Mystery Child

Chapter Two

The only other time my fridge has had this much food in it was when my Grandpa Charlie died of a sudden heart attack when I was twelve. We had been eating at the diner-like we did every Friday. One minute he was fine and joking with me about something that had happened earlier that day and the next he was in an ambulance heading to the hospital with intense chest pains. He died in the ambulance.

Everyone in the community was devastated and showed it by bringing my mom and me enough food to last at least three months. It honestly helped a lot. The only downside was that we seemed to be reminded that he was gone every time we opened the fridge and saw the mountain of casserole dishes piled on top of each other.

The food started coming the first day after mom died. Almost everyone I had ever met showed up on my front porch with food in hand. They all said the generic "I'm sorry for your loss." or some other variation of it. It got to the point where I was so done with the look of pity in people's eyes that I stopped even answering the front door.

That didn't last for long because of course, I had to deal with people at the funeral. Everyone in town showed up to pay their respects. Even some of the people from the reservation came. I knew this because the group of buff tan men looking very uncomfortable in their suits was hard to miss.

It rained as always soaking everyone in attendance to the bone. The only dry spot was under the tent next to the grave and after a while, the ground there got soft enough that my heels started sinking into the mud. Once she was in the ground I quickly made it back to the truck with only a few people stopping to try to talk to me. I sat in the truck for ten minutes before I started it up and went to leave the Cemetery. I didn't want to go back to the house. It was cold and empty and there I was alone.

Besides, it wasn't going to be my house for much longer. In the three years that my mother was sick, she racked up so much in medical bills that even thinking of the exact number gave me a headache. She wasn't even gone 48 hours before I started to receive phone calls and people on my doorstep reminding me that I was still expected to pay back the debt my mother had accumulated.

So I called the only real estate broker in town and talked to her about the process of selling the house. The house was in a coveted spot in town and it was the perfect spot for the small family wanting to move back to Forks to be closer to their roots. So in a week, I have to be packed up and ready to move so that these people can pay me a quarter of the money I need so that they can tear down the only home I have ever known and rebuild something that fits their family better.

I guess the biggest issue is that I don't know where I will go. Of course, I was given many offers from people around town to crash on their couches, but the last thing I want is to take charity from people. I could go live with my Grandma Renee, but I haven't seen her since I was fifteen when she and my mother got into a huge fight over something that I honestly can't remember. Besides the point, I hate the heat and humidity of Florida. I will figure out what I have to do even if that means I have to sleep in the truck for a bit.

It was only after driving for around five minutes that I realized I was driving in the opposite direction of the house and I was headings out of town. I wanted to go somewhere I haven't been to since I was eight. Somewhere my mom used to take me when she was having one of her bed moments and wanted to go somewhere no one would know to look for her. I wanted to go to what used to be my father's house.

...

After traveling a few miles outside of town I was losing confidence in my ability to find this house. Finding this place seemed easy when I came here with my mother. It was almost as if she had memorized every twist and turn it took to get there.