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Retreat to Shelter Creek

By Lee Carver

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“I’ll do the whole roof for seven thousand dollars, but I want the pig.”

Ashley squinted up at the plaid-shirted man about her own age in a wide, used-to-be-white Stetson. An effervescent sensation gurgled up from unknown depths inside her. She threw back her head and let laughter overtake her. Nothing in the past few months had triggered such lighthearted abandon.

The fellow stood there with an open-mouthed smile as if he didn’t know which way to go.

The late afternoon Texas sun streaked through the gigantic pecan tree to where he stood on the front porch. The roofer had been tromping around on top of the house. Mama Lou said he’d come and give an estimate this afternoon. He might be insulted if she didn’t recover in a hurry.

Shading her eyes, she pushed open the screen. “Would you like to come inside? It’s awful hot out there.” Even with the window air conditioner turned off in the living room, inside ran at least ten degrees cooler. But stuffy.

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s hot enough to fry rattlesnakes.” He stepped inside.

Now that the sun no longer stabbed her retinas, she glanced at his face. Something familiar about him tickled her memory, like thinking she recognized someone but then realizing he lived in a different state. “How about a glass of iced tea?”

“I appreciate the offer, but we’ve got ice water out in the truck. Is Mrs. Pickens here?” He peered toward the hallway, deeper into the old house.

“Grandmother’s here, and she was expecting you, but she didn’t feel well enough to stay up. I’d rather not disturb her.”

He took off his worn hat and wiped a bandana across his face. “I wouldn’t want to bother her.”

She noticed his light-colored eyes under bushy brows. He didn’t stand all that tall, something under six feet, but muscle bulges stretching the shoulders of his knit shirt indicated a lot of strength. “You were saying about the pig?”

“Yes’um. I’d like to have that white sow as part of the deal.” He smiled with a twinkle of enthusiasm. “I saw her from up on the roof. She couldn’t be very happy in the pen all by herself.”

Ashley had never considered whether Beulah was happy. She ate, she oinked, and she created a muddy mess in the back yard. She had been making quite a lot of noise in the past half hour. Maybe she had guard-pig inclinations. “What do you want with the pig?”

“I’m raising a few on my farm, and what you have there is a fine crossbreed. She would be a welcome addition to my stock. I need a good sow, and I’m real partial to the white ones.”

“It’s just that … I don’t know if that’s possible. Beulah was my younger brother’s prize winner in Future Farmers. Years ago.” She motioned back over her shoulder. “Grandmother’s never been willing to sell her.” Heaven knows the neighbors would be pleased. She suspected some of the offers to buy the sow had come indirectly from them. Especially the lady who lived on the back side of their block.

“Could I ask your brother, then?” He fanned with his hat, and his brow raised as if the heavy line had a life of its own.

“Afraid not. He died in Afghanistan.” She hated those words, but could finally say them without crying.

“Oh. Right. I heard about that. Sorry.” He gave a long exhale and ducked his head for a second. “Look, I figure a sow like that—and I haven’t even seen her up close—but she’s probably worth a couple hundred dollars. Maybe three, depending on her age. So the price I’m offering on the roofing job is better than anyone else would do it for.”

Mama Lou had an estimate from another company for well over eight thousand. Getting rid of Beulah made the deal even sweeter, if her grandmother would go for it. “I can’t speak for her, though. I just know we need the roof fixed before it rains. It leaks pretty bad, and the TV says we may have some rain next week. Can you put us on your schedule right away?”

“Not without her approving the estimate. Say, aren’t you her granddaughter who used to stay here sometimes in the summer when we were teenagers?”

“Yes, I’m Ashley Brooker.” For now. She extended her hand, aware that his might be dirty.

He plopped his cowboy hat on his head, wiped his hand on his jeans, and took hers in a gentle but firm shake.

Dry skin, calloused by his job, surrounded her palm with plenty left over. He really did look familiar. Then she noticed the scar to the right of his upper lip, just a faint hash mark from a long-ago accident. “Trés?”

“Yes, ma’am, Stephen Austin Chism the Third, but I don’t go by Trés anymore. I prefer Austin.”

She smiled with the memory of the church youth hayride her sixteenth summer, and sharing sweet watermelons beside Shelter Creek. He had been handsome but rather full of himself. The local girls fell over each other to be close to him, so she hung back and watched the show.

“Lots of guys around here are nicknamed Bubba and Junior. Mom called me Trés. Still does. I think that’s the only French word she knows.” His left-sided grin pulled a crease on his cheek.

“Yes, well, about the hog, can my grandmother call you when she wakes up?”

