Echo Valley by Jennifer Vaughn

Author:Jennifer Vaughn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Waldorf Publishing
Published: 2017-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The sun throws red hues across the roofline of the old colonial. It reminds me of the moment Scarlett O’Hara returns to Tara to find it pillaged by the Yankees, but still standing. My grandfather’s home—not quite as battered—

is also still standing. I breathe in the crisp air that still smells of him.

“Momma, where are we?”

“This is your great-grandfather’s home. And all his animals used to live right out there.”

“Can I pet them?”

“No honey, they’re gone now. No one lives here anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no one left.” It was true. Even in the sporadic contact I’ve had with my parents since Bailey was born, I have never brought up the topic of this farm. I don’t want them anywhere near this place. They would tarnish everything it meant to my grandfather, and to me.

Perhaps, someday, Bailey will bring this place back to life.

Beck moves the steering wheel sharply to the right to avoid a savage looking pothole.

“So it’s just abandoned now?” he asks me.

“Pretty much.”

“Didn’t anyone contact you about the house? The property? Any of that stuff?”

“Well, no. My grandfather wasn’t much of a legal eagle. If he even had a will, I’m certain he would have left everything to my father. In spite of a mountain of reasons not to, I think he held onto some hope his son would come to his senses one day.”

“I admit I’m not entirely up to speed with property laws, but wouldn’t the state do something to claim the land if your father never did?”

I had asked myself this many times in the years after my grandfather’s death. I certainly pay taxes to the State of New Hampshire, so it knew perfectly well how to find me. My parents on the other hand, took more than they ever paid back, so who knows what their file looks like. There was the possibility the state had claimed the residence and the land to settle up the Carmichael tab, but if that had happened, I had not been notified about it.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I haven’t been back up here since he died. I guess that’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Sounds like you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah.”

Bailey is pointing out things he’s only seen so far in books.

“There’s a barn, a wagon, and a giant red crayon over there!”

“A what?”

“A giant red crayon. See? Right there, you’re looking right at it.”

I follow his pointed finger past my head and out into the distance. Just behind the barn, toward the edge of the now sterile cornfield sits a four-year-old’s version of a giant red crayon.

“Honey, that’s called a silo. It’s where farmers store their grain.”

“Oh,” he says. “Si-low,” he repeats the two syllables on lips formed into the shape of a circle.

Beck follows the overgrown imprint of a trail leading behind the house and parks the Jeep. As we pull around, I look back toward the street in search of headlights following us. As far as I can tell, we are alone. As he hops out, Bailey is hot on his heels.

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