“Why Alabama?”
Every single house was decorated for Christmas, decked out to the nines. I wondered if it was a part of the agreement when buying a place here.
Connie looked like the kinda lady to pass some crazy rule like that. Thou shalt not leave a shingle untouched by a twinkling light.
I snorted at my own joke.
Harry shrugged. “I dunno. First state I thought of.”
“You think I’d cut it in Alabama?” I asked, glancing at him with a raised brow.
“Dunno. Never been there.”
“Then, why’d you think of it?”
Harry sighed as we pulled up to a Stop sign. “Soldier, you’re worse than my grandkids.”
“Sorry,” I said, raking both hands through my hair. “I’m fuckin’ nervous.”
“Don’t be. We’re gonna check out your new place, then go to the grocery store and get things set up there. No big deal.”
I glanced at the older guy beside me and said, “Harry, I dunno why the hell you’re doing all this for me, but … thank you. I know I’ve said it already, but really, I mean it. Thank you.”
He peered at me from over his silver frames, then smiled. “Good people deserve good things, Soldier, and it’s about time someone showed you that.”
It wasn’t that I disagreed. Good people did deserve good things—karma and all that. But, for one, I hadn’t exactly been a saint prior to prison. And for another, I knew that the world was full of good people who were regularly shit on by the circumstances they found themselves in, whether by birth or otherwise. Hell, I’d been locked up with many of them. Guys who were inherently good but had gotten fucked over in one way or another. What made me more deserving than them? What had made Harry tuck me under his wing and not Drake—a young guy serving two years because he had stolen food from the grocery store too many times, needing to feed his sisters?
I couldn’t make sense of it, and as we pulled into the trailer park on the outskirts of town, I still didn’t get it. Because this wasn’t the type of trailer park you thought of in your mind—you know, some trashy, beat-up-looking place, where some shirtless guy named Buck sat on a busted lawn chair all day, scratching his hairy gut, drinking a beer, while he waited for the unemployment check to roll in. No, this place was a bright, cheery community of tiny houses, all close together, with gardens and itty-bitty porches. Sure, as we drove through the narrow streets, I found not all of them were as taken care of as others, but, man, it was nice. Nicer than any place I’d lived before.
“All right,” Harry announced, “here we are—1111 Daffodil Lane.”
Eleven eleven.
Make a wish.
My palms were coated in a sheen of sweat as I remembered a cupcake and a flameless, smoking candle from a long time ago. I cleared my throat and made an attempt at a joke to hide my nerves.
“Harry, do I look like the kinda guy who would live on Daffodil Lane?”
His gaze traveled over my face, as if he were really considering the question. “You look like the kind of guy who’s getting a second chance at life. Now, come on. Let’s check it out.”
We got out of his Mazda, and Harry opened the mailbox, where Connie had told him the key would be waiting.
She had said the place was a little run-down and could use some TLC. The former owners had walked away from it after no longer being able to afford the bills, and because Connie decided it was better to let someone fix it up rather than have it go to hell in a handbasket, she offered it to me at a monthly cost of two weeks’ pay at her husband’s grocery store.
“I can’t go any lower than that,” she had said. “So, if you find you can’t afford that and the utilities—”
“I’ll make it work,” I’d promised her, just happy to have somewhere to go. Somewhere to call mine.
And now, looking at 1111 Daffodil Lane, I was filled with even more of a determination to make it work. Because this place—with its peeling siding, warped little stoop, and broken front window—needed me as much as I needed it.
The three steps creaked and bowed beneath my feet, and the door needed a good push after being unlocked. The interior wasn’t much better than the outside. Stained carpet, flaking paint, dirty appliances, and a bathroom I would’ve gotten written up for at Wayward greeted us.
Harry stood at the crusty kitchen counter as I finished my tour of the bleak-looking place. His face was locked in a permanent grimace, like even he was ready to drop the Mr. Positivity act.
“So, uh …” He rubbed a hand over his chin as his eyes frisked the living room-slash-dining room once again and the questionable brown stains on the carpet. “Listen … if you wanna say screw it, I wouldn’t—”
“I like it.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead, sighing exhaustedly. I was wearing the poor guy out.
“Soldier, you don’t have to say that just because—”
“Listen, is it the lap of luxury? No. Does it need some serious cleaning and work? Yeah. Could they use this place as the set for the next Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie? Absolutely. But what else do I have going on, Harry? I mean, apart from sweeping some floors and scrubbing a toilet at a grocery store, my schedule is pretty clear.” I looked around the grimy kitchen and nodded. “And honestly … even as is, it’s better than living with Diane.”
Harry wasn’t convinced. He released a long breath that left his shoulders drooping and his head shaking. “Look, if you wanna give it a shot, that's fine. I'm just saying—”
“Harry”—I held up a hand, already thinking about what I could do to spruce up that shitty living room—“I'm good. Now, let's go check out that grocery store.”
***
For Christmas, Harry had not only given me the phone, but also his old bike.
“If I got on that thing now, I'd probably break a hip,” he'd said even though I knew it was bullshit.
Harry might've been well into his sixties, but the man could hold his own in a fistfight.
I would know; I'd seen it happen.
So, as we drove the two minutes from the trailer park to The Fisch Market, Harry was sure to point out that the bike ride would be an easy one.
“It'll be a pretty easy walk too, if you want to take the bike back,” I mentioned with a smirk.
“You don't wanna walk during a blizzard. Don't be stupid.”
I snorted. “Harry, I don’t wanna ride a damn bike in a blizzard either, but I'll do what I gotta do.”
We parked the car and got out, and that was when the light shining over River Canyon dimmed, casting shadows where I’d once thought there were none. As we walked to the entrance, a blonde woman with a few young girls in tow took one look at me and shielded her kids with an arm, steering them out of my way. At first, I thought maybe she was just maneuvering them, instructing them to watch for others and whatever. But then I heard the whispers.
“That's the guy Mayor Fischer told us about,” the woman whispered to another nearby lady, this one with black hair.
“The guy who was in prison? How do you know?”
The blonde nodded. “She said he was big and hard to miss.”