Page 94 of Good Directions

24

ANTON

Early morning sunshine cascades up over the horizon, the brightness pushing its way forward, telling everything to wake up. Me included.

Throwing my truck in park, I stretch, letting out a yawn, despite how awake I feel. How alive I feel. More than I have in a long, long time. Every fiber of my being is reenergized—like a toy given a new set of batteries. All thanks to a soil specialist.

Someone I never saw coming.

A knock on my truck door startles me and I jump, turning to see Calvin, a longtime seasonal worker for Hayes, greeting me with a smile. I open the door, stepping out, taking in the older man. His scraggly beard has some gray mixed in, and his overalls are permanently stained with the distinct red of the Georgia clay, but he still looks the same as he did every summer while I was growing up, out here helping us pick peaches. Maybe just a little older now. From looks alone, one would never be able to tell he had a stroke last year.

“Morning, Calvin,” I greet.

“Morma,” he replies, his slurred speech obscuring even the single word.

He returns the once-over, eyes scanning me up and down, before meeting my gaze again, a knowing smile tugging at his lips. I look down, even though I know exactly what he’s noticed. I’m wearing the same thing I was yesterday.

Busted.

Calvin waggles his eyebrows, laughing lightly, waiting to see if I’m going to offer an explanation. Not that I owe him one. I’m a grown-ass man who doesn’t owe anyone anything. Especially not one of my employees.

“It’s not what you think,” I say, brushing it off.

Because it’s not.

I was on my way home to change. Checking on the saplings is nothing more than a pit stop along the way.

And so what if I didn’t spend the night in my own bed. Actually, technically, I did. It was simply my bed at my parents’ house. Errr, well, in my old bedroom. Which counts. Sorta.

But after making my teenage fantasy a reality, discovering that two people do fit in the shower—although it’s tight—and then a fabulous taco dinner with my parents, there was no way I was going back to my house. There was no place else I wanted to be than right next to Sawyer all night long. Even if it meant spending the whole evening with my parents, including listening to Auggie pause every five minutes and explain what was happening in the episode of Slow Horses that they were watching, since my mother was clearly not keeping up. Or paying attention. Take your pick.

All of that meant I didn’t get a chance to hear about what Sawyer had been up to that had resulted in getting so dirty, but she can tell me about it this morning. Or better yet, show me.

“Swa, swa,” Calvin says, playfully elbowing me.

I nod, smiling and shaking my head, no clue as to what he said. The stroke hit him hard, and out of nowhere, and he’s worked like a madman in rehab to get back to his old self. Watching him this past summer out in the fields has been a wonder. He’s slower than he used to be, but not by much. His speech, though, is rough. And I have to admit, I don’t speak the new language. Cary does a damn good job, and the new hire we have in the production plant, who is fluent in ASL and moves his hands around in a flurry of activity that I can’t even begin to follow, can hold a solid conversation with him. I am now reliant on them.

“Let’s go take a look at the saplings, shall we?” I say, nodding toward the grove. “Then I need a shower before heading to the lab.”

Calvin mumbles something, following behind me as I amble over the berm toward the grove. The morning sun hits me directly in the eyes, blinding me for a moment. A couple more steps forward adjusts my angle against the offending rays, and I can see again. Although, the view that greets me makes me wish that I couldn’t.

I stop dead in my tracks, stomach plummeting, pulse skyrocketing. My whole world tilting off its axis.

I can’t believe what I’m looking at. Better yet, what I’m not looking at.

My saplings are gone.

I blink once, twice, a third time. Each instance harder than the last, as if it will somehow change what is before me. Spoiler alert—it doesn’t.

Not all of them. But an entire section. A good hundred-plus trees. At least. No—maybe not that many. Right? That would be crazy. I quickly try to math it out, because there were some holes already from saplings that didn’t survive the freeze. And no one could have moved that many trees that quickly. Could they?

Then again, they did. I’m staring at the evidence.

“What the…” I mutter, unable to get it all out.

Calvin says something, but I don’t hear him. Not completely. And not just because I don’t understand him when he talks. No, my ears feel like they are filled with cotton, and there isn’t anything that is going to get through them right now. My trees are fucking gone. Gone.

I just need to breathe…