The Meant to Be Collection

by Claire Highton-Stevenson

  Her eldest daughter Storm was 8 years old and had the smaller room to herself. A bed, desk, and wardrobe were all it held. Her two younger daughters, 4-year-old twins, Rain and Summer, were to share the larger room, sparsely decorated too. It also held a double bed that they would have to share and a double wardrobe, as well as a large chest of drawers that would dwarf them both. The sun shone through the windows on this side of the cabin, lighting up the room in warm, soft reds and browns. Slightly threadbare rugs covered some of the floors, but it was safe, and that was all that mattered.

  All of the rooms had beautiful old-style hardwood flooring and wonderful stone fireplaces. They just needed a rub down and a varnish and they would be like new; things were built to last when this old cabin was constructed. The cabin had electricity and running water at least, as well as all of the usual mod cons one expects in a house nowadays, albeit they were old and probably in need of replacing. All in all though, it was a great place.

  Nicole's bedroom was the master, with a small walk-in closet and a tiny en-suite bathroom. The bed was an old-fashioned double: metal frame with beautiful ironwork and covered in hand-stitched blankets that would keep them warm when winter came calling, and all three of her girls would climb into bed with her for cuddles, something they hadn't been allowed to do until now.

  She worked quickly to unload the sparse personal belongings they had brought with them from her car, a second-hand SUV she had picked up just a day before. There were only three bags and a box. Minimal clothing for each of them and a few toys for the twins and books for Storm. Everything else they needed she would have to buy when she could afford it.

  When she had finished bringing everything in and placing each item in the correct room, she set about making some coffee for herself and some lunch for the girls. She smiled as she listened to them giggling and screaming with excitement at whatever it was they had found to entertain themselves. It was good to hear; there hadn't been a lot of laughter in their short lives lately.

  "Hey girls, come on in, it's time for some lunch!" Nicole called. Within seconds six tiny legs scurried in through the door. Three smiling and laughing faces looked up at her as they sat around the small table in the kitchen.

  "So, what did you find?" she asked them, caught up in their excitement.

  "Mom it's amazing, the lake is like literally just there." Storm pointed out of the door. "There's a wooden path that leads out too, for a boat, can we get a boat?"

  "Oh, I don't know honey, maybe one day. And it’s called a jetty.” She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. “Mommy needs to find a job first and get you guys settled in school."

  "Mommy? Do I have to go to school?" Rain asked imploringly. "Cos I can stay here with you and learn from books."

  "I am sure you can baby, but school is more fun, you'll get to make lots of new friends and find out all about where we live now."

  "Is Daddy coming to live here too?" Summer asked. Before Nicole could answer, Storm replied gruffly, "No, don't be silly, I already told you that."

  Summer's eyes watered and her little lower lip began to tremble. "Will I see Daddy again?"

  "I don't know baby," Nicole said, immediately scooting around to where her two youngest sat. She wiped away Summer's tears. "Daddy has a lot of things he needs to do first." She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Storm had rolled her eyes and slowly shook her head. So much resentment. Her beautiful little girl had witnessed far too much and was growing up far too fast.

  "Ok, can I have some juice please?" Summer asked as Rain nodded. Grateful that their attention span was limited when it came to their father and that they could be easily placated, she reached for the juice.

  "Of course, sweetheart, and then when we've finished lunch I think we should all go to our rooms and unpack our things, okay?" Nicole said, smiling at them all. "We've got a lot of work to do."

  Chapter Two

  For several years, Lucy Owen had been in some kind of therapy or another. Initially, it had been a lot of physical therapy. Getting her back on her feet and walking again had been a painful and drawn-out experience that she was thankful was over, although she still had pain occasionally – always would have – and she still walked with a limp, but she was lucky she could walk at all, so she rarely complained. Her leg had been virtually crushed when it had been caught under the metal column that separated the windows. They had buckled as the coach concertinaed. Emergency services had had to cut her out from that, and then she had gone through numerous operations to keep her alive and so they could completely rebuild the bone with plates and pins. But she was lucky, or so they kept telling her, that it hadn't just been ripped off.

