My Husband Kept Sending Packages to Ex, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Hocking Hills

"Grandpa," Mitch said. "That's your whole life."

"No, it isn't." His grandfather pointed at the van-shaped cake. "That's your whole life. That's hers. Mine's in a credit union doing nothing at one percent."

"What if something happens? What if you need it?"

"Then I'll ask my grandson, who owns three routes."

Mitch opened his mouth and closed it.

I'd never seen him lose an argument that fast.

"On one condition," I said.

They both looked at me.

"It goes on paper. Every dollar, both our names, a payment every month. I don't do money in the dark anymore."

His grandfather looked at me for a second over his glasses.

Then he held out his hand.

"Lutz," he said. "You've got yourself a deal."

The credit union in Fairborn lent us the other eight thousand once they saw the books for 14 and 15.

We signed for Route 16 on June first, at the dock door, at five in the morning.

Norma watched on a video call from her condo, in a sun hat, with a ukulele playing badly somewhere below her.

His grandfather signed the loan paper at Norma's old kitchen table with a fountain pen he'd had since the Navy.

Then he made us shake on it, all three of us.

His grip was stronger than mine.

Mitch booked the cabin that night without telling me.

He told me on the Friday, when I came off my route and found him leaning on my car with a duffel bag and a cooler.

"Get in, Lutz."

"Where are we going?"

"Hocking Hills. Two nights. I got the depot to cover all three routes."

"You got the depot to cover three routes on a Saturday in June?"

"I told them it was a medical emergency." He opened my car door. "I said if I didn't get you out of a van for forty-eight hours, one of us was going to die."

The cabin was an hour and a half southeast, at the end of a gravel road through pines.

It had a porch with two rocking chairs, a wood stove we didn't need, and a hot tub on the back deck that looked straight into the trees.

There was no cell signal.

I checked three times.

"Nobody can find us," Mitch said. "Not the depot. Not your mother. Not the guy from 16 with his heart attacks."

"My mother can always find me."

"Not here. I checked."

On Saturday we hiked down to Old Man's Cave in the morning, before the crowds.

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