Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Of course, everyone could’ve shuffled their days around to watch Cross and create time for me to go to school, but it wasn’t their responsibility to do that. So I never asked.
Besides, I liked being home with baby Cross in those early years. It was good. I didn’t have to pay rent, or work an outside job, or worry about babysitters. And anyway, I passed the GED test right after I turned seventeen and so I am technically not a high-school dropout.
But once I turned eighteen everything changed. No one warned me, but I saw it coming. Cross was about two and a half at this point and my older brother, Pate, had just married Chalice Guffie, the niece of Geraldine from the Revenant diner, and she was staying at home at the time because she was pregnant. So Cross spent his days with her and I got a job at the Revenant diner.
The other jobs just came gradually as more and more of Cross’s time was spent away from home doing things. Lowyn hired me at McBooms and that’s been a regular thing for a long time now. But there were others here and there before I started the Busybody. Waitressing at the Bishop Inn. I was a parts girl for the Sardis Mechanic Shop on Third and Maple. I washed dishes for April Laver in the bakery for a couple years.
But none of this was about money. I actually have plenty of money. I mean, my childhood profit share added up to about thirty thousand dollars by time I turned eighteen and could cash out. And even though I’m not a business owner or a town partner, so I don’t get the big contracts like other members of my family, I have way more money than I need.
I don’t work the jobs for money.
I work them so I don’t have to think about the man who wrote this letter and how he ruined me. Not by getting me pregnant—I do not regret my son. Not one bit. But his abandonment nearly did me in.
Even if I did mostly think he was dead, I never really believed it. I always held out hope that he’d come back. It was this hope that killed me. Inside. Erol Cross ruined my heart. He tore it out, ripped it to pieces, and then stomped on it for good measure.
All this time I’ve been holding the baggie with the envelope inside, so now I look down at it. Do I put it back? Or open it?
It would be stupid not to look at it because then it would just be this mystery that would linger in my head like the smell of something rotten in the back of the fridge. Is it a puzzle? Is it a letter? What’s inside the fuckin’ envelope?
And I don’t need that lingering in my heart and head for years to come, so I open the baggie, take out the letter, and slip my fingertip under the seal. I hold my breath until I pull the paper out and see that it’s on lined paper and it’s not a puzzle, it’s words.
Then this breath comes out in a rush and my hand shakes as I tug on the folded edges, open it up, and read…
Dear Rosie,
I hope you are well. I have seen you from afar and you are as beautiful as ever. I’ve seen our son, too, and he’s better than perfect. I’m sorry for the way I left. It wasn’t my fault and if you just give me thirty minutes, I will explain everything that’s happened to me since that day I disappeared.
I’ll be at the Fayetteville Burger Boy from eight to ten p.m. on June twenty-sixth. Please come. Please give me a chance to explain. I have never stopped loving you or dreaming of the day when I could see you again and meet our boy.
Forever yours,
Erol
I pause after reading the last few words, stunned. Then I scoff. Yours forever? Never stopped loving you? Dreaming of the day?
My hand starts fishing through my huge purse almost of its own accord and then the next thing I know, I’ve got a pen and a notepad and I’m jotting down a reply.
Dear Erol,
You can go to hell for all I care. I will most certainly not be meeting you anywhere and this boy of mine is not yours, has never been yours, and never will be yours. Stop stalking me, stop sending me creepy letters, and just go on your way and forget you ever met me. There is no room for you in my life.
Never yours,
Rosie
I rip the page out of the little notebook, stick it back inside the baggie, and put the rock back on top.
Then I walk out of the woods and leave my past behind for good.