of the Olympic mountain range on the northside of the range. Elwha had a decent-sized RV park for vacationing trailers and campers in the summer months, along with a couple small ma-and-pa run grocery stores in the area that sold a gallon of whole milk for $5.99. Christina continued to drive through the small town until she came up to the end of paved road on Herrick Road, at the end of the paved road, the road continued on but was dirt and gravel the rest of the way as it cut through the heavily wooded pacific northwestern forest. Matt’s GPS had now started to fail as his cellular phone started to lose service the farther Christina drove through the town.
“Shit,” said Matt. “Oh well, who needs cellular service anyway. Not like I will be needing it up here.”
“Right, let me check my phone,” said Christina.
Christina picked up her phone from the cup holder between the seats where she would keep it while driving. Looking at her phone she noticed that she still had a couple bars indicating she still had service on her phone. Christina continued to drive the dirt road, winding her way through trees, bushes, and past large potholes in the dirt road. Christina only hoped that the moving trucks didn’t have any problems on the way up to the cabin. It seemed to not take too long until Christina finally came into an open clearing on the road. The clearing was officially the end of Herrick Road, and there at the end of Herrick Road, the Carters’ cabin sat in peace, surrounded all around by a dense field of tall grass and beyond that a thick forest of Douglas fir and hemlock pine trees. The tree line to the grass clearing was maybe a good one hundred yards in each direction. In the center of this grassy knoll sat the single level-built log cabin with solar panels attached to the roof on the sunny side of the cabin. The front door of the cabin faced the old dirt road, and a long wooden ramp was built in place of the steps at the front door so that Matt could easily access the cabin.
“Oh good, that contractor made it out here and built the ramp for us,” said Christina.
“Was there a possibility he wouldn’t make it this last week?” asked Matt.
“Oh yeah, he wasn’t too sure if he would make it out here or not, but hey, he did,” said Christina, smiling back at Matt.
Matt sat in the passenger seat with an expressionless look on his face. “Yeah, I suppose it is a good thing he made it out this week,” replied Matt.
The movers had already arrived at the cabin. Their large yellow truck parked in the front of the home with the back door opened and over half the truck already emptied and taken into the cabin. Christina parked behind the movers, but not close enough to block them from getting to their work of unloading the truck into the cabin. Christina opened the door and got out of the car. Matt opened the door and swung the lower half of his body out the passenger side of the car, using his arms and hands to drag his legs out of the car. Matt sat for a moment in the passenger seat and simply admired the view of the Elwha Valley and the grass, the forest, and the mountains in the area. He listened intently for a moment and noticed that he could not hear anything—no traffic, no car horns, no neighbor’s yelling or playing music too loudly, no sounds of lawnmowers or weed whackers—just eerie silence. Matt had also noticed on the way up to this location that there were no other houses or log cabins on this dirt road. The rest of the houses kept to the paved road of Herrick, back toward the town of Elwha. They were as far away from civilization as possible, truly in a cabin at the end of civilization—the cabin at the end of Herrick Road. Matt closed his eyes and enjoyed the peace and silence of the forest as his wife talked to the movers who had come out onto the ramp after loading furniture into the home. The cool crisp breeze of the autumn air brought a sense of peace to Matt that he hadn’t felt since he was a young child. The sensation was truly overwhelming.
“Matt?” said Christina.
Matt opened his eyes to see his wife standing in front of him.
“I got your chair from the back seat, you want to come in and see the cabin?” asked Christina.
“Oh sure, that sounds great. Thank you, babe.” Matt smiled, not even realizing Christina had the wheelchair out of the car and ready for him to use.
Christina helped Matt by the arm to stand up and get into his wheelchair. Using the car door with one hand and Christina to help brace his weight, Matt swung his body toward the seat of the wheelchair and sat down all in one motion. Once in the chair, Christina helped push him up the steady incline and toward the long wooden ramp where Matt helped to propel himself up the ramp with his hands insisting to Christina that “he’s got it.” Christina stood by just in case Matt needed the extra support of a push up the ramp and into the cabin. He never did. Matt pushed himself the whole way up the ramp and onto the front deck and eventually into the cabin. Christina walked the rest of the way up the ramp and walked onto the surrounding deck of the cabin. She walked over and stood by an old rickety rocking chair and turned her back to the cabin to look out into the field. There was a gentle breeze that gracefully bent the blades of the tall brown grass stalks in the field. Christina listened carefully, and she could hear the wind whistling through the pine trees in the forest just beyond the grass field from where she was standing on the deck. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath of air, curious, not to take in the smell of cars or whatever the neighbor was cooking next door as well.
“How about that view? Hmm…hmm! And that fresh air.”
Christina heard the voice come from behind her. She had thought it was possibly one of the movers. It couldn’t have been Matt, it was too feminine to be him, but it wasn’t one of the movers at all. Christina opened her eyes and turned around to see a short, pudgy black woman sitting in the wooden rocking chair behind her rocking back and forth. She instantly recognized the woman and her eyes grew wide.
“Charolette?”
“Ha ha, yeah, it’s me suga’.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, baby, you need me here. Right now I’m in your mind. In your thoughts. I’m here to help you.”
“Wow. Maybe I have had a little too much fresh air at once. So what you’re saying is that you’re a ghost.”
Charolette laughed and smacked her lips together. “Suga’, don’t say that. I ain’t no ghost. I’m your conscience. You still got some doubts in your mind about all this too, don’t cha?”
“Well, I would be lying if I said I didn’t.”
“This is good for you, suga’. Good for your husband. Good for your relationship.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Well. This really was a very hard decision to make. We had a pretty good life back in Olympia still. I mean I was working, and we could have stayed there. There was a Safeway store just down the road from us. Now I’m going to have to drive to Port Angeles to get to a Safeway.”
“But you still decided to come out here, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. We did.”
“So, why’d ya do it?”
Christina thought about the question for a moment.
“I guess I did it for my husband.”
“Nah, that not all the reason why you moved out here.”
“You’re right. I did this for our marriage too.”
“And?”
