Hunter’s Baby

by Alexis Abbott

  My father was the disciplinarian. The tall, imposing man in a dark jacket who went off to work with his briefcase and a cigarette and came home in the evenings with five o’clock shadow, an aching back, and a scowl. I lived to be helpful back then. I’d bend over backwards for even the most begrudging word of praise from my father. My sister Sage, who’s four years younger than me, has always been the rebel. Even when I was seventeen and she was thirteen, I was the one cooped up at home all the time while she was sneaking out our bedroom window to meet boys. She never got caught, thankfully, but she confided in me about her adventures. She was brave and reckless enough to do the things I was too timid to do. I didn’t dare step outside the lines, so I lived vicariously through Sage until that fateful summer when I turned eighteen.

  It was the hottest summer northern Maine had seen in years. Record hot temperatures every day. I had just graduated high school— being homeschooled by my mother alongside my sister. I was looking into colleges on the down low, even though my parents didn’t want me leaving our “safe” small town for university. It was understood that my future was going to involve a chapel wedding and probably six rowdy kids with some boring farmer across the way. I didn’t want that life. I was itching for more.

  I met Hunter at that crossroads in my life. He was the troubled, older guy who’d been in and out of foster homes most of his life. A hard worker and a good soul, but understandably rough around the edges. One day while I was out picking wild blackberries by the lilac trees on the edge of our six-acre property, I saw a man jump the fence and go running by, being chased by the farmer who owned the gigantic adjacent field. Apparently Hunter had stolen some produce from the farmer’s crops and gotten caught. Although I was frightened, something inside me knew I could trust him. I helped Hunter hide under the lilac bush. Because of my pure and clean reputation, the farmer believed me and moved on. From then on out, Hunter and I would meet as often as we could at the edge of the field. We would lie underneath the lilac bush and eat sticky purple blackberries and talk about how much we hated our small town. At first, I thought we were just friends— that a handsome tough guy like Hunter could never be into a boring farm girl like me. But over the weeks of summer, we got closer and closer.

  He was my first kiss.

  Hell, he was my first everything. Right there under the lilacs, moonlight beaming down through the leafy branches. But we were too in love to be cautious, and I got pregnant.

  As soon as my parents found out, they were enraged. The four of us left Maine for Albany, NY. Finally, Sage and I could get a taste of our big city dreams, but it wasn’t so sweet. It was bitter. I didn’t miss my hometown, but I was desperately heartbroken over Hunter. My parents broke off all contact between us. He never even knew I was pregnant with his child, a fact which still haunts me. They sent me away—they said it was for my own good, but I know it was just a cruel punishment. I was never able to find Hunter, no matter how hard I searched. It was like he never existed. And in the depths of my confusion and sadness, sometimes I could almost convince myself he never did—except that I have my daughter Flora as a constant reminder that he did exist. Especially because with her dark curls and brown eyes, she resembles her father so much.

  Anyway, as soon as I was free, I cut my parents out of my life completely. I was finally old enough and independent enough and done with their toxic crap. I moved out without warning and didn’t share my address with them. Sage did the same. She moved in with me to an apartment in Albany partly to escape our parents and partly to help me with the baby, Flora. (And partly because she and I have always been very close.) We get by. I work long hours at the Lazy Bean and Sage watches her niece at home. But Flora just started school now that she’s five, so soon Sage will get a job, too, to help out. I want more than just to scrape by, though. I want to thrive. More specifically, I want to prove that I can thrive (and that Flora can thrive) without my parents’ help. I have to prove that we don’t need them.

