My Blue River by Leslie Trammell Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was so early the sun had barely even made its appearance for the day. Doesn’t anyone or anything sleep in anymore? Of course not , I answered my own question. Ever since we moved to the place I now called One Horse, my parents woke up early every morning either working in the yard or in the house and at times, both. “Get up early, Addy, enjoy the fresh morning air,” they would say. The move to Blue River alone was not appealing, but the addition of hard labor made it almost unbearable.
     
    The amount of work that needed to be done was overwhelming. It all needed to be completed by the time my parents started their new jobs. My mom would be Blue River High School’s new school counselor—a sure change from her private practice in family counseling, but she swore it still provided an opportunity to counsel and that’s what mattered. In California, my dad had been successful business man but in Montana, he would be a college professor. This wasn’t just a move to another state it was an entire Davis Family shakeup. Dad would be teaching at one of Montana’s largest universities in the College of Business and commute forty minutes to work. According to my dad, a forty-minute commute was nothing compared to the traffic he was usually stuck in on the highways of California and you “couldn’t place a monetary value on saving his son’s life.” That was yet to be determined in my eyes, but hey, whatever made him sleep at night. He had even taken a cut in pay claiming the cost of living difference made it possible and vowed everything was going to work out.
     
    I sometimes wondered if he was just making the facts up as he went along or if he actually knew what he was talking about but either way, this was happening. My parents had made wise investments with the sizeable inheritance Mom received from the passing of her father. We left California extremely, financially stable. In other words, we were a wealthy family. Thanks to the soaring California property values, my parents made a haul on the house Aaron and I had grown up in. It saddened me to think they had brought each of their newborn babies into that house, and then left it seventeen years later without looking back. It was as if the house and all those memories meant nothing to them now. The move was well planned and they were able to take the entire summer off, but this still seemed insane. It still felt like there was a missing piece to this puzzle.
     
    There it was again. Thump, trickle, scrape. I heard the annoying sounds again and again so I ran outside to see what it was all about. I was still in my pajamas and my hair was unkempt. I rounded the corner of the house and there stood Jack, already hard at work. If I had put more thought into this moment, I would have realized Jack would be here and put more effort on my appearance. I skid to a halt and started to comb through my hair with my fingers.
     
    “What are you doing?” I snapped. Then I yawned, making sure he knew he’d awakened me. Surely that would excuse my shabby appearance. “And what is that?” I pointed to the equipment he was using.
     
    “This?” he asked as he held up a brass nozzle attached to a blue hose. “This is what we call a pressure washer .” His tone was condescending. It was as though he thought it was a stupid question.
     
    “And you’re spraying the house with water because?” I asked, waiting for him to complete my question.
     
    He let out what seemed like a frustrated sigh then replied, “Well, before we can paint the house, we need to get the old paint off. We use a pressure washer and a hand scraper to do that.” He dropped the tone and the hose and added, “And I’m sensing you’re mad.” He started to walk toward me, which made me very aware of my morning breath so I took two steps back. Jack was a smart and intuitive guy. He picked up on my body language and stopped in his tracks.
     
    “Yeah, your