“Are you?” I ask.
“Ever since Luke died…” Dad shakes his head, missing his best friend. “I know the business has changed with him gone. And maybe I put too much on your plate. Maybe I expected too much.”
“No, that's not it. That's not it at all,” I repeat more intensely. I reach for my keys on the counter. Grab my jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. “I'm leaving,” I say. “I'll see you at the site tomorrow.”
“No,” Dad says, “actually, you won't.”
“What are you trying to say?” I ask my father. We've been working side by side for the last decade. Ever since I graduated high school I've been working on his crew, until I started leading his crew.
“I'm saying it's time for you to leave town for a bit right now. You got to figure out your shit before you come back to the job site and before you come back to family dinner. Before you come back Home.”
“You're kicking me out of town?”
“Yeah,” Dad says. “I am. You need to go to the Rough Forest. Go to the family hunting cabin.”
I give a sharp laugh. “You want me to go to the middle of bumfuck nowhere? Is there even running water out there? It's fucking February.”
“It'll be March first in a week,” he says, “you'll be fine. And yeah, there's water. There's a well up there.”
“Has anyone in the family been there in the last few years?” I ask.
“I'm not sure,” Dad says, “why don't you go up there and find out. Pack your truck and head up to the mountains.”
“We're already living in the mountains,” I tell him.
“I'm talking about the real mountains. You go to the Rough Forest and clear your head, son. You come home when you're ready to be a real family man.”
“You say it like it’s an ultimatum or something.”
“No, it's a deal.”
“It doesn't seem like much of a deal,” I say, angry that the secret I am keeping to protect him is hurting me more than ever. “I don't really see what say I have in this.”
“The deal is this, son: you go up there and clear your head or you're not coming back to my job site.”
“Oh, it’s your job site now? I thought it was our family business.”
“It’s my business until the day I die. Rye, I always hoped one day I would give it to you. But I'm not handing my business over to a man who is this unhappy. You need to remember what it means to be alive.”
He understands nothing. I'm holding secrets inside to protect him.
I walk past him without saying goodbye to the rest of my family because I already know what they're thinking. They're sick of me.
And I'm not going to change their minds with anything I say right now. My head's too hot. My body is all tense, feeling ready to throw down.
Since I'm not going to start a fight with my flesh and blood, I know it's better for me to just get the hell out of Dodge.
2
PRAIRIE
It's been four years. Four years waking up in this bed that is not my own.
Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I dream of a big, hulking hero, a man with a beard and axe. A hungry look in his eyes as he enters this cabin, crashing through the door, breaking off these chains, throwing me over his shoulder and taking me somewhere safe, warm.
His arms maybe. His bed, please.
I like those dreams.