  Which is partially why we’re all in the car together on this drizzly Saturday morning, driving the three hours from Albany to Ithaca. I want to investigate the lilac murder for my new podcast. If I want to get into crime journalism, I’ve got to start somewhere, right? And maybe it’s a little crazy to be taking Sage and little Flora along with me on this wild goose chase, but I couldn’t exactly justify leaving them at home. Besides, our landlord is finally having someone come paint our apartment this weekend, and we can’t be trapped there with all the fumes. Especially not my little girl. So, it’s off to beautiful, possibly deadly Ithaca for an impromptu weekend retreat. Sage and Flora are in the back seat, singing silly songs and playing little games to keep Flora occupied. I’m very fortunate that my daughter has always been so well-behaved; long car rides don’t bother her as long as she has music to sing along with and lots of pretty scenery to point out. So far, we’ve gone through three CDs of children’s movie soundtracks, and she’s enthusiastically pointed at cows and horses and flowers out the car window. The scenery along the 79 is serene and beautiful, if a little empty.

  “How’s it going back there?” I ask, peering up at the rear view mirror. Flora is bouncing happily in her booster seat, flipping through the cardboard pages of a kids’ book. I smile proudly, feeling my heart get warm at the sight of her. Only five years old and already reading like a champ. I mostly have Sage to thank for that. She’s the best auntie imaginable, spending hours and hours every day doing little lessons with Flora. Sometimes I try to pay her for her efforts but she won’t accept money from me. She just reminds me that in our little homeschool circle, I was the one who helped her learn to read— not our mother. So she sees it as collateral. I can’t argue with that.

  “We’re great. Flora’s reading her caterpillar book like a big girl and I’m just counting cows. Lots and lots of cows,” Sage informs me with a grin.

  “Yeah. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I reply.

  “Mhm. Reminds of home. Except without the, you know, horribly oppressive parents and that one town drunk who used to puke on our lawn every other Friday night. Other than that it’s exactly the same,” Sage says sardonically.

  I can’t help but snort a laugh at her description. It’s spot-on. “Well, soon we’re going to get some variety out there. We’re well on our way toward the city now. Thanks for being so patient back there,” I tell her. She shrugs good-naturedly.

  “No problem. It’s actually nice to get out of the apartment for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love staying in and taking care of Flora while you’re at work, but it does get kind of boring sometimes,” she says.

  “Hey! I not boring,” Flora protests, her pouty bottom lip poking out. I have to stifle a giggle at how precious she looks. Sage jumps to backtrack on her statement.

  “No, no, baby girl. You’re not boring at all. Auntie Sage just likes to get out of the house sometimes and see something new. Don’t you?” she asks gently.

  Immediately Flora’s back to grinning. My heart surges to see that little gap-toothed smile. She just lost her first baby tooth, the left front one, last week. She was ecstatic to get a quarter under her pillow from “the tooth fairy.”

  “Yeah! I see flowers! Like Flora!” she exclaims, kicking her little feet excitedly.

  “Yep. Like Flora,” Sage agrees, giving me a wink. Ever since we taught her what her name means, she’s been kind of obsessed with it.

  “So, not to pry behind the journalistic curtain or whatever,” Sage begins, leaning forward to talk to me. “But what exactly do you plan on doing when we get to Ithaca?”

  “Oh, I just want to scout out the area for myself and maybe ask around for information. See if I can drum up any reluctant witnesses or something. Take notes. Some photos of the crime scene or as close to it as I can get. Nothing too crazy,” I answer.

  “You really think you’re gonna be able to find witnesses even the police couldn’t find?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “Who knows? I have a trustworthy face
,” I chuckle. “Maybe people will open up to me.”

  “Oh, sis. You’ve always been the one to think the best of people,” Sage remarks fondly. “I wish I had that much optimism about people.”

  “Are you saying I’m naive?” I ask half-jokingly.

  “Hey, you said it. Not me,” she laughs. “Look, just promise you won’t go sniffing up the wrong tree, okay? If the cops catch wind that you’re snooping around a crime scene they might not like that very much.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll be cautious. I’m not a private detective or anything, just a curious civilian,” I reply brightly.

  “Yeah,” she sighs, shaking her head bemusedly, “that’s what I’m worried about.”

