Small Town Mystery

What is a home? To some people a home can be a place they grew up in, a person, and a city or town they grew up in. Alison’s home is a city in Blaine County, Idaho in the center part of the state called Ketchum Idaho with only 3,000 people. Ketchum only has three high schools, seven colleges within a 100 km of her hometown, and everyone knows everybody and everyone knows everything. If you ever watched the show Gossip Girl her town is almost like that, if something happens it’s either on social media or the front page of the newspaper and people will talk for days about it until something new comes along and catches their attention.

Driving down the narrow, icy, bendy road heading to Ketchum, the snow glistening on the ground, sound of wind hollering, and the smell of hot chocolate fills her nose. Down the street the sound of clicking walking across the road hits her ears and she knows right then and there that she’s finally back in Ketchum Idaho. There is people walking the streets in coats, hats, and mittens carrying bags or nice hot coffee and Christmas carols out singing in hopes of sending people joy during the holidays and fake Santa clauses standing in front of stores ringing bells to raise money for charity. A short time later Alison was driving up a straight road and at the end of the road there was a greyish brick house with icicles hanging, snowing covering the ground, and trees that are bare covered in the nice glistening snow. She shuts the car off and sits there just taking in the scene that was right in front of her, winter had been her favourite season since she was a kid.

She grabs her car keys and hops out of the car, walking up to the door of her new home, she takes in a deep breathe and puts the key into the door for the first time and with a click she twisted the door handle opening the door to her new place for the first time. She walks through the door and starts walking around noticing that it was a little smaller than she expected but it had a scent of the beach air and jasmine filled her hose. At least it didn’t smell like rotten eggs and dead rats like the first apartment she moved into while in college, just the thought of the apartment made her squirm leaving a nasty taste in her mouth.

She drops the house keys on the counter, walking back to her car she hits the unlock button and with a click, flashing lights, and blinkers the car unlocked. She walks down the stairs to her car, opening the driver’s side door, hitting the trunk button. After a popping sound the trunk opens, she slams the driver’s door and walks to the trunk of the car. She opens the trunk wide and bent down to grab a box. The sound of a vehicle slowing down and a honk startled her and she jumped turning around to see a black jeep and a man in it. The guy stops his vehicle and hops out, heading towards her car she noticed it was William Jones, her brother-in-law. He must have been 6′0 foot, 165 lbs, with a built like body and brown shaggy hair.

“I never thought I would see the day that Alison Smith would move back to Ketchum Idaho” he said leaning against the car with his arms crossed. Alison was so shocked and speechless she didn’t know what to say. He was right and he had every right to say that. “Hello, do you need help with the boxes?” he said waving his hand in front of her face and she shook her head and said

“I’m so sorry I just never thought I would ever run into you again. I thought you might have moved away and if you want to help you can.” she turned around passing him a box, she took a deep breathe in and grabbed another box following William into the house and dropping the boxes in the living room.

After what felt like five hours they were finally done moving all the boxes from her car to the house. Now it was just unpacking everything and putting it all way then she would be officially moved in.

“Alison why did you decide to move back? When you left you were so adamant to never coming back once you left for college” she knew that this question was going to pop up somewhere if William hadn’t asked it already. She never really told anyone why she moved back and her parents didn’t even know she moved back. It wasn’t a secret that she moved back or was moving back she just didn’t know how to answer or what to say if she was questioned but this was good as anytime to try and explain it.

“Liam and I divorced, I lost my job, and I guess I just needed to come back home and find myself again. If that makes any sense” and that was the truth but she was so scared that people wouldn’t like that answer or wouldn’t understand why she moved back.

“Wow I didn’t see that coming about Liam and you. When did that happen? When did you guys get married?” Liam was Alison’s high school sweetheart. They had been together for two years before they left to go to college, they were announced as prom king and queen in their sophomore year, best couple, and everyone thought they were going to last forever so it came to a shock when William found out that they had divorced without his knowledge of them ever being married.

“I’m kind of not ready to talk about what happened because I am still trying to process what happened to. One minute you’re so in love and planning a future together then the next you’re waking up alone” it hurt her talking about it and hearing it out loud for the first time made it worse, she tired fighting the tears back that were trying to escape her eyes. “What about you? I thought you wanted to leave this town” she said wiping her tears away hoping that William didn’t notice the few tears that managed to escape her watery brown eyes.

