Even with the peaceful rain bouncing off the roof, I barely slept. My entire life weaved in and out of my mind and I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I had a horrible life or anything. I didn’t. Sure, I’d gone through shit just like everyone else does and I totally got it, but not this. How could this even happen? What the hell was I supposed to do now?
As much as my mind told me to run, I couldn’t do it and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Scout was my daughter. Scout was the six pound, two-ounce little baby girl I’d given up nine years ago. Only I didn’t. Her dad took her. How did that even happen? Jaycee begged me to at least send Ryle an email, but I didn’t want him to know. Not that I even knew how to find him. I knew nothing about him, and I assumed it was on purpose. All I knew was he was from some small town called…. Oh, my God, I thought, my recollections paused while I searched memory lane for answers. Cassville, North Carolina. Ryle was from Cassville and he worked in a paint store. That’s about all I knew. That’s all he wanted me to know. That’s why he lied and said he didn’t have a cellphone. That’s why he left before I could say goodbye. Ryle didn’t want me, but he wanted our baby? That didn’t even make sense to me, and who the hell sent the email? It had to be Jaycee. It had to be.
Listening to the crackle of a fire and the sound of the rain on the tin roof, I rolled to my side, closed my eyes, quietly chastising my best friend for not telling me. “You creep. You left without telling me.”
Tristan tried to talk me out of my bus the very next morning, but I didn’t want to. I couldn’t be around Scout. Not without making it obvious. No wonder there was such an attachment with her. There was no way on earth I could be around her and not let it show. I couldn’t even do it when I didn’t know who she was. Instead of joining them, I worked hard, sewing curtains so I could block myself out.
Standing in the door with one foot on the top step, Tristan tried to coax me out. “Come on, Atlantis. You have to face this.”
“Oh, no I don’t. I have to finish sewing the curtains before all your friends start arriving.”
“He’s bringing a bus here, you know. I’m afraid they’ll be here a lot. Are you just going to hide out here all alone?”
“Yup, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Tristan sighed, her head shaking back and forth. “You’re being a baby. You should at least come and hang out with us.”
I looked up with a snarl and a needle stuck between my lips. “No way. No way in hell. He doesn’t even know I’m here. I left our baby at a hospital all by herself. I’m sure he wouldn’t be okay with the idea.”
“I really don’t think Emmy is like that, Atlantis.”
“Yeah, well I don’t even know who Emmy is. I know him by Ryle. I’m fine. For real.”
“Oh! There’s Nana Mae and Toni. You have to come out and meet them.”
I stretched my neck to look through the window I was working on getting covered. A small camper pulled by a black SUV, and a white cargo van, pulled into our space right under the pine trees. “No, please just go have fun with your friends. I’m not ready to do this. Please.”
Another audible sigh left her lips and she stepped down. “I’ll bring you some lunch later.”
“Thanks,” I replied with my eyes on the hem of my blackout material, happier than I should have been that she had to go. I’m not sure what she expected, but I couldn’t just walk up to him and say, ‘hey’. He’d probably spit in my face or something. That’s what I would have done.
I did split my new curtains and spy out the window though. Tristan ran to the older lady first, handing off Baby-T and hugging her at the same time. And then came the girl closer to our age, Toni. She wrapped her arms around Tristan and they rocked back and forth, both dancing with excitement. Obviously, she knew Scout as well. They embraced the exact same way. My eyes rolled at all the ridiculous hugging, and I turned my attention back to my job.
Most of my morning was spent watching them from a crack in the back window, envying the fun they seemed to be having without me. They all sat around a small burning fire on the passenger side of Tristan’s bus, laughing and talking. Toni and Scout took off somewhere in the forest after lunch and I came out for an apple pecan salad. I swear Tristan made it especially for me. On purpose, of course. Every time she made it, I bragged it up. It was easy to tell which one of her vegan recipes was my favorite and the dressing was the cherry on top.
Nana Mae was awesome, the kind of grandma every little kid craves. Baby-T just loved her and the feelings were obviously mutual. She told me the story about the first time she met Tristan, and Tristan finished it for her.
“I was at a peaceful protest in New York. I don’t even remember what it was for. Makeup, I think.”
Biting into a crisp slice of apple, I interrupted. “Makeup?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing to get defensive about. Just stuff you’re not aware of yet. We were protesting kitties and bunnies being used to test injections like Botox and shit.”
