10. Piper
TEN
PIPER
“I go snow?” Finn pointed his chubby index finger toward the door, flexing and extending it in sweet anticipation. Mouth a pink bow. Messy white locks framing his cherub face.
“Yeah, sweetheart, Mommy is going to take you out to play in the snow. Just let me finish up these dishes and I’ll get you ready.”
He’d been begging me all morning, his adorable nose and tiny hands pressed to the panes of glass at the front of the cabin.
During the day, the view from them was even more breathtaking.
The placid, glacial lake stretched out in the distance, and in between our cabin and the shore was a large open space with a playground off to the side.
I assumed in the summer it was a lush, green field for children to play on, though now, it had a million footprints in it from other children playing on it yesterday.
My spirit expanded at the beauty. At the peace that echoed from every direction.
Part of me wished it were real. Wished I could tap into it.
Because this place felt…special. Different than anywhere we’d gone before.
I ground my molars to stop my thoughts from traveling down that path.
I needed to remember that the only reason I was standing here was because we were stuck.
Trapped by the bad luck I’d fallen into.
“I can feel you freaking out again from over here.” Nelly muttered it low as she teetered into the kitchen, moving to the coffee pot so she could fill herself another cup.
“What am I supposed to do but freak out?” I peered over at her as I turned to load our breakfast plates into the dishwasher. “We’re stuck here for three weeks.”
She grabbed the carafe and filled her mug. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing, Nelly.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she quietly urged as she took off the lid to the sugar container and added a teaspoon to her coffee, stirring slowly as if she were contemplating every possibility.
I blew out a sigh, knowing where her thoughts had gone. She’d been imploring that we make a change. Asking at every town that we traveled through if it was the one.
The one we’d make a home.
I hadn’t been able to let my spirit settle on the possibility of it. The fear that drove me always making me feel as if I were being eaten alive every time I considered it.
Memories of when we’d tried coming back at me like bullets. Guilt over what I’d allowed to happen.
A soft sound rolled out of my grandmother, her spoon clinking against the porcelain of her mug. “I know what you’re thinking, Piper. We just handled it wrong last time.”
Handled it wrong?
Didn’t she remember what happened? The consequence of me thinking I could settle down?
She slowly shuffled around, and her face pinched in care as she looked over at me. “I don’t believe anyone will judge you or blame you if you went forward, Piper.”
A different sort of fear scattered, and my gaze moved to my son who continued to dance in front of the window as he waited for me to take him out to play.
Grief gripped me at the thought of losing him.
At the thought of leaving him alone.
My grandmother was strong and fierce, but she couldn’t take care of him forever.
“But what if they did? What if they believed—” I choked it off, unable to say it.
Her brow scrunched. “I don’t think there’s a person in this world who would look at you and not recognize your pure heart.”
“But I was a coward.”
Her head barely shook. “No, you fought the way you had to. You had no other choice then, but I believe that you do now.”
The secret I’d carried for so long wobbled through my conscience. Hope trying to sprout through the barricade where I’d kept it hidden.
Hope always felt like such a dangerous, dangerous thing.
“What would you do if this was your home, Piper?” Her voice was hushed as she asked it.
Lulling me into a dream.
A dream I would give anything to be able to grip onto.
Wistful laughter rolled from me as I shut the dishwasher door.
Heaving out a sigh, I placed both hands on the counter, head shaking as my mind was washed with possibilities. My voice was thin and thready when I finally spoke. “I don’t know…get a job…find friends for Finn. Maybe some for myself.”
Visions of the sketches I’d allowed myself to look at the first night we’d come here hit me unbidden.
How that little girl’s dream had almost become a reality.
“Then how about you do exactly that for a little while?” She suggested it as if it were simple.
Disbelief had my attention swinging to her. “You know I can’t do that.”
“It’s time, Piper. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you think there’s a reason that we’re stuck here? I believe it’s because we’re supposed to be here. I think this is our place. Our safe haven.”
My chest squeezed. We didn’t get one of those.
