“Yeah, I don’t know if we can repair this.”  The handyman I hired to help me fix up my family’s resort exhaled sharply as he looked at the empty pool.  “It won’t be cheap.  I’ll need to patch all the cracks and then we’ll need to call someone to come put in a new liner.  The filtration system is fucked.  It’s gotta be replaced completely.  The heaters on the bottom are just flat out shot, and I’m not sure those can be repaired without ripping out part of the concrete.”

“Okay, then let’s start with someone we can repair faster.  I’d like to get this place looking halfway decent before winter.”  I put my hands on my hips and shook my head.  “The pool won’t matter at that point if we can’t get the heat working.”

“I don’t know, Red.”  He turned in a circle, looking at the resort.  “I think you’d be better off just selling it.  Your dad talked about it a couple of times before he passed.”

“Nah.  I can’t get anything for the place in this state.  I don’t think anyone wants this dump but me.  Okay, I need to go make a phone call.  Why don’t you work on Cabin A?  It would be nice if we had one cabin up here that would pass inspection.”  I pointed towards the cabin that was closest to the entrance of the resort.

“Sure thing, but honestly?  I don’t think any of them are going to be up to code without a sizable investment except the one you’re staying in.”  He shrugged and started walking towards Cabin A.

It had become clear that my dad stopped giving a shit about the resort long before he died.  When I was younger, it was an oasis in the mountains where families could come for vacation.  It offered the solace of nature with the comforts of home.  There was still plenty of nature, but not much comfort left.  A sleeping bag and a tent offered more comfort than the resort.  Part of me did wish my father would have sold it before he passed.  I had shopped it around to a few interested parties, but none were willing to pay anywhere near what it was worth.  We had cabin rentals on the left and cabin rentals on the right.  Most potential buyers were interested in just bulldozing the whole place down so they could sprinkle high priced luxury cabins along the road and they wanted it cheap.

“Hey, this is Redmond Adams.  I’m just calling to confirm that my mattress order will be delivered today?”  I held the phone up to my ear and leaned against the counter.  “It will?  Good, thank you.”

I was pretty much left with two choices when I heard how little the property was worth.  I could abandon it and walk away or I could try to rebuild it.  I was tired of the city.  I hated my dead-end job.  I was beyond frustrated in my on again, off again relationship with my ex-girlfriend.  I decided to just pack everything my life into a suitcase and start over where I grew up.  I was eleven months into the endeavor and it still didn’t look like I had accomplished much.  I had repaired several cabin exteriors myself and restored what I could inside, but it was taking too long.  My bank account was dwindling fast, and I couldn’t even rent the cabins out until they would pass inspection.  I hired Charlie to help me because he was cheap.  He was drunk most of the time, but at least he was willing to work.

“Okay, the mattress order should be here soon.  How are we looking in here?”  I stepped into the cabin and saw Charlie tuck a flask into his pocket.

“Well, you seem to have done a good job with the outside, but the inside needs a lot of work.  If you’ll help me get this mattress out, we can at least fix most of this in a couple of hours.”  He motioned for me to follow him.  “The furniture is in good shape structurally.  The living room furniture should be reupholstered, but I can take care of that.  This mattress, though?  It’s got some stories to tell.”

“None that I want to hear.”  I walked past Charlie and lifted the mattress myself, walking it towards the door.

“You’re a strong fucker aren’t you?”  He chuckled.  “Okay, the closet looks good on the inside and I can easily repair the knobs.”

I carried the mattress outside and dropped it near the entrance of the resort.  I returned to the cabin and walked into the kitchen.  Thankfully, the stove and the refrigerator worked, but they needed to be cleaned.  Something was wrong with the oven, but I wasn’t sure if it needed to be repaired or replaced.  I picked up a brush and started scrubbing down the counter, along with the walls and the appliances.  Within an hour, it looked decent, even if it wasn’t exactly up to date.

“The television works.”  Charlie called out from the living room and I walked towards his voice.  “Not that anybody really watches anything on a square anymore.  If you’re going to replace it, I know a guy that buys vintage stuff like this.”

Vintage—right.

“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out for a good deal and try to replace all of them at once.  Until then, we might as well leave the old one.”  I shrugged.  “Hopefully people aren’t paying to come to the mountains and watch television.”

“You’d be surprised.”  Charlie chuckled and bent over to open the drawer at the bottom of the television stand.  “Oh, ha.  It looks like someone left a few dirty movies in here.”

“My dad used to rent DVDs, but he never had anything current.  I guess someone forgot to return them.”  I walked over and collected the stack of porn before kicking the drawer closed.

I’ll definitely be checking these later tonight—to make sure they still work.