Tristan could go on a tangent about things I’d never even heard about for hours, and believe you me, she knew a lot. I knew not to ask unless I wanted the whole scoop, and I didn’t.
“Okay fine, so you met at a protest?”
“Yes, Nana Mae is the reason I even found this lifestyle. She was there for the same thing, only she was with a caravan of other people. A whole slew of vanners. I bought my first van from one of them,” Tristan explained, her head shaking with a smile at the memory. “My mom was pissed.”
Shortly after the story going on between the two of them, I heard Scout’s laugh and scared myself off. “Well, I better get back to work. I’ll see you guys later.”
Tristan held my hand and looked up to me, her eyes pleading. “Stay. Please. She’s asked about you half a dozen times.”
A stabbing pain was felt right in the middle of my heart while I quietly questioned her. “She has?”
“Yes, and you can’t be sick all weekend.”
My eyes shifted to the voices getting closer and I pulled my hand from hers. “Yes, I can.”
I knew I had to face it eventually, but not yet, not this day, and not this weekend. Thinking back, I’m sure it would have been easier on my nerves, but I just couldn’t get past the fear. The anticipation of him bringing his own bus up there was enough to keep me on edge. But I did have one good thing going for me. He couldn’t park on the door side of my bus. If I was careful I could go outside without being seen.
“I think I’ll take the van and run down to the warehouse, if that’s okay. Tobias said he just got in a ten by two piece of oak from an old fireplace mantle. I want to go check it out.”
The pity in her tone was noticed, and she just had to add a little more drama with a sad smile. “Of course.”
With that, I ducked back into my bus behind my new curtains just in time for Scout and her new friend to enter the camp. I fussed with a wrinkle, wishing I had an iron, but realizing right away where I was. “You’re in a freaking bus, Atlantis,” I said aloud, my head shaking back and forth at my silliness. That’s what I was thinking about when someone knocked on the glass door. My mind instantly went to Scout when I felt the rush of adrenaline surge through my body.
Closed up like Fort Knox, I slid the curtain over the door, seeing Toni. With a frown, I pulled the handle and opened the door. “Hey.”
“Hey, I’m Toni. Tristan said you were going in to town. Mind if I ride along? I purposely didn’t bring alcohol up here because I didn’t want to drink tonight and tomorrow night, but I changed my mind. It’s too freaking nice out. I’ll make that goal next week.”
I smiled because I instantly liked her, the jealousy over the relationship she seemed to have with Scout gone just like that. “Sure, I might do that myself. That sounds like an amazing idea. Let me grab my jacket.”
We stepped out of the bus and I led Toni to the front rather than the back. For a second I thought about going that way to be polite and say goodbye, but I didn’t want to walk past Scout. I couldn’t talk to her yet and I wasn’t sure I ever would.
Jumping in the van, I started it and backed it between their vans. “Tristan said you were going to stay here for a while. I’ll probably be back in the spring, but I’m not looking to freeze my ass off stuck indoors all winter.”
“Really? Where’re you going?”
“West, the desert. Arizona, Vegas, probably Slab City.”
“Slab City?”
“California. Right now, my plan is to buy a bus and hang out here for the summer, then head back that way. I hate being cold.”
“I’m from Pennsylvania. I’m used to it. So, you just live in your van by yourself? Aren’t you afraid?”
“Not at all. Fear keeps you stuck. There’s nothing to fear. I love it. I love these people. One person does make a difference, but a bunch of us change the world, you know?”
Nope, I didn’t even know what she was talking about. Not yet anyway, but I would. Oh, how I would. We drove out the grass path to vans and campers already filling the back field, the one right in front of the waterfall. Frowning, I wondered who put the signs out, directing people where to go. A family section on one side of the dirt road and an ‘up all night’ on the other.
“Hey, my signs are working. What do you think of where I’ve got the event setup? My thinking was a midpoint for all of us. People can stand around the fire and still hear.”
“Hear what?” I questioned.
Toni frowned my way, her head shaking back and forth. “That girl. She did the same thing to me the first time I met her.”
With that, Toni pretended to button her lips and throw away the key. “You’ll see. Oh, stop. It’s Teddy Bear and Annie.”