  Then the other therapy had started; the record company insisted on it. Talking wasn't something she enjoyed. She simply didn't want to discuss it; what was there to say? “Hey, my friends and the love of my life were killed, and I wasn't!”

  God, she was so over talking about it with people who had absolutely no fucking idea what she was talking about when she used words like pain and longing and heartbreak! What could they possibly understand?

  She had used to be an outgoing happy-go-lucky girl. When she and Nicky were out with friends, everyone would be entertained by the pair of them, but since the accident and Nicky's death, Lucy found she had no heart for anything anymore. One by one her friends dropped her from their social circles. She was glad; she hated their pity, the sympathetic looks they gave her when they didn't think she was looking. The whispering about her when they thought she was out of earshot. And when her parents decided to move to Spain and enjoy their retirement early, there really was nothing keeping her in England.

  The record company was very helpful in the beginning while they were still getting coverage in the press and using it to their own advantage to boost sales of Solar Flare albums, making a fast buck in the process. But they had finally realised that Lucy Owen was never going to get on stage again, so they dropped her during a huge publicity campaign for one of their other major stars. Her contract was torn up by mutual consent, and her career in music was officially over.

  Eventually there was nothing left in the UK for her, so she sold up. Packed up her stuff that littered the modest mansion she lived in with Nicky in leafy Wimbledon and put it all in storage. She couldn't deal with it, she wasn't ready to throw Nicky's things away. Her own things she didn't want to take with her; she wanted no memories other than the two photographs she had with her always. One was of Nicky and the other was of Solar Flare, the entire group in their heyday. It had been taken during a shoot for Monster Hits magazine and was probably their most popular, their merchandising always used this image on posters.

  She wanted to exist somewhere that nobody would recognise her, nobody would ask her about Solar Flare, about the accident, about Nicky. She found a place online and took the next flight out, going to America like they had all planned to do. It seemed fitting.

  The cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe was nothing luxurious. She didn't want that; she had had all of that, and look where that had gotten her. What she wanted, needed, was somewhere she could just disappear. She had been here for nine years now, and all the locals knew of her was that her name was Lucy and she kept herself to herself. Half of them thought she had some form of learning difficulties and that suited her; it kept them away, frightened to speak with her in case she actually replied. Her cabin was pretty remote, with only one other cabin within walking distance to hers; it was empty, and she liked it that way.

  Chapter Three

  Lucy heard screaming and naturally ran towards it, pushing aside the fear that rushed through her as she was reminded of the cries of her friends and bandmates that awful night on the motorway, ignoring the pain that shot through her leg with the sudden movement.

  The screaming quickly turned to laughter as she rounded the bend and saw two young children splashing around in the shallow water’s edge. They were very alike, twins most definitely; both had long
honey blonde hair that hung loosely down their backs, and they wore the same clothes, denim shorts and little white t-shirts with some kind of giant cat head smiley face thing on it.

  Lucy looked around, searching for a reason why they would be here. There was a third child, a little older with long, dark wavy hair and glasses. She sat by herself on a rock watching the younger ones, the protector of the group. It was she that looked up and saw Lucy first. The young girl clearly hadn't expected to see anyone out here, but she smiled shyly as she got up and walked towards the other two, ushering them out of the water.

  As they walked away, the older one looked back towards Lucy and waved goodbye. Lucy pulled her cap down lower to cover her face, but she found herself waving back.

  Wandering back to her own place, she wondered where the children had come from. Probably a family camping nearby, and they had wandered off, she assumed. She didn't like the idea that people were nearby though; it left her feeling uneasy. She didn't deal with people very well anymore. They saw the scars and couldn't help themselves from prying or worse, pitying. The scars didn't bother her, not anymore. She was more than used to them, and they were a reminder of something, someone she used to be. But other people were always interested, and it was the questions she didn't like, couldn't deal with and didn't want to listen to.