“Sure.” He extracted a business card as tired-looking and damp as he. “I’ll be doing another couple of estimates this afternoon, but she can call me on my cell phone up to about nine o’clock this evening.” He turned and reached the door with a slow stride. “We start roofing at sunup, so I bed down kind of early.”

“I understand.” Ashley put the card in the pocket of her faded shorts and followed him to the door.

“Good to see you again.” Austin looked back with one hand on the knob. “Will you be visiting long?”

“As long as my grandmother needs me. I figure a few more weeks.” Where she’d go then she didn’t know. Nothing remained for her in Tennessee but the house stuff in a storage room, and she’d just as soon start over.


***

Mama Lou entered the kitchen tugging on her wrapped headscarf as Ashley slid a pan of homemade chicken pot pie into the oven. She inhaled deeply of the rich aromas. “That looks wonderful. I hope I can eat a bite tonight.” It would be a shame to waste Ashley’s cooking.

“I hope you can, too, and I made some biscuits on the side.” Ashley raised the stove door. “If the pot pie is too heavy for your stomach, there’s more creamed chicken and vegetables on the stove.”

“Oh, honey, you shouldn’t go to all that trouble with just the two of us here. We could buy frozen dinners or eat sandwiches. I don’t have much appetite.” She probably wouldn’t eat anything at all if Ashley weren’t preparing food.

Ashley hugged her. “Mama Lou, you need the best nutrition possible. What little you eat needs to be good food.”

“This chemo just wears me out.” Addie Lou pulled back a chair from the kitchen table and braced against both to sit without dropping hard. “I’ve gotten to where I sleep all afternoon.”

“I’m glad you’re sleeping. The only job you have is to get well.”

Ashley wiped off the counter top, scooping celery trimmings and carrot shavings into the canister of scraps for Beulah. “The roofer climbed up and looked around. He left an estimate, but I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

“As high as the other one?”

“No, it’s lower, but he’s throwing Beulah into the deal.”

Addie Lou chuckled. “That’s not so easy. She must weigh nearly three hundred pounds.”

“I mean, he’s asking for seven thousand dollars and the pig.”

“Oh.” The memory flashed through her mind of Jacky repairing the old pen and hauling Beulah here. She promised to care for his prize pig until he returned. They never mentioned the possibility that he wouldn’t be back. “I’m not sure I can let her go.”

“I told him why we have her. But don’t you think Beulah would be better off on a farm with other pigs?”

Addie Lou left the question hanging in the air. Her mind wandered off, not just on what to do about Beulah, but the whole house. The children wanted her to sell it and move to an assisted living place in Fort Worth. That’s probably what would happen if she couldn’t lick this cancer. If God would just…

“I was blown away that the roofer was Trés.” Ashley reached for plates, napkins, and utensils. “Last I heard, he was in college and talking about how he might get a degree in petroleum engineering, since natural gas or oil probably lay under all their pasture land.”

“Bless his heart, things didn’t work out that way. His daddy died and he had to quit school and come home.”

“What happened to his daddy?” Ashley poured their iced tea and spritzed the room cutting fragrant lemon slices.

“It’s really a sad story. I don’t like to gossip, but he was bad to drink. Wrapped his car around a telephone pole out on the road from the Weatherford Country Club.” Lou squeezed lemon in her tea and took a sip. “When he died, it all came out that he’d been gambling up at the casino in Oklahoma. Left the family deep in debt.” She shook her head slowly, not hard enough to make the vertigo return.

Ashley, hands on her narrow hips, went slack-jawed. “I thought they were rolling in money. And the last summer I spent here, he sounded like they were fixing to sign a contract with a well drilling company.”

“I don’t know about that. Don’t reckon he’d be climbing up on people’s roofs in this heat if he had any choice in the matter.”

Juicy, red sliced tomatoes on a white plate brought water to Addie Lou’s mouth. Maybe she’d be able to eat after all.

“Did Trés—I mean Austin—marry a girl from around here? I know several would’ve stood in line for the chance.”

“That’s the really sad part. He married the Jamison’s daughter and they had a baby boy, but then she suddenly got leukemia and died in about three months. Only twenty-four years old.”

“Oh. That’s awful. I just can’t imagine.” Ashley took dinner out of the oven and placed the steaming casserole on hot pads in the middle of the table by the window. Her face had clouded with borrowed grief.

Ashley seemed near tears all the time now, so different from her cheerful, beautiful granddaughter just a few years ago.

Addie Lou took Ashley’s hand in both of hers. “We all have our hard places, honey. You’ll get through this.”

Ashley slipped her hand loose, pulled a letter out of her apron pocket, and showed it to her.

“What’s that?”

“Jason’s hired a lawyer.”

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