My hands are shaking, struggling to grip the handgun as I quickly turn around and press forward to the pile of hay in the corner of the barn. I step around the side of it and gasp at the source of the sound I heard.
A little girl sits huddled against the barn wall with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs in front of her. Her entire body shakes with the sobs she’s clearly holding back. She lets only the smallest cries through her lips amidst her soft, but ragged draws of breath.
“Oh my God,” I breathe out before immediately throwing my handgun to the dirt behind me and raising my hands in the air to show her that I’m not a threat.
She finally looks up at me through the tangled strands of shoulder-length brown hair that partially hide her face. Her eyes are filled with fear and terror, desperately pleading with me not to advance on her. They make me feel like a monster, despite my attempts to show her that I have no intention of causing her any harm.
“It’s okay,” I offer quietly to calm her down. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She doesn’t react to what I’ve said. Her frightened expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t believe me.
Silas quickly appears next to me to see what’s going on. He’s still armed with his rifle at the ready, probably not helping my case with this girl, the claim that we don’t pose a threat to her.
“Put it away,” I whisper to him, making sure that he gets the rifle out of sight behind his back before I return my full attention to the petrified girl in front of us. Her clothes and skin are spotted with dirt. She’s so young; she can’t be more than ten years old.
“My name is Ash,” I offer calmly, “and this is Silas. What’s your name?”
She looks away from us instead of responding to my question. Her crying is more audible now, causing some strange panic inside me because I’m not able to get through to her.
“He said I should be quiet,” she finally squeaks out amidst intermittent sobs, “but I couldn’t stay quiet enough. You found me.”
The inexplicable panic I was feeling before suddenly becomes more real when she makes this statement. I hate that I have to question her about this, but I need to know what we’re dealing with. “Who told you that?”
“My dad,” she breathes out in response.
I sense Silas tensing up next to me at hearing this. A similar feeling of anxiety rolls through me, but it’s overshadowed by my concern for the helpless girl in front of us.
“Where is your dad?” I ask carefully.
She looks up at me again with a tear-stained face. There is a strange spark of recognition in her expression, as if she has just remembered something that she had forgotten.
With a quick swipe of her arm across her face, she wipes her tears away. Rather than resuming her position with her arms around her legs pulled up against her chest, she relaxes her body and sits cross-legged instead, all while taking deep breaths to stop her flow of tears.
She stares down at the dirt next to her now and whispers, “He also said I shouldn’t cry for him.”
As she slowly traces a small heart shape in the dirt with her forefinger, I realize the heartbreaking truth of this situation. I know exactly what she’s actually telling us.
There won’t be an angry, protective father returning to this barn to love and care for his daughter.
Her father is dead.
My body moves forward automatically, bringing me within a couple of feet of where the girl is sitting behind the hay pile. She flinches away from me when I take a seat next to her, but when she sees me sit down, cross-legged on the dirt just like her, she abandons any effort to flee.
Keeping my voice soft and friendly, I ask, “Do you have any other family?”
She shakes her head, each movement of it causing my heart to ache even more inside my chest. “My mom died when I was young,” she informs me, and I suddenly feel my heart breaking at the thought that she has been through enough that she would use that expression as though she weren’t still young.
“How old are you?” I can’t help asking.
She straightens her back to achieve a straighter posture in her sitting position before she replies confidently, “I’m eight years old.”
I try not to dwell on the thought that she was probably just finishing kindergarten when society collapsed and everything changed. Instead, I focus on continuing our conversation now that she seems more comfortable and willing to talk.
“Well, you are very brave eight-year-old,” I commend her, prompting the slightest turn of her lips up into a smile. “I’m sorry if we scared you. We didn’t mean to.”
She glances away from me toward the back wall of the barn and asks, “Why did you kick Daddy Bear?”
I’m slightly horrified at being reminded of the teddy bear that I inadvertently mistreated in front of its loving owner, especially given that it apparently takes on the name of her dead father. “I was upset,” I respond honestly to her question. “Your bear reminded me of something that makes me both really sad and angry.”
“What made you sad and angry?”
I smile briefly at her, having forgotten that kids like to ask a lot of questions. My grin fades, though, when I tell her the answer. “I can’t have any children of my own.”
