The Darkest Joy Read Free Page A

grief. I stand in the middle of my new home, clutching a quilt my great-aunt made with her own hands, knowing that this cabin is mine through the default of her death.
    I wonder if I’ll ever be right again .
    I don’t deserve happiness. Because they can never have it again.
    After an indefinite time, I lay the quilt over a ratty couch and lie down.
    I fall asleep before my head hits the cushioned armrest.
    My nose twitches at the musty smell.
    My crushed heart still beats.
    Somehow.

    I wake with birds chirping outside the window. The pale light showcases things that though neglected were once loved. My eyes scan the scarred surfaces of antique dressers forgotten, mirrors whose silvered surfaces toss the light around the space. Pale green paint, like untouched sherbet, is crazed on the moldings that hold doors that have faded to a light amber. So much potential . . . so much age. So much. I shiver and roll over.
    Potential doesn’t keep me warm. I’m freezing my ass off. I sit up on the couch, the sunlight gray as it filters through the grimy glass of the cabin. Divided light windows settle into thecenter of enormous old log walls that intersect at the cabin’s corners, the glass rippled, ancient. It looks like water’s running over the panes. It’s not, they’re just that old.
    I look around the interior again and stretch, yawning. My gaze stumbles on an old Toyo heating stove, maybe updated as recently as the 1970s.
    Wonderful.
    I move to it, arms folded over my chest, hugging my elbows. I crank the knob to on then hit a switch at the back of the old-fashioned stove. My eyes follow the flue as it snakes its way from the main body of the stove and plunges through the tall ceiling. It creaks to miserable life, ticking as it wakes up.
    I realize that I don’t know how it’s being fueled and look to a fireplace, open and dark. Rough-hewn logs flank its sides and a matching log, split in half, acts as a mantel. The spruce has aged to a polished soft gold.
    Of course, I’m just guessing at the color because everything is vintage beautiful with a layer of gray. And epic dust.
    I sneeze and stand by the stove until it’s too hot for me to tolerate. I move away.
    Well, I guess this answers the question of propane delivery , I think. I move aside a moth-eaten lace curtain, and my eyes immediately peg a rusty old tank in the backyard, peeling paint completing the rustic yard ornament. I let the curtain drop and walk over to the kitchen, which is part of the living room. My eyes move to the pair of doors that line the back wall and I walk over there, my exploring not quite finished. I push open the door to the right, the hinges protest softly and I catch sight of a shower pan with a curtain hanging off of aneye hook of nickel that’s worn thin to reveal brass. A steady drip of water falls, the sound exploding in a dull pop as it lands in the old porcelain cast iron. The commode stands in forlorn silence in the corner, a small window set high above it. To the right, a wall-mounted sink hangs off the log, with a long chrome chain from the center of the taps that holds a rubber stopper at its end. I sigh, stepping back and shutting the door at the lovely vista. I turn in the tiny open hall, with just a partial wall that divides the kitchen from the small rooms. I move through the door at the left of the bathroom and a small bedroom stands before me. A full-size bed, without bed linen, a small nightstand and two tiny windows, one at the north side and one at the east, open casement style round out the spartan room. A lonely glass kerosene lamp sits in a layer of dust on the nightstand. I back out, closing the door and I sigh again.
    This place is nothing like my parents’ six-thousand-square-foot home that I’ve sold. Out in the nothingness of this property, I could be at the end of the earth.
    I feel like I am.
    I walk back into the kitchen. I swallow hard and turn on the faucet above an ancient porcelain farmhouse sink.