by Rea Frey
“Wait. I need more coffee.” I got up, hands shaking, and poured myself the last of the pot. I stayed in the kitchen, at a safe distance, reading him. “Do I even want to hear this?”
“Probably not.”
“Great. Just get it over with, I guess.”
“I’m moving. From Portland.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and took a few steps toward the table. “Wait, what? Moving? As in moving moving? But your whole life is in Portland. You love Portland more than I love Portland.”
“I know.”
“And your shop. What about—everything?” I sat across from him. “How can you be moving? Did something happen to someone in your family?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just … I don’t know. Time for a change.”
“But why? Your whole life is all about—”
“I know.”
“So, why then?”
“Like I just said, it’s time for a new start.”
Nothing in what he said rang true. Yes, we had gone through a hard breakup, but Ethan wasn’t the type of guy to just pick up and start over. He’d put down roots. We’d talked explicitly about Portland being our forever place. No matter where we traveled or how far we went, it was home.
“I’m shocked.”
He shrugged.
“When?”
“Soon, I think.” He took another sip and sat back in his chair.
“Does it have something to do with us?”
“What? No, of course not.”
The breath collected in my chest, circulating. “Then does it have something to do with … her?”
He opened his mouth, the hesitation apparent. I stood so quickly, my chair clattered behind me. I moved to the back patio and unlocked it, slamming the door against its frame and throwing myself outside. I didn’t have shoes on, but I ran down the sloped backyard anyway, my heels ramming into jagged rocks and branches as gravity and speed carried me to the edge of Fairy Lake. There’d been so many promises made here, and now he was abandoning all of that and moving who knows where with some girl he’d known for a few months.
I started laughing then, which turned into a hysterical cry, then a guttural scream. Why did men always do this? I’d heard so many stories about the next person in line being the one who got everything. It was such a sad, overdone story, and yet I was the pathetic star this time. It was happening. I had a child I would do anything for, a thriving career, a town he’d made me love, and he was leaving all of it.
He was leaving me.
I fell to the ground and let my head rest on my knees. Nausea pushed bile to the base of my throat, and I swallowed it back with long, deep breaths. In minutes, Ethan was outside, crushing branches under his boots as he moved toward the lake.
I lifted my head in the dark. “How could you do this?”
“Do what? Move?”
“No, us. This. Everything! You ruined all of this.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “I ruined it? You better recheck your history books, Sarah, because you’re the one who broke up with me. What was I supposed to do?”
“I broke up with you because you didn’t want what I wanted! You didn’t want to be with me.”
He came to me then, so much anger in his voice, it scared me. “You have no clue what you’re talking about. No clue.” He turned and took a few steps toward the shore.
“Ethan, I have to ask you something.”
“What?” His voice was flat and sharp, his back a beautiful silhouette against the shiny black water.
“Did you have a ring?”
He said nothing, his hands still stationed on his hips. A full minute passed, then two.
“Ethan, answer me. Did you have a—”
“Yes, I had a ring.”
My entire body felt like it had been dunked in ice. I grabbed his elbow in an attempt to turn him. “When? When did you get a ring?”
“Early.”
“Like Cannon Beach early?”
He looked down and sighed. “Yes. I had the ring at Cannon Beach. And I’m assuming you found it.”
“I did.” My entire world was spinning and flipping. I glanced back to the house, wondering if we should go back up. “I don’t understand. We were together six years, and you never once…”
“I know.” He sat, then laid back on the rocky shore, covering his eyes with his arms. “I don’t know what to say, Sarah. I talked myself into and out of it so many times. I wanted to. I wanted to right away. I wanted to ask you, but then…”
“Then what? What happened?” All the air had left my body. I felt like I was melting. “You just decided not to?”
He sat up, a few rocks clinging to his shirt. “Yes. I just decided not to.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that.” The pain in my voice echoed in the night.
“I’m sorry, Sarah.”
“Whatever. It’s over, right? It doesn’t matter now.”
“I wanted it to be you. I did.”
“Please don’t say something ridiculously cliché like that.”
He looked at me, a sad smile in the dark, a cheap offering in the interminable silence. “I really did want it to be you.”
“So why wasn’t it?”
“Because I suck.”
I snorted. This was it, and we both knew it. The true finality of us, disintegrating like graham crackers in milk. I couldn’t breathe. He had wanted to marry me and then he changed his mind.
We sat there for a few minutes more, then I finally stood, shaking out my stiff joints. “We’ll leave in the next few days. You don’t have to worry about anyone finding us here.” My voice sounded hollow, dead. “I need to go check on her.” I started to walk back, searching for roots or branches in the dark.
“Sarah?”
I turned, still focused on getting one foot to move, then the other, back up the hill and into the house.
“You have to take her back home. Straight from here. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand that you want me to take her home.”
“No, I’m not telling you I want you to take her home. I’m telling you that you have to.”
“Or what, Ethan?”
“Or I will turn you into the authorities. Do you hear me? It’s not a request.”
