When my husband, Dan, found me camping on property I’d inherited from my grandparents, he took everything including the RV I’d been staying in since I’d left him. He dumped my few possessions in the dirt, then drove away and left me stranded in forty-four acres of wild Adirondack forest.
Alone and biting back fear, I hauled my possessions through the forest to my family’s old boathouse by the lake—a gambrel roof shed with plank flooring, bare walls, and no insulation or electricity, but it was the only shelter I had. When I dropped the last bag on the plank floor two hours later, all I wanted was to eat a bag of chips, drink a cold beer, and sleep until tomorrow. But the feral cat I’d named Sinatra was waiting to be fed. And I needed a bath.
I found Sinatra’s bowl, filled it with kibble, then set the bowl several feet from the boathouse where I knew he wouldn’t feel threatened.
While he ate, I inspected the outhouse that sat near the wood line. The latrine door would provide privacy I probably didn’t need out here but definitely wanted. There was no toilet paper, but there were two old phone books stacked beside the single seat. They were massive things that had to have been put there by my grandfather before the internet made the Yellow Pages obsolete. I tore a couple of pages out of the phone book, folded them, then slipped them into the back pocket of my jeans.
After gathering an armload of twigs and sticks, I dumped them in a pile on the beach. Kneeling, I crumpled the pages I’d ripped from the phone book, then layered them with kindling and small sticks. Once I’d finished, I searched the boathouse for matches and found an old flip top lighter in a coffee can on the workbench. It took about forty spins of the flint wheel to create a spark, and then another forty to get a flame big enough to light the paper. After ten minutes, I had a small fire burning—and a sore thumb.
The backbreaking work of schlepping my belongings out here left me grimy with sweat and dirt, and my clothes were filthy. The rippling lake water looked so inviting I slipped off my shoes near the small fire and walked barefoot out onto the wooden dock.
Dan had taken everything. He’d intended to leave me powerless. But all he’d done was reveal his true character. Now, it was time for me to see what I was made of. I could either inch my way into a new life or I could dive in headfirst.
I dove.
Instantly, pain knifed through my body, and I surfaced with a horrified gasp. A vicious claw gripped my chest, and I began hyperventilating. My jaw clenched. My muscles contracted. My heart banged in my chest as I struggled frantically toward the shore. Sloshing my way out on legs already stiffened from the frigid water, I shrank in pain as the cold mountain air accosted my body.
I had no heated shelter, and the temperature was dropping fast.
Teeth clacking, I stumbled into the old boathouse, willing my frozen hands to work as I struggled to pull off my clothes. Gripped with pain, I tied a towel around my wet hair, then wrapped myself in a blanket. Barefoot, I hobbled outside and tossed more wood on the fire, silently urging it to blaze with heat. Sitting as close to the flame as possible, I hunched beneath my blanket, shivering violently and calling myself every kind of fool. I could die out here. Alone. Because of my own stupidity.
My muscles clenched, and I pulled the blanket over my towel-encased head, hoping my breath would add warmth. I’d never done anything this stupid in my life.
On the heels of that thought, I knew I had. I’d hurt my sister.
Arranging my blanket to capture the most heat possible, I sat for a long time, racked with tremors, begging my body to warm up and promising myself I’d never do anything this idiotic again. As warmth finally sank into my icy bones, my stomach growled in agony. I needed to eat. And I needed to put some clothes on and get blood pumping through my abused body.
Loathe to leave the fire, I had to force myself to go inside. I rummaged through garbage bags filled with my belongings until I found a pair of jeans and a shirt to layer under my sweatshirt and jean jacket. With cold, stiff hands, I pulled on my dry clothes, but I couldn’t find socks. All I had to cover my aching feet was one second-hand sneaker and one cowboy boot. Good enough.
My teeth chattered intermittently as I fastened a clean, dry towel around my head. Then I dragged the blanket around my shoulders and found my small cooler. I pulled out items that would spoil first—a partial half gallon of almond milk and the quart of beer I’d bought at the grocery store as a symbol of my independence. I dumped cereal into a mixing bowl, topped the flakes with milk, and grabbed my cast iron frying pan.