Edging forward, Nelly set a gentle hand on my arm. “At least for a while, Piper. Give it a chance. I just have this feeling…”
A buzz of anticipation sparked in the deepest place inside me. A clash against the terror of what staying might mean. The fact that standing still only put a target on our backs.
She tightened her hand, and her words lowered in emphasis.
“I’m not gettin’ any younger, and I’m tired.
Tired of running. And I’m pretty sure I’m not half as tired as you.
The burden you carry. You can’t keep on like this, Piper.
You can’t keep on and expect to give you or your son the life you both deserve. ”
“Nelly.” It was close to a plea.
A plea for her to see reason.
To understand what she was asking.
“I want to stay here, Pipes.” Her weathered voice cracked. “I want to wake up every morning and have a view of that lake and a view of your son’s smile, and I’m hoping to God that soon there will be a smile on your face, too.”
Uncertainty trembled through me. Violent, crashing waves that threatened to drag me to the depths.
Sympathy carved her features. “You can’t run from your demons forever, sweet girl, and this just might be the place to crush them.”
My mind tumbled back to the texts that Theo had sent. The promise he’d made that he was more trouble than anything I could bring to his door. That he wanted it.
To stand for me.
But we weren’t his responsibility.
Besides, that man was nothing but a broken heart waiting to happen.
I could see it written all over him.
“Can I think about it?” I asked, not sure how I was even agreeing to that.
“Well, of course.”
“Mommy, wook it. Kids!” Finn once again had his face smooshed to the glass as he giggled at the children who were romping out in the field.
Loneliness pulsed, that longing pushing in from the periphery where I normally never allowed it to invade.
“I see them, sweet boy.” It was a haggard breath, and moisture filled my eyes as I pulled my gaze from him.
It landed on Nelly whose expression had turned to encouragement. “I know you’re afraid, but it’s been years. Your son needs a home. And so do you.”
Sadness billowed. “Isn’t it going to hurt worse if I have to pack up and leave?”
Understanding filled her grayed, hazy gaze. “Maybe. But living is always worth the pain that comes with it. You just have to hang onto the belief that the joys are so much greater.”
The tattoo on the inside of my forearm burned beneath my sleeve.
In sorrow we must stand.
There had been no standing when the only thing I’d ever done was run.
My throat nearly closed off, and I stared at her as a tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m not sure how to do that.”
Hope filled her features, a mix of love and devotion and the fear that we’d shared for all these years. “You take a deep breath, and you step into it.”
A riot of doubt blazed through me.
Worry and dread.
The nightmares of what we’d faced and the nothingness that we’d been running toward.
When would it end?
Nelly was right. Someday it would have to. One way or another.
Nelly suddenly stepped back and let a wry grin slide to her face. “And maybe you should do a little living with that smokin’ hot man who I’m pretty sure would give a new meaning to lovin’ you up right.”
I choked over her suggestion. “Nelly.”
“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Every time that man gets within a hundred yards of you, that poor, neglected body of yours just about combusts.”
“It does not, and that is absolutely not going to happen, so don’t get any ideas.”
She knew what happened the last time I got complacent. When I took the chance because I so desperately wanted to live.
Take this time, Piper. Take this time and live it like it’s the only thing you’ve got.
There was no way I could let go like that. I couldn’t open myself in a way that would only leave me trampled in the end.
My mangled heart crushed more than it’d ever been.
Because I had a feeling giving myself to Theo Mallin would be the absolute death of me.
“Mommy! We go now?”
I turned toward Finn’s tinkling voice, my spirit ripping and tearing as I looked at my precious son.
My heart expanded and compressed. The weight of my love for him so great I thought it might obliterate me from the inside.
This one single gift that I’d been given amid the torment.
“Go on and do some of that living.” Nelly shooed me out of the kitchen. “I’ll finish up in here.”
I wavered before I threw my arms around my grandmother, hugging her tight and mumbling, “I love you so much, Nelly. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” under my breath before I turned and moved for my son.
“Die of loneliness,” she hollered from over her shoulder, chuckling as she grabbed a dishrag and started to wipe down the counters. “And I’m not about to let that happen on my watch.”