by Becky Wade
“Without Oxy, I’m not sleeping well. At all.”
“Then we need to address that immediately. We’ll collaborate with your primary care doctor to make sure you’re able to rest.”
She counted off the next point. “You’ll need support from friends and family. The more the better, which is why it’s so, so good that Sam’s here for you.”
“I’m the guy who’s one notch above a stranger,” he felt duty-bound to point out.
“What’s my favorite phrase, Genevieve?”
“It takes a village.”
“That’s right. It takes a village, Sam. You’re here, and that says a lot.”
He was only in this room because she’d forced him.
“Next, we don’t want you spending too much time alone right now. It’s harder to resist cravings when alone because you might begin to feel miserable and lonely and obsess over worries.”
“Check, check, and check,” Genevieve said.
“We’ll carve out a daily schedule for you to follow,” the doctor said.
“I’m sure Sam will volunteer to keep me company,” Genevieve joked.
“Uh . . .”
“Yes! We all need to remember that this process isn’t about quitting Oxy. It’s about getting to the heart of the things that triggered you to rely on Oxy in the first place. And it’s about recreating your life. Oxy will leave a void. We’ll work to fill that void with other and better things. And last but not least, we’ll be conscientious about celebrating the good.” She started the snapping again. “‘Like a bridge over troubled water,’” she sang. “Join me!”
Genevieve joined her.
It was more likely for Sam to swim the freestyle at the next Olympics than join in this sing-along.
“We’re going to celebrate every single accomplishment,” the doctor said, still swaying and snapping. “Every choice you make that helps you avoid relapse is worth valuing and acknowledging.” The doctor turned a broad grin on Sam. “You may go now.”
Within half a second, he was out the door.
Three days later, Genevieve rapped on the door leading from Sam’s laundry room to the rest of his farmhouse.
While she’d been sick, her mom had carted her dirty clothing to the house on Swallowtail Lane and brought it back in carefully folded stacks that smelled like Tide. That service had ended, so Genevieve had reached out to Sam and he’d granted her laundry privileges at his house.
As prearranged, she’d found the key to the back door under a rock near the side porch steps. She’d let herself through the exterior door that ushered directly into the laundry room. The door at the room’s far end—the one she knocked on again now—was locked.
She hadn’t intended to disturb Sam.
Well . . . she may have intended to bang the appliance lids a little, to see if he was interested in coming by for a chat. But she hadn’t planned on knocking. He’d given her no other option, however, because something was very wrong with his laundry room.
Surely he’d recovered enough from the trauma of her initial meeting with Dr. Quinley to answer the door—
She heard footsteps approaching and stepped back.
The knob lock gave a shnick, and then Sam stood before her. He looked more bemused than annoyed, which she took as an excellent sign.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I hope so. I’m confused.”
“Because?”
“Because . . .” She extended a hand toward the gaping empty space next to the washing machine. “You have no dryer.”
“An excellent observation.”
“How do you dry your clothes?”
“The Australian way. In other words, the best way.” He sailed past her onto the porch. “Come.”
She followed him down the side porch steps and around to the back of his house, where an umbrella-style clothesline sprouted from the ground. She stared at it, openmouthed. “I . . . thought these went extinct in the 1950s.” Not once in her life had she dried clothes on a line. It was becoming rare even to spot an outdoor clothesline. Whenever she did so, the sight struck her as quaintly old-fashioned.
“My dryer broke a year ago, and I didn’t replace it. I like the way clothes smell when they dry outside. This is better for the environment and less expensive. I’ve never understood why Americans love dryers.”
It would be one thing if he’d been unable to afford a new dryer. But he actually . . . preferred this route? “We love them because they’re so convenient. When you pull clothes out of the dryer, they’re all warm and toasty.”
“Clothes aren’t supposed to get that warm.” He looked at her, his chin set.
“I can see that your anti-dryer stance is as ironclad as my pro-dryer stance.”
“It is.”
“I don’t know if we can be friends, after this,” she said wryly.
“We’re friends?”
She laughed. “I was hoping so.”
He headed back to the house, her trailing behind. “North Korea and South Korea marched together a few years ago at the Olympics,” he pointed out. “So there might still be hope for us.”
“I’m not so sure. Our difference seems even more fundamental than theirs.”
Inside the laundry room, he handed her the basket of clothespins. “Here you go, North Korea.”
“Why don’t I get to be South Korea?” she asked.
“Because you’re the one in the wrong.”
“I . . .” But he was already gone, stealing her chance at a zingy comeback. The door to his house shut behind him.
Later, she discovered that she did not enjoy wrestling wet fabric onto clotheslines. When she saw people in movies pinning and unpinning clothing, it looked meditative, at the very least.
The breeze slapped her in the face with a sleeve.
This was not meditative.
Also, did he expect her to hang her underwear out here in full view of him? No thank you. Yet, if he didn’t spot any underwear, would he deduce that she didn’t wear any?
After a good deal of internal debate, she decided that hanging her underwear in full view was the greater of two evils.
She drove her damp lingerie back to the cottage and draped it over every available surface. Her panties hung from the mantel like depressed Christmas stockings. A bra sagged from her armoire’s doorknob.
She might be detoxing, but she’d recovered her mind enough to ascertain that Mr. Australia was wrong about this.
Clotheslines stunk. Clothes dryers were the bomb.
Genevieve Woodward is renting my guesthouse,” Sam told his friend Eli Price the next day.
Eli’s chin swung in his direction. His eyebrows rose. “She is?”
“Yeah.”
Sugar Maple Kitchen’s usual rush hour noises surrounded them. Conversation, cutlery tapping against plates, ice water pouring into glasses. They sat side by side on two of the stools that lined a portion of the bar.
“You know who she is, right?” Eli asked. “Genevieve?”
Trouble waiting to happen. “Judson and Caroline Woodward’s daughter. A Bible study author.”
“And?” Eli prompted with an expression that told Sam he expected more.
“That’s all I know.”
Eli was a fighter pilot stationed at Ricker Air Force Base. They’d met at the gym soon after they’d both moved to town. Eli had been raised in Montana, Sam hadn’t. Eli had dark blond hair, Sam didn’t. Otherwise, they were close in age, size, and athleticism. They’d become friends over weekly games of pick-up basketball. They’d often gone to Cubby’s to play pool or to The Junction for fried chicken or Pablo’s for their Taco Tuesday special. Eli had invited Sam over to watch the NFL a few times. Sam had invited Eli and Eli’s girlfriend, Penelope, over to watch his footy team, Hawthorn, play the greatest game on earth—Aussie Rules football. Eli drove to The Kitchen once or twice a week to eat breakfast.
“Genevieve is one of the Miracle Five,” Eli said. “There’s Genevieve and
her sister, Natasha. Sebastian Grant, Ben Coleman, and Luke Dempsey. Genevieve’s the youngest. Sebastian and Ben are a year older. Natasha and Luke are a year older than them.”
Sam’s brain spun. He’d thought he’d been doing well to pair Gen with the correct parents.
He’d moved to Misty River after the town’s successful rebranding as a tourist destination for city residents interested in a mountain getaway. He often struggled to grasp connections between people that everyone else had no trouble grasping. Likely because he spent so much time alone on his farm.
He’d been a teenager living on his stepdad’s station when the earthquake in El Salvador had become worldwide news. Shortly after arriving in Misty River, he’d learned that the Miracle Five were hometown kids. Amazingly, the five of them had survived a catastrophe that a tremendous number of people hadn’t, and their story was a point of pride for everyone who lived around here. The Miracle Five were a part of Misty River’s heritage, just like mining for gold and land lotteries.
At the smoothie shop down the road, a framed newspaper article about the Miracle Five hung on the wall next to the cash register. One of the floats in Misty River’s Fourth of July parade always commemorated the Miracle Five. Miracle Five Childcare’s logo depicted cartoon kids walking hand-in-hand toward the sun.
Sam knew the basics of the Miracle Five story, but he’d never had a reason to research its details. The whole thing seemed more removed from him than from those who’d lived through it here in Misty River.
It wasn’t removed from him now.
He stared at Eli, thinking about an adolescent version of Gen, trapped underground by an earthquake.
The woman was taking up way too much space in his head. He drove by the guesthouse several times a day. He saw her car coming and going. He felt her presence. He caught himself gnawing on concerns about her. “I didn’t know that Gen was one of the kids.”
“Yeah.” Eli chewed a bite of bacon. He’d ordered the farmhouse scramble. The second—and final—espresso Sam would allow himself today sat before him on the bar.
“They were there on a mission trip, right?” Sam asked.
“Right. Their church organized a junior high mission trip. About twenty kids, plus a few pastors and chaperones, flew to El Salvador. They were scheduled to help run a week-long sports camp for kids there. At the end of the second day of the camp, one of the pastors asked some of the kids to return sports equipment to the basement of a nearby building.”
“What building?”
“It belonged to the charity the church was partnering with. It was tall and old. Built of concrete. The kids were in the basement when a 7.8 earthquake hit.”
In high school, Sam had been too irresponsible to fold his laundry and too lazy to do anything except play video games once he finished his homework and his long list of chores. He couldn’t imagine how he would’ve responded, at that age, to a natural disaster.
Eli loaded his fork with veggies and eggs. “Around here, the Miracle Five are still considered different and special. Whenever one of them walks into a room, you can bet that the first thing anyone’s thinking is that they’re one of the Miracle Five, even though none of them have spoken about it publicly in years.”
“Why?”
Eli shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Genevieve.”
Sam took a sip of coffee.
“Those Bible studies Genevieve writes are popular,” Eli commented.
“How popular?” Sam found it hard to believe that women were racing out to buy books written by someone who wore her robe backward.
“They’re bestsellers. She films teaching videos that go along with her studies, and she speaks at women’s events. She can easily fill a megachurch every time she gives a talk.”
Sam eyed Eli with surprise.
“Take it from me,” Eli said. “She’s extremely successful.”
Genevieve
Suddenly, terribly, the walls in the room begin to lean inward.
We rush to the middle as the walls on opposite sides tip toward each other. All five of us crouch on the wrecked floor, which continues to jerk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
I lace one arm through Natasha’s and cover my head with my other.
A grinding crash sounds, and I look up to see that the walls have hit each other, forming a triangle above our heads.
I can’t get enough air into my chest.
How long will the walls stay like that? Propped against each other? Seconds?
And then, suddenly, the earthquake ends.
The ground is stable again, but the building isn’t. It’s still collapsing around us in slow motion.
Chapter Six
If a girl was going to spend time farming, it was best to begin with a thick layer of good-quality, non-pore-clogging sunscreen and a ponytail. That pretty much summed up Genevieve’s knowledge of farming.
Even so, she was walking from her cottage to Sam’s house on this blustery afternoon because she was determined to help Sam with his garden. For two reasons.
One, she’d told him she’d assist around the farm back when they’d negotiated their rental agreement. Until today, she’d been feeling too lethargic to follow through. But a deal was a deal.
Two, she needed conversation. Two weeks had passed since her first appointment with Dr. Quinley. At that appointment, they’d crafted a daily schedule that Genevieve had been carefully following ever since. Wake. Eat. Go for a thirty-minute power walk around the farm. Shower. Work. Leave the cottage to eat lunch at a public place. Finish workday at public place. Hang out with others. Pursue life-giving hobbies. Take sleep medicine so she could rest. Meet with Dr. Quinley weekly.
The “work” part of the schedule had been limping along. Eight months ago she’d committed to submit a new Bible study, due to her publisher four months from now. She’d organized and added to her notes, fine-tuned her outline for the chapters she still had to write, conducted research, and crafted a writing timeline. She was making progress, but sans Oxy, the progress was like walking through waist-high snow.
The “hang out with others” part of the schedule had been the most helpful piece. She’d been spending time with one or both of her parents, Natasha, Natasha’s kids, or her Misty River friends. When laughing, shopping, playing with her niece and nephew, or talking over a meal, she felt closest to normal.
But then, back at the cottage afterward, she’d crash. She was spending every bit of energy she had resisting her intense cravings for Oxy and hauling her body through the daily schedule. By the time she completed it, she had nothing left. Certainly no enthusiasm for “life-giving hobbies.” Each night she collapsed into her love seat and attempted to concentrate on a romantic movie and not on her deep feelings of sorrow (and how effectively Oxy could wipe them away).
Some nights she did a better job of coexisting with the sorrow than other nights. On her good nights, she’d dance and sing along to her favorite rap and hip-hop songs as she dressed for bed. Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea could be trusted to lift her mood.
On her bad nights, like last night, she’d weep in the shower and wonder, Is depression the reward I get for sobriety?
Every day she prayed. And prayed. And continued to seek a peace she could not find.
She’d made it to day twenty-four and was committed to making it to day ninety. Then onward, through the rest of her life, without ever reverting to Oxy. She understood that Oxy was like an island that she must never revisit.
Yet she didn’t exactly love the island she was currently living on, either. She longed to feel like herself again. She longed for the Oxy high that had softened the edges of everything.
As August dissolved toward mid-September, she’d begun texting Sam with questions about the upcoming Fall Fun Days. She’d been using his washing machine as loudly as possible, in hopes that he’d hear and respond by coming by to talk.
He hadn’t. Which meant that she hadn’t spoken to him face to
face in a week and a half.
She couldn’t quite explain it, but she . . . missed him. And it wasn’t that she just missed general human interaction—her daily schedule mandated that happened.
There was just something about him. About Sam.
Approaching his house, she noted that his truck was nowhere in sight. Which meant he wasn’t at home. The realization demoralized her far more than it should have.
That’s just the lack of dopamine talking, Genevieve. Focus on the good.
This farm. This farm was good.
She paused between the farmhouse and the barn, which was set to the side and well back from the house.
The clapboard farmhouse wore a fresh coat of white paint. Its prominent covered porch ran along the front and sides of the first floor. Enormous pots of flowers stood between the downstairs windows, windows that were almost as large as the door. Dormer windows marked the upper floor.
Sam had painted the barn the same slate gray as the farmhouse shutters. As Genevieve made her way into the barn in search of gardening supplies, the scent of apples enveloped her. Her eyes adjusted to take in the hulking shapes of a tractor, a riding lawn mower, two ATVs, and numerous wooden bins. Every item within the barn appeared scrupulously clean. The gardening tools were all tidily arranged near the front of the space.
She supposed the term happy chaos would be lost on Sam. He didn’t seem the type to leave a dish towel on the floor or fling dirty clothes over chairs.
She selected gloves, a handheld spade, and a long shovel. Might these do the trick? Did she even want to attempt the kind of gardening that required more than this?
She walked down the sweep of land from the barn to the garden, eyes squinting toward the drive in search of Sam’s almond-colored Dodge Ram.
When sick, she’d been unaware of the galaxy beyond the walls of the cottage. Over the past week, she’d become a very nosy neighbor. Each time his truck rumbled by her cottage, she wondered where he was going, where he’d been, how he was doing. During the long stretches when no one drove that road she wondered why. Where were his friends? Business associates? Employees?
