Chapter 6 - The Cabin in the Woods
Two weeks after the sentencing, Ryan, Maisie, and I drove south out of Columbus toward the rolling, tree-covered hills of Hocking County.
The legal settlement had cleared completely. The Green Hills house had been sold at public auction, with the proceeds—minus the fraudulent debts my mother had incurred—placed directly into a secured trust fund for Maisie’s future college education.
More importantly, the Hocking Hills cabin left behind by my father was now officially ours.
We turned off the paved state highway onto a narrow, gravel-paved forestry road canopied by towering oaks, maples, and towering white pines. The afternoon sunlight filtered through the dense green leaves in shafts of golden light, painting the forest floor in dappled patterns.
At the end of the lane sat the cabin.
It was built of dark, hand-hewn cedar logs with a wide, wrap-around wooden porch overlooking a deep, tranquil valley. A blue plastic children’s sandbox sat near the edge of the tree line, and a small bird feeder hung from the branch of an ancient sycamore tree.
Maisie unbuckled her seatbelt before the truck even came to a complete stop, flinging open the back door and tumbling out onto the gravel.
“Daddy! Mommy! Look! A squirrel!” she shouted, pointing excitedly toward the woods.
Ryan stepped out of the truck, laughing as he caught her in his arms and tossed her gently into the air, making her shriek with delighted laughter.
I walked up the wooden steps of the front porch, carrying a small cardboard box containing my father’s silver memorial nameplate and his antique gold pocket watch.
I unlocked the front door. The interior smelled of seasoned pine wood, old paper, and beeswax. It was clean, rustic, and completely free of pretense or cruelty. It was a house built for peace.
I walked over to the stone fireplace in the living room—a massive hearth built from local river stones by my father’s own hands thirty years ago.
Above the wooden mantel, there was no smart camera. There were no hidden wires. There was no pulsing blue LED light watching our every move.
There was only a small, beautifully carved wooden sign that my father had burned into the pine beam with a soldering iron when I was ten years old:
Love keeps no score of wrongs. Peace lives here.
I took my father’s silver memorial nameplate from the box and placed it gently in the center of the mantel, flanked by a small vase of wild purple coneflowers Maisie had picked along the driveway.
Ryan walked in, holding Maisie’s hand, stepping up beside me on the wide floorboards. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me close against his side.
“How does it feel, Clara?” he asked softly, looking out the large picture window toward the sunlit valley.
May you like
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the clean, rich scent of the forest air—completely free of Scioto River wind, old grudges, and poisoned expectations.
“It feels quiet,” I said, resting my head against his shoulder. “It feels like home.”
