Big Man

Then the next morning, hung-over and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, I unfold the letter one more time and dial the number at the bottom.

“Paul?” I ask the moment the estate handler picks up. “I need to book a flight back home…”

And that’s how the real trouble began.

2

Sasha Bluebell

This is going to be a tactical strike, I tell myself as I stomp on the gas of my rental car. It took me three hours—three hours—to drive here from the regional airport. And that was after two connecting flights, because somehow, this Podunk town doesn’t even have a single direct flight to any major NYC hub. I thought that was impossible in this day and age.

Guess you learn something new every day.

I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and double-check my makeup quickly. Eyeliner and mascara in place, full red lipstick applied, foundation set to battle mode. I’m ready for whatever my hometown has to throw at me. I don’t care what the locals here think—my boring, unimaginative, small-minded peers who never bothered to dream past the borders of this town, never imagined any kind of career outside of the same old farming paths their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents trudged down.

They can insult me all they like—same way they did almost two years ago when I came here, straight to the hospital, to hold Mama’s hand. They can whisper and elbow each other and smirk behind open palms when I walk past. I don’t give a shit because I’m here and then I’m out again.

All I need to do is meet the property assessment manager, find out how much this farm is worth, take a few photos and get it up on a real estate page, then sell it to the first bidder. I don’t need the money—I don’t care how low the first bid comes in. I’ll sell this place for a penny if I need to. I just want to get it off my hands.

My conscience tickles the back of my skull as I think about it.

Okay, fine, maybe I’ll do some basic background checking. Make sure that whoever wants to buy it will run it the way it’s always been run—as a small, family-run farm, a local business. Not one of these huge Monsanto Corp plots of land my mother was always complaining about. I don’t want someone to completely bulldoze the place.

I just want them to take it off my hands and into their own, preferably more capable, hands.

Shouldn’t take long. One week, tops. I called into my firm and told them to put my freelance projects on hold for a week. By then I’ll be back in my cozy apartment on the Upper East Side, buried in my work once more, happily forgetting that this place ever existed.

You can survive one week, I promise myself. That’s nothing.

But as I peel into town in the Porsche I rented for this haul (I’m a corporate member, I get free upgrades, so sue me for enjoying the luxury) and immediately draw at least two dozen narrow-eyed stares from the corner café as I whip past toward the narrow road out of town up toward Mama’s place, I’m starting to think even a week might be pushing it.

I’m stronger than I think, I remind myself. I survived eighteen years here, after all. Birth all the way up through high school graduation. The girl that grinned through all the insults, glared right back through all the teasing and hair-pulling and muttered comments, fake rumors, bullshit accusations—she’s still inside me. Hell, she’s the tough-ass bitch who made me successful in NYC.

All I need to do is conjure her up again to survive the next seven days.

I stomp the gas pedal as I leave the town center behind, picking up speed on the bumpy road. I miss this feeling, I have to admit. I don’t own a car in the city—that would be stupid, nobody owns a car there. Who would need one?

But there’s something liberating about stomping on the gas pedal with no one watching. Flying past the pavement onto the crunching gravel of Mama’s longer-than-it-ought-to-be driveway, and not having to take any other cars into consideration.

By the time I reach the house, I’m doing far past any logical speed limit, my heart racing and a huge, stupid grin plastered on my face. Never mind that this car wasn’t built for off-roading. Never mind that Mama didn’t re-pack the dirt road that makes up the last half-mile or so to the farmstead. It’s a rental, I have insurance, I don’t care if the undercarriage smacks a few times as I fly over uneven hillocks, then slam on the brakes, nearly skidding right past the driveway into the grass beyond.

I screech to a halt in a billowing cloud of dust, ten feet away from the four-bedroom, single-story wooden farm that I called home for the first eighteen years of my life.