Chapter Text
A gunshot rips through the air.
Plink!
An empty soup can falls to the ground. Todd hums to himself, something short and dismissive. The gun is reloaded.
Bang! Plink!
Another, identical Campbell’s falls next to the first. He cocks the gun, reloads it. He holds it up at eye level, right at the third can. Three for three would set his morning off just right. He slides his finger over the trigger.
Bang!
The third can remains standing. Two for three isn’t half bad. Still.
A whine drags his attention away from the target. An old basset hound sits next to him. The dog barks, and Todd smiles while reaching down to pet him.
“Hey,” He coos, gently patting the top of the dog’s head. “You wanna go back home for today?”
The dog, of course, does not say anything back to Todd, but he packs up his rifle and gets ready to leave anyway. The dog follows without a leash, and trots over to the passenger seat of Todd’s little blue truck that was graciously given to him by a friend of his, a mechanic. His car had eventually given its all and given out, but the people around him helped him get a new vehicle before he could get out the words “thank you”.
He loved these people, and they loved him, and it was more than he could really ask for. As he passes Little Lake, now surrounded by wildflowers and accompanying bumble bees, he shakes hands with the memory of a small turtle flipped on its back in the middle of the trail that runs parallel to the lake, like an old friend. His dog, Humphrey, barks enthusiastically at a passing squirrel, who scurries into the trees away from the cracked, asphalt road. Todd has always loved autumn the most.
As his old truck pushes itself up the hill towards his little house, Todd is met with the view of his vegetable garden, filled with fresh zucchini that needs to be harvested. A plan for the rest of the day falls into line in his head as he kills the engine and lets Humphrey out of the car.
“Easy, boy.” He says as Humphrey takes a big jump down. Unscathed, the two continue inside to Todd’s quaint little house that he has cultivated into a home.
The first thing new people tend to notice when they walk into Todd’s house is the lack of space. Quite literally, the walls are covered in all forms of drawings, paintings, newspaper clippings, photos, and other notes that have been taped or otherwise tacked to the wall. There’s a sort of organized chaos that a younger Todd would have gagged at, and the thought of that brings a distant smile to the older man’s face. And he is older, now, old enough to have his own kids well on their way to high school, even college. But he doesn’t. Todd has his cottage, Humphrey, and his little, old, blue truck. He doesn’t really need anything else.
He takes off the big leather jacket given to him as a gift a few Christmases ago and hangs it up next to the door. He takes a seat at his circular, wooden breakfast table that he made himself a few years back and begins to untie his work boots. He puts on a pair of moccasins, grabs his gardening gloves from a small table beside his porch door, and heads out to his backyard. Humphrey follows.
The dog, the largest basset hound Todd has ever met, moseys through the begonias and violets near the end of the garden and to a little bed nestled in with the sunflowers. Todd follows his puppy’s movements, and thinking kindly to himself, runs back inside to grab his camera. He takes a few quick pictures of Humphrey resting among the sunflowers, and then of the garden itself, all ripe vegetables and vibrant flowers.
The garden is fairly large, enough where Todd can freeze many of his vegetables and not need to shop for them in the winter that often. He makes a lot of zucchini bread, as well as banana bread, though he can’t seem to get bananas to grow in the garden. Regardless, it has a neat, red fence that Todd painted last summer when he got sick of the old, rotting wood that was there before. There’s an arch made of yellow trellis that you have to pass under in order to get to the rest of the garden. Vines and accompanying leaves wind their way around the thin metal, and when the sun sets, it shines right through the middle of the arch and creates a softer, rounded glow that surrounds them. Todd hums to himself in contempt and picks up a small rake-like tool that he tends to use for getting rid of dandelions, grasses, and other plants he didn’t plan on.
His knees pop as he kneels down to pluck some of the weeds, though before he can begin, his landline rings. He looks up with a quick flash of anxiety that has aged like whiskey and reaches the phone with haste. He picks the phone up off the wall, and as he does so, the receiver makes a little click noise.
“Hello?” He greets. Silence. He glances out the window at Humphrey.
“Uh, hello?” He calls again. The person on the other side of the phone sniffles quickly.
“Can you hear me?” Todd asks for a third time.
“Oh!” A voice comes with buoyancy from the phone. “So sorry, Todd, my wife was talking to me. How are you?”
“Who are you?” Todd replies, just as confused as he was before the other person spoke.
“Do you not recognize my voice?” The other person says.
“No.” Todd confirms.
“Ah,” the guy says. There’s another period of silence.
Humphrey barks, again, at a squirrel.
“Well, it’s Knox. Overstreet. You remember me, right?” Todd immediately softens.
“Oh, Knox, of course I remember you.” Todd crosses his kitchen in a few steps and takes a seat at the circular breakfast table in the corner. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Well, I wasn’t so sure for a minute there!” Knox laughs, and though it comes through the receiver with its fair share of crackles, Todd curses himself for not recognizing his friend sooner. It has been, however, decades.
“What can I help you with, Knox?” Todd asks politely. He can practically hear the grin on Knox’s face, can almost see him with his feet crossed in a recliner in his living room, can nearly taste the coffee sitting on a coaster next to him.
“This wasn’t the way I really wanted to do this, because I’m not sure how you’re gonna react; hell, Todd, I don’t even know if you’re gonna come all the way out here.” Todd says to him. It doesn’t help the gathering stones that have begun to nestle themselves in a neat little pile in Todd’s gut. Todd looks out the window again, at his zucchini, his begonias, his dog.