Because we were already at a crawl, I barely had to hit the brake to stop. Toni jumped out and ran to a van pulling a camper, and two little girls jumped out to hug her. They were younger than Scout, but no doubt loved Toni just as much as she did. Taking a deep breath, I scratched my head, not really understanding what was going on here. While Toni spoke to the couple behind the wheel, I looked around. Someone had built a huge fire ring out of stone and someone else delivered four porta-potties. A deep breath filled my lungs when I remembered I wouldn’t be a part of it. Although I did decide to sneak down after dark to check things out. The pines were plenty dark enough for cover.
We stopped at the one and only gas station in Cassville first, a small convenience store just off the main road. Toni bought enough beer to supply the whole tribe for the entire weekend. Four cases to be exact, plus three bottles of wine, and a fifth of cheap vodka. If she thought for one second I was going to be involved with any of that, she was crazy. No way. I swore off vodka before I was even eighteen, thanks to my best buddy, Jaycee. My nose burned with the memory of the fiery alcohol coming back up the next morning. It made me shiver just thinking about it.
Once we’d loaded up on booze, we drove through town and to the warehouse a couple miles out. We’d just turned down the dirt road when Toni turned, her eyes going back to the blacktop road we’d just left. “I bet that’s Ty and Emmy.”
I turned to look too, a deep breath filling my lungs when I saw the truck that had been dropping Scout off and picking up Ty for the past couple days. “Yup, it is. That’s just great.”
Toni tilted her head and closed one eye, her expression one big question mark. “You’ve already been around Ty, so I’m going to take it the history comes from Emmy Ryle?”
“You know him, too, huh?”
“Yeah, hell of a nice guy. I’ve seen him at a few of these things now. He goes out west a lot in the winter, too.”
“He does? How? He has Scout. What about school?” I questioned, my expression mimicking hers.
“She’s homeschooled. Emmy hates the school system worse than Tristan, and that’s not gossiping, that’s the cold hard truth. Heads up. Don’t ask him about it unless you want an earful. He knows plenty about it.”
I turned back to the road, contemplating, unsure of how that made me feel. "What about friends and slumber parties, sweet sixteen celebrations, and prom?” And then I remembered I didn’t go to my own prom. I’d gone the year before with a senior. Michael Casino. We dated for thirteen months, all through my senior year. Mike didn’t want me to go the next year without him, so I spent it with him, getting it on behind the shopping block in the backseat of his car. Jaycee was so mad at me. Two weeks later when he broke up with me, I was mad at me, too.
It was obvious when we got there it wasn’t the first time Toni had been to Mark’s. She hugged him as soon as we stepped in. Everyone hugged around here. I looked at the piece Tobias had told me about but didn’t take it with me. There were four of us there to put it in the van and it would fit just fine, but we’d need help when we got back. I was afraid of who that would be. Helping me with a giant piece of wood wasn’t how I wanted the reunion. Not that I wanted a reunion at all, or maybe I did. With everything I was running from, I knew I wanted to get to know Scout. Not that I deserved to know her, or that he would even grant it. Daniel wouldn’t have. This was something I had to face regardless of the outcome, and I knew it, but that didn’t mean it had to be now. I wasn’t ready.
“Ty said you’d want it,” Mark said from behind me.
Blinking away the nerves, I looked down, seeing the hunk of light colored wood for the first time. “I do love it, but things are a little busy this weekend. Can you hold it for me until Monday?”
“We’re headed up tomorrow. I’ll throw it on the truck for you.”
“Ahh, thank you so much. That would help a lot.”
The two of them talked about people I didn’t know while I thought about that scenario in my head. I didn’t want Ryle to help with that.
My fingers nervously tapped off the steering wheel when we started back. I thought about facing him and getting it over with, but I couldn’t. This was so stupid of me. Why hadn’t I just stayed in the bus where I was safe? Why did I always get myself in these freaking shit-storms? Ugh. “Do you mind driving the van back once we hit the gravel? I think I’ll walk back by the stream.”
Seeing straight through me, Toni called my bluff. “What if he’s sitting out back with Tristan and Nana Mae? It’s a good possibility you know.”
I smiled back with a shrug. “I’ll stay in the woods until I can make a run for it.”
The realization of who I was hit her at that very moment. Her eyes grew wide and she gasped out of shock. “Oh, my God. Atlantis. Of course. You’re the long-lost city. You’re Scouts mom!”
“Oh great, he told you, too.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here?”
