Solace & Solicitude // Paul Lahote

one

It was just the same as it had always been. Her grandfather had built it with his two hands, and when he was alive, he had never been prouder. The logs didn't line up perfectly, and the window was still broken in the loft where her and Sam played a game of who can throw rocks the highest what felt like a thousand summers ago. She couldn't remember his face now and she doubted he could remember hers.

Wooden boxes lined the outside of the house. She smiled at the memories of her grandfather's flower garden. Really they were just wildflower seeds he occasionally threw out there, but to him, it was a way of honoring her grandmother.

"Wild, free and full of color. Just like her," he would always say with a tinge of sadness in his eyes.

The pair had set an impossible bar for anyone to reach in Indie's life.

She sat down in the driveway, fondly reminiscing on her summers on the reservation. Those memories were far gone now, tainted with the grief of losing her parents, her grandparents, and moving away from her aunt who was miserably unhappy. After graduating high school, she found herself 3,000 miles from her college plans and one step closer to the one place she can ever remember brought her happiness. With the advice notes her grandfather left her in one hand and the keys to the house in the other. She smiled up at her grandfather and grandmother, they always had a plan for her when she felt lost.

The inside of the cabin was in bad shape. She knew her grandfather cared little about the state of it at the end. She smiled a small smile, she would fix it up just like he would have wanted. The cabin was one room, the kitchen, living, bathroom and utility room occupying the same space with a set of stairs to the loft where the bedroom was and the bathroom.

After uncovering the couch, sweeping the floor, dusting the cabin, and cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, she gazed around the tiny cabin. She knew how proud they would be.

A pang of loneliness constantly haunted her. Her father had died in a mining accident and her mother, who knew where she was. Her grandmother had fallen ill with cancer and her grandfather of a broken heart. The bit of family that she had was in Georgia, where she had graduated high school, and they were intolerable. Yet here she was, knowing nobody anymore in La Push but finding herself back where it all started. In her 20 years of life, she felt so much loss, so much heartache. She made a silent promise to herself. She would try her best to find happiness here. If not for herself, then for those she was going on without.