Fly Away with Me

by Susan Fox

  “That’s not for the interviews. We’ll start with some play time.”

  “Aaron, I—”

  “No arguing,” he repeated. “Shorts and a tee, with a bathing suit underneath.”

  “A bathing suit?” She hadn’t brought one with her. “I am not going swimming. That’s the ocean out there. It’s freezing cold.” Although she didn’t actually know that. “Isn’t it?”

  “Says she who lives in the city, where the snow’s piled deep all winter. But yeah, it’s chilly if you’re not used to it. We’ll see how you feel about that after we go kayaking.”

  “Kayaking? Aaron, I’m no athlete. Besides, you know my priority is finding my aunt. Kayaking isn’t going to help in the least.”

  He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Eden, I respect that priority. I get how important it is to you to do this for your mom. But I have to wonder, does your conscience whack you upside the head every time you contemplate taking a little time to just enjoy life?”

  Her mouth opened in a silent oh. Now that she thought about it . . . “I guess it kind of does,” she admitted.

  “A balanced life is a healthier one.”

  Her lips quirked. “That’s your fancy way of saying ‘all work and no play makes Eden a dull girl’?”

  “I didn’t say dull.”

  Not in actual words, no. And he did have a point about balance. “Okay, I’ll try to relax a bit more. As long as I get to interview every single person on that list and any other relevant names that come up.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “As for not being an athlete,” he said, “kayaking’s a snap. You’ll love it.”

  Had there ever been a physical activity she’d loved or been any good at? She’d always been the scholarly type. Neither of her parents were in to sports or the outdoorsy type, unless you counted her mom’s garden. But maybe it was time to stick a toe out of her rut and try something different.

  Kissing Aaron had certainly been different. The strength of her passion had caught her off guard and scared her. But tomorrow was a new day. An entire day she’d spend with him. A day to get to know him, a day to come to terms with the attraction she felt. A day to decide exactly how far she wanted to go with him.

  * * *

  Even though Jillian was piloting the early morning flight on Monday, it was habit for Aaron to rise when the birds began to chatter and sing. He was enjoying a mug of steaming coffee out on the deck, his bare feet up on the railing, letting the rising sun dazzle him with all its shades of yellow and gold, when his cell phone rang.

  He went inside to scoop it out of the battery charger in the kitchen, hoping Jillian wasn’t calling in sick. Instead, it was his sister.

  As usual, that simple, “Hey, Aaron,” tied a knot in his gut. Much as he loved Miranda and was always glad to hear from her, they so often butted heads.

  “Hey, Sis,” he said.

  “Is it okay I called now? You’re not leaving on a flight right away?”

  “No, it’s fine. How are you? How’s Ariana?”

  “We’re good. She’s sleeping. I’m in the bathroom so I won’t wake her.” Miranda had a studio apartment with a pullout couch that made up into a bed and a crib he’d bought for Ariana. “When she’s awake, she babbles away like she thinks she’s making real sentences.” He heard the smile, the love in his sister’s voice, and it made him smile, too. “Except some of the words aren’t real ones.”

  His niece was almost two. “You did that, too, when you were her age. Couldn’t shut you up.” He’d been four and had already realized he needed to look after his sister. Much of the time their mom wasn’t around or capable of looking after anyone.

  He took the phone back out to the deck and resumed his seat. “I haven’t seen you guys for over a month. Let’s find a time next week when I’m in Vancouver and you’re not working.”

  “Well . . .” Now her voice was strained. “Uh, here’s the thing, Aaron.”

  Warily, he asked, “What is it?”

  “You know I’ve had two waitressing jobs, right? And Mrs. Sharma down the hall has looked after Ariana when I’m working nights?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, poor old Mrs. Sharma broke her hip, and she’s staying with her daughter’s family until she gets better. Or forever, if her daughter has her way. So I had to give up my night job and it earned the best tips and so, well . . .”

  He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “You need money.”

  “I’m overdue on the June rent.”

  “Jesus, Miranda. You should’ve called me earlier. The landlord could evict you.”

