Page 58 of Jameson’s Salvation

He pulled into my driveway and I scanned my front yard. Everything looked the same. I don’t know what I was expecting. It wasn’t like I’d been gone long, but it was hard to rationalize that just a few days ago I’d been attacked on my own property, a place I was supposed to be safe. Not only that but before that, someone had entered my home uninvited. Suddenly being home didn’t hold the same appeal it had while I was lying in a hospital bed.

I was getting ready to ask Jameson if we could go to his place and stay there for awhile when he spoke through gritted teeth.

“I knew this was going to happen. I can see the fear in your eyes. I didn’t want to add to it but, fuck, you have to know before you see it.”

Oh, no. What else?

“See what?”

“The best Nixon and the police can gather is, someone sprayed your garden with Roundup.”

“What?” I wheezed, unable to catch my breath.

“There’s nothing on the surveillance video, which means they had to have come in from the back. And the cameras don’t reach the fields, only the house perimeter.”

“How bad?”

“Everything’s gone. Nixon had Mr. Adams, the man who rents his land, come over as soon as Nix noticed some of the plants wilting. They tried to neutralize the glyphosate but it was too late.”

In three days, my livelihood had been stolen from me. Years I’d worked to build what I had and it had taken days for it to crumble. I was finished. The rest of my summer income was dead and my bees were gone. I had four cases of jarred honey, six boxes of candles, and not enough money in the bank to get me through until next summer. Land taxes would be coming up in ninety days and only three quarters of the money was set aside to pay them. Not enough.

“He wins,” I whispered.

“The fuck he does.”

“I’m done for, Jameson. I can’t pay my taxes and still have money left to pay my bills and eat. He wins and the worst part is, it was easy for him to ruin me and he knew it would be.”

“Kennedy—”

“No. No. It’s fine. He can have it—all of it. I don’t want it, not anymore. Take me to your house.”

“Babe—”

“Get me away from here!” I screamed and ignored the enormous hammer that pounded my skull.

Jameson put his truck in reverse and backed down my drive. I watched as the house I’d grown up in, the home I loved, started to disappear from sight. I never wanted to see it again. It wasn’t mine anymore. It was Reggie Coleman’s.

* * *

I came awake in a strange bed and for a moment had forgotten where I was and why.

Then I looked around the stark white room with minimal furnishings and remembered.

Then I wished I hadn’t woken up.

A glance out the curtainless window told me it was daylight and I wondered if it was still the same day or if I’d slept the day away. Either way it didn’t matter, time wouldn’t change my circumstances for the better. As a matter of fact, time wasn’t my friend. Every day I didn’t work was a day I’d lost money.

“Sorry, Dad,” I muttered to an empty room. “I tried.”

What was my mom going to think of me losing what was left of the land my dad had worked? Day in and day out he’d farmed that land providing for us. We’d already lost the majority of it, but now the house would go, too.

He loved that house. He’d bitch and complain about all the things that needed to be repaired or updated, then he’d lovingly go about fixing them. He’d hand me a toolbelt and put me to work. Him and me. The two of us working side by side. Even though he’d been gone a long time, every time I put on the old toolbelt he’d given me I still felt him next to me.

The last thing I had of my father’s would soon be lost to me. Another family wouldn’t move in and love the house the way I did, it’d be gone. Reggie would demolish it and with it all of my memories. It would be nothing more than rubble and splintered wood.

Shit! What had I done? I’d taunted Reggie and allowed my ego and attitude to egg him on. Instead of playing it smart, I’d been ridiculously stupid.

Now I’d pay the price.