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A part of me that was accustomed to my bed at home—a luxurious queen I had all to myself that was covered in tons of blankets and pillows—wanted to turn right around and go back to the store.
But money was going to be a really precious resource right now. What I had left I needed to save for food.
Sure, I had a supply of seed packets in one of my bags, telling myself that this city girl could learn how to grow her own food without experience or, really, any know-how at all, but I knew I was going to need to find a town to stock up on canned goods, pasta, and rice.
But what happened when the money ran out?
Nope.
Not going there.
This was temporary.
I could survive a few months in the woods with the bare essentials.
Alive was what mattered.
“Okay,” I said, sucking in a deep breath that was now tinged with the scent of moldering leaves and dirt, thanks to the breeze blowing in through the door.
Wood.
I needed to get some dry wood for the fire.
There should be a decent supply in a little lean-to cabinet attached to the house. I would need more, though, before it was warm enough to stop using the stove. I guess I would be sharpening my hatchet skills. Maybe by the time I got back to some semblance of my life, I would have some Crossfit-type arms.
To the side of the stove and bed was a little round table with three chairs, a deck of cards in a case still sitting there, waiting for my father and his brother.
Neither of whom would ever come here again.
My breath caught on a sob that I forced down as I walked past the table, checking out the little kitchen. And by “kitchen,” I meant the sink that had a bucket underneath that it drained into, and a connection to the water catchment outside, and a small counter space for food prep that would need to be cooked on the charcoal grill out back or in a pot on top of the wood-burning stove.
There was a staircase next to the kitchen, leading up to what was supposed to be the sleeping loft, but was where all the camping and hunting/processing supplies were kept. My father claimed that in the winter, it was too far from the stove, and you froze. And in the summer, when the heat rose, you sweated your ‘balls off’ up there.
Beneath the stairs was the, er, bathroom. If you can call it that. It was a self-built composting toilet that had completely freaked me out the first time I’d visited, until I learned that the wood chips or whatever you put in there really did keep things… fresh. There was a ‘bathtub’ made out of a silver stock tank from the local feed store, and a hose sticking through the wall from the, you guessed it, rain catchment barrel. As in, you took freezing cold showers.
I was pretty sure I would prefer to strip naked in the river that ran through the property than bathe in stagnant water.
I would make do, damnit.
It was worth my life to deal with some inconvenience.
After some trial and error, I got the stove going, and felt a pleasant warmth filling the space as I slowly and systematically unpacked all my things. There was an old Army-style foot locker where I folded and placed all my clothing.
I made the bed.
Then stacked the food in the kitchen before giving some of the surfaces a good scrub with some of the soap and the sponge I’d brought.
Finally finished with every step I needed to take to ensure my continued safety, though, I dropped down on the edge of the bed, and finally let it happen.
Let the grief start to flow upward, to overtake me.
Once the tears started, though, it seemed impossible to stop them.
Kicking out of my shoes, I curled up on the bed, body racked with sobs, crying so hard that my chest and stomach and throat hurt from the heaving cries.
Tears burned my cheeks, wet my pillow.
Until, eventually, I did it.