Supper in one hand, frying pan in the other, I went outside with a boot-sneaker limp and sat beside the roaring fire. I plopped the pan onto a bed of glowing coals, then unwrapped the towel from my head and shook out my hair, hoping the heat from the fire would dry it quickly.
As the reality of my situation settled in, I fought back panic. It was early spring in the Adirondacks when daytime temps averaged in the forties and fifties, and the night temps could drop below freezing. I was out here alone, without adequate shelter, and no one to depend on but myself. I couldn’t afford to be a dumb-ass like I’d been when I’d foolishly submerged myself in ice-cold lake water.
Gazing at the flames, I willed them to radiate more heat as I tipped the mixing bowl to my mouth and slurped down soggy cereal. I was too hungry and miserable to be civilized. Sinatra watched me eat my supper without a spoon, creeping closer to the fire and the strange lady with wild hair and mismatched shoes.
I opened the quart of beer and savored the first drink I’d had in twenty years. The effervescent taste of yeast and hops filled my mouth and soothed my parched throat. I’d missed this … the simple pleasure of drinking a beer.
The night came alive with the loud chorus of thousands of wood frogs. Unknown critters made rustling sounds in the undergrowth as they began settling in for the night. I basked in the night-song, remembering how beautiful it sounded. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sinatra inching his way closer to the fire, which brought him closer to me. Seeing him crouched just outside my reach made me realize I’d been like that in Dan’s world, a wild soul struggling to survive.
“We can do this on your terms,” I said softly to Sinatra. “I’ll never cage you. There are no strings attached to the food I give you. But I wish you would crawl onto my lap and let me hold you because you seem to be as lost and alone as I am.”
His ears twitched, but he remained watchful at a distance.
And so, I sat alone wishing I could have left Dan on better terms, that I could have prepared my daughters for the earthquake about to shake their world. Would they understand there had been no way for me to reason or negotiate with their father? There never had been. I’d just convinced myself that making my family happy made me happy. But I had poured myself out so completely to nourish my family that I’d become a drained and empty vessel.
As the night deepened and the fire burned down, I huddled beneath my blanket and savored the last few swallows of my beer, mentally kicking myself for not buying a twelve-pack. Or at least some bottled water. With the RV gone, I no longer had a source of drinking water.
The reality of my situation hit me so hard I couldn’t breathe. All I could hear in the shadowed forest was a taunting voice telling me I would fail, insisting I wasn’t smart enough to survive, warning me to go back to Dan.
But I couldn’t go back to that oppressive cage! I would die there.
I might die here, too, but it would be on my terms.
Copyright © 2025 Wendy Lindstrom with permission from Oliver Heber Books.
An evocative, emotional novel that illustrates life in all its messy beauty from New York Times bestselling author Wendy Lindstrom
One ordinary day, Kate Weston woke up, drank her coffee, then abandoned her life.
Her search for an unapologetically honest existence drives her back to her hometown—a place she vowed never to return to. With her marriage in shambles, her family ties broken, and her friendships lost, she finds herself destitute and alone in the wilds of the Adirondacks.
Amid the grim reality of her situation and domineering husband’s sabotage, she fights for independence and holds her world together with duct tape and shoelaces. As she struggles to rescue a stray cat and heal relationships with her quirky friends and angry sister, she embarks on a wrenching and often humorous journey of self-discovery that will change her life in ways she never could have predicted.
Women's Fiction Contemporary [Oliver-Heber Books, On Sale: April 1, 2025, e-Book , / ]
Wendy Lindstrom is the RITA award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the Grayson Family, Second Chance Brides, and Done With series. Readers have described her books as "captivating," “heartwrenching,” and "triumphant." Romantic Times has dubbed her "one of romance's finest writers," and readers rave about her enthralling characters and the "awesome underlying emotional power" of her work.Her newest novel, Done With, about a desperate woman who leaves everything behind to fight for a life of her own, is available on April 1, 2024.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy