A Place To Stay Short Stories by Kristen Bailey
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Excerpt from
"A Place To Stay"
Rick’s Story
Driving down the once-familiar dirt road put me in a nostalgic mood: the glory of the autumn fire-
red forest and the sentimental sunlight. As the road curved to the house, my brain swung to
childhood memories of the man who lived there once.
Grandpa. A laugh echoed in my memory as I reached the weeping willow tree. Hanging down close
to the road, it blocked the house, but I rolled through it car wash-style.
Sword fights with sticks. Cricket hunting. Fort building. And sitting between the tree and the house,
looking up at stars in the summer sky with Grandpa.
I came out to a view of my old home away from home, Grandpa’s cabin.
“What . . . happened?”
Time changes even sacred things, I know, but this didn’t seem right. The poor old cabin looked like
an oil painting scene, with dark green vines crawling all over the brown wood. Grandpa’s daisy
patch had passed away to thistles, and his shed leaned over, almost to the ground.
So why, I wondered again, did my little sis come back here?
Her message had been brief: “Hi Rick, It’s Kelly. I’m heading out to Grandpa’s old place. Could you
come see me?” It’d been her voice, and all her previous calls for help, that had me skipping work
and racing out here.
I shifted the pickup into park before stopping, making it shudder. She walked out then, slowly, her
arms folded, and without a smile on her face. She didn’t look like my sister. Forgetting the cabin, I
threw open the pickup door.
“Who are you, and where’s my sis?” I got a nervous smile out of her.
“You came,” she said. Her face looked foreign without her usual black lipstick and dark eye
shadow.
“You called . . . and I assumed you were in trouble again.” She'd changed so much I didn't know
how to react to her. Kelly wore a forest green sweater and jeans - so glaringly different from her
old attire of black, tight-as-paint tank tops, that I suddenly worried things were much worse this
time. And her hair. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her natural honey-blond shade.
She started toward me, taking small, slow steps. “Don't I get a hug?”
I bent down and wrapped his arms around her. This was another thing I hadn’t done in a long time.
“What's wrong?”
“Wrong?” She pulled back and gave an ironic roll of her eyes toward the dump before us.
“How bad is it this time?” I followed her inside, since went in without me, and got another surprise:
the inside, too, had deteriorated. I knew the place had been empty since Grandpa’s death ten
years before, but I’d stupidly expected to see the same brown couch, his family pictures
everywhere, and the hunting souvenirs on the walls. Kelly must have done a lot of cleaning since
she arrived.
She’d also moved in.
“Wow, this is weird. I haven’t been back since . . .” I didn’t want to finish that sentence. The nice
thing about family, even mine, is that you don’t always have to finish your sentences.
Read the rest and many other stories in A Place To Stay and
Other Short Stories.
"A Place To Stay"
Rick’s Story
Driving down the once-familiar dirt road put me in a nostalgic mood: the glory of the autumn fire-
red forest and the sentimental sunlight. As the road curved to the house, my brain swung to
childhood memories of the man who lived there once.
Grandpa. A laugh echoed in my memory as I reached the weeping willow tree. Hanging down close
to the road, it blocked the house, but I rolled through it car wash-style.
Sword fights with sticks. Cricket hunting. Fort building. And sitting between the tree and the house,
looking up at stars in the summer sky with Grandpa.
I came out to a view of my old home away from home, Grandpa’s cabin.
“What . . . happened?”
Time changes even sacred things, I know, but this didn’t seem right. The poor old cabin looked like
an oil painting scene, with dark green vines crawling all over the brown wood. Grandpa’s daisy
patch had passed away to thistles, and his shed leaned over, almost to the ground.
So why, I wondered again, did my little sis come back here?
Her message had been brief: “Hi Rick, It’s Kelly. I’m heading out to Grandpa’s old place. Could you
come see me?” It’d been her voice, and all her previous calls for help, that had me skipping work
and racing out here.
I shifted the pickup into park before stopping, making it shudder. She walked out then, slowly, her
arms folded, and without a smile on her face. She didn’t look like my sister. Forgetting the cabin, I
threw open the pickup door.
“Who are you, and where’s my sis?” I got a nervous smile out of her.
“You came,” she said. Her face looked foreign without her usual black lipstick and dark eye
shadow.
“You called . . . and I assumed you were in trouble again.” She'd changed so much I didn't know
how to react to her. Kelly wore a forest green sweater and jeans - so glaringly different from her
old attire of black, tight-as-paint tank tops, that I suddenly worried things were much worse this
time. And her hair. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her natural honey-blond shade.
She started toward me, taking small, slow steps. “Don't I get a hug?”
I bent down and wrapped his arms around her. This was another thing I hadn’t done in a long time.
“What's wrong?”
“Wrong?” She pulled back and gave an ironic roll of her eyes toward the dump before us.
“How bad is it this time?” I followed her inside, since went in without me, and got another surprise:
the inside, too, had deteriorated. I knew the place had been empty since Grandpa’s death ten
years before, but I’d stupidly expected to see the same brown couch, his family pictures
everywhere, and the hunting souvenirs on the walls. Kelly must have done a lot of cleaning since
she arrived.
She’d also moved in.
“Wow, this is weird. I haven’t been back since . . .” I didn’t want to finish that sentence. The nice
thing about family, even mine, is that you don’t always have to finish your sentences.
Read the rest and many other stories in A Place To Stay and
Other Short Stories.