Present Day

A week later, Kassie had done her best to forget seeing the man outside the café. She had no other choice. In the years since Taylor was born, she had done everything that she could to build a life for herself and her daughter, and that life didn’t include her daughter’s father. She had never even thought of trying to find the man who had fathered her little girl. It wasn’t in her plans.

And besides that, there had been something unsettling about him. It wasn’t just that he was homeless, though that did incite some pity in her. There was an air about him. She had felt it that night that they had met, but it was even fiercer now. He was wild. Savage. She could tell that deep inside her. Whether it was a mother’s intuition or something innate inside herself, she did not know, but everything inside her was telling her to keep that man as far away from her daughter as possible.

Whatever it was, she knew that nothing was going to change for herself and Taylor. She was going to go about her life the way she had for the past few years since Taylor was born. Life had been hard for the two of them, sure, but she always managed. Even if she was a single mother, she loved her little girl and everything that being a mom to her entailed.

“Whoa, you have the day off?” her neighbor asked her as she walked out the door that morning, Taylor tagging along beside her, tiny little hand clasped inside her own.

“Yeah, for a change,” said Kassie as she tried her best to juggle all of her things while she locked her apartment door behind her. “It seems like too nice a day to waste inside, so we’ve decided to head out to the park. Isn’t that right, Taylor?”

“Park!” Taylor squealed in excitement. She loved their trips to the park. The little girl had a love for the outdoors. She always had, ever since she was old enough to toddle around on two legs and frolic in the grass. Back when she was just a tiny thing, Kassie hadn’t even known what to make of it.

There had never been a one-year-old so obsessed with nature, but her little girl had always loved everything about the outside. It was almost like she was a little animal herself, sometimes, the way she was fascinated by flora and fauna—everything from the neighborhood cats that they saw to the foxes that sometimes appeared at the edges of the forest. Too many times to count Kassie would look away for a second and when she turned back, Taylor had dirt all over her face and hands. This would lead to the poutiest lips in the world as Kassie wiped her off.

Adjusting her things once again, Kassie pulled Taylor up and onto her hip as she made her way to the steps and jogged to her car, putting her little girl into the car seat and finally pulling out onto the road. She was tired after her long week of working, but she didn’t want to show it. She never wanted Taylor to see how stressed out or tired she was on these rare days that they got to spend together, even if her little girl was still a little too young to notice such things.

“A bear, mommy!” said Taylor at one point as they idled at the side of the road on their way to the park.

“There aren’t any bears in these parts, sweetie,” said Kassie. She must have seen the animals in one of her shows on television. Making a mental note to buy her a stuffed teddy bear on her next trip to the toy store, Kassie turned onto the side road toward the park, listening to her little girl continue to babble about the big furry animal that she had supposedly seen, chuckling to herself about her little girl’s wild imagination.

The sun shone brightly in the late morning sky, and already Taylor was delighting in their day out as Kassie lay out a blanket for the two of them on the tall grass. There weren’t that many other people around, especially since she had chosen a spot on the far end of the park near the tall trees that trailed off into the woods, perfect because there was plenty of shade for her to read a book and watch while Taylor played.

“Don’t get your shoes dirty,” she warned as she lay back, watching as her little girl sat down on the edge of her blanket and began to color in the book that she had brought, furiously scribbling with a handful of crayons as the breeze blew through.

It was a beautiful day, one of the most beautiful Kassie had experienced in a long time. It was almost enough to take her mind off everything that had happened lately, the memories that had besieged her after her encounter with the man at The Jukebox recently. But still, every so often she couldn’t help but think about him. Was it wrong that she still worried about the man? That she couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pity?

Shaking her head, Kassie sighed. People had always said she was too empathetic for her own good. She just wished that she could do something for him without disrupting her own life and without complicating things for Taylor. The last thing she wanted was to make things difficult for her little girl. She didn’t know anything about the man or what sort of person he was. What if he was a bad person? If he ever found out about Taylor, she could be inviting a negative influence into her life.

Kassie’s own father had run out on her family when she was a teenager, and she barely spoke to him now except on birthdays and holidays, and that was only if he was in the mood to call or send a card. Most times, he didn’t even do that. She had experienced a fair amount of hurt because of the man. She had always thought that it would be better to not know him at all rather than to feel abandoned.

So lost was she in these musings that she didn’t even notice Taylor had wandered off until she looked up to see that the space at the edge of the blanket was empty.

“Taylor?” She called out, but there was no answer. “Taylor!” Jumping up, she looked around, but she couldn’t see anything, not even a glimpse of movement. Her heart beat faster as she began to imagine the millions of things that could have gone wrong in the few moments while she had been distracted.

What she didn’t see was Taylor moving through the underbrush near the edge of the woods, a curious little girl with light hair and bright blue eyes, so attuned to nature that she wasn’t at all afraid of the sights and sounds all around her. And this was a little girl who was naturally able to see and hear more acutely than most. Her nose scrunched up at a smell that wasn’t familiar, but that sparked something within her as if it were familiar somehow, and she instinctively turned toward it, cocking her head to the side. At once, she saw a shadow moving through the tall trees and the glint of something far off, and she moved even faster, squealing in excitement, already ready to make a new friend without even thinking that this could possibly be something that could be dangerous to her.

