Chapter 18 - The Last Drive
A week later, Brett drove his truck down the winding back road toward Proctor for the first time since the winter freeze.
The trees were bare, and the ground was a muddy quagmire of thawing earth and rotting leaves. As he crested the rise where the old 1922 farmhouse used to stand, he slowed to a stop.
The house was gone.
In its place was a flat, scarred patch of dark earth, littered with broken brick, twisted scraps of old iron, and the jagged remains of the stone foundation. The old red barn had been pushed over into a neat pile of splintered timber waiting for a burn crew, and the twelve acres of overgrown pasture looked vast, empty, and stripped of everything that had once defined it.
Brett sat behind the steering wheel, his hands resting lightly on the rubber rim of the steering wheel. There was no sadness in the sight—only a profound, quiet finality. The ghost of the old house had been laid to rest. The drafts, the frozen pipes, the endless winter bills, and the bitter promises whispered over holiday dinners were all gone, swept away by the same cold reality that had tested them for seven long years.
He shifted the truck into gear, turned around in the muddy driveway, and headed back up the mountain toward the ridge.
As he climbed higher, the valley fell away, replaced by the tall, green timber of the upper slopes and the bright, clean line of the cedar ranch house shining under the spring sun.
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When he pulled into the gravel drive, his mother was out on the front porch with a pair of gardening shears, trimming the dead stalks from her flower beds, while his father sat in the brown corduroy recliner by the open front window, watching the robins darting through the pine trees.
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