  I steer the conversation back toward all the fun stuff we can do in Ithaca, offering to take them to a museum or the botanical gardens or even the nearby Ithaca Falls. This gets the both of them pretty pumped, as Sage looks up the attractions on her phone and shows pictures to Flora. The little girl is over the moon with excitement by the time our car rolls through the city limits. Where we were surrounded by greenery and emptiness before, now there are tall buildings and gorgeous city streets with shopping boutiques and interesting architecture on all sides.

  I let the two of them ooh and ahh over the passing landmarks, turning my own attention back to my mission at hand. I really, really want to investigate this murder. But I’d be lying if I said my curiosity was piqued solely by the location of the murder and its suitability as the first episode of my podcast. No. It’s more than that. I know it’s silly, which is why I haven’t shared this thought with my sister, but part of me is drawn to this homicide because of the unusual calling card.

  The white lilac.

  As soon as I heard about the white lilac stained with the victim’s blood, I was hooked. I can’t help it. I immediately flash back to that glorious summer back in Maine. The summer when I fell in love with the mysterious father of my child. When we rolled together, smiling and laughing under the pure white blooms of the lilac bush. We conceived Flora there—which is a big reason as to why I named her Flora.

  It just seems like such a coincidence to me. I know Sage is right: that sometimes I can be a little naive, a little fixated. But whether or not the homicide has anything to do with Hunter, I can’t help but be intrigued. It feels like I’m opening a door that has been locked shut for five years, finally taking a peek inside.

  It’s crazy. I know.

  As I drive through the sluggish Ithaca traffic looking for a place to park, I hear my daughter ask a strange question she’s never asked before. One that stuns me with its relation to my own thoughts right now.

  “Sage, how come I no have a daddy?”

  I look up at the rear view mirror just as Sage looks up to me, and we exchange tense expressions. Some wordless understanding passes between us. She turns to Flora and says in a deceptively cheerful voice, “Oh, you do have a daddy. He’s just not here. But that’s okay, because you have a mommy and an auntie right here who love you more than anything in the whole world.”

  Flora nods and smiles, but as she turns to look out the window, I think I catch a flicker of something like sadness on her sweet, chubby little face that breaks my heart.

  When I turn my eyes back to the road in front of me, my heart nearly stops. There’s something—someone—walking across the Main Street. A figure I would recognize anywhere, in any time, in any situation. The drizzling rain can’t obscure him. I know with every thump of my heart that the man crossing in front of me, walking toward a coffee shop, is him.

  After all these years, it’s him. The man I’ve been looking for. The man whose shape I’ve chased through a crowd, whose voice has caught on the wind from time to time to remind me to always stay vigilant, on the off chance we might meet again someday.

  Right in front of me.

  In the middle of downtown Ithaca, in the last place I’ve thought to look, is Hunter.

  Hunter

  I should already be gone.

  That thought goes through my head every time I have to stick around somewhere longer than planned, and that happens almost every time I’m out on one of these jobs. Ithaca is a nice place, so the scenery sure doesn't leave me itching to get on the road back up to Maine as fast as possible. But every second I spend here is another second I risk getting caught doing what I consider my duty, and if that happens, it’s all over. Sure, I have contingency plans. If I catch wind that I’m being followed by the wrong people, I can have a new identity and be over the Canadian border in less than twenty-four hours.

  But I’d rather not have to resort to all that.

  “Black coffee,” I ask the barista at the coffee shop. “Large.”

  “That’ll be $3.21, and can I get a name for the order?”

  I open my mouth to give one of the many fake names I’ve given out over the years to cafes like this, but a voice behind me makes every cell in my body come to a halt.

  “Hunter?”

  For a solid five seconds, I am frozen, staring through the barista with a blank expression on my face. It can’t be. Can it? I would know that voice anywhere, but it’s impossible. There’s just no way. Am I having some kind of hallucination? I’m not taking any meds, and last time I checked, I didn’t need any. It must be a coincidence. She’s been on my mind lately, so I shouldn’t be surprised that my mind is playing tricks on me, making me hear what I want to hear deep down.

  But I can’t just ignore it. I know damn well I can’t. So finally, I tear my eyes away from the barista to glance over my shoulder, expecting to see a stranger getting the attention of some other customer named Hunter.