“Are you serious?” I faced him in the dark, his face an inky blob beneath the moon.
“I’ve never been more serious in my entire life. I will turn you into the police if that girl is not back home in two days. I mean it.”
The dread spread through my body, a numbing agent. I nodded, an imperceptible movement at best, and walked the rest of the way to the cabin.
He would turn me in? He wouldn’t. I ducked into the bedroom and laid there, waiting for movement, the click of the patio door or his footsteps on the basement stairs. How could you suddenly hate someone you had so easily loved?
I stayed awake the entire night, Emma breathing hard beside me, occasionally throwing a limb in the air, mumbling, or grinding her small teeth.
Sometime after the sun came up, I finally drifted off and was jerked awake by Emma babbling to a stuffed animal beside me.
“Well, good morning,” I croaked, feeling hungover, the taste of decaf like fur on my teeth. I got up and scrubbed my mouth, rinsed my face, and threw my hair into a messy ponytail. I left the bathroom and searched the kitchen for signs of life. I went to the basement door, took a deep breath, and descended the stairs.
The room was dark and bare, the bed made as if he’d never slept. I ran back up the stairs and outside to the driveway. His truck was gone.
Ethan was out of the city, soon to be out of our city, and banished from my life forever. I was all alone in this. Only, the threat of being turned in hung over my head like a noose.
My phone buzzed, and I looked at the text.
I meant what I said. You have 48 hours.
I had a choice to make, a bluff to call, and a girl to protect. I had no idea what to do next.<
br />
after
We got to the market just before closing.
It’s when we always went, the workers too tired to care who was there. It’s when the mothers were at home with their children, which was both good and bad. No parents would be in the aisles to pay attention to us, but the employees might. Emma wore a hat and had a LeapFrog in hand, so she was utterly and completely occupied.
I shopped in bulk—I didn’t want to make too many trips—and we had a regularly rotating menu. We wound our way through, the cart heavy, one wheel not rolling just right. My cash was dwindling, but we would make it. I weighed the reality of being turned in against the reality of Emma’s family. What would she be returning to? And how would I get her back without the whole world watching? Ethan’s moral compass led him to think he knew what I should do, but he hadn’t seen Amy and Emma together.
He didn’t know her the way I did. The thought of dropping her at a police station crossed my mind again, but I wouldn’t trust anyone—even officials—to get the story straight. How would I ever explain myself? How would I ever say goodbye? I was now faced with an impossible, even more urgent decision, and I hated Ethan for putting this expiration date on it.
I made pleasant conversation with the woman at the checkout as she scanned the groceries and tossed them into brown plastic bags.
“Sweetie, would you like a sticker?”
My heart fluttered as the woman talked to Emma, who was still engrossed in her game.
“Oh, she’s fine. Thank you, though.”
“Are you sure? Sweetheart—what’s her name?—are you sure you don’t want a sticker?”
As if in slow motion, Emma lifted her head, coming out of her electronic haze. She nodded and smiled, and the woman pulled out a long roll of stickers and offered her a choice of a dog, a butterfly, or a frog. Emma pointed to the butterfly.
“That’s a beauty. Good choice.”
“Can you say thank you?” My voice was high and tight. I needed to pull this woman’s eyes back to me and off Emma’s face.
“Thank you,” she said, a small, shy smile at her lips.
The cashier handed me my change and looked from me to her, her eyes lingering on Emma just a little too long for comfort. “She’s adorable. What beautiful gray eyes. I’ve never seen eyes like those before.”
“Thank you.”
“Such a great age too. How old? Five? Six?”
I nodded, afraid to speak, my entire body pulsing with nerves.
“I’m five,” Emma said, wagging each finger on her right hand. “And then next year I will be six!”
“When’s your birthday, sweetheart?”
Emma looked to me, and I thanked the woman, and began to roll the cart outside, casually glancing over my shoulder. The woman was looking at us, and her face had changed.
“Oh God.” I turned back around and struggled to keep the pace neutral as we rolled to the Tahoe. I looked behind me again—had she seen my car? my license plate?—before lifting Emma out of the cart and into the backseat.
“Why are your hands shaking?”
“Hmm?”
“Your hands are shaking.”
“Oh, I’m—I’m cold.”
“But it’s not cold.”
“I know. But sometimes I get cold when it’s hot.”
“That’s silly.” She laughed at the absurdity of my explanation and tucked back into her game. I hurriedly unloaded the rest of the groceries and parked the cart right by the car. I got in and closed my eyes, willing my breath to slow. I waited a beat before putting the key in the ignition. With steadied hands, I reversed into the parking lot and made a sharp U-turn at the end of the row. I kept my eyes peeled for the cashier, for the sound of sirens, for someone to follow us back to the cabin.
There was no one—yet—but that had been my final clue. Threat or no threat, it was time to leave Montana.
* * *
We unpacked the groceries, grilled bison burgers, and baked sweet potato fries. I told myself I was being paranoid, that we were safe, that the cashier couldn’t possibly know who she was.