“My father got sick and because my brother was travelling a lot due to his job I had to find a job to pay the medical bills. A month ago he passed away and I had to pay all the funeral bills. After the funeral I thought about leaving. I even found a place and I was suppose to move in last week but then my brother got a call from the police saying that your sister was in a car accident and didn’t survive” Alison didn’t believe what came out of his mouth about her sister. There was no way that Lisa passed away and if it was true she was surprised that her family didn’t tell her once they found out and she wanted to know why they didn’t tell her. “Oh shit you didn’t know, I only said it because I thought you already knew about it. I guess your parents didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry for having to tell you this way and you finding out about it from me and not your parents but the funeral is two days from now at noon until two” he walked closer to her, pulling her into a hug realizing that she had no knowledge of this happening. After five minutes of hugging her while she sobbed from the news of losing her sister he pulled away, took his hand and wiped her tears away, lifting her head up to look at him. He stared into her tear filled eyes and could see the pain and hurt she felt in that moment and it hurt her knowing that he was the one that caused that pain.

“Hey look at me everything is going to be okay. You’re home now with your family and friends. We’ll get through this together. I’ll be back over tomorrow to help you unpack if you need the help” he looked into her beautiful big brown eyes that showed so much pain and he didn’t want to leave her alone knowing this news but he had no choice to leave to go to work. She just stood there in shock and disbelief of what she just heard that she couldn’t utter a word to William. She just stood there as if she was paralyzed watching him walk out the door and the sound of the door closing, the roaring of the vehicle starting to fill her ears.

Alison was now alone in her own house with her thoughts about her sister’s passing. There was a picture of Lisa and her on the counter top. She walks over to the counter and picks the picture up and stares at it. The picture was of Alison’s fifth birthday and Lisa had smashed a piece of her birthday cake in her face.

“Alison, Lisa come take a picture” mom yelled our name out loud over the screaming of five year old’s

“I’m here mommy” I said skipping towards her

“Where’s your sister?” she questioned me

“I don’t know mommy but take a picture of me in my new dress” I said swirling around to make my dress spin up. It’s my favorite dress.

“Okay sweetie but then we have to wait for your sister” she went to snap the picture when my sister Lisa comes skipping with a smile on her face.

“I’m here mommy” she said tapping our mother on the shoulder.

“Go stand next to your sister I want a picture of you two together” our mother said leading her where to stand and where to put her hands. “Okay on the count of three smile. One, two”

On the count of two my sister throws a piece of cake right into my face and before I could say anything, the sound of snapping filled my ears. My mother had taken the picture. Lisa was nine you would think she knew better than to do something so childish.

She puts the picture back down on the counter and picks up her keys. She walks towards her door opening it, locking it, and closing it behind her. She starts walking towards the nearest Starbucks but on the walk she noticed that people would run away and start talking about her. It got her furious. What they don’t have anything better to do with their life? After ten minutes of people talking about her, she had enough and yelled out

“I KNOW MY SISTER PASSED AWAY AND I KNOW I’M LIVING IT KETCHUM AGAIN. WHO CARES!!!!???” she screamed at the top of her lungs throwing her arms up in the air. Everyone stopped in their tracks staring at her as if she had lost her mind and just straight up crazy. People started to walk away from her, scared that she might actually be crazy. Fifteen minutes later she finally reached her destination, Starbucks.

When she walked the doorbell rang. She walked up to the counter.

“Hi there, what can I get you?” the young lady asked

“Can I have a Venti dragon fruit refresher drink with a strawberry & blueberry yogurt parfait” she asked looking at the menu above her head.

“Is that all?” the lady asked

“Yes that will be all” she said taking her wallet out of her purse

“That will be $10.00”

She gave the lady the ten dollar bill and walked over to the side to wait for her order. While waiting for her order someone comes up behind her.

“So I see you still get the same order as you did back in high school” she turned around to spot a 5′9 tall, skinny, tanned, and short blonde hair.