  Instead, I see her.

  “Blossom…?”

  That moment feels like an eternity. Blossom, the girl from my past, the girl who got taken away from me when we needed each other most, stands right there behind me. It has been five years. Five long years since the two of us saw each other. I was twenty-three, she was just eighteen. If I’m really looking at her and not hallucinating or having some kind of out-of-body experience, then the years have been incredible to her. She looks more beautiful than ever. Her blue eyes, her full lips, her long hair, every part of her looks just like I remember, but every little change she’s made to herself over the years makes a hundred questions come to my head.

  I’m stunned.

  She breaks the spell between us by letting go of the child’s hand and stepping forward to wrap her arms around me.

  Wait, child?

  I was so caught up in Blossom that I barely noticed the little girl holding her hand. On reflex, my body meets Blossom’s hug in a tight one of my own, and we embrace right there in the coffee shop, feeling just like we did in the past. Over her shoulder, I see the child looking up at me with innocent curiosity. She doesn’t look much like Blossom, but she has some traces of her there. The girl’s hair is dark and curly, and her eyes are brown, but she has Blossom’s nose and mouth. They must be related somehow.

  Behind her is another familiar face-- it’s Sage, Blossom’s little sister. She was just fourteen when I saw her last, and a person changes a lot in those years, but it couldn’t be anywhere else. She has the kind of face that doesn’t change that much over time. She’s looking at me with almost as much shock as I feel.

  I’m so overwhelmed by the whole experience that I almost forget how much time is passing in our hug. We finally break apart, and I’m beyond happy to see a smile on Blossom’s shining, beautiful face. She opens her mouth to say something more, but she glances behind me.

  “...sir?”

  The barista is looking at me with an apologetic smile, but I smirk back at him and reach into my pocket. I take out a crisp $50 and lay it on the counter.

  “Their orders are on me,” I say, nodding back to Blossom and the others. “The rest is for the tip jar.”

  The barista’s face brightens, and I step aside to let Blossom and Sage put in their orders, but Sage steps forward to take the child’s hand, giving
Blossom a knowing smile.

  “Hey, I know what you usually get, I’ll take care of the orders,” she says. “Why don’t the two of you get us a table?”

  “I-” Blossom starts to protest, but it doesn’t take her long to give in, blushing and grinning. “That sounds great, actually, thanks.” Turning to me, she raises her eyebrows and smiles, nodding to an empty table near a window. “Shall we?”

  I can’t believe that I’m crossing a busy coffee shop with Blossom. This can’t be real. I start to wonder if this is all some afterlife experience, and that my last victim actually managed to kill me somehow. But when I sit down across from Blossom and look her in the eyes, seeing the sunlight outside crack through the rainy clouds just to cast some bright, natural light in those deep blue eyes...I know it’s real.

  We just look at each other for a moment, smiles on both our faces, no words being spoken. She’s doing the same thing to me that I’m doing to her-- watching, taking in the way an old friend looks, letting all the feelings and questions bubble up to the fronts of our minds.

  “I can’t believe-”

  “Oh my god-”

  We try to speak at the same time, stop, and we can’t help but laugh at ourselves. Just like that, it feels like we never left each other. Five long years threaten to melt away and take us back in time. And in the same moment, I realize that I haven’t actually had a good, honest laugh in a long time. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I’ve even smiled like this.

  “You first,” I say at last, quick enough to avoid doing the same thing. Blossom tucks a lock of hair behind her ear as her pink blush settles down.

  “Gosh, I...how long has it been, Hunter?”

  “Five years,” I say, hardly able to believe it myself.

  “God, you’re right,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “It’s...it’s just so good to see you again!”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I say honestly, “I thought I’d never see you again.” And I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I’ve even forgotten how good it feels to be able to say something so sincere to another human being. I’ve had to pile on lie after lie for so long to keep my head down and out of trouble with the law that being open with someone feels beyond refreshing.