35. Hailey
Hailey
L ife is so funny. One minute you think you've got a handle on it. The next, you realize you didn't have a clue. Not a single clue.
When I arrived here at True Heart Lodge, my only thoughts were to get away from Aurora, gather my shit together, remember my mom and dad, and swim in the same lake I remembered splashing in as a little kid.
Now here I am, with not one but three men—not to mention a little girl—in my new family, and I'm finally building a future for myself.
I mean a real future. Not just traveling the world, like I've been doing for the past few years, and certainly not sitting in an office cubicle doing accounting, like I started out doing back when I lived with my Aunt May and Uncle Roger.
It's strange how that life now feels as far away as if it happened in a dream—or to someone else. Something I saw in a film.
Did I really spend all those years in Aurora? Even my early memories of time with Mom and Dad out here at True Heart Lodge seem more vivid to me now than those faded, distant years.
Yet it was only a few short years ago that I quit my junior accounting job to travel. And merely a couple of months since I said goodbye to Aunt May's friend Tara and headed out here to live in my inheritance—my little mountain cabin.
I had no idea what to expect.
I would never have guessed I'd end up here, tonight, on my veranda with these three strong men and this equally resilient little girl, our bonfire blazing, watching the sun go down.
Stillness surrounds us on this magical, shortest night of the year. The sun fades in the west, orange and pink, the last flames going out, as the birds fly home to roost. Above us, the stars are out—silver dots in the inky blue of the night sky.
"Look—a shooting star!" Grace points upward, and we all catch a glimpse of a meteor flashing bright as it grazes the atmosphere, before burning out and vanishing. Gone forever.
A gentle nighttime breeze wafts around my shoulders, and I shiver in my T-shirt. Ever attentive, Reed is already on the case, handing me my hoodie and stealing a gentle kiss as he does so.
Turns out, our resident ladies' man has become quite the gentleman, I think to myself—but I don't say it out loud. I just smile and thank him.
In truth, all the men have been wonderful since that moment, a few short days ago, when we agreed we would all marry each other.
And of course, when better to be wed than tonight, summer solstice.
The night of Sundance. The night my parents were joined in holy wedlock for the second time—not in a church, but right here, on the shore of the lake—wedded by the Ute tribe they had first come to study, then befriended, and ultimately loved as family.
We had four rings made, all matching. Nothing fancy—four gold bands, each with four tiny diamonds set into it, one for each soul.
The only difference is in the size. My ring is tiny compared to the men's, especially Lennon's, which looks twice the size of mine.
The rings sit together in a wooden box, ready for their moment.
For now, though, we eat and drink, we laugh and play. We talk under the stars, and by the light of a crescent moon peeking at us from the south, shining its silvery glow on the lake beside us.
Midnight.
"It's time!" Dean calls out.
We all walk to the very edge of the lake, kick off our shoes, and step in.
The water is cool, but not cold, lapping at our ankles and making me sharply aware of the physicality of my body.
We hold hands in a circle, moonlight reflecting in the water, and the orange firelight illuminating our faces so we can see each other clearly.
Little Grace is with us, and we had all agreed she should be the one to marry us. She's been practicing the short ceremony we wrote, and now she stands in the center of our circle, holding the western red cedar box that contains our wedding bands.
"Who takes this woman to be their wife?" she calls out, in a clear and steady voice.
"We do!" the three men reply, strong and sure.
"Who takes these men to be her husbands?" she asks next.
"I do!" My response surprises even me with its strength and certainty.
At the far end of the lake, a waterbird cries out and makes a splash as it wings toward the shore.
"And do you all promise to love and care for each other, equally and faithfully, until death shall part you?" For a four-year-old she does amazingly well. I'd thought she could never remember that entire line, but Lennon had said 'wait and see', and he was right.
"We do!" Our four voices blend together into a powerful shout. A breeze stirs the lake's surface, then stills again.
"Then wear your rings as a permanent reminder of this solemn vow you have made today."
At this, she opens the box, and we each reach in to take our rings and place them on our fingers.
There's already a band on Lennon's ring finger, but that's okay.
We all want him to leave it there and simply add this new one beside it.
He doesn't have to stop loving Georgia's memory simply because he loves us, too.
We close the ceremony in a group hug—Grace in the middle, getting squeezed the hardest, but she doesn't seem to mind.
And then Reed—of course it would be Reed—can contain himself no longer. With a whoop of laughter, he scoops me up and tosses me shrieking into the lake.
The next few minutes are chaos: five children—three huge ones, one fairly large one, and one regular-sized one—laughing, shouting, splashing, and kicking water at