Excerpt: This Neck of the Woods

“I told you so.”

I glare at my older brother as I attempt to squeeze in the side door of the house with a duffel bag, suitcase, and my cat, Henry, gnawing my arm as a means to be freed. Once I hear the storm door slam shut behind me, I drop everything, including Henry, who, as soon as he hits the floor, rubs his body against my jeans’ leg like nothing ever happened. I look at the arm he had be nomming on to see that it’s bleeding.

Henry puts a paw against my leg and meows sweetly.

I knew I should have got a goldfish instead.

“It’s okay, Chet. I got everything.” I scoot the suitcase and duffel bag against the kitchen counter with my foot to clear the path for the next load of stuff from my car. Chet stays seated at the kitchen table, twiddling his thumbs and staring at me.

“What?” I ask annoyed because, well, he’s my older brother and he is annoying.

“Aren’t you going to say that I was right?”

“Is me having to ask you if I can stay in your spare bedroom not embarrassing enough?”

Chet shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.

I groan. “Fine. You were right. Are you happy, Jackass?”

He breaks down and laughs, “There’s my sweet baby sister.”

I roll my eyes and head back out to my car, ignoring Chet’s requests to “hug it out”. I pick up a box from the backseat but instead of packing it in, I set it on the gravel and plop down on the empty backseat and stare up at the house.

I honestly can’t believe that I’m back here. Well, I guess I can believe it since I knew it the day I left; Chet isn’t the only Hardin with a certain intuition (although, unlike mine, his doesn’t do more harm than good). Still, it’s all seems so odd that I really am back in Bardstown. Leaving it and everything I had known behind was so easy; coming back to it is Hell.

And I’m not too far off from literally meaning that.

I lean against the other boxes still nestled tightly in my car and turn my attention from my brother’s house to the bit of sky viewable between the roof of his house and the frame of my car. It’s one of those sunless, cloudless September days. The rain shower from this morning has raised the humidity as a reminder that summer isn’t quite over, but the breeze floating by that leaves a chill on my bare arms lets me know that Fall is on its merry little way.

That’s why I’ve missed this place. Weather is not like this in any other place but Kentucky. I constantly complained about it when I lived here – the humidity causing my hair to frizz, the never-ending allergies and sinus infections, and having to carry a jacket and umbrella all year long – but I missed it when I left. I missed it the same way as I missed the Easter lilies blooming on the side of the BG and how beautiful the underside of leaves on a Sycamore tree look against a stormy sky.

What I hope is one of the last mosquitoes of the season lands on my arm and I quickly slap it away.

I definitely didn’t miss the bloodsuckers.