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Andsodid I.
***
I knew the next chapter of my life would officially begin in River Canyon the moment I crossedtownlines. It was a feeling I didn’t even necessarily want—because,let’s be real, it was a little too quaint and pedigree for a mutt like me—but there it was, warm and comfortable, building up from somewhere deep in my gut.
It was so different from what I was used to and where I’d been. Every lawn we passed was mowed to perfection, and every bush was trimmed and meticulously shaped. There wasn’t a piece of trash in sight, and all the lamp posts looked to be straight from one of those Norman Rockwell paintings Gramma used to love.
I’d fallen into some small-town twilight zone, and I was beginning to second-guess my decision to give this a shot despite my heart telling me I was in the right place.
“Idunnoabout this, Harry,” I muttered as a cop waved at the car, wearing a friendly smile. “You know, maybe I should find something somewhere else.”
“Soldier, this is your best chance at starting over while still remaining within the state lines,” Harry replied, but what he meant was,Thereis nothing else.“Honestly, if it wasn’t for your probation, I’d tell you to just get the hell out of Connecticut altogether. Move to Alabama and start over.”
“Why Alabama?”
Every single house was decorated for Christmas, decked out to the nines. I wondered if it was a part of the agreement when buying a place here.
Connie looked like thekindalady to pass some crazy rule like that.Thou shalt not leave a shingle untouched by a twinkling light.
I snorted at my own joke.
Harry shrugged. “Idunno. First state I thought of.”
“You think I’d cut it in Alabama?” I asked, glancing at him with a raised brow.
“Dunno. Never been there.”
“Then, why’d you think of it?”
Harry sighed as we pulled up to a Stop sign. “Soldier, you’re worse than my grandkids.”
“Sorry,” I said, raking both hands through my hair. “I’m fuckin’ nervous.”
“Don’t be. We’regonnacheck out your new place, then go to the grocery store and get things set up there. No big deal.”
I glanced at the older guy beside me and said, “Harry, Idunnowhy the hell you’re doing all this for me, but … thank you. I know I’ve said it already, but really, I mean it. Thank you.”
He peered at me from over his silver frames, then smiled. “Good people deserve good things, Soldier, and it’s about time someone showed you that.”
It wasn’t that I disagreed. Good people did deserve good things—karma and all that. But, for one, I hadn’t exactly been a saint prior to prison. And for another, I knew that the world was full of good people who were regularly shit on by the circumstances they found themselves in, whether by birth or otherwise. Hell, I’d been locked up with many of them. Guys who were inherently good but had gotten fucked over in one way or another. What made me more deserving than them? What had made Harry tuckmeunder his wing and not Drake—a young guy serving two years because he had stolen food from the grocery store too many times, needing to feed his sisters?
I couldn’t make sense of it, and as we pulled into the trailer park on the outskirts of town, I still didn’t get it. Because this wasn’t the type of trailer park you thought of in your mind—you know, some trashy, beat-up-looking place, where some shirtless guy named Buck sat on a busted lawn chair all day, scratching his hairy gut, drinking a beer, while he waited for the unemployment check to roll in. No, this place was a bright, cheery community of tiny houses, all close together, with gardens and itty-bitty porches. Sure, as we drove through the narrow streets, I found not all of them were as taken care of as others, but, man, it wasnice. Nicer than any place I’d lived before.
“All right,” Harry announced, “here we are—1111 Daffodil Lane.”
Eleveneleven.
Make a wish.
My palms were coated in a sheen of sweat as I remembered a cupcake and a flameless, smoking candle from a long time ago. I cleared my throat andmade an attemptat a joke to hide my nerves.
“Harry, do I look like thekindaguy who would live onDaffodil Lane?”
His gaze traveled over my face, as if he were really considering the question. “You look like the kind of guy who’s getting a second chance at life. Now, come on. Let’s check it out.”
We got out of his Mazda, and Harry opened the mailbox, where Connie had told him the key would be waiting.
She had said the place was a little run-down and could use some TLC. The former owners had walked away from it after no longer being able to afford the bills, and because Connie decided it was better to let someone fix it up rather than have it go to hell in a handbasket, she offered it to me at a monthly cost of two weeks’ pay at her husband’s grocery store.