“Nope, I hung out with Scout all day Wednesday. Tristan figured it out later that night when I had a meltdown about it. I never let myself think about her, ever. I mean, what are the chances of this happening, of us being in the same place at the same time? It’s like one of those cheesy Hallmark movies, only those have happy endings. This can’t possibly go well.”
“Wow, don’t you just love synchronicity? I can’t wait to watch this unfold.”
“Thanks, thanks a lot.”
Toni popped the top on a beer, laughing at my expense. “You should just face him. What are you afraid of?”
“That he’ll hate me, that he’ll tell me to leave and stay away from them both, that he’ll shoot me in the head.”
“Emmy’s not like that.”
“So I hear. What does that even mean?”
“It means he doesn’t live in a three-dimensional universe. He’s been past that for a long time. Ever since I’ve known him.”
All these people were crazy. Here I was about to have a heart attack and she wanted to talk about parallel worlds or some shit. “So, that’s a yes? You’ll drive up the lane so I can try to sneak into my bus?”
“Yes, I will, but I think you’re being silly. You should just talk to him.”
“I will. Just not like this.”
I got out on the family side where the waterfall acted as the backdrop, and Toni took the van on up to the pine tree forest. Nodding at a couple people, I jogged toward the stream, hoping and praying I could sneak in without notice. It took less than five minutes to follow the stream and lucky for me, somebody heard my silent pleading. Not only were Ty and Ryle on the other side of the bus, so was everyone else. They were watching the two of them maneuver the new bus, parking it nose to nose with mine. More greatness. There were no curtains at all on Ryle’s bus, and there was no possible way I could keep myself from peeking through mine.
How the hell did I go from feeling like a million bucks to all this angst? I hated drama, I reminded myself, leaping from a small bank, ducking around pine trees like some little kid playing games. That’s exactly what I was I doing. Playing games and I didn’t care how many times Tristan called me a coincidence theorist. I was a realist and this little play world she lived in was so far from reality it wasn’t even funny.
Taking my chance, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, stopping at the door. Only thanks to the rain the night before, I didn’t stop. My feet slid on slippery pine needles and I skated half way under the bus. I took a second to make sure I wasn’t hurt and pulled myself out, shoving in on the door with my shoulder. In a hurry, I tried to take two steps to save time, missing by a centimeter. The tips of my wet toes slid off the edge and my shin landed smack dab on the ledge. That’s about the time I felt the burn in my lower back, a six-inch scrape running from the top of my jeans all the way to my bra strap.
Flat on my back with both hands covering my aching shin, I rolled to my side, feeling the pain in my back, too. Groaning in agony, I tried to suck air through my gritted teeth, hissing sounds whipping between my lips. “Ahhh, son-of-a-bitch.”
“What the hell are you doing? Did you fall?”
I raised my head to Tristan, opening one eye, a failed attempt to frown at her due to the pain in my leg. “No, Einstein. I just wanted to lay down.”
Tristan covered her mouth, sputtering a laugh from behind her hand. “Give me your hand. Are you okay?”
Pushing her hand away, I sat up and slid my butt to the sidewall. “I’m fine. What do you want?”
“I want you to stop being silly. What if I talk to him first? Want me to break it to him?”
My eyes narrowed in disbelief, wondering if she was serious. “No. I don’t want you to tell him. How long is he going to be here? He’s leaving after all this, right?”
“He just brought a bus up here to build out. He’s probably going to be a big part of the community. That’s why it’s best for you to walk out there with me and get this over with. You’re making a bigger deal about it than it is, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’re totally wrong. You’re not the one who had his baby without telling him. You’re not the one who gave her to a couple in Florida you never met before.”
With her hands on her hips, Tristan looked down at me, her shoulders relaxing with an exhausted breath. “Fine, suit yourself. We’re going to walk down and say hi to the people coming in. You should come.”
“I’m not coming.”
Tristan shook her head in disbelief, but I could have done the same to her. It was easy for her to stand there and judge me for being silly. She wasn’t the one with the nine-year-old running around outside. “Okay, but you’re going to miss all the fun.”
“Fun depends on what you’re in to. I’m not really in to all this.”
She left without another word, but I didn’t even need to hear it. I knew what she was saying, but I wasn’t being silly and this wasn’t just a small thing. As soon as the pulsating pain eased in my shin, I raised up and cracked the curtain, once again moaning. This one a different kind of crazy. Right there in low riding jeans, work boots, and a burgundy hoodie, stood Ryle. The ball cap on his head assured me he was still a Forty-niners fan, and his ass reminded me how it all happened in the first place.