  “I thought I could work it out. You know I hate asking. You shouldn’t have to support me.” She sounded exhausted, and he guessed she’d been up most of the night trying to come up with an alternative. He pictured her now, sitting slump-shouldered on the closed toilet seat, wearing her old purple bathrobe, her honey-blond hair pulled up into a messy knot, shadows tinting the pale skin under her bluish-gray eyes. Those eyes were the only thing they had in common, the one physical attribute inherited from their mom. Miranda’s dad had clearly been a white guy. Ariana’s, on the other hand, was black. Aaron’s niece, with her dark hair and mocha skin, looked more like Aaron, with his First Nations blood, than like her mother.

  “Ariana’s father should be paying child support.” How many times had he said that?

  “I loved him, but he made it clear he didn’t want me or our child.”

  “I know.” Why couldn’t Miranda be sensible about relationships? Instead, she took after their mom, searching constantly for that one true love—and searching in all the wrong places. At least his sister had the sense not to use drugs—and, he really hoped, never to sell her body.

  “Even if he offered, I wouldn’t take money from him. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

  She had pride. Not much in the way of education or common sense, but she did have pride. “It’s the law, Sis. A father is supposed to provide financial support for his child.” If his own father’d done that, maybe his mom could have made a better life for her and her kids.

  “And you and I’ve always had so much respect for the law.”

  Her retort gave him his second smile, though it was a wry one. When your parent didn’t put food in the cupboards or buy school supplies, much less candy, you figured out how to survive. He and Miranda had been damned good shoplifters, pickpockets, and experts at finding unlocked windows. Those habits were ingrained, so that even when they moved to Destiny Island they’d continued to steal. In Aaron’s case, until Lionel took him under his wing.

  Aaron watched two hummingbirds yammer and posture at each other, squabbling over the favored perch on the feeder that hung from the eave. Cautiously, he asked, “You’re not still shoplifting, are you?”

  There was a long pause and then she said defensively, “I can’t let Ariana go hungry.”

  Of course she couldn’t. Whatever his sister’s flaws, she loved her daughter deeply and tried to be a good mom. He just wished she wouldn’t let pride get in her way. “Jesus. What if you got caught? If you go to jail . . .”

  That had happened to their drug addict mother more than once. Then social services would come around, the same as when a neighbor reported that their mom had abandoned her kids for days on end or when the family was homeless. Because their mother’s parents had washed their hands of her and her kids—at least until the day she finally OD’ed on cocaine in an alley in the Downtown Eastside—Aaron and Miranda had been sent to foster homes. Occasionally those homes were nice; more often the foster parents were callous and sometimes they were abusive. Even worse, the siblings sometimes got sent to different homes, which drove him crazy. Who was going to look after his kid sister if he wasn’t there?

  “I won’t get caught,” she asserted.

  Knowing he was wasting his breath, he still had to say it. “Come back to Destiny. Live with me. You know I b
uilt the spare room with you and Ariana in mind. I’ll look after the two of you while you take some courses online. You can get your GED and some training so you can find a real job.” She’d dropped out of high school in eleventh grade, and Aaron blamed himself. After he graduated, his passion for flying took him to Victoria for training, leaving Miranda alone with their grandparents. She’d soon followed her own passion: chasing love in the arms of bad boys. On a visit to Vancouver, she’d fallen for a musician in a small-time band and a few weeks later she’d left Destiny to be with him. Their grandparents hadn’t even tried to get her to return. They’d jumped at the opportunity to be free of both their unwanted grandchildren and move to Florida.

  “You’re sweet, but I can’t impose. Besides, you know I hated that island from day one.”

  “Like the Downtown Eastside was better?”

  “It was because it’s part of Vancouver, and Vancouver’s interesting, exciting. Destiny’s the boonies, the sticks, the people are hicks—hey, that rhymes—and I wouldn’t fit in any better there now than I did then. I still don’t get why you like it so much.”

