"Miss Thornton," I clarified.
"Oh yeah. Told her the truth, that I didn't know where you was. She'll be back soon, though, so you might want to figure out what your plan is." Sheriff Fletcher offered no assistance, but he also didn’t haul me back to Miss Thornton. For that, I was grateful.
"I'll have Owen help you move some of that shit." He grumbled, waving to the crap in the driveway. He pulled out his cell phone and mumbled into the receiver before clicking it shut. He put the cruiser in drive, but before the car moved three feet he stopped again and leaned out the window. "You got any green on ya?" he asked, not bothering to look around to see who might hear him.
“Sorry, that whole keeping myself fed and sheltered thing has really been a drag these past few weeks.” I may have been grateful, but I sure as shit wasn’t sharing the last of my weed with him.
The sheriff rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively. “See you ‘round, kid,” he muttered. Then he was gone.
A half -hour later, I was lying on the small patch of grass you could hardly call a front lawn, my legs crossed at the ankles, dreaming of a time not long ago when Nan had first taken me in. We were sitting in the living room, and she was working on her knitting.
"What are your dreams, Abby?" Nan asked. When she saw how confused I was, she clarified the question. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I’d never been asked that before, so naturally I’d never thought about the answer. I’d thought a lot about running away, but my dreams for my life had never gone beyond getting away from my parents, then from foster care, then from the memories that plagued me. I never dreamed about what I’d do afterward.
Getting away had become my everything.
My dreams were of being left alone.
When I didn't answer Nan, she said, "Any answer is a good answer, Abby."
I told her the first thing that came to my bitter mind. "Dad always said I wasn't good for nothin' so I guess that’s what I’m gonna do: nothin’." Hope had been stripped from me at every minute of every hour of every day for my entire life.
Nan had tried to give it back to me.
She shook her head. "No honey, your Daddy was a sick man. He didn't know what he was sayin’. You’re a beautiful young lady, and you can do whatever you want when you grow up. You can be a singer, a dancer, a doctor, a lawyer—even the president." I thought she was lying to me. I got angry. Why would she tell me I could be anything when we both knew it wasn’t true?
I was so full of rage. I remember sweeping my arm across the kitchen table, sending the glass vase in the center crashing to the floor in one quick motion. It shattered around my legs, the shards cutting into my feet and toes.
"You don't gotta lie to me!" I screamed, and I continued screaming until my throat was raw. Nan tried to wrap me up in a hug, and I just got louder. Her touch burned my skin. But, Nan didn’t know about the burning then.
She didn’t know she was hurting me.
I’d struggled against Nan, but I was so much smaller than she was. She wrestled me to the ground while whispering her brand of loving reassurance in my ear. How much she loved me. How much she believed in me. "You can do anything, baby girl. I promise, I will never lie to you. You are bright and beautiful and resilient. You can do anything." She repeated those words until my muscles relaxed and I fell asleep in her arms on the kitchen floor. The fire in me hadn’t died.
I had just given in to the flames.
It was my first and only hug.
Ever.
It was the first time I’d ever felt loved, or even worthy of love. I was both elated and frightened by the intensity of it all. I had wondered how people with more than one person to love walked around all day without falling over from the weight of their emotions.
That very day I had fallen in love with my grandmother.
"Abby? You dead?" A voice asked, casting a shadow over me, bringing me out of my daydream and back into the present. I kept my eyes closed.
"Yes,” I said. “I'm dead." I might as well have been.
"Well, you look awfully cute for a dead girl."
“Thanks, Owen.” I sat up, shading my eyes with my hands. The afternoon sun peaked around Owen, framing him in a full-body halo.
"What’re you doing down there?" Owen asked.
"Nothing that matters,” I answered. “What are you doing here?"
Owen stared down at me with the same grin he always had plastered on his face. I swear his cheeks must hurt at the end of the day. "Uncle Cole called and asked if I could come give you a hand with your…" He looked over to the tarp. “Crap?”
"Owen, I would love for you to help me. There’s a huge problem, though, one your kind uncle didn’t think much of before carrying out the eviction.” I was starting to shout. Owen didn't deserve my wrath, but I couldn't help what was coming out.
"And what problem is that?"