Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel by Caro Claire Burke - 52
In the olden days, girls, do you know how people got from one place to another? They walked. Yep, that’s right. They walked for miles and miles and miles. If they had a little money, they might have a horse, maybe even a covered wagon to pull along with it. And if they were lucky, they might have a ...
In the olden days, girls, do you know how people got from one place to another? They walked. Yep, that’s right. They walked for miles and miles and miles. If they had a little money, they might have a horse, maybe even a covered wagon to pull along with it. And if they were lucky, they might have a truck!
Wait—that can’t be right.
No. That certainly can’t be right!
I turn the doorknob, and the cabin’s front door swings silently open. I cross quietly over the threshold and into a small wooden kitchen. Suddenly I am staring at a framed picture of my own family, hanging on the opposite wall. It’s from a long time ago: me, Caleb, Clementine, Samuel, and baby Stetson. I don’t remember the day it was taken, but I do remember the caption that accompanied it when I shared the picture online: God is pleased when families work together.
My heart is a wet dead thing in my chest. My gaze swings slowly across the room. I see a dirt-packed floor and a table. On the table: a hot plate. Next to the hot plate: three plastic packs of ramen. Beneath the table: a mini-fridge with a cord that is connected to an electrical outlet.
Then: a radio in the other room, flickering on.
I feel it, the cold air entering and leaving me, but I can’t hear it— can’t hear my heart or my pulse or my breath. I can hear only the radio, which is getting louder, because I am somehow crossing the kitchen, passing the vegetables and the ramen and the picture of me, and then I am crossing through another room, this one empty except for a turned-off television and a ratty old couch and a pile of blankets in the corner—three sleeping bags, three pillows—and then I am through that room and into another, where I come to a halt.
Through the far window of this room: the front fender of the truck. And right in front of that window, another table, which is holding the radio, and in front of the radio, sitting on a plastic folding seat, is a man. By his feet is a pile of vegetables overflowing out of an old plastic milk crate. Potatoes, carrots, celery, beets. The kind Mary chops and dices and then drops into soup. There are grocery store stickers all over them.
Doctor, I think distantly. You came here for a doctor.
It’s the neighbor. The shorter one. He’s facing away from me, whistling softly. A tune I recognize. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world…
It takes me a moment to process what he’s doing: pulling vegetables from one crate, pulling the grocery store stickers off, then dropping them into another crate.
Speak.
An impossible feat; like trying to whistle while skydiving. “Help,” is what I finally manage.
The neighbor freezes.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—
The neighbor looks over his shoulder. His eyes are wide. “Mama,” he blurts.
I take one step back, then another. “Doctor,” I whisper.
“ Mama, ” he says again. His face is contorted into ecstasy, or perhaps torture.
He stands up, the chair tipping back behind him, and I scream. Instinct takes over: as he lumbers toward me, I turn and run. Through the room with the television and then the kitchen and out the door, across the clearing and into the woods. This time, I don’t fall.