🔹 Part 5 – Sunday Bacon and the Mailbox Letter
The bacon crackled in the pan like it was clearing its throat. Tom stood over it, spatula in hand, his back hunched slightly from the years but his movements steady. The smell filled the cabin—smoke, salt, comfort. The kind of smell that could wake a boy from a dead sleep or silence a long-standing argument without a word.
Josh stretched and yawned from the cot, rubbing his eyes. “Smells like heaven.”
“Smells like childhood,” Matt muttered from the corner with a small smile.
Tom glanced back. “Burnt to a crisp. Just the way I like it.”
Josh wrinkled his nose. “I hope mine gets saved first.”
Matt tossed a pillow at him. “Better grab it before he ruins the whole batch.”
They laughed—light, not forced. Like it belonged there.
Tom plated the bacon, then added eggs from a small carton they’d brought up. A dented can of hash from the bottom of Matt’s pack joined the pan, and soon they were eating off chipped enamel plates around the rickety table.
“I like it here,” Josh said between mouthfuls. “The quiet. No phones. No school.”
Tom nodded. “The woods have their own kind of school. Teaches you how to listen.”
Josh looked thoughtful. “What do they say?”
“That depends,” Tom said. “Some days they say, ‘Slow down.’ Other days they whisper what you’ve been trying not to remember.”
Josh chewed in silence after that.
Matt looked at Tom. “We should head back before noon. Weather’s supposed to turn tomorrow.”
Tom nodded, then surprised himself. “You’ll come again?”
Matt didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I think we will.”
Tom exhaled. “You could leave that red trucker hat. It’ll be here waiting.”
Josh grinned. “I like the idea of it keeping watch.”
They packed up slowly.
Tom wrapped the clay deer in an old rag and tucked it safely back into the green tin box. Matt folded the blue flannel blanket that had once belonged to Lillian and paused before handing it to his father.
“Still smells like her,” he said softly.
Tom took it, pressed it to his face. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
They left the cabin just as the clouds began to gather again, low and heavy on the ridgeline. The walk back was quieter, but peaceful. Less weight between each step. Less apology buried under silence.
At the truck, Matt turned before climbing in.
“You know, Sarah’s mom’s been asking about you.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Surprised she remembers me. Last time I saw her she called me ‘grumpier than a mule with a toothache.’”
Matt smirked. “She still does. But now she says it with affection.”
Tom chuckled. “Well, tell her I haven’t changed.”
Josh poked his head from the window. “Can we come back next weekend if it’s not raining?”
Matt looked to Tom.
Tom shrugged. “I’ll be here. Rain or shine.”
Josh grinned. “Deal.”
Back at his home in Lewisburg, the quiet didn’t hurt as much.
Tom stepped inside and, for the first time in years, noticed the dust. Not just in the corners, but in the places where time had stopped—on the unopened piano lid, on Lillian’s recipe box, on the stack of letters he never had the guts to send.
He spent the afternoon cleaning. Not for anyone. Just for himself.
He pulled the old ranger hat from the closet and set it on the porch peg. The way he used to. The way Lillian always liked it.
When he opened the window above the kitchen sink, the wind carried in the smell of leaves and woodsmoke. For a second, it felt like she might walk in humming again. He let the breeze stay.
Then he noticed the mailbox flag—up.
Tom wasn’t expecting anything.
He shuffled down the walkway, boots crunching gravel. Opened the box.
Inside, a single envelope.
No stamp.
Just his name, in blocky handwriting:
“Tom Merrick.”
He looked up and down the road. Nothing but empty street and the sound of wind through power lines.
Back inside, he sat down in Lillian’s old chair and opened the envelope with careful fingers.
Inside—one photograph, one note.
The photograph showed the three of them—him, Matt, and Josh—standing at Goosefoot Creek. Yesterday. Someone had taken it from the treeline. Candid. Natural. He hadn’t even known it was being taken.
He stared at it for a long time.
The note read:
“They say memory fades.
But sometimes, it’s waiting where you left it.
—L”
Tom set it down gently. His hands shook.
He turned the photo over. In small, faded script:
“Cabin – Goosefoot, Oct 2025. Taken by friend.”
That night, he left the porch light on.
He wasn’t sure for whom.
The next few days passed in quiet routines.
Morning coffee. A short walk to the hardware store. A conversation or two with the old-timers who still remembered him from ranger days. They called him “Sheriff” even though he’d never worn a badge.
But something inside had shifted. Like a loosened knot.
On Sunday, a knock came.
He opened the door to find Josh holding a brown bag and Matt behind him holding a coffeemaker.
“You said breakfast,” Matt said. “We brought bacon.”
Tom stepped aside.
“I’ll make the eggs.”
Later that morning, after plates were scraped and coffee poured, Matt wandered into the living room.
He noticed the photo on the mantle.
The new one.
The one of the three of them, standing at Goosefoot.
“Where’d you get this?”
Tom looked up. “It was in the mailbox. No name. Just… there.”
Matt turned it over. Read the words. His brow furrowed.
“‘Taken by friend?’”
Josh, now curled up with a crossword on the floor, looked over. “Maybe it was the deer,” he said.
They all laughed.
But quietly, Tom held onto the thought.
Maybe the woods had their own way of remembering. Maybe forgiveness didn’t come as thunder. Maybe it came as bacon on Sunday mornings and a photo left without return address.
Maybe—just maybe—Lillian wasn’t gone.
She was watching from the trees.
