Chapter 29 - Zoe
“Do you have everything you need, Audrey?” I ask, throwing an apple into her lunchbox and zipping it up. She appears in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom, backpack on and shoes tied.
“I’m ready! And don’t worry, Mom!” She says. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will, monkey,” I say, handing her the lunchbox and walking with her to the hotel lobby. I’ve started viewing apartments and houses around town for us to move into, hoping to get out of this hotel room by the end of the week. I don’t have many options, but Katie and Mara are helping me contact people who might have a place for us to rent. There isn’t much in the way of real estate agents in this town.
Audrey skips along beside me and we wait at the bus stop together. I check the time on my phone, anxious to see the big yellow bus coming around the bend. Another mother with her child appears, and Audrey looks a bit apprehensive, and my heart squeezes.
The little boy looks at her and smiles. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Audrey responds.
“I like your backpack.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I like yours too.”
“It has a secret pocket–look!” The boy says, showing off his bag proudly. Audrey laughs and soon she’s engrossed in a conversation. I smile, and for the first time since I got this promotion, I feel like I might have made the right decision. Audrey seems to like it here, and she hasn’t mentioned the mean girls at her old school in Seattle since she left.
I nod to the mother and smile, watching my daughter and feeling my heart swell. Before long, the bus comes around the bend and I send her off. I let out a big sigh as the doors close and Audrey waves at me through the window.
“The first day of school never really gets any easier, does it?” The other mother says. I glance at her and chuckle, shaking my head.
“Sometimes I think it’s easier for them than it is for us.”
“Oh, there’s no question about it,” she laughs. “It’s absolutely easier for them.”
By the time I get to work, my nerves seem to have calmed down. They’ve given me an office in the back of the building to go along with my promotion, and I’m starting to contact other rangers in the area. I’ll have a couple National Parks to look after in this job, which means more work than I’ve ever had before.
A soft knock on the door makes me look up. Sherry looks in, smiling.
“Morning,” she says, and her stern features soften. “How’s the new office?”
“It’s perfect, Sherry, thank you,” I reply.
“You settling in okay?”
“I… actually, yeah. Audrey went off to school today, and my mother is down in the next town doing a pottery class. I think they’re finding this easier than I am.”
Sherry chuckles. “That’s always how it is.” She stares off through the window for a moment and then turns back to me. “I heard you were looking for a place to stay,” she says. I glance at her, eyebrows shooting up. I nod. “Well, I don’t have anything for you and Audrey, but I do have a one-bedroom cabin on my property. I’ve rented it out once or twice, but mostly I just use it for family who come to visit. I know you said your mother likes gardening, and there’s a little veggie patch out back. She can come have a look to see if she’d like it.”
Sherry is glancing at me with her eyebrows drawn and she’s wringing her hands in front of her. She looks almost nervous and my jaw drops as my heart grows in my chest. The thoughtfulness of the townspeople here will never cease to surprise me. I smile and dip my chin down.
“I think she’d like that,” I respond. “I’ll let her know tonight and we can set up a viewing.”
Sherry smiles, and I wonder how I ever thought she was stern. “It would be nice to have another woman my age to talk to,” she says. “Bernie seems wonderful.”
“Thank you, Sherry,” I say. When she turns around and leaves my new office, I lean back in my chair and let out a big breath. Lang Creek is feeling more and more like home to me.
When evening comes, I tell Sherry I’ll be over with my mother later and I head off home. Ethan and I have plans for dinner, so me, my mother, Audrey and Ethan end up walking over to Sherry’s house in the early evening. Ethan slips his hand into mine as we walk, and Audrey skips ahead.
I don’t know if it’s the cool autumn wind that blows through my hair, or maybe it’s the two glasses of wind that I’ve had, but my heart flutters in my chest. My mother is humming to herself, and she looks up at the mountains and smiles.
Somehow, everyone is happy. We’ve slipped in to a new life without too much fuss, and the stress of our life back in Seattle has mostly disappeared.
Sherry’s cabin is lovely, and my mother agrees to rent it out on the spot. Before long, she and Sherry are discussing the intricacies of the veggie patch. After some time, all five of us head off for a short walk in the forest. I lean my head against Ethan’s shoulder as I listen to Sherry explain the ins and outs of soil composition for vegetable growing, or something of the sort. Audrey runs up ahead, inspecting bugs and picking up sticks as we walk.
Without me realizing it, in the past few weeks all my worries have turned out to be baseless, and I’m actually happy. We walk until we get to a small grassy area by the river. Ethan, me, my mother and Sherry sit on benches as Audrey walks down to the water’s edge. I watch her pick up sticks and nimbly weave them together to make a watercraft, and I smile.
Maybe Mrs. McCoy wasn’t so bad. At least Audrey’s getting some use out of her new skills. Ethan puts his arm around my shoulder and squeezes me closer, and I turn towards him. He lays his lips over mine and I shiver in contentment. Vaguely, I can hear Sherry and Mom deep in conversation about carrots and tomatoes, but all my attention is on Ethan.
He wraps me in his arms and runs his fingers along my cheek. He kisses me tenderly and then leans his forehead against mine. I close my eyes for a moment.
“Move in with me.”
His words are barely above a whisper, but I open my eyes and stare at him. “What?” I ask, heart thumping.
“I mean it. You’ve looked at half a dozen places and none of them were good for you and Audrey. I live near the bus stop, and she’ll be able to walk to the town’s soccer field and basketball courts. It’s a great location for you as well, near work, and–”
I start laughing as he babbles, and he stops talking to look at me, confused. My eyes soften and I put my hands on either side of his face.
“You would do that for us?”
It’s his turn to chuckle. “I’m doing it for me, Zoe. I want you with me. I want Audrey with us. You make me happy.”
My heart grows so much it feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest. My eyes start to mist and his face goes blurry, so all I can do is nod my head up and down. My voice is gone, and there’s a lump in my throat. I don’t need to say anything, though, because Ethan crushes his lips against mine and wraps his arms around me. My heart sings for him, and I kiss him fiercely. What have I done to be so lucky?
We kiss until nothing else matters, and I forget where I am.
I forget where I am until a gargled scream pulls me back to the present. My stomach drops and my head whips around to where Audrey was standing. I see my mother move faster than I’ve ever seen before, sprinting towards the river and jumping to where my daughter’s head has just disappeared under the water’s surface.
Ethan jumps up, yelling at my mother to stop but she doesn’t listen. My voice is gone, and all I can do is run towards the two people I love most with my heart in my throat and panic coursing through my veins. The water splashes as I watch my mom jump in and dread grips my entire body like a cold hand. My eyes flick to the center of the river, where the icy water is rushing dangerously fast.
I watch in a daze as Ethan grabs a long stick, running towards the bank of the river. My mother is swimming with long, powerful strokes, and finally a scream rips out of my throat. My scream hits my ears as if it’s coming from another world, and the anguish tears at my chest. My feet are in the water and Ethan is yelling at me to stand back.
My mom is diving down, and after three or four agonizing seconds, she reappears with my daughter in her arm. Ethan splashes in the water to his thighs and extends the stick towards her. She grabs onto it and I watch him pull both of them back to safety.
I’m still screaming. Audrey’s lips and skin are an unnatural shade is blue. My mother is shivering. Ethan is saying something, but I can’t understand anything. I wrap them in my arms and I cry and cry and cry until powerful arms pull me away and drag the three of us back towards town.