After dinner, I pulled out a map I kept stashed in my glove box and smoothed it on the table. The thick, waxy paper crinkled beneath my fingers. I rummaged for two markers from Emma’s craft stash and handed her one. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We are here,” I marked Montana in pink, “and we are driving all the way over here.” I circled Connecticut.
“But that’s so far.”
“It is, but you know what? I’ve always wanted to explore this great big old country, and who better to do it with than you?”
She smiled and pulled at the skin of her lips with her teeth. “Where’s your house?”
“It’s right here.” I circled Portland.
“What’s exploring mean?” Emma scratched her head with her finger, her purple marker raised in the air like a cigar.
“It means we are going on an adventure. We’re going to look at this map and pick four or five places we want to see.”
“But I don’t know any of these places.”
“That’s okay. I can explain what’s in each city, and we can decide if we want to go there or not, okay?”
“But where will we stay?”
“We’ll need to rent places, like hotels or houses. Or maybe we can go camping? Have you ever been camping?”
She shook her head.
“I can promise you one thing.”
“What?”
“We are going to have f-u-n. Do you know what that spells?”
She sounded out the letters. “Fun! It spells fun!”
“That’s right. Are you ready to help me?”
She nodded, her eyes focused on the task at hand. I had to be strategic about where we went. Bustling communities were good, unless people watched national news. Rural communities were generally safe, except finding an Airbnb would be more of a challenge. As we got into the exercise, Emma warmed, eager to scribble giant, looping circles around our destinations.
I let her mark the map with her own art as I scraped the rest of our food into the garbage, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped down the countertops. “Ready for your bath, sweet pea?”
“I’m not a pea!”
“Sweet broccoli?”
She popped the cap on her marker. “I don’t even like broccoli!”
“You don’t?”
I jogged to the back of her chair and tickled her. “Do you like the Tickle Monster?”
She giggled uncontrollably as I found the ticklish spot behind her neck. “Hold me upside down! Upside down!”
“Okay, on the floor.”
She flattened herself on the ground as I counted down from five, hoisted her by her ankles, and carefully lugged her to the bedroom to get ready for her bath.
After an hour of splashing, bubbles, playing, and washing, I drained the sudsy tub and toweled off her hair.
“Hey, Em. What do you think about a haircut?”
“Why?”
Because they’re onto us. Because Ethan threatened us. Because that lady might know who you are. “Well, sometimes it’s fun to get a different haircut. I was thinking maybe some bangs and kind of like here—under your ears?”
“But that’s short. I’ll look like a boy.”
“You could never look like a boy. Plenty of girls have short hair. Did you know my hair used to be this short?” I moved my hands an inch from my forehead.
“But it’s so long now.”
“Well, it’s been all different lengths. That’s the great thing about hair.”
“What is?”
I leaned in close and whispered. “If you don’t like it, it grows right back. You know how?”
She shook her head, her breath warm on my face.
“Magic.”
She grinned, but I could sense her uncertainty. She fingered the slippery strands of her hair.
“How about this? How about we cut some bangs, and if you like those, then we’ll do the r
est?”
“Okay.”
I searched the house for scissors while she put on her pajamas, finding a dull pair in the kitchen junk drawer. I’d cut my own bangs a million times, but I feared that she was going to end up bald if I wasn’t careful.
“Do you want to see how I do mine first?”
I grabbed a section of hair and snipped the ends, my own dark hair fluttering into the sink. I’d have to clean every last bit, just in case anyone traced us here. Should I cut my hair too? I snipped away at my bangs, cutting them into a blunt, even line above my eyebrows. Emma smiled as the strands spread across the porcelain.
“It’s like streamers!” she said.
“It is like streamers.”
I hoisted her onto the sink and sectioned her hair into three parts. I’d watched enough YouTube videos to have this down, though I’d never cut a child’s hair. “Okay, now I need you to be a big girl for me and sit super-still, okay?”
She smiled and wiggled her toes. “Okay.”
“You can even hold your breath, if you want. I’ll count to five. Ready?”
She inhaled, her small lungs filling, and let me snip as I counted. I managed to cut them right above her eyebrows, which completely changed her face. I made sure they were even before letting her look. She gasped and leaned forward. “I look different!”
“You do. I love it. Do you?”
She nodded and fingered the bangs. “Let’s do the rest!”
I told her to hold still again, more nervous about trying to cut a bob. I’d only done this to Barbie dolls as a child, most of which had ended up with lopsided cuts and some with completely short, uneven pixie ’dos. I started an inch above her shoulders, which ended up being closer to her ears after the first few cuts. I tried to tell her a story while I worked, keeping my hand steady as the dull blades sawed at her fine dirty-blond hair.
Twenty minutes later, I was looking at a Parisian princess. The haircut so drastically altered her face, no one would ever recognize her as the same girl. This little girl was tan and about five pounds heavier. Her hair had lightened and now, she looked sophisticated and around seven, not five. I brushed the stray hairs from her shoulders and clapped my hands. “Emma, oh my gosh, are you ready to see?”