I hear her follow-up question asking why I can’t have children, but my mind is too distracted by the life-changing realization that has just hit me.
When I glance back at Silas who is still standing nearby, I see the understanding in his expression: he knows exactly what I’m thinking. He’s had the same realization that I’ve just had. Fate has intervened again to offer an opportunity for something wonderful to come out of utter tragedy.
By the time I look back at the girl again, tears are already streaming down my face. My throat becomes thick with emotion. My chest burns with the aching of the broken heart that might actually ease as a result of what I’m about to say.
Before I can speak, though, she looks at me with concern and asks, “Why are you crying?”
A mix of a sob and laugh comes out of me, causing her to look even more worried. When I finally feel like I can speak again, I ask what could possibly be one of the most important questions of my life. “Do you want to come be a part of our family?”
Her look of concern is replaced with shock until she finally seems to digest what I’ve just offered her. “You want me to live with you?” she questions with disbelief.
I nod, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. “Silas and I have a house hidden away in the mountains nearby. It has a tall fence and running water. It even has solar-powered electricity.”
Her eyes widen with excitement at the living arrangements that I’ve just described. “Who else lives there?”
“My brother, Jake,” I reply automatically, “and his partner and our good friend, Joseph.”
The girl doesn’t seem thrown off at all by my description of the other half of our family. She doesn’t even question it, which only makes me want her to be with us even more.
“Can we go now?” she asks excitedly. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
I nod, unable to hold back the smile that forms on my lips at her eagerness. “Of course. We just need to grab some canning jars that we found in the house. Do you want to help me get them while Silas gets the truck?”
“Canning jars?” she repeats questioningly. “Like the kind for vegetables?” She doesn’t even wait for my response before she leans forward to dig in the hay pile in front of her, removing a pink and gray backpack hidden just under the surface. After brushing away the residual pieces of hay, she unzips the bag and reaches her arm inside to dig for something.
When her hand emerges full of seed packets, I just about want to start crying again.
“You collected all of those?” I ask with surprise.
A proud smile forms on her lips when she nods in response. “I have a bunch of them.”
“Well, we have a garden you can plant them in if you want. We’re trying to expand it.”
“I want to see it!” she beams with excitement before dropping the seed packets back into her backpack and zipping it closed.
I can’t help laughing as I get back up to my feet, covertly grabbing my handgun from the dirt along the way and hiding it in the back band of my jeans beneath my shirt. When I extend my hand toward the ball of enthusiasm in front of me, she doesn’t hesitate to take it. Her hand feels so tiny in my palm even though it’s not that much smaller than my hand.
When she’s standing up with her backpack over her shoulder, she doesn’t let go of my hand as I expect her to. She grips me as if I’m the lifeline that’s pulling her out of the raging river that was about to consume her.
I won’t let go. I’ll bring this girl to safer shores. I’ll give her the home, family, and love she deserves.
We turn around to find Silas watching us affectionately with a small amount of disbelief mixed in to his expression. When he glances to the side of us, he seems to have a moment of realization and begins walking toward the back wall of the barn.
As Silas picks up the almost-forgotten teddy bear from the dirt and moves back toward us, I realize that I’ve just neglected the poor stuffed object for the second time in the last five minutes.
The bear’s owner doesn’t seem to notice, though. She seems a bit apprehensive, but grins appreciatively when Silas offers the bear to her. She pulls it against her chest and doesn’t let go, but then her smile starts to fade.
I can see the sadness of her loss emerging, threatening to overcome the excitement she was exuding only seconds before. Trying to preempt the inevitable rush of emotion as much as possible, I quickly scan the area for something to distract her.
My eyes lock on some empty wooden crates on the other side of the barn. Pointing forward to them, I ask the girl, “Want to grab a crate with me for the canning jars?”
She nods in response, though not quite as eagerly as I had hoped she would. I’m about to step forward to fulfill the next step of my makeshift plan when I realize there’s an important question she never answered.
“If I’m going to employ you as my canning jar partner,” I say playfully, “I’ll need to know your name.”
Some of the life finally comes back into her expression. “Emily Ward.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” I compliment with a wide grin. “I’m excited to work with you, Emily Ward.”