I lied. That’s how it all happened. Ryle was twenty and he told me so, but I wasn’t about to confess. Knowing he wouldn’t have given me the time of day, I told him I was nineteen instead of sixteen. Surely, he knew now I had lied. One more flammable fault was added to the fire, but my groan was replaced with a smile.
Scout ran out of nowhere and jumped on his back. Ryle locked his elbows with her knees and she took his hat, moving it from his head to hers. They all stood in a circle, talking like it was perfectly normal. Daniel would have yelled at Quinn for interrupting. I smiled at Ryle’s hair, exactly the same as it was back then, halfway down his back and blondish.
Now I moaned. I let my body drop back to the floor, once again wondering what I’d gotten myself in to. Only I could manage to fall into something like this. I just wanted to run but knew I couldn’t. If I left without at least meeting him face to face, I’d always wonder. The same whatever kept me from going back to Danny kept me from leaving her a second time. And truth be told, I didn’t want to. I sort of loved her. It was him I was afraid of.
Talk about a nervous wreck. There was more peering through the curtains than anything. Keeping a constant eye on the new blue bus with the white lettering from the old Calvary Church, or the lane where I knew they would soon be coming back, I waited. As much as I wondered what they were doing, knowing I was missing out, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And believe me, I thought about it. A lot. The best idea I’d come up with was a long letter. I’d write it and stick it in the mail. At least he couldn’t kill me that way.
It wasn’t so easy. Of course, it wasn’t. This was me, the hurdles were supposed to be there, the dark cloud always found me. My destiny. My life. Why I would expect anything different was beyond me. I’d just split the curtain with two fingers when I saw him. All by himself, taking a piss on the front tire of his older than dirt bus. Adrenaline rushed through my veins and my heart dropped clear to my feet. With an audible gasp, I stepped back, my hand covering my runaway heart.
Shaking my head, I knew I couldn’t do this all weekend. I’d have a heart attack and die. I sank to the driver’s seat, burying my head in my hands. With a fistful of hair, I groaned, once again asking myself how I got here. And then all of time stopped. Two knuckle taps on the glass behind my new blue curtain stopped it all. Time, all the sounds, and even my heart.
My hand closed around the handle and I opened the door, but I didn’t move the curtain. That would mean I had to stand up and there was no way that was possible. This was it. The beginning of the end.
With eyes wider than the owl I’d seen that morning, I sat frozen in a state of shock. Thank God, Ryle spoke first. Sliding my new curtain across the bar, his head cocked and a left sided grin crossed his lips.
His voice was a little deeper but exactly how I remembered it. “You look exactly the same. Have you aged at all?”
I felt my eyebrows relax from shock to confusion, tilting my head the same way. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Can I come in?”
“We can go outside. I don’t have anywhere to sit yet.”
“Perfect. Want to take a walk?”
I narrowed my eyes and sucked in my lips while briefly studying him, not understanding why he wasn’t holding a gun. “Don’t you hate me?”
“Nah, I don’t hate you. We were both exactly where we were supposed to be at the time. No harm done.”
“No harm done? I left her all alone.”
“And I found her. I don’t hate you.”
“But how did you find her?”
“Jaycee. She sent an email to the paint store where I used to work.”
“I knew it was her. She never told me.”
Nodding his head, Ryle reached for my hand, beckoning for me to follow. For a brief second, I thought the static charge that shocked us both was a sign. One of those things Tristan told me to look for, but that was silly…A painful snap went through both of us as the tips of our fingers touched, instinct causing us to jerk back. At least we could laugh about it. Even after the electric-shock, he offered a hand and I took it.
Déjà vu. That’s what it felt like. Exactly how it was the first time we’d ever kissed almost ten years ago. Like we’d just linked something that had been waiting to reconnect. Like we’d never been apart. Like two pieces of a half became one. Like I had just been let out of prison again but this was a different kind of free.
Ryle was the one who spoke first, his tone low and sultry. “Whoa.”
As soon as he said it, the realization of him feeling the exact same thing I did caused me to take a step back, bringing me back to reality. I awkwardly cleared my throat and slid my hands inside my back pockets. “Which way do you want to go?”