In this little girl’s world, there were no dangers and nothing to fear. Her mother had not taught her that the world was a dangerous place. Kassie had protected her and loved her and kept the scary things in the world at bay so far. Taylor, therefore, had grown up with love and understanding in her heart and wanted nothing more than to reach out and share that love with the things around her.

“Mister bear!” she said again as she moved toward the shadow, hands outstretched, when suddenly she heard a low and menacing growl.

Kassie, who had caught up to Taylor, heard it too.

“No!” she shrieked, running for her little girl. But Taylor had moved even further into the shadows, practically at a run now, as if overwhelmed by excitement. Kassie felt dizzy, and was surprised that the ground was rushing up to meet her. The rough bark on a branch scratched her face as the edges of her vision went dark. The last thing she saw was that some people nearby were headed in her direction.

Then she woke up. She was in the back of an ambulance, and Taylor was nestled on the lap of a lady paramedic, oblivious to what had happened.

“She’s waking up,” said someone. There was a male voice, and there were hands on her wrist doing something, and stickers being affixed to her chest.

“Wh-what?” Kassie stammered.

“Kassie can you hear me? Kassie you’re fine, your daughter is fine. Just take a deep breath. You’re hyperventilating.” Before she could lift herself up off of the stretcher, she was being pushed back down. She could see Taylor at the edge of her vision, playing with a teddy bear and giggling at something the lady paramedic was saying to her.

“Do you have a history of anxiety?” the man next to her was asking.

“I… no. What’s going on?” Kassie looked around. She couldn’t remember what had happened.

“You fainted, ma’am,” said the man. “Back at the park. Some passersby saw you. They called for help. You’re going to be okay. Don’t worry. We’re just taking you to the hospital to be sure you’re all right. Do we need to call anyone?”

Kassie shook her head. No. There was nobody.

Her head was swimming. What had really happened? It was all her imagination… right? There couldn’t possibly have been a bear in the park, could there? There weren’t bears around these parts. Not in Spartanburg. But she was certain she had seen one. She had heard growling… had seen one facing down her little girl. She wasn’t crazy, was she?

Her heart started to race faster at just the thought, and as it did, the paramedics started to do something with the monitor, telling her to calm down. Forcing her eyes shut and forcing herself not to think about it, Kassie told herself she was just imagining things. She had to be imagining things. She had to be.

And she almost convinced herself that was the case. Pushing away the incident, pushing away everything that had happened over the past several days, she was a mess of exhaustion when she finally got home that night. Figuring out how to get home had been more of a chore than she had bargained for, as her car had been left at the park.

“You really had to take a taxi all the way there? And then drive all the way home?” said the neighbor, having caught her in the hall as she trudged up the steps. Even Taylor was exhausted after the long day, having fallen asleep in her arms.

Kassie laughed, pushing a hand through her hair. “Serves me right. Imagine fainting because of something so silly. My nerves got the better of me.”

“It just means you’re overworked and overtired,” said Mrs. Jensen, reaching out and stroking a hand down her shoulder. “You poor thing. I can’t imagine raising a girl her age all on my own.”

“She makes everything worth it,” said Kassie, kissing Taylor atop her soft baby hair and saying her goodbyes to Mrs. Jensen as she finally pushed her way back into the apartment. She was ready to simply collapse into bed, but there were still things to be done. If only motherhood could be easy for just one day.

“Now come on, sweetie. Let’s get you ready for bed,” said Kassie.

Taylor stirred, opening her big eyes and looking up at Kassie, but for once she didn’t protest as she shifted around. Then, as she did, something clattered to the floor.

“What’s this? Was this in your pocket?” she asked. She didn’t think Taylor had been holding it. She hadn’t had any toys with her at the hospital, and she didn’t think anybody had given her anything throughout the day. Not that she had seen.

Bending down to pick it up, she got her final—and perhaps biggest—shock of the day.

Instantly, she was transported back to that moment four years earlier, the moment she had been trying so hard to forget for the past several days.

“My God.”

In her hands was a small silver keychain, a charm her grandmother had given her when she was first learning to drive. To protect her, the woman had said. It was a Celtic knot, nothing terribly expensive or worth much, but because her grandmother had given it to her, she had been distraught when she’d realized she’d lost it all those years ago. It was right after that night she’d shared with the stranger in the car. She remembered that much. And back then, she’d even thought…

“Where did…” she said out loud. But then…

Had he followed them? To the park? But then, had he seen Taylor? Realized that this was his daughter? Had he seen her and given the keychain back?

Kassie’s head was swimming again, but now she didn’t think she could just ignore what was happening any longer. Things were happening that were beyond her control.

She knew now what she had to do. While she may have been inclined to ignore him at first, Kassie had to find the stranger, had to find out what he wanted. She might offer him help, if it was possible, but above all else, she had to keep her daughter safe.

“I’ll start tomorrow,” she told herself. She would even get Hillary to cover her morning shift at the diner. This was too important to put off any longer. It was time to start putting things right where her little girl was concerned.