Chapter 30 - Aiden
Maddy’s gone again, and I turn back towards the empty cabin. It always feels colder and darker after she leaves. I wish she would stay with me every night, but I know why she doesn’t. It’s not like it’s a secret that we’re together - I’m pretty sure everyone in town knows. It would be a long drive from here to site every day for her, and I know she doesn’t want to be late for work.
I slump down on the sofa and watch the fire crackling in the stove. These past few weeks have flown by without me realizing. Every day I have something to look forward to, knowing that I’ll see Maddy that night. Every night, I have the memory of her body next to mine to help me fall asleep.
It feels almost like happiness. Is this what happiness feels like? It’s almost like I feel lighter than I did before. I don’t cling on to things that bother me. The air tastes sweeter than it did before. Maybe that’s summer, or maybe it’s Maddy.
I open my eyes when I hear a car coming up the road. There’s only one reason a car comes up here, and it’s to come to this cabin. I immediately think of Maddy. Is she coming back? Is she in trouble? Did something happen? Does she finally want to sleep over on a work night?
My heart starts to beat a bit faster as I stand up and walk outside. A mixture of relief and disappointment washes over me when I see my brother’s truck. He parks outside and both doors open, with my two brothers spilling out of either side.
Dominic grunts and his huge body lumbers towards me. Ethan raises his hand.
“Hey, brother!” he calls out. He’s thinner and taller than Dominic and I, with longer hair that falls just over his ears. He’s always been more coordinated than Dominic and I, almost graceful. Where Dominic and I are brute strength, he’s cleverness. He opens his arms and wraps me in a big bear hug.
“What are you two doing all the way up here?” I ask when we pull apart.
Ethan snorts. “What, three brothers can’t visit with each other on a Wednesday night?”
I grin and nod my head towards the cabin. The three of us head inside and suddenly the room feels tiny. Between Ethan’s height and Dominic and my’s width, there’s not much room to move. They sit down on the couch where Maddy and I just made love and I pull up one of my chairs. I pass out beers and we drink the first few gulps in silence.
“So how was the Park Ranger training?” I ask Ethan.
He grins. “It was great. All passed and certified now,” he says. He’s beaming with pride and I can’t help but smile along.
“Congrats, Ethan. You deserve it.”
He nods and glances at Dominic. Dominic shifts in his seat and takes a long drink of beer. I can tell they’re not here for a friendly chat, and I’m about to find out what they have to say. Ethan clears his throat and looks me in the eye.
“Aiden,” he starts. “This hotel.”
I put up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it,” I snip. “You guys are going to have to find some other hero to oppose this thing.”
Ethan shakes his head. “That’s not why we’re here. Look, construction is going fast. Have you been over there lately? The past couple months they’ve made a lot of progress.”
“No,” I admit. “I haven’t wanted to see it.”
Dominic and Ethan exchange another glance and then look back at me. Dominic finally speaks. “I think you should see it.”
I look him in the eye and then shift my gaze to Ethan. Both of them are staring at me steadily. As much as I want to tell them to leave, that I don’t want to face this thing head on, I know that they’re right. I can’t keep burying my head in the sand and pretending that Maddy doesn’t work for the corporation that’s destroying the forests I love. My brothers are right. I need to see it.
I nod my head once. “Ok,” I say simply. Dominic grunts in response and Ethan nods. The three of us stand up without another word and we head to Dominic’s truck. We drive in silence along the mountain’s logging roads. Not many people know their way around these roads, but we’ve lived here our whole lives. Dominic drives up and up and up until I know we’re way above the work site. He turns again and the forest opens up below us. We have a perfect bird’s eye view of the entire construction site.
Dominic kills the engine and the three of us step outside. My throat tightens as I look at the huge swath of land that’s been clear-cut. The frame of the hotel is already up, and I can just see partition walls starting to go in. There are dozens of excavators and trucks parked in a neat line down the far end of the site, and the whole area is a mess of mud and logs and materials.
After a few minutes I glance at my brothers, who look at me solemnly.
“It’s so much bigger than I thought it would be,” I finally say. It’s the first time any of us has spoken since my cabin, and my voice sounds too loud in the quiet forest. I look back down on the work site and my eyes start to water. From up here, it doesn’t look like construction. It just looks like destruction.
Ethan clears his throat. “Bill found something out yesterday. The McCoys…” his voice trails off and I turn my head towards him.
“What about the McCoy’s?”
“They own twenty percent of it.”
I frown, struggling to understand his words. “Twenty percent of what?”
“Twenty percent of that,” he says, sweeping his arm towards the construction site. My blood turns to ice and I follow his arm to look at the hotel once again. “Mara’s new husband is the CEO’s son.”
“So the reason they’ve been pushing for this…”
“It’s exactly what they did to dad’s business, except this time they’re not waiting for anyone to die.”
I look at Ethan and feel my face scrunch up. My stomach feels like it’s full of lead, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode. This whole hotel construction – the entire development… it was all the McCoy’s? The weight of it seems too much. I can’t deal with it. I can’t understand it, and I can’t process it. I can’t do anything except feel the black anger fill my heart as I stare down at the site below me.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask. “What can we do? There’s nothing. It’s too late. Look at it, it’ll be done in a few months.”
And then Maddy will leave and I’ll have to live with this hotel for the rest of my life.
“We could torch it,” Dominic says in the silence. I snort and glance over at my eldest brother.
“Right,” I say. “That’s legal.”
Dominic turns to look at me and shrugs. “Got any better ideas?”
I look back at the huge worksite and take a deep breath. “Let’s get out of here,” I say. “I can’t look at this anymore.”
“Aiden, we need your help,” Ethan says. The frustration is starting to overwhelm me and I spin around towards him, taking a few steps until our chests are inches apart.
“What the fuck do you want from me! Why does everyone think I can fix this? What do you want me to DO?” My chest is heaving up and down, and I can feel the veins in my neck throbbing with every beat of my heart. Ethan stands his ground in front of me, and Dominic watches us. We stand in silence until I finally sigh and slump my shoulders. I turn towards the truck and open the door.
“Just burn the fucking thing down,” I say. “That seems like the only actual solution anyone’s had in months.”
I see Ethan and Dominic exchange a glance out of the corner of my eye, and then they slide into the truck without a word. We drive back the way we came in silence, and when they pull up outside the cabin I get out without saying anything. It’s not until I hear them drive back down the road away from the cabin that I sit down and put my head in my hands, and let the tears flow freely down my cheeks.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t want to let go of Maddy, but this feels like the past repeating itself. They stole dad’s business from us and now they just want more. My heart is breaking and I don’t know what to do about it.