  If she had to go into town she always wore her cap. She would acknowledge some of the locals with a nod of hello, but her only real friend was Rita. The older woman ran the local store. Rita had always taken time with Lucy. She seemed to understand there was something deeper there, something Lucy didn't want to talk about. Over the years Rita had managed to garner a few titbits of information from Lucy, like where she was from or how old she was, but she had never asked her about the scar that ran down one side of her face, a pretty face if you looked at her from the right, but the scar marred it on the whole and Lucy hid it, always kept her long golden brown hair hanging loose on that side.

  When she had first arrived at the lake, she had only ever shopped at night or first thing in the morning when there was nobody else around. As time had gone on though, she had become a little more confident about going out in daylight. It helped that the locals kept their distance, not that Rita thought that that was a good idea. She wanted Lucy to understand that not everybody would judge her. Most of the local folk were good people who wanted to reach out to her, but they felt they should hold back until Lucy herself made it clear she would welcome their attention.

  It was something that Rita would continue to encourage, but after all these years she wasn't so sure anymore that it would ever happen.

  Chapter Four

  Nicole and the girls entered Rita's store a couple of days after arriving. The help wanted sign and the need to replenish the meagre stock of food they had drew her in. Everything had been a blur these past few days, but she hoped now she could finally settle and give the girls some stability.

  Storm had been enrolled in the local school and would start the following Monday. She would at least get to finish the spring semester before the holidays arrived. She had missed too much already. The twins needed to start socialising with other kids too. She had been able to get them into a local pre-school program that would have them for 3 hours a day, 3 days a week until September when they could start kindergarten. She just about had the money to pay for it, but it had eaten into her meagre savings, and now she really needed to find a job.

  "Hi there, what beautiful girls you have," Rita remarked to Nicole as they all wandered up to the counter. She looked Nicole up and down and made a quick assessment of the newcomer. Something about her screamed well-to-do, the way she held herself, and yet, she could barely keep eye contact. Her eyes darted around the room as though she expected somebody else to be there.

  She was dressed simply, in a plain white t-shirt and old ripped jeans with a well-worn pair of sneakers to top it all off. And she wore barely any make-up. She was stunning in an understated way, and yet her face held a haunted look about it too. Rita was intrigued.

  "Thank you, yes they are, aren't they?" Nicole suddenly changed from nervous to proud and gushed adoringly at her brood; it was the only time her eyes lit up. "I uh, I saw the ad in the window for help, I hoped maybe…I could apply if it's still available?"

  "Oh right, yeah sure I'm still looking, do you have any experience?" Rita asked, aware of three small pairs of eyes watching her expectantly, the older one taking a bigger interest in the conversation than the smaller ones.

  "Uh, not really, but I'm a quick learner and—”

  Rita cut her off before she could finish speaking. "It's okay, I was just figuring I should ask, I can teach ya whatcha need to know." She smiled. "It isn't big pay, but it's a fair deal, and you get a discount in the store, thirty hours a week and I'm guessing with these three you're going to need to be a little flexible, am I right?" A slight southern twang to her accent was just about discernible still.

  Nicole glanced at her girls and back at Rita before nodding. The bell that was attached to the door and rang anytime a customer entered dinged from behind them, and she flinched slightly at the unexpected noise. Rita nodded an acknowledgement to whoever had entered the store and continued on with Nicole.

  "I have a room out back the girls can do their homework in or watch TV if you can't find a sitter."

  "Really? Because I really need this job," Nicole declared, her need for a job finally outweighing her nervous disposition.

  "We help each other out around here. I hear you've moved into the old Maxwell place? Ain't nobody lived there for years, so I can imagine the state of repair it's in, and if you've rented it then I can only imagine the desperate need you find yourself in too?" she said sympathetically. Nicole blushed at the honest appraisal from the woman in front of her. "In fact, Lucy over there is your neighbour, ain't that right Lucy?" she said to the woman who had entered the store moments earlier. Nicole turned to find a tall, skinny woman in jeans, with long, light brown hair hanging loose and her face half hidden beneath a red baseball cap.

