The Official Website of Robert Slatt
October 2002 We didn’t expect the farm to go to my dad. Aunt Mary had no children of her own, and no other living relatives besides my dad and his three siblings. So we assumed she’d split the farm between them. Fair, even, practical. But when the will was read, the entire 117-acre property was…
September 23, 2002 Spartanburg, South Carolina The phone rang in the late afternoon, just as a soft gray light pressed against the windows of my apartment. I had been home from college classes for a few hours, the day already winding down. My one-bedroom place was quiet, tidy, familiar. I walked over to the phone,…
May 17, 2006 Ruby Memorial Hospital The nurse paused at the door before stepping out, her silhouette briefly outlined in the hallway light. “What time is it?” I asked. She glanced at her watch. “Two a.m.,” she said softly, then closed the door behind her. Darkness reclaimed the room. Two a.m.? I blinked into the…
The land doesn’t announce itself when you arrive. There’s no sign welcoming you to Four States, West Virginia—no marker to tell you that this place mattered once, or that it still does. You find it only if you’re looking, tucked along a narrow road in southern Marion County, where the hills fold inward and the…
This book exists because there was no way to leave this story untold. For many years, I tried to do exactly that. I moved forward. I built a life. I learned how to close chapters and live with what came next. But this one never closed. It stayed with me—quiet at times, loud at others—waiting…