“I think you should tell me what I’m supposed to be opposed to before I actually make those decisions,” Todd replies, and it comes out far too quiet for his liking.
“There’s a reunion.” Knox announces. “Thirty years. Can you believe it’s been thirty years?”
“No,” The day, circled in red on Todd’s calendar, has a big 30 written on it. “No, I really can’t. That’s…”
“I know!” Knox exclaims. “Anyway it’s being organized by–by Cameron, and he reached out to all of us specifically but couldn’t find your number, so I told him I would try and call you, see what you say. What uh–what do you say, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Todd answers honestly, though still veiled with calm. “Will it actually be at Welton?” He hears Knox tsk through the phone.
“Yeah, a part of it. But we can skip it. Honestly, we don’t have to go at all. Cameron just wanted to get the Poets back together.”
It seemed odd to Todd, really. Cameron was reluctant to join the poets from the very start, and although he was heavily involved in school and school related activities, Todd wouldn’t have picked him to correlate a reunion. Then again, he’d make a terrible candidate too, so who was he to make those choices?
“Okay, Knox. I’ll think about it. When is it?
“March. A little earlier than graduation which I thought was a bust, and I can’t remember the exact day, but I know it’s March. I’ll send you a postcard with more details. You’re more than welcome to stay with me.”
“Thanks,” Todd says. They say their good-byes and hang up.
Todd walks back out into his garden, and begins to pluck weeds out of the soil with the grace of a double bass player, though with the intention of a harp player. The action itself is repetitive and does not hold his complete focus for long, so his mind begins to wander.
Welton was dark to him. It represented the toughest year of his adolescence, which was a bold statement. The grief and guilt that walked with him in that school left him no room to breathe. The only places he ever found solace were with the Poets, with Keating, and in his room.
He pauses his movements. A bumble bee lands on a piece of lavender. He follows the bug’s movement with only his eyes, and when it flies away, he continues weeding.
When he first got to Welton, he was an amalgamation of nerves bundled up in crooked smiles in firm, though sweaty, handshakes. His brother’s reputation certainly did not help him. It was brought up in every conversation, as soon as he or his parents mentioned the name Anderson. Sometimes, they didn’t need to say anything. Sometimes, his parents would be recognized immediately.
Sometimes people didn’t care to talk to Todd. He was okay with that.
Other times, people reached out to Todd specifically. He had been okay with that.
The weeds begin to form a solid group, and once Todd deems it enough, he pushes himself up and trades out his rake tool for a little pair of gardening shears. He begins to clip away at his cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini. By the time he’s done, Todd has enough to feed the whole town.
“Hm,” He says out loud to himself. “I think today might be a cooking day.” Hearing Todd’s voice, Humphrey lifts his head. He makes no other movement or noise, but Todd nods his head anyway.
“Yeah, good idea, guy.”
An hour or two later, Todd’s kitchen is filled with the smell of freshly baked zucchini bread, one pan even has chocolate chips in it. They sit cooling on the counter while Todd attempts to pickle his cucumbers. He is specifically making dill pickles, because he has come to the conclusion that bread and butter pickles just aren’t as good, when the phone rings again. He wipes his hands on a kitchen towel and picks up the phone.
“Hello?” He answers again, polite as always.
“Hey, Todd, it’s Chris. I just wanted to make sure Knox called you earlier, he said he was going to, but I just wanted to make sure he actually did it.” She chuckles softly to herself. Todd smiles in return.
“Yes, he did. You wouldn’t happen to have any more information besides March, would you?”
“As a matter of fact,” Chris says, and by the tone of her voice, Todd can tell she’s clearly looking for something. “Let’s see. Come celebrate thirty years with us…blah, blah blah. Uh–there, yes, okay. March 27th, at 3:00 PM, there’s supposed to be a little gathering at Welton. I’m sure there’s gonna be other stuff happening too, just so you know. Hey, are you actually thinking about going?” She asks him. Todd looks at his feet, and moves them so they’re perfectly in line with the tile floor of his kitchen.
“Maybe,” He says honestly. She cheers, wishes him well, and hangs up. As Todd does the same, he turns back to his pickles. There is vinegar all over the table and mustard seeds scattered on the floor. Humphrey is thankfully uninterested.
“God,” Todd whispers quietly to himself. He grabs a washcloth.
Two days later, after breakfast has finished and Todd has wished his mailman friend good-bye, he goes through his mail. Surprisingly, a postcard from Knox Overstreet with the details Chris had already told him had arrived. Todd laughs lightly to himself, however, because the handwriting is far too smooth to belong to Knox.
The sticker on the front of postcard labels them as “Mr. and Mrs. Knox Overstreet”, which was the same way his parents used to address themselves. Todd always found it strange that they included first names, too, seeing as those weren’t shared.
Todd grabbed a blank postcard to write back to them. The image on the front pictured a small river which, in the past, had significance in the Civil War. It was guarded by lush trees which stooped down into the river, roots tangling in and out of the dirt and each other. In the top corner, a mourning dove sat with its companion, looking out over the water. Todd found it in the new Walgreens. He thought it was charming.
He begins to write.
Knox and Chris,
I am going to look into this. It would be nice to see everyone again, seeing as it has been far too long since we last saw each other. If I do decide to make the trip, I very well may take you up on your offer to stay with you and your family. Thank you for that, it is incredibly generous and frankly unexpected. I hope you are all well.
I have one question. Have you talked to Neil about this?
Thank you,
Todd Anderson.
Todd flips the little red flag on the side of his mailbox, goes back inside, and makes a cup of tea.