Chapter 9 - The Settlement in White Bluff
In late January, a light freezing rain coated the limestone bluffs of Cheatham County in a skin of gray ice.
I drove my truck alone out toward White Bluff, following a narrow, two-lane blacktop road that wound past abandoned tobacco barns and rusted equipment sheds. In the passenger seat sat a small manila envelope containing the final release documents from the probate court in Dickson.
The trailer park sat at the end of a gravel lane behind a commercial propane depot.
Lot 14 was a single-wide unit from the late eighties, its faded turquoise aluminum siding streaked with black mildew, its concrete-block foundation skirted with sheets of rusted corrugated tin. A single 1998 sedan with a dented passenger door sat in the gravel driveway, its tires bald to the cords.
I killed the engine. The only sound was the tick of my cooling manifold and the freezing drizzle tapping against the aluminum roof of the trailer.
I stepped out into the mud, my boots sinking an inch into the wet gravel, and walked up the three wooden steps to the front door.
I knocked twice.
The door opened four inches, held by a cheap brass chain latch.
Teresa stood behind the mesh screen.
She looked seventy years old. Her face was gaunt, the skin under her neck hanging loose, her shoulders stooped inside an oversized quilted housecoat that smelled of cheap menthol cigarettes and fried bacon. Her teeth were unbrushed, her hair a wild, uncombed mass of silver and dark dye that stood out from her scalp.
She looked at me through the screen, her eyes flickering with a sudden, desperate spark of hope that died almost instantly when she saw the legal envelope in my hand.
"Connor?" she croaked, her voice trembling in the freezing air. "Did you... did you bring Frederick? Is he in the truck?"
"Frederick is at home with his mother, Teresa," I said. My voice was level, calm, and distant as the mountains.
She closed her eyes, a shudder running through her frame. "I have five hundred dollars left in my checking account, Connor. Mason won't speak to me. He blames me for the shop closing. Your aunt Betsy won't answer my letters. She says I ruined her family's name in Knoxville."
"You did," I said.
She reached her hand through the gap above the chain, her fingers yellowed from nicotine, trembling as she tried to touch my coat sleeve.
"I’m your mother, Connor," she wept, the tears freezing on her wrinkled cheeks. "God will punish you for leaving an old woman in the cold. It’s against nature. It’s against scripture."
I handed the manila envelope through the gap, placing it securely between her fingers.
"Those are the final settlement papers, Teresa," I told her. "The court has approved the sale of your house in Dickson. The proceeds have paid off the seventy-thousand-dollar balance on the fraudulent equity line you took against my home. The remaining fourteen thousand dollars has been placed in an annuity that will pay you four hundred dollars a month for the rest of your life."
She stared at the envelope as if it were a dead snake. "Four hundred dollars? That won't even cover the propane and the lot rent!"
"Then you’ll have to learn what Amy learned when she was nineteen," I said, stepping back down the wooden stairs into the gravel. "You’ll have to learn how to budget on your own labor instead of stealing from people who work."
"Connor! Don't walk away from me!" she screamed, her voice cracking into that old, vicious shriek as she rattled the brass chain against the doorframe. "You come back here! I made you! You belong to me!"
I didn't turn around.
May you like
I walked across the wet gravel, climbed into the warm cab of my truck, and pulled the door shut, sealing out her voice, her poison, and her rage forever.
I turned the key, put the truck in reverse, and backed out of the lane, watching the turquoise trailer shrink in my side mirrors until it disappeared behind the frozen pines.
