Small rocks and soil cling to the bottom of her feet, and she inhales slowly as she takes step after step. She has no specific destination in mind, but she knows she needs to walk. She needs to see what little has changed throughout the years.
The old Perkins place is no longer empty. A light shines through the grimy basement window. Rett recalls when thehouse had no electricity and dozens of teens breaking in. A small part of her wonders who lives in the house now, but she forces herself to turn away from the idle musing.
She’s going to be long gone by the end of the week. Who lives at 3 Holly Drive means nothing to her.
Her feet carry her over the footbridge and down Willow Lane. Number 7 stands across the pockmarked street, a flickering candlelight glow in the window and a red dot hovering in the air out front. Charles Stone raises the hand not holding his cigarette, and Rett waves back. She and the man had never been close, and the distance only grew after she and Calum eloped.
Or maybe it was knowing her actions hurt his nephew that makes the chasm seem greater.
Before he can say anything, she turns away from the home Calum lived in when they met. His bedroom light is off. Of course it is. They knew each other seven years ago. It’s foolish to think he still lived with his aunt and uncle after so much time.
A voice calls out through the twilight: “He lives out in the woods now.”
There is no need to ask who Miss Beth means. There is only one person in town that people think Rett is looking for. They’re right. She’s looking for Calum, but not for the reason she knows they hope for. There will be no romantic reunion, no declarations of undying love. She is only here to get closure on a chapter of her life that should have been over when she was eighteen.
Instead of replying, Rett points her toes toward home. No, not home.
Her parents’ house.
She has to stop making that mistake.
eighteen
Calum
HE HAD KNOWN SHE was back in town from the second little Ron Carpenter and his mother spotted her car turning onto Main Street. It was Miss Maudie who told Calum, which wasn’t a surprise. She tells everyone everything. She knows more about others than they know about themselves—before they even know it.
Miss Eliza hadn’t told anyone her daughter was coming back to Oak Creek, but Rett arrived in a cloud of dust and resignation, nonetheless. Calum knew, at Miss Maudie’s first word, that it was only a matter of time before Rett found him. Demanded of him what she felt he should have given her a long time ago.
Calum figures she should have given him more than she did.
But she hadn’t. She’d taken his ring, his last name, and his heart then threw it all away. He never got a reason from her. She hadn’t even had the decency to come back home to tell him to his face. He’d just gone to his aunt and uncle’s from work one day to find Sheriff Lonnie Schumacher sitting on the porch with Charles, smoking a cigarette with a manila envelope on his knee. Calum didn’t need to guess what it was.
He’d already gotten the call ending them. He knew, but it didn’t stop him from nearly falling to his knees when it sank in that she really was putting an end to them.
Lonnie passed over the envelope, and Calum turned on his heel and left the house behind. There were too many memories staining the walls; he hadn’t needed to add ‘reading divorce papers’ to the list.
He still remembers the gut punch of seeing her signature on the dotted line. Large, rounded letters and I’s dotted with circles, even on official documents. It reminded him of all the class-hours they wasted writing notes back and forth. Of the nights he stayed up after she left to read the letters she sent. The loops of her name under the words “Love, your wife”.
Despite Lonnie sitting on the stool at the end of the bar, Henry didn’t turn Calum away two hours later. He glanced at the sheriff then poured the teenager a glass of whiskey. Everyone already knew, then. Calum figured it was no surprise for any of them. She’d stopped coming home on breaks, after all. She stopped calling. So nobody stopped him as he drank himself into oblivion. All he wanted was to forget how much he loved Loretta Cox-Wilson. And love her, he did. More than anyone else in the world.
Forgetting her never happened. The pain lingered for years. And now she’s back to haunt his life until he gives in. He wonders—if he refuses long enough, will she still marry the manwho stole her from him? Or will she realize she still loves Calum?Canshe love him again?
Or had she, like him, never stopped? Had she spent countless nights staring at the moon, wishing she was back in Oak Creek with her husband? Always with him and never apart again. Had she gone through her days feeling like something was missing, like she’d never be whole until she found the puzzle piece left in the box?
Sighing, Calum shakes his head and tucks his hands into his pockets. The questions have plagued him for the last seven years, and he is no closer to answers. He’ll never get them from her, that’s for sure. One thing he knows about Rett—the thing he doubts has ever changed—is that she’s stubborn. He loves that about her, always has and always will. She lets no one walk all over her, not even when her heart gets her in trouble.
“Kid, get your head in the game.”
Calum glances up at Kingsley, frowning, before remembering they were in the middle of a game of pool. He grabs the stick leaning against the table and lines up the shot. The cue ball sails right past the striped 3, and Kingsley laughs as he bends over to knock the solid 5 into the corner pocket. Calum is thankful they aren’t playing for money: Kingsley would undoubtedly leave the bar richer than when he came in.
The older man takes pity on Calum. At fifty, he’s had his fair share of heartbreak. Calum doubts, however, that Leonard has ever dealt with the ghost of an ex no longer a ghost. That his exes had never soared into town in a silver carriage like a backwoods princess and demanded he sign the divorce papers she filed seven years prior.
Calum grimaces at the reminder and puts the pool stick away. He’d always thought she would come back, that she would graduate and come home to him. Instead, she’d took back her vows and only stepped foot in Oak Creek twice since. She’d leftafter only three days each time, spending those hours somehow avoiding Calum, and he was left wondering when she would be back.
“Still on your mind?” Kingsley asks as the pair sits at the bar. Marie passes over two bottles and moves away. Small towns might gossip, but the bartender isn’t from here. She appreciates the value of privacy. Kingsley sighs. “She’s getting married, Wilson. There ain’t nothing you can do.”
“I can make her love me again,” Calum protests before swallowing a mouthful of beer.