  The sunrise over the ocean, unique every morning. The whir of hummingbird wings, the flash of their emerald backs and ruby throats in the sun. The scent of pine, arbutus, and ocean. The endless fascination of the ocean. How could she hate it here? He suspected it wasn’t so much about the island itself as the circumstances of their arrival as teens. When their grandparents cold-shouldered them, they broke Miranda’s too-soft heart. She went all tough girl and never gave the place, or the kids at school, a chance. She seemed determined to hate everything about Destiny and had never changed her mind. Unlike him, who had, despite their grandparents, found peace and acceptance here.

  “I like the outdoors,” he said, “and I like that people here have that whole live-and-let-live philosophy.”

  “Oh yeah, our grandparents were so live and let live,” she said mockingly.

  “Okay, aside from them. And they’re out of our lives. It’s nice here, Miranda. Honestly.”

  “Look,” his sister said huffily, “if you won’t loan me the money, just say so. I’ll figure out some other way.”

  He sighed. If only Miranda’d had a Lionel in her life at a critical time to talk some sense into her. Sadly, her big brother’s advice seemed to count for less than nothing with her.

  “Yes, I’ll send you the money.” He refused to say loan because there was no way she’d be able to pay him back. “I’ll transfer it right now. How much do you need? And make sure you include enough to feed you and Ariana without having to resort to petty crime.”

  “Five hundred will get us through. I hate this. You know I do.”

  He did, too. He hated everything about it except for one thing. At least Miranda still loved and trusted him enough to come to him when she was in trouble. If they ever lost that closeness—or if anything ever happened to her or Ariana—it would kill him. If he could have one wish in the world, it would be for his niece to have the happy, secure, loving childhood that was denied to him and his sister. But Miranda was Ariana’s mom and she got the final say. All he could do was help in whatever ways she allowed. “Any chance my niece is awake now?”

  “No. Want me to wake her?”

  He’d love to hear that innocent childish babble but wouldn’t be so selfish. “No, but call me sometime when she’s awake, okay? And I mean it about getting together next week.”

  “I’d like that. Now that I’ve come clean and told you the truth.”

  After they hung up, he went online and sent an e-Transfer of funds, including a couple hundred dollars more than she’d requested.

  And then he shoved aside his concern and looked forward to the day with Eden.

  Chapter Eight

  Eden felt the gentle pull and slide of the blade through the water as she paddled more or less rhythmically, alternating right and left sides. “My family and friends won’t believe me when I tell them about this.”

  They had climbed into the two kayaks from a big rock near shore, with Aaron holding hers steady until she was settled. He’d slipped easily into his and demonstrated the simple motion of the paddle strokes. Telling her not to work too hard at it, he’d had her paddle around, getting a feel for it. Now they cruised parallel to the rocky shore, about ten feet out, her on the shore side and Aaron on the ocean side. He’d joked that he would protect her from rogue waves—which, of course, had her imagining what on earth a rogue wave might be.

  “Will you take a picture of me?” she asked.

  “Sure. Stop a minute.” He took her phone from the bright orange waterproof bag where he’d stowed their belongings.

  She rested the paddle on the kayak while she tidied her ponytail and shifted her sunglasses to the top of her head. Then she lifted the paddle again, smiling for the camera. She hoped she didn’t look too silly in the orange life vest she wore over a long T-shirt and the blue bikini she’d bought that morning. Aaron had made her put her shorts in the bag, warning her she’d get wet. Sure enough, she’d splashed a fair bit of water on herself.

  He wasn’t wearing a vest, and she believed him when he said he had no need of one. He’d told her that her likelihood of tipping was minuscule, and that even if she did, they’d be close to shore and he’d rescue her well before she got hypothermia. Mere mention of the word hypothermia had made her insist on wearing the vest. It felt awkward and she was sure it looked worse, but she wasn’t going to worry about either thing when there was so much to relish about this experience.

  First, there was the sight of Aaron, tanned and fit in board shorts—still dry, of course—and a navy tee with the sleeves ripped out. He was the kind of man who’d look good in anything, from a tux to overalls, and probably best in nothing at all—a thought that had persisted in springing to mind since she’d first viewed his tanned, muscled limbs. He seemed as at home on the ocean as in the sky, gracefully maneuvering his yellow kayak as they got underway again.

