The Cabin

         

The Cabin

         "Fuck"
         Chloe pulled her car over to the side of the road, kicking up the loose gravel before grinding to a stop. The road was narrow with overgrown vegetation creeping out over the blacktop before giving way to densely packed forest. Vines scraped the side of the car as Chloe put it in reverse and slowly backed down the shoulder, stopping in front of a mailbox - mostly hidden - with faded pink polka dots and a large '3419' written in white.
         "You always miss the turn"
         Chloe turned toward her brother and narrowed her eyes. Although separated by eighteen months, people had often mistook them for twins. Both were athletically built, with wild auburn hair and watery blue eyes. Their physical resemblance was striking but their ability to know each other's thoughts without speaking made them inseparable. Growing up, Chloe and James were rarely apart - waking each other up in the mornings and often falling asleep on opposite sides of the couch with their feet entangled together. Even when James left for college, they spoke every day and maintained a never ending stream of texts.
         "Do you remember the day we painted that?" Chloe asked, nodding toward the mailbox. 
          It was the middle of summer - when the heat and humidity settled on everything like a heavy blanket. Their father, fishing at the lake, had left them alone for the morning and they had found some cans of paint in the shed. Between them sat a large assortment of painted rocks: stripes and landscapes, stars and rainbows.
         "I'm bored with rocks," Chloe complained. She threw the rock in her hands as far as she could into the woods. James gently put down the rock he had been painting to look like a sunset, filled with delicate shades of red and pink.
         "I have an idea," James popped up, grabbed a can of white paint and headed down the gravel driveway toward the main road. Chloe grabbed the pink paint and followed her brother out of the woods until he stopped at the mailbox. It was hand-carved out of a single block of wood by their father years ago, but now looked weathered atop the post.
         "I think this thing needs..." James started.
         "Polka dots." Chloe finished. Without speaking, they got to work - Chloe on the polka dots and James on the intricate numbers. They waited for their father to notice as they pulled out of the drive-way that day on their way home, but he didn't - not that afternoon or any day that summer. That fall he returned from fishing alone and grounded them for ruining his mailbox and not telling him.
         Chloe slowly turned into the drive-way and headed toward the cabin. It was a couple hundred yards of gravel, leading around a small curve before opening into a small clearing. There was enough space for a car between the small shed and the modest cabin. It had no electricity but, by an odd twist of luck, had running water as the furthest plot in a small lake development. The sunlight shimmered through the canopy and made the forest surrounding the cabin look alive. Chloe opened her car door and inhaled the sweet smell of earth and damp. She closed her eyes, looked up and let the sunlight warm her eyelids.
         She had spent so many days of her childhood here with James. They would come with their dad, who would spend the day fishing while they swam, and played in the trees, and created a world that was theirs alone. All three would then collapse in the car, sunburnt and exhausted for the short ride home. A few rare occasions, her dad would get back from the lake and announce they were staying for the night, they would cook fish on the fire and stay up late. Her and James would take the flashlight down the path to the lake and watch breathlessly for shooting stars, nestling close together in the darkness like they were one in the same.
         It had been years since Chloe had seen the cabin but it looked the same as it always had. There was a small porch with a roof covered in a thick layer of moss and the same porch swing that she had passed many lazy afternoons talking with James about what middle school would be like, then high school, and finally what colleges they were going to go to and the people they would meet there. They talked about girlfriends and boyfriends, first crushes and first kisses, heartbreak and ecstasy, and loneliness - always loneliness. Their father was a good man, but his loneliness permeated their lives. It followed him like a shadow, spreading darkness and despair until they were inseparable, entwined so tightly he couldn't breathe for the crushing weight of it. 