We continued working on the cabin until it was late the day.  The mattress order arrived and I had them stacked in the warehouse.  I carried one to Cabin A and one to my cabin.  My cabin was a little more modern than the rentals.  It seemed that while my dad didn’t give a shit about the resort, he still wanted to have a nice big television and a computer.  Unfortunately, the computer was filled with viruses and the search engine history was scarier than the stuff I watched and I thought I had pretty filthy tastes.

***

“I THINK WE’VE GOT THIS cabin in good shape.”  I took a step back and smiled as I looked what we had accomplished.

“Yeah, I’ll need check the electrical before I’ll be comfortable letting an inspector in there, but we’ve got a lot more cabins to go before we get to that point.”  Charlie nodded and looked around the resort.  “On to Cabin B?”

“Yep, I guess so.”  I nodded and started walking in that direction.

Cabin B required a lot of work, just like Cabin A.  We spent the whole day working on it.  When Charlie was finally ready to call it quits, I decided to head into town and get some food.  Blue Ridge had a decent selection of local restaurants to offer, but it would have required me to venture into the tourist traps.  I preferred the Mom & Pop type restaurants that had been around longer than I had been alive.  They usually had a good menu and you could tell that they actually cared about what they were serving.  After my belly was full, I stopped by the liquor store and restocked a few essentials before finishing my excursion at the grocery store.

***

“RED?”  A WOMAN’S VOICE stopped me in my tracks.

“Susan?”  I turned around with a look of shock on my face.  “Holy fuck, it really is you.”

We immediately hugged and for a moment, I was in another time.  I was in the backseat of my car, parked in a scenic overlook, with her in my arms.  She was my high school sweetheart, the woman I devoted my youth to, and the one I left behind when I moved away from the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Our bodies were like fire when they were united, but she didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want to stay.  My love for her was strong, but not enough to keep me from seeking out the adventures that I thought were waiting on me outside of the place I grew up.  She still smelled like jasmine and roses, after all those years.

“Wow, you are back in town?”  She blinked a couple of times.

“I am, yeah.”  I nodded and smiled.  “You look exactly the same.”

“Oh I don’t know about that.”  She blushed and her cherry-red lips formed the smile I fell in love with.  “What brings you back to Blue Ridge?”

“My father passed away.”  I sighed and my smile faded. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Red.”  She grimaced and her face came together in a sorrowful expression.  “I did hear about that.  So you’ve been back in town for a while?”

“I came back to deal with his estate and now I’m trying to fix up the resort.”  I shrugged and sighed.  “I wish I could say it was going well.  Are you still local?”

“Yeah, I never left.”  She nodded and her lip twisted to a half-smile.  “I took over my dad’s restaurant after he decided to retire to Florida.  I guess a lifetime in the mountains made him decide he wanted to spend his retirement on the beach.”

“I spent some time on the beach.”  I chuckled and grinned.  “I don’t know if it compares to this place, though.  I thought the tourists were bad here...”

“Mommy!”  A young girl that appeared to be around six or seven years old came running up and grabbed Susan’s skirt.  “Daddy says he wants some beer.”

“Sally, did your father really tell you to come ask me if he could have some beer?”  She glared angrily in the direction of the beer aisle.  “Tell him if he wants some beer, he can come ask me himself!”

“Okay!”  Sally ran back in the direction Susan was looking.

“A daughter.”  I felt my eyes open a little wider.  “And a husband?”

“Yeah.”  She nodded and smiled again—that damn smile.  “A son too, but he’s staying with his grandparents for the weekend.  Sally is a little too young for them to easily watch over on the farm.  Are you married?  Do you have any kids?”

“No.”  I shook my head back and forth.  “I never got married—and no kids that I’m aware of.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without my rug-rats.  Anyway, I guess I better go check on my husband before he starts letting Sally try samples of stuff she’s allergic to.”  She stepped closer and extended her arms.

“Good luck with that.  Well, it was good to see you again.  Damn, it’s been so long.”  I leaned in for another hug.

“Yeah it has.  Good to see you too, Red.  I hope you found what you were looking for out there.”  She pulled away from my embrace and started pushing her shopping cart in the direction of the beer aisle.

Her words stung.  The last thing she said to me before I left was that she hoped I would find what I was looking for out there.  She was crying back then.  The look she gave me when she said the words for the second time was pity.  It was like she could read my soul.  It was hard to remember the eighteen year old kid that was willing to leave her behind.  He broke her heart.  It seemed to have mended.  I was glad she was doing well, although it still hurt to think that I could have had that life if I would have known what I had from the beginning.  Instead, I chased a dream that didn’t last very long.  Stubbornness kept me away after that.

“Here’s to you, Susan.”  I poured some whiskey in a glass and lifted it to my lips.

You and all those precious fucking memories.