Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I had never been to Singer’s Ridge. Macy had been living there for six years, ever since she had met and fallen in love with Dillon. I had been fresh out of high school when she disappeared for a season. No one in the family had known where she went, and the creep she was supposed to marry had wanted us all to believe she was mentally ill. I wasn’t particularly close to my cousin, but even I knew that was hogwash. Macy didn’t have a crazy bone in her body, and I, like the rest of the family, had been worried sick about her.
Through a twist of events that I still didn’t understand, she had turned up in Singer’s Ridge, pregnant and engaged to Dillon. In the intervening years, he had accompanied her to two family reunions, and I had met both Nicky and Daisy. They were the most adorable children I had ever met, though I might have been biased. I would get to meet Emily finally, and I looked forward to it.
Over the next three hours, I managed to pack everything in my apartment into three suitcases and six boxes. Everything was arranged in the living room for the movers. My couch, my dresser, my desk, everything except the bed and the toothbrush was ready to go. I was so hyped up, it took me a long time to unwind. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of cleaning a house that wasn’t even mine.
The eleven-hour trip to Singer’s Ridge began early in the morning. I was up before the sun, anxious to get going. I helped move a couple of boxes into the rented truck, leaving the furniture for the professionals. I climbed into the cab with the driver, and we started out, three of us crammed into the front seat. For the first hour, we rode in silence. The second, they turned the radio to a news station before finally admitting that they wanted to listen to country music.
“That’s fine with me,” I said, relaxing into the seat while the driver switched the radio over to a playlist. Garth Brooks was followed by Kenny Chesney. I watched the towns change and the farms sprout and disappear into the rearview mirror.
We stopped a couple of times for bathroom breaks and once to grab lunch at a truck stop. I finally bought myself a coffee at the last stop before Singer’s Ridge. The moving team took me to the storage place outside of town. It was a sprawling city of green-roofed tin cans, each with a padlock and a corrugated gate.
The lady was really friendly, and already I could feel the small-town vibe. I rented a unit for three months. That was the minimum and would give me enough time to find a job and an apartment, I thought.
The owner had her husband help us transfer my stuff from the truck to the shed. When we were done, she offered us a glass of iced tea.
“Gotta get going, ma’am,” the driver tipped his hat.
“Where are you headed?” the owner asked me.
“I’m visiting my cousin,” I said.
“Maybe I know her,” the woman said.
“Macy Ford,” I answered.
“Oh sure, we know Macy,” the husband responded, looping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“How are you gonna get up to the cabin?” the owner wondered.
“We’ll give her a lift,” my driver said.
“Nonsense,” the older gentleman removed his hand from his wife and dug a set of keys out of his pocket. “We take care of our own here.”
The driver looked at me, and I shrugged.
“Okay.” He swung himself up into the cab with a wave. “That’ll save us some time. Thanks.”
The other mover climbed into shotgun, and the two reversed out of the parking lot. The owner disappeared into her office and returned with a promotional calendar. “Give this to Macy when you see her.”
I turned it over in my hands, examining the front. It was a collection of landscapes, from Mt. Denali to the Chicago skyline.
“My son says we need to drum up new business,” the woman explained somewhat apologetically.
I smiled, “Will do.” I followed her husband to his pickup truck, slung the one bag I was taking with me into the bed, and climbed into the passenger seat.
My new driver was much more talkative than the old one had been. He waxed philosophical about small towns and the people in them. He told me all about the librarian and how she wouldn’t let him off the hook for an overdue book, even though he had been to elementary school with her. I was grateful when he finally turned off the main road and began the climb to Macy’s cabin. It was dusk, and magic had settled on the forest. I could hear the songs of birds calling to each other through the trees. We could see just far enough to know that the woods went on forever in all directions. As we drove, a deer ambled past, unconcerned by our intrusion. We pulled up to the driveway and honked the horn.