         "OK. Let's go," Chloe whispered as she pulled a box from the car and headed inside with James. Inside the cabin was dark, what little sunlight filtered through the trees didn't make it through the dusty windows. Chloe turned on a battery powered lamp from the box she had brought in from the car and placed it next to her. Along the back wall was a small counter with a sink and some cabinets below and open shelves above. A small camp stove sat neatly folded on one end of the counter with two small propane tanks. There was a large stone fireplace that took up most of the wall on the left and a small powder room that took up most of the area on the right. The furniture was sparse - an old couch, a small wooden table with four chairs - but functional and Chloe breathed in the scent, charred wood and musty air.
         "Do you remember the party we had here? The summer before I started school?" Chloe mused.
         "Yes. I remember Max Milton." Chloe's smile dropped at the thought of the name. Max Milton. She hadn't thought of him in years. James was right - it was that night, the same one as the party, the last time Chloe would be in the cabin, until now. James had been planning it for weeks - a proper send-off for her at the end of the summer. It was hot in the cabin so people mingled outside, at the firepit, on the porch, down by the lake, clumps of people and conversation spread out in the warm summer night. Max had been with her all night, a friend of a friend and charming as hell. By the time she realized they were alone at the lake, his cold hands were already between her legs. His once playful kissing was now pinning her down, despite her efforts to pull free.
         "C'mon, baby" he whispered in her ear, over and over again. She closed her eyes, and screamed for James in her mind until, like a miracle, he was there pulling Max away.
         "You go near her again, I'll fucking kill you." 
         Chloe stood in the cabin, heart racing in the still air. She felt like she was eighteen again, crying at the lake with James wrapped around her like a bulletproof vest. Chloe looked around the room and noticed the small clock on the wall her father had found at a flea market the summer her mother had died, the drawing of the three of them at the lake that James had done then taped to the wall, and the window sill full of brightly painted rocks. Chloe pulled these items from their spots on the wall and placed them gently into the box, along with the camp stove and a novelty mug that read "World's Greatest Fisherman Dad." 
         "You ready?" Chloe nodded at her brother, picked up the box and walked out to the car. She carefully placed the box of items in the car, then pulled out the lamp and a small silver box before closing the trunk. The sun was setting and it was already dark on the path from the cabin to the lake. They emerged from the path, into the warm glow of a sunset over the lake. Chloe could see a couple of kayakers on the far side of the water with a few docks still full of people laughing and eating. They walked slowly to the end of the dock, where Chloe sat, pulled off her sandals and dipped her toes into the cool water.
         "I can't do this, James," Chloe said softly.
         "You can. And you will. You are not Dad. You will not be defined by this." Chloe sat with her eyes closed, head bowed, gently swinging her legs. She let the sounds of the lake wash over her - the soft lapping of the water against the dock, the frogs in the reeds along the shoreline, and the quiet sounds of her own breathing.
         "I don't want to be alone," Chloe whispered.
         "You are not alone, Chloe. Listen to me now. I'm here. I'm here with you. Always." Tears dripped down Chloe's face and onto the delicate silver box in her lap with "James Edward Sullivan" engraved on the lid. She gently wiped the lid with her thumb and the silver gleamed in the fading light. She took a long inhale and exhaled loudly before sitting up straight and wiping her eyes.
         "James Edward Sullivan, you were the best brother, the best friend, and the best person I have ever known and will ever know. You were my light in the darkness, the paint on my rocks, and my guardian angel. I love you." Chloe opened the lid, slowly tipped the contents into the wind and watched them float and dance away.
         "I love you, Chloe."
         She sat as the darkness crept from the woods, overtaking the shore, then the dock, then the lake. She sat listening to the insects and frogs and laughter in the distance until her toes were numb and her body pulsed with shivers. Finally, she collected her lamp, and the silver box and walked back to her car. Chloe climbed back into her car and pulled slowly down the driveway with her windows down, listening to the branches slowly brush the roof and letting the damp smell permeate the car. She stopped next to the mailbox and took out her phone to send a single text:
         "Got what I needed. All set for sale." She held the glowing phone in her lap until it faded to black, then she pulled out onto the road and disappeared into the night.