  Her red kayak looked like his but was nowhere near as obedient to her attempts to command it. Still, it pleased her a great deal when she did make forward progress, the slim-lined craft gliding through the calm ocean. She was so close to the water, almost as if she were a sea creature swimming along. Her paddle misfired again, splashing icy water onto her sunscreened thigh. Fortunately, the air was warm enough to counteract the occasional minidrenching.

  “What’s this greenish-brown stuff with the tendrils and bulbs?” she asked, nodding toward the tangled mess he was paddling around.

  “Bull kelp. It’s a kind of seaweed. And see that?” He pointed to an orangey-red blob with dozens of hanging tentacles moving lazily through the water between them. “That’s a jellyfish. A lion’s mane. If you’re swimming and see a jellyfish, avoid it. They sting.”

  She imagined entering the icy water and having kelp twine around her legs, trapping her as a horde of jellyfish stung her to death. No way was she leaving the security of the red kayak.

  “Stop paddling for a minute,” Aaron said.

  Gratefully, she obeyed. Her wrists and shoulders were feeling the unaccustomed exercise. “I could use the break.”

  “Shh,” he said quietly. “Look around and wait.”

  For what? But then a head popped out of the water ahead of them. It was sleek, with soulful brown eyes and white whiskers bristling around a snub nose. The creature looked rather like a wise old man. “Oh,” she breathed, gazing back at the eyes that studied her. Another head popped up, and another.

  In a hushed voice, Aaron said, “Paddle slowly away from shore.”

  Glancing away from the creatures, she realized the ocean’s gentle swells had carried her close to the rocky shore. She turned the kayak away, trying to paddle so that the blades disturbed the water as little as possible. “Are those seals?”

  “Yes, harbor seals. They like kelp forests because they eat the fish that hang out there.”

  With Aaron in the lead, their kayaks glided slowly through
the water, heading toward a rocky point. Heads popped up to chart their progress. Some went down again, and Eden saw a couple of seals swimming underwater in a sinuous motion. Several of the creatures had pulled themselves out of the ocean onto the rocks, sunning themselves. As she and Aaron got closer, a few gave a barking call and most lumbered, using their flippers to drag themselves, back to the water. “They’re so graceful when they swim,” she whispered, “and so awkward on land.”

  She and Aaron paddled around the point, close enough to the rocks that she saw strange purple creatures clustered in crevices, some humped up shapelessly and others spread into a star shape. “Are those starfish?”

  “They sure are. It’s great to see them. A disease has decimated their numbers in the past years.”

  “That’s too bad.” The creatures were utterly foreign to her and yet they were so bizarrely beautiful and fit this place so perfectly. “I hope the species survives.”

  She followed Aaron into a small cove with a sandy beach and a dock with a wooden sailboat tied to it. The land above had been semicleared, the trees thinned but not razed, and flowering bushes and beds of flowers dotted the property. A picturesque two-story wooden building sat in the center, with half a dozen or so cottages scattered among the trees. Behind a high, wire-mesh fence, she saw what looked like a vegetable garden, and noted the now-familiar bank of solar panels.

  “This is Kingfisher Cove and that’s SkySong,” Aaron said.

  “SkySong, like the couple on my list?”

  “Yes. It’s a retreat, kind of like the one those women on your flight were going to. It operates year-round and does quite well, but it’s shut down now while they’re away. Di and Seal wouldn’t mind us using their beach.”

  Seeing the harbor seals made her speculate. “He gave himself that name, didn’t he?”

  “Maybe. He’s Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia, so it might be a traditional First Nations name.”

  Aaron paddled more quickly, heading to shore. She didn’t try to match his pace. In the bay, the water was even calmer, the surface like deep, bluish-green glass. She almost hated to disturb it with the dip of her paddle, and after each stroke she paused to watch a crystal cascade of droplets tip off the end of the blade and splash onto the ocean’s surface, creating rings of ripples. The sun warmed her back and the top of her head; gulls soared and cried overhead. She stopped paddling, closing her eyes for a moment to simply drift with the tide. Utter serenity. Had she ever experienced anything like this before?