, I couldn’t stomach the thought of sleeping in the bed where I’d been conceived.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, lifting my elbows from where I’d braced them on the kitchen counter.
My parents had been alone in this house since my younger brother left home a few years after I moved away—that was plenty of time for them to christen every surface in the house. God knew my father was a randy bastard, even in his sixties. He never missed an opportunity to touch Mom’s hip or even ass, if he thought he could get away with it. I’d seen him kiss her neck and whisper something blush-inducing into her ear too many times to doubt he’d made good use of their privacy once their sons had flown the nest.
My first order of business would be to scrub down every horizontal surface.
On the plus side, my father was also a neat freak, which made my job significantly easier because there was a stash of various cleaning supplies in the pantry that could last me an entire year in this house. Under Toni’s watchful eye, I set to work, wiping down counters, tables, and desks. By the time I finished, the surfaces gleamed in the afternoon sunlight and I wondered if there was any food in the house.
I shouldn’t have questioned it, because of course my mother had stocked each cabinet and every square inch of the refrigerator.
Nibbling on another cookie, I fired off a text to the little group chat my parents had created before they left the house that morning, thanking them for the sweet but unnecessary gesture and wishing them safe travels. In response, they sent back an awkwardly framed selfie in front of a palm tree at one of the welcome centers along their route to Florida.
Two months wouldn’t be so bad, even if Spruce Hill held more bad memories than good. With a glance toward the orange tabbystaring into my soul like she knew exactly what lay within, I sighed.
“I guess it’s just you, me, and the old lady, Toni girl. Let’s hope things go more smoothly than the last time I was in town.”
Tomysurprise,Ididn’t meet my parents’ tenant in the three days after my arrival. She drove a beat-up green sedan that had seen better days and she was gone from before I got up in the morning until sometime in the late afternoon, though she never returned home at the same time. No matter how often I peeked out the window, I never managed to catch her actually coming or going.
It seemed odd for a little old lady to be so active, but maybe she volunteered at the library or hung out at the little senior center across town.
By Thursday, I was starting to wonder if I should check in on her, see if she needed me to pick up groceries or something. Why hadn’t my mother given me more details about this woman before dragging me home to take care of the cat?
Apparently summoned by my uncharitable thoughts, Toni was perched next to the kitchen sink when I walked into the room. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, then spooned cat food from a can according to my mother’s very specific instructions.
Just as the timer sounded on my reheated casserole, a text popped up on my phone. Though I tensed, afraid it might be from my brother, since he had to know I was in town by now, the message was from Oliver Jimenez, my childhood best friend.
Heard you were in town. When are we grabbing that beer you owe me?
I laughed—trust Ollie to call in a six-year-old bet from his sister’s wedding in the Finger Lakes. That was the closest I’d been to Spruce Hill since I first left town after graduation. I was still smiling as I sent back a reply.
Name the time and place, I’ll be there.
If Ollie knew I was here, it was only a matter of time before his sister Sofia, the queen of gossip herself, found out. Then reality would truly hit as news of my arrival made the rounds among her social circles. Word traveled faster in this town than any place I’d ever been. The holidays might make it better by distracting everyone with their own families and traditions…or they might make it worse by inspiring everyone who’d ever wondered about my abrupt departure to invite me to join them for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Oh, shit.
My stomach clenched at the thought. I had no intention of spending the holidays with anyone, least of all the busybodies of Spruce Hill. Though I did want to see Ollie, even the Jimenez family wasn’t enough to tempt me away from solitude. It’d be like turning back the clock, going back to middle school again—absolutely out of the question.
As I dug into the casserole, I wondered what the old lady in the guest house did for the holidays. Did she have family in Spruce Hill? My mother had made it sound like she’d be here the whole time, but if she didn’t have any relatives locally, she might go out of town at some point. I couldn’t remember my mother ever mentioning the woman’s late husband, either. Had he been a local?
