Stonemark's Gift

Chapter One - Jenny

It wasn't until I was driving past the border of North Carolina with only my mom in the car that I realized how lucky I had been my first sixteen years of life. Now coming up on my seventeenth,  I hadn't recognized what my life had become. I silently cursed myself for taking advantage of the family that I thought would last forever and in my head, continuously punched my dad in the face over and over again until my brain grew tired of the thought.  

I have a lot of anger. Anger towards my mom, for forcing me to pack up my life in Oregon and fit it all into a small, U-Haul truck that we are currently driving to our new town in. Anger towards the U-Haul truck, for being so unbelievably uncomfortable that I have had several back and neck pains from our three day journey. Anger towards the drive to the new town that my mom and I  have to create another life in and pretend the old one never existed. But most of all, anger towards my dad for being the sole reason why I have any anger towards the other things in the first place. 

Forcing that day out of my head, I begin to stare out the window for the hundredth time since the car ride had started, and watch as the trees come and go out of my sight. Soon, my eyelids grow heavy and slowly I begin to fall asleep as my mom continues driving to the town of Stonemark. 

Eventually, I wake up to my mom pulling up to our new house. It's significantly smaller than our house in Seattle, and clearly needed a lot of renovations; but, it didn't cost much so you get what you pay for I guess. Not that mom cared, the house had been given to her years ago when her own mom died. I never met my grandmother because she passed before I was born, but I know from the stories my mom tells that the relationship between them was strained before she died.

At eighteen, my mom met my dad when him and his family visited Stonemark the summer before she was suppose to go to college. They fell in love, and left Stonemark to travel the world with the money my grandmother had saved for her only child's first year at college. My mom unenrolled from school which caused chaos between her and my grandma. After a few months abroad, my parent's travels came to an abrupt end when they found out they were pregnant with, you guessed it, me, and quickly moved to Washington where my dad had grown up his entire life. He got a job with his father's company, and my mom spent her days at home raising me and doing everything in her power to make my dad's life easier. My grandma hated the life that my dad had trapped her daughter into, but my mom was massively in love with my dad and would have done anything for him. Without any communication since my mom had become pregnant, my grandma had a stroke in her living room and died before I was born. The only thing she left for my mom was the house she grew up in which yes, was the house she died in, and the house we were currently on our way to. Ironically enough, the house that my mom was so eager to runaway from seventeen years ago is now the house she left everything behind for. 

Walking into it, it's clear that nothing has changed since my grandma died a few feet from where I am standing. A floral sofa fills the living room surrounded by salmon curtains that cover several windows with the kitchen only a few steps away from the front door. 

I look around unimpressed with our new living situation. "Well this is certainly a downgrade from our house in Seattle."

"You'll get over it. It's just the two of us now so we don't need much. I'm going to start unpacking the few boxes we have. Why don't you go up to your room and get some more sleep. It's already late and I don't want you tired for your first day tomorrow."

I roll my eyes at her dismissive response and head up the stairs to the place I plan on spending most of my time at while I'm still in Stonemark.