Page 26 of Soft Flannel Hank

Nat waved his hand in a circle before bowing his own head, “With boundless thanks, my good sir.”

When Nat was gone and Hank had washed the coffee pot and set it to dry on a kitchen towel on the counter, he made his way upstairs. He opened the door at the end of the hall, his daughter’s room. He hadn’t been in there since she left last year. It was like stepping into a memory. He went and sat on the bed, the wooden frame protesting as the twin mattress dipped under his weight.

She’d taken most of her things, but left a few behind. Hank took it all in. The floral comforter. The braided rug. The white dresser with the daisy chains painted around the knobs.

Anna had hung band posters on the wall, but underneath them was still the pink and green unicorn wallpaper that he’d hung before she was born. The wallpaper he’d driven to Seattle to buy and taken three days to painstakingly hang, measuring nine times before cutting once, lining up the unicorn figures perfectly with the sheet before them because nothing was too good for his baby girl.

He still thought that.Nothingwas too good for her, but plenty wasn’t good enough. Himself included.

Goddammit, maybe Nadja’s right.

Maybe his self-esteem was a bigger problem than he gave it credit for being. After all, here he was sitting in his daughter’s childhood bedroom about to cry because he couldn’t bring himself to call her a second time this week when she hadn’t answered the first. Alone in that room that had once held so many promises. Alone in this house that had once held so much life and love. Alone in his life that felt like a knockoff copy of the life he was meant to be living.

He saw a spiral notebook sitting on Anna’s desk. He opened it to find three or four pages of math notes. He ripped them out and put them in his pocket to throw away, then took a pen from the coffee cup on her desk and walked out of the room with the notebook tucked under his arm. Hank started to close the door but stopped and left it open halfway.Let it breathe.

He sat down on his bed, taking off his boots before scooting back to lean against the headboard, pen and notebook in hand. He took out the piece of paper Nadja had given him that morning.

What went well today?

What did I learn today?

What did I enjoy about today?

What do I want to feel tomorrow?

He wrote the date at the top of the sheet, cringing at his handwriting before shaking it off.

What went well today?Today I delivered firewood with Buck. Ate pie. Saw Nat.

What did I learn today?I learned that Esther lied to me.

He continued:I also learned that my low self-esteem is causing problems.

Hank fought the immediate urge to scratch that last sentence out, but he didn’t. Instead, he forced himself to take a deep breath and consider the next question. What had he enjoyed about today?

The day had started with a punch in the emotional gut and so much anger that he still could call up the sensation of it in his body. But it hadn’t been all bad.

Saw friends. Ate pie. Nat made me laugh. Sort of. Got a new job. Sort of.

Hank took another deep breath as he considered the last question.What do I want to feel tomorrow?He wanted to close the notebook and forget it. He’d felt entirelytoo muchtoday. It would be a good thing to be numb tomorrow. Maybe.

But he couldn’t write that, because it wasn’t really true. As painful as some parts of the day had been, others had been so full of good feelings. It wasn’t worth sacrificing those good feelings to escape the ugly ones. Hank shook his head.

He bit the pen cap with his front teeth. And then he was writing, fast and sure.

I just want to feel. Again.

6

It had rained all morning, sheeting loudly on the roof of the tiny A-frame cabin. Even through the rain, the red cedars that surrounded her were a vibrant green. An alive green. Which is how Esther felt. Waking up this morning to the late autumn light filtering through the big windows and the lush evergreen boughs had been like the moment when Dorothy walked out of the ruined house and into a technicolor wonderland.

She made coffee with the stovetop espresso maker that the previous owner had left and poured it into her stainless-steel travel mug. After she had driven Magda home last night, Esther had stopped at a convenience store to get the basic essentials—coffee, eggs, bread, butter, and cleaning supplies.

Esther heard a car on the gravel drive. She put down her travel mug and walked outside, her Doc Martens squealing on the wet wooden steps as she stepped off the decking and into the soft leaves below. The rain had stopped, though the air felt as damp around her as a wet towel.

A white SUV came to a stop in front of the house. A man climbed out. He wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans with old sneakers. He was handsome, with auburn hair that was just long enough to curl. Esther smiled. She didn’t need an introduction to know that this was Magda’s son. They had the same face.

He rounded the truck and appeared a moment later with Magda on one arm, holding a leash in the other. At the end of the leash was an ancient basset hound. Magda wore a cardigan over a T-shirt that had daisies embroidered all over it. Her long hair was braided away from her face.