AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you think Garret is scared of…”
“You,” Lenny said lightly, and then disappeared out the big sliding entrance of the barn. “Go get warm, human. You’ll catch your death easier than the rest of us.”
Eliza couldn’t help the smile that took her face as she heard Lenny’s over the shoulder, off the cuff response.
She was owning that they were different. She was acknowledging what Eliza had tried to talk about earlier, and she appreciated it.
Lenny wasn’t mad at her anymore.
****
When she meandered through the front door, the house was empty. The fire was crackling in the hearth, and she could hear the chop, chop of Garret’s axe against firewood out back. He was probably working out his feelings on the woodpile, and that was a relief to her. She didn’t want the tension right now.
When she took her work boots off near the front door, she had to rub her sore feet out. The shoes were comfortable, but she still needed to break them in. The balls of her feet were sore, right along with the rest of her body. Eliza changed into a dry dress and settled her soaked one by the fireplace to dry, then grabbed the broom in the corner and began to sweep just for something to do.
After she was done, Garret was still stacking wood. She watched him out the back window for a minute, but he wore a frown of concentration and a faraway look. She could mop. With a sigh, she made her way to the mop bucket, but a memory confiscated her mind as she stooped to grab the handle.
Near the row of cupboards behind the bucket, a discolored notch in the wood caught her eye. She knew what that was. She remembered.
Squatting there on the newly-swept floor, Eliza bit her lip and brushed the divot in the wall with a finger. Needing more, she pulled on the corner of the cupboard. A carving she had etched there so very long ago was revealed.
Elizabeth Davis.
She’d had Roy’s last name back then, and had still gone by Elizabeth. The memory hit her like a strong wind taking a dry leaf in the fall. With a gasp, she plunked down onto her backside as her mind was taken over with memories she had long since buried.
She’d carved it here after Garret’s mother had died.
Months before, Garret had carved his name into the swinging tree in front of Roy’s home, and had told Eliza it was so she could always think of him when she saw it.
His mother had been heavily pregnant at the time, and Garret was spending much of his time with Eliza when his mother wasn’t feeling well. His dad was a harsh man, and without his mother around to protect him, Garret had begun making his way to Roy’s place more often than not.
His mother had tried and failed to keep a child for years after Garret had been born, but when the labor pains began, something was wrong.
Roy and Mr. Shaw had ridden for town, but doctors were scarce at best and they couldn’t find one. The men arrived two days later with a midwife, but the baby had long since stopped moving, and so had Mrs. Shaw.
Tears stung Eliza’s eyes at the memories. How could she have forgotten? Had her brain just hidden it from her to protect her? Had it locked away these memories so she wouldn’t feel so poorly, as she did now? She and her mother had tried tirelessly to help Mrs. Shaw get that baby to air, and they’d failed.
After his mother died, life got horribly difficult for fifteen-year-old Garret. He started showing up to Roy’s place battered and scared. He got quieter and quieter as the months went on.
His dad wasn’t handling the passing of his wife well, and took it out on the boy.
She’d carved her name into the cabinet one day when she’d taken a pie over to the Lazy S for Garret and his pa, but his father was drinking. Again.
Garret had changed. Mourning the loss of his mother along with his childhood innocence and whatever those damned beatings leached from him had taken its toll on the boy. And though she was very young, she could tell he was changing. She’d hated it. She’d brought that pie in and Garret was in his room, sitting up against the wall, almost completely hidden by his bed. She’d seen the bruises on his face and the hollow look in his sunken eyes, and she’d sat with him for a while, just quiet as a mouse, holding that damn pie like it was an anchor. When he finally agreed to let her warm up a slice for him, she’d meandered into the kitchen. Out the window, she could see his pa pacing the yard, yelling at nothing, his mind gone with the drink.
She’d thought about how many times Garret’s carved name in the trunk of her favorite tree had made her smile. She’d thought she would repay him, so she knelt by that cabinet, pulled out her pocketknife, and carved her name. She would tell him where to look for it, and maybe it would bring his smiles back when he saw it.
“You need to go,” Garret muttered, startling her. She’d yelped in startlement and clutched her chest, then pointed to the carving. “To make you smile when you see it,” she declared, and she’d sworn it was right there—an almost-smile on her friend’s lips.
“He’s soberin’ up,” he’d told her with a sigh. “He’ll be back in here soon. You need to sneak out the back. Don’t let him see you.”
“Okay,” she’d told him, then closed the cabinet so only Garret would know where to look for her name.
She hadn’t made it out the back fast enough, because Garret looked up and his eyes went wide with alarm. “Hide, Elizabeth,” he ordered her.
Heart racing, she’d bolted for the leather chair Mrs. Shaw had read them stories from. She’d barely made it before Mr. Shaw opened the front door.
“What are you doin’, boy?” he demanded in a gruff, slurring tone.