Ryle waved his head toward the stream with the same smile that had gotten me in trouble years before. “Did I tell you, you still look sixteen?”
I smiled and followed along beside him, heading in the direction of the waterfall. “Sorry about that.”
With a quick whisk, Ryle spun in front of me, one hand grasping my elbow, and one finger to my nose. “We need to get something straight. First of all, I’m not mad at you for anything. We were both where we were supposed to be at the time. There’s no punishment. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Why’d you leave? I was going to tell you. I was coming to tell you I was two weeks late and I took a test.”
“That Kylie chick from the blue cabin told me you were sixteen. That’s what I mean when I say we were both where we were supposed to be. At that time, all I could see was a mess I didn’t want to be a part of. There was no way your dad was going to let you see a twenty-year-old man. We were in different states, and yes, at the time I was pissed off about you lying to me. But I don’t even need to ask why now. It doesn’t even matter. The lesson was there, and I learned it.”
Stepping around him, we continued our way along the narrow path, me trying to take it all in. Who the hell were these people? “You sound an awful lot like Tristan.”
Ryle sputtered a laugh, glancing over at me with familiar, gray-blue eyes. “If I could be half as good as that girl, I’d be over the moon happy. She’s such a blessing and that’s all she’s trying to be. You know?”
“Not really,” I admitted, trying to smile. It was hard and I really didn’t have any idea about any of this. Why wasn’t he mad? None of this made any sense to me. “Did Tristan tell you I was here?”
“No, Scout did. She couldn’t stop talking about you.”
That made me feel good and bad at the same time. I’d spent the last two days hiding from her. “Really? How did you know it was me?”
Counting on his fingers, Ryle glanced at me again, and in that moment, I knew exactly what it was I’d seen in Scout’s eyes. Her dad. “One, I’ve never met another lost city. Atlantis isn’t a name you hear every day. Two, she told me you had an amazing voice. So, now we have an Atlantis with an amazing voice. Three, she told me how pretty you are.”
Now, I really didn’t know what was going on. Unsure of whether or not he was flirting, I quickly glanced away. “She’s so awesome.”
“She was really disappointed you’ve been sick. That’s when I knew you’d figured it out, too.”
I took in a deep breath of fresh air and poured my guts out to him like we hadn’t been apart for one single day. “Tristan figured it out. She showed up during a meltdown after I spent the day with Scout. I felt so incredibly guilty after spending the day with her, singing with her, and then the white deer thing. Want to know why?”
“I do.”
“I never thought about her. All these years I pretended like it never happened. Like she never existed. Not even her birthday. And then, God. I don’t know what happened. We had this magical day and my heart exploded in to a gazillion pieces and I wanted to die. I blubbered the whole story all over Tristan, but you’d already beat me to it. Talk about a blow to the back of the knees.”
“I didn’t feel that way.”
Again, I looked at him with surprise, holding an intense gaze until I shifted my eyes to my sneakers. Never in a million years could I have seen this coming. “How does this even happen? What are the chances of us meeting up here like this after all these years?”
Nonchalantly, like he wasn’t even surprised, Ryle shrugged. “Eh, I’ve been a firm believer in synchronicity for a long time. Even when I didn’t know what it was.”
“Yeah, I don’t understand all that.”
“Most people don’t. Go up.”
I’d never been up the path Ryle nodded to, but I did know it rained the night before. It was wet and slippery. Nonetheless, I grabbed a thin tree and pulled myself up. We walked in silence, leading to the top of the waterfall. Neither of us knowing what to say. At least, I didn’t. Ryle seemed to have it together in ways I didn’t understand. And I sure as hell didn’t understand how the hell everyone around here was so happy. It was like they were a part of something I wasn’t, and I had no clue what it was, but I wanted it. I wanted what they had. I needed it.
Ryle led me half way up the fall and then right underneath it. Stopping at the steep bank, I hesitated when the path ended, letting him go ahead of me. He leaped with a single bound and once again reached for my hand. Of course, I let him help me down the bank, and of course I felt the same tingle deep in my chest. A strange, undeniable, powerful sense of something. That’s the only thing my mind could come up with. It wasn’t something I was used to feeling, let alone something I knew how to process.
We took a couple steps below a giant rock, water cascading over our heads, and sat on a man-made bench made from a log. The loud water suddenly became quieter and the view came into focus. Out of instinct I sat, my jaw relaxed in awe of the dramatic scene in front of me, and I think I held my breath.