“Oh my god Dylan. Is that you?” she said hugging Dylan and pulling back to get a better look of him. “You changed so much since high school” she said turning around and grabbing her order and walking to a table with Dylan

“Yeah and you’ve also changed. I heard that you went to boarding school in your junior year of high school and instead of coming home you went straight to college and got married to Liam” he said sitting down across from her. Just hearing the name Liam made her face frown.

“Yeah but I don’t really want to talk about that. What about you? I heard that you graduated at the top the class, gave the graduation speech, went to Cornell University, got married and have a daughter” she said with excitement

“You probably would have been giving the graduating speech if you hadn’t left for boarding school. A lot changed after you left” she could imagine all the changes that happened while she was gone. “How did you and Liam start dating? All I remember is you dumping me and a month later I heard you and Liam were dating” Again with the name Liam.

“He was new in town and he had moved next door to me. I was the only person he knew in town so we became friends and it’s history after that”

“Mom there is new people moving next door to us finally” I look out the window seeing a big moving truck with moving people coming in and out.

“Well we should go over there and greet them to the neighbourhood” mom grabs a basket of cookies and dragged us out the door to go say hello. I was standing beside my mother when this guy started walking up to me. He was about 5′7, skinny with short brown hair. He wasn’t sore on the eyes by any means

“Hi you must be our neighbours. I’m Liam” he said sticking his hand out of shake mine

“Yeah and you must be our new neighbours. I’m Alison” I said shaking his hand.

“I’m sorry about your sister passing away” he said putting his hand over top of hers trying to comfort him. That was one thing that Alison liked about Dylan. He always cared about someone else and did anything in his power to comfort them until they were alright again. A smile finally formed on her face

“Thanks Dylan. You always cared about how someone else was feeling”

“Well I should go, I have to pick Maddie up from her friends place but it was nice catching up again and take care of yourself” he said getting up from the table and walking out the door to his vehicle.

She gets up from the table and walks out the door. She walked and walked until she was outside of her parents place. It was average size and made from bricks. She walks up the driveway to the door and rings the doorbell. Finally a medium height, grey haired, skinny wrinkled lady answers the door.

“Alison? Is that you sweetie” the lady said putting her hands on Alison’s face

“Yes mom it’s me. I just moved back” Alison taking her mother’s cold hand off her face. The lady finally opened the door and escorted Alison to the living room.

“Honey come here Alison is here” right when the old man heard that he rushed inside from outside and smiled at Alison.

“Sweetie your finally home” he said walking to Alison and bringing her into a hug.

“It’s good to be home but I stopped here for a reason” Alison sighed

Her parents looked at each other with confused looks on their faces and looked back at her.

“What do you mean sweetie?” her mother questioned pouring tea for everyone.

“How about the fact that you and dad didn’t tell me about Lisa dying?” the room fell silent, so silent that you could hear the ice falling off the edge of the roof and hitting the ground. Her parents looked at each other shocked that she knew about the passing of her sister, that they didn’t know what to say to her. There was no explain to why they never told her.

“Darling you have to understand that when we sent you off to boarding school you would not answer our calls, you refused to see us when we came to visit, and you refused to come home for any holidays. You didn’t even call us to tell us that you were going off to college, you didn’t tell us that you got married, and you didn’t tell us about your pregnancy problems. Let alone you never told us you were moving back home. What were we supposed to do? Our one child cut us off and wanted nothing to do with us while our other daughter was just in a car accident” her father was right, she did basically cut them off but not because she didn’t care. It was because she felt as though her family didn’t care about her once they sent her away to boarding school, it was as if they gave up all hope on her. She felt that her parents didn’t want her anymore and that’s why they sent her to boarding school.

“I would have still liked to know if my sister died from my own parents and not from someone else on the day that I move back home” she was angry and her parents could tell by the way she was talking.

“We are sorry sweetie and you’re right we should have told you instead of you finding out from someone else but you have to understand how we felt hearing the news of a child of ours passed away. No one expects to lose a child of theirs at a young age. Lisa was only 26 she had a job, a husband, and two kids.” her mother was right no one expects to lose a child especially at a young age.

“Fine but I want to help arrange the funeral since you guys already picked out the date and there is way too much to do in two days” she grabbed her stuff and got up walking towards the door and left not looking back.

She walked through her front door, locked it and went straight to the couch and fell asleep right when her head hit the couch.