Chapter 10 - The Horizon
Three months later.
Late August on Hollow Pine Lake brings a kind of beauty that words struggle to capture. The water turns a deep, crystalline sapphire blue, the air carries the crisp, sharp warning of coming autumn, and the loons call out in long, haunting choruses as the sun begins its slow descent behind the western ridge.
I had taken the schedule change.
The airline had welcomed me back to the regional routes with open arms: fewer days away, three legs a week instead of twelve, and zero overnight stays in carpet-cleaner-scented hotel rooms. I flew three mornings a week, landing back at the county regional airstrip by noon, and spent the remaining four days ninety-five miles north.
The house on Lynen Street was gone, sold to a young family from Wisconsin who loved the manicured lawn. The proceeds from the sale, minus Frank Callahan's very reasonable legal fees, sat securely in a private account bearing only my name.
Gavin Price’s second gym location never opened. His original studio downtown was sold to a regional fitness chain after the county prosecutor’s office began auditing his business accounts for money laundering.
Dana Vance had avoided prison time by agreeing to testify against Brooke in the bank fraud investigation, though her notary license was permanently revoked, and she was now working as a receptionist at an auto repair shop two counties south.
And Brooke... Brooke was living in a small, one-bedroom basement apartment in Greenville, working forty hours a week at a boutique clothing shop, waiting for the final divorce decree to be stamped by the judge. She had texted me once, two weeks ago, a single line sent at 2:00 AM: *Do you ever miss what we had?*
I hadn't replied. I simply deleted the message and blocked the number.
I stood at the end of my mother’s dock, holding a cup of black diner coffee in one hand and a hammer in the other.
The dock wasn't crooked anymore.
Walt Miller and I had spent two long weekends in July pulling the rotten cedar pilings from the muck and driving fresh, pressure-treated white pine posts deep into the lakebed. The boards were straight, sturdy, and smelled of fresh sawdust and lake water.
The front door of the cabin had a proper brass Corbin deadbolt installed once again. The industrial gray runners were gone, replaced by braided rag rugs I had found carefully packed away in the rafters of the woodshed. The espresso machine had been donated, and my mother’s cast-iron skillet hung proudly above the woodstove, seasoned and black as midnight.
On the cedar mantle, beside the framed photograph of my mother holding her stringer of perch, rested the weathered, dark-brown leather guest book.
I walked back up the dock, stepped onto the porch, and walked into the quiet warmth of the cabin.
I set my hammer on the hearth, opened the guest book to the very last page, and picked up a pen.
Beneath the frantic, manic entries Brooke and Gavin had written three months ago, I drew a single, clean black line across the page with a ruler, closing the chapter forever.
Beneath that line, I wrote in neat, steady pilot's print:
*August 28th.*
*The dock is straight. The water is calm. The sky is clear all the way to the horizon.*
*Home.*
I closed the book, laid the pen beside it, and smiled.
Outside, the faint rumble of a car engine echoed down North Shore Road.
I paused, listening carefully. It wasn't the heavy clatter of Walt’s old Ford diesel, and it certainly wasn't the high-pitched whine of a crossover. It was the smooth, quiet purr of a sedan, slowing down as it approached my driveway.
I walked to the front window and pulled the curtain back slightly.
A dark-green Subaru pulled into the gravel drive, its tires crunching softly to a stop near the hemlocks. The driver's door opened, and a woman stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine.
She wore a faded canvas jacket, a camera strap slung over her shoulder, and hair the color of autumn leaves tied back in a loose knot. She paused, looking up at the cedar-shake roof, then down at the crooked path leading to the shore, clutching a small notebook against her side.
She looked up, caught my eye through the window, and gave a warm, hesitant wave.
May you like
I didn't recognize her.
I set my coffee mug on the table, walked across the braided rug, and unlocked the heavy brass deadbolt, stepping out onto the porch into the crisp northern air to see what the next chapter was going to be.