“You’ve been here before,” I stated, sidestepping what needed to be said. Whatever that was.
“Lots of times. You see that mountain over there? That’s Ryle Ridge. What we call home. I grew up in these mountains. There isn’t a dirt road on this side of Cass I don’t know.”
As much as I wanted to hear every word he said, it’s not what I wanted to talk about now. “You went after her.”
“I almost didn’t. I was literally in my truck on my way to the west coast for an internship. Your buddy sent an email to my manager. I read it over and over, trying to decipher if it was for real or not, wondering what the hell to do. Everything in me told me she was mine. I didn’t even make it out of the state before my route changed.”
“What did it say? The email?”
“That it was Jaycee from camp. That you’d just had a six-pound two-ounce baby girl and she belonged to me. She said there was a family on their way from Florida to pick her up and I had about ten hours to claim her. I tried to find you.”
“Yeah, I sort of lied about that, too. I’m from Pennsylvania, not New York. Jaycee and I just said that to look cool. I lied about my dad, too. I haven’t seen him in years. We were floating down the river and you were talking about how cool your family was, and I just—.”
“It’s fine, Atlantis. Let that shit go. You don’t have to beat yourself up about it. It’s just where you were at the time. You don’t have to be sorry about anything. Just be thankful you have the chance to know her now. She’s the most amazing kid in the world.”
I couldn’t help the tear that slid down my cheek. “Why? I don’t get this, Ryle. You should be furious with me.”
“Well, I’m not. Sorry to disappoint you. My life isn’t led by an ego anymore. Anger is such a waste of time. I’m not mad. Not even a little. I want her to know you. You have no idea how excited she was about singing to the cows with you.”
A wide smile filled my face with the memory. “You should have seen them. They came right up to us. It was awesome. I haven’t sung in years.”
“Please tell me you’re joking. You have such a gift, you can’t keep that to yourself.”
“Ha, yes I can. I’ve outgrown that.”
“You’ve outgrown singing? That doesn’t even make sense. Do you hear yourself right now?”
Whether he got it or not, I did. It made perfect sense in my mind, and I didn’t understand this. I was in the twilight zone and I had nothing to say back. Daniel would have been screaming in my face, not walking to waterfalls. Deciding to stop talking about me and the singing I wouldn’t be doing, I nodded toward the crowd gathering around a fire. “What’s this rally thing all about?”
“Just a bunch of people getting together to have some fun, and to see Tristan, of course.”
“See her do what?”
“Really? You haven’t seen Tristan in action yet? Sit by me. I want to see your reactions.”
If she thought for one second I was going to sing with her in front of these people, she was crazier than I had originally thought. I wasn’t. When I said I hadn’t sung in years, I wasn’t even joking, and I’d never done it in public. Except for summer camp, which didn’t count. I was young and dumb. Everyone had to grow up.
I honestly don’t know what happened after that. It was like we were just together from that moment on. At least, that’s how it felt for me. I’d been trying to figure out the mixed signals ever since I opened the door. “Well, what now? Do we tell her?”
Ryle bumped my leg with his knee. “Yes. A mommy has been at the top of her Christmas list since she realized her friends had one and she didn’t. Wait until she hears you’re not just any mommy. You’re hers.”
“Ahhh, that’s the sweetest thing ever, and it makes me sad.”
“Don’t be sad. I’m sure there were things in your life after her you wouldn’t trade for the world.”
That was true to the bottom of my heart. I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of being Quinn’s mommy if things had gone different back then. Even if it was only four short years, I wouldn’t have traded them for my life.
“When should we tell her?”
“How about right now? We’re going to have so much fun this weekend, and I see no sense in you sitting around worrying about it. Let’s do it.”
A nervous energy ran through me, but I wasn’t sure which one made me more anxious, the fun he was sure we were going to have together, or the anticipation of telling my daughter I left her all alone in a hospital. “What if she hates me?”
“Our daughter doesn’t hate anyone or anything. She wasn’t raised that way. There’s not a hateful cell in her body.”
I didn’t argue that because I already felt that about her. Even if I didn’t understand this whimsical place, I felt the angelic energy from this girl. “Now?”
Ryle’s hand came down on mine, slapping off my knee with a light squeeze. “Right this second. This one right here.”