Goodbye Earl(34)

In her mom’s old bedroom: where Kasey watched Roy put his hand around Angie’s neck and where he broke their antique mirror. It’d been around since the Civil War but couldn’t survive being in the same house with Roy.

In the bathroom: where Kasey would hide when things got too bad. The deep claw-foot tub she sank into when her mom and Roy were fighting. The place where she occasionally thought about slipping under and going to sleep forever.

In the bathroom, the window: she climbed out of it sometimes when it all got too much. Walked to Rosemarie’s, Ada’s, or Caro’s and called her mom from their houses.

In the kitchen, the table: where Kasey and her mom had a lot of fun doing their weird taste tests. Daring each other to take one bite of Twinkie and one bite of pickle, to wash it all down with a big gulp of orange juice to see who’d be the first to chicken out.

Also in the kitchen, the sink: where Roy destroyed a lot of meals.

The garbage can next to the oven: where Roy destroyed a lot of meals too.

And on the kitchen floor.

Now on the kitchen floor was where Kasey finally lost it. She sat and let herself cry and cry and cry.

On the kitchen floor.

On the kitchen floor.

And on the kitchen floor.

On the kitchen floor.

No breath.

Kasey needed air. She stood and smacked the back door open, ran out into the yard and bent over, crying. She stood again, crying. There was the now overgrown patch of garden where the berries used to be. Another for the tomatoes. The sunflowers. The grassy shaded spot where she fenced in the rabbits they sometimes kept.

Behind the shed: where Roy shot her favorite dog because he said it was time, but it hadn’t been time. Not yet. He didn’t even let Kasey say goodbye.

After she cried it out, her stuffy head pulsed in the humidity. Good Ol’ Goldie. Looks like Stars Hollow but feels like Hell’s Front Porch. Even though it was hot, the fresh air was helping. Seeing the water was helping. Kasey walked toward it and sat, watching it move.

She didn’t smoke but wanted a cigarette; it felt like a cigarette moment.

“Fritz?”

Kasey turned at the sound of Silas’s voice. He was walking across the grass in a dark blue uniform.

“Uh…whoa…you’re, um…a cop?” she said to him. Her cried-out eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, but she was sure the tip of her nose was pink. Silas would know what was up, no question.

“Yeah. It’s a brand-new gig. Only part-time. To help out my uncle, mostly. Do you remember him? My mom’s brother, Mickey? He’s chief now. I said yes as a joke, mostly, since I’m an outlaw at heart. That’s what makes it ridiculous. I don’t give a shit what other people do, honestly,” Silas said. Silas Hickory Castelow, the cop.

He looked real good in that uniform, so she swapped it with an image of Devon in one of his suits instead—the slim gray one she loved, his brown double monk straps. Her mind was a mess. Her heart zapped back fifteen years.

Back in Goldie.

Still crying at the farmhouse.

Still thinking Silas Castelow is cute.

Still not knowing what to do about anything.

“This is all mine now,” she said, holding up the key for him. She motioned to the house, the land, the water.

“Miss Nancy called. Said she didn’t recognize the car, but she knew there weren’t any renters right now. I figured it was you.” Silas crouched next to Kasey and looked out at the lake.

“Right. Nosy Nancy. Well, it’s good she hasn’t stopped keeping an eye out. I do love that old broad.”

“Remember how she didn’t know it was us, so she called the cops that night we had the bonfire over there?” Silas pointed toward the Castelow lake house.

“When Grayson and Mateo were setting off bottle rockets at two in the morning? Yep. I remember,” Kasey said.

Some quiet.

“You all right?” Silas asked.

“Will be.”

“You’re not selling this place, are you?”

“Never,” Kasey said. “We’re supposed to get our rafts out in the water sometime while I’m here.” Silas knew that we’re always referred to RACK.

“Glad to hear it. I’m sorry I interrupted. Are you okay alone? Did you want me to leave?” he asked.

“I’d like you to stay a little bit longer. If you can.”

Silas jingled as he sat. He let his knees settle into the inside of his arms. He didn’t ask Kasey any more questions. Instead, he told her stories she’d never heard. Stuff only Silas would know. Like how the woman who lived directly across the lake hit on his dad once when he’d gone to check on the construction team building her a new deck, and how the next time the woman called the B and B to book a room for her family, his mom had cussed her out. He told her about the kid who almost drowned in the lake two years ago because he and his buddies were having a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest.

“That was Jacob Stoeffer’s kid. You remember Jake Stoeffer. Remember he stuck a fork in the wall socket freshman year? Real sparks and shit. Yeah, no surprise there—his kid’s also an idiot,” Silas said.

He kept telling her stories as the sun went down, streaking the deep-blue sky with outrageous shades of lavender and peach. Kasey felt small and insignificant under the glory of it, but she couldn’t focus on that, because Silas was making her laugh so much she had to beg him to stop. She’d cycled through her entire range of emotions since she walked through that front door of the farmhouse.