  Lucy had already seen the family stood together at the counter and realised they were the same children from the lake just a couple of days ago. She hated when Rita tried to get her to engage with people, but she tried so very hard not to be rude.

  "Yes," she answered quickly, adjusting her cap as one of the smaller children turned to look at her and was soon followed by the other two and their mother.

  "Hi…I, uh…I’m Nicole and this…these are my girls.” She stammered out their names and waited for Lucy to react. When nothing happened, she quickly held out her hand instead and waited. She looked nervously back at Rita, who just smiled. For a moment Lucy just stood still, staring down at the floor, but slowly she reached out a scarred hand and gently let her fingers touch Nicole's, then hastily thrust her hand back into her pocket. She didn't like the way that had felt, like electricity passed through their fingers and struck her somewhere inside that she didn’t quite recognise and yet, it felt so familiar. She hadn’t felt anything like that in a very long time, and it unnerved her.

  "I like your hat," one of the smaller ones said, cheerfully looking up at her.

  Lucy turned her head slightly in her direction, thankful for the distraction. The kid was smiling at her, so she nodded, but remained silent.

  "I have one like it, at my old house," the little one continued.

  Nicole shushed her. “Rain, don’t bother the lady. I’m sure she has lots to do, just like we do.” Lucy was about to turn and retreat when another voice piped up.

  "I saw you at the lake, didn't I?" Now it was the taller one that had spoken. She was the image of her mother, just in miniature.

  Lucy nodded again. "Yes." She began to fidget, feeling a little uncomfortable with the close quarter scrutiny. She didn’t like this; it felt like an interrogation, and any minute an inquisitive mind would ask about them: the scars.

  "You don't talk much, do you?" the taller one added, tilting her head slig
htly so she could see under Lucy's cap. Lucy turned her head away and took a step backwards.

  "Storm, don't be rude and let the lady be," Nicole chastised, before turning her attention to Lucy. "I'm sorry."

  "Sorry," Storm repeated. She looked about as sorrowful as her mother did. "I just, I like talking."

  "I'm sorry." Nicole apologised to Lucy once more. "I'll try and keep them out of your way." She realized that maybe Lucy was a little uneasy around the kids.

  "Okay," Lucy said quickly before turning to pick up a basket and walking to the other end of the store. Four pairs of eyes watched her limp away. Only Rain was too busy looking at all the candy bars to take any interest in the strange woman.

  "Lucy is, well she's a little different, but she wouldn't hurt a fly so don't you be worrying about that," Rita made clear as she spoke in hushed tones. "She just doesn't like people much, or not so much doesn't like, she just finds it difficult, I don't know why, but she ain't stupid so don't be treating her so and you'll be alright with her."

  "That's okay, we all have our secrets, right?" Nicole said, her gaze still firmly on the strange woman under the cap. She certainly had enough secrets of her own.

  "Sure do, so when can you start?" Rita smiled at her.

  "I can start right away." She smiled brightly, and for the first time in a long time, she felt that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up for them.

  Chapter Five

  Over the following days, Nicole slowly adjusted to life in her new home. It wasn't anything like what she was used to, but she would make do. Right now, it was everything she needed it to be.

  Storm started school. With 7 weeks left of the spring semester, Nicole hoped it would make it easier for her to make new friends right away. The twins loved their new school too; it amazed Nicole how little they were fazed by all the change that had gone on. For the first time, she was able to relax a little and let them just enjoy being kids, making noise and running around like kids should be doing. Of course, as long as they didn’t bother the lady in the next cabin. She hadn’t seen Lucy at all since their first meeting. There was something about Lucy that made Nicole want to know more about her, but the idea of orchestrating a conversation with her just overwhelmed her, and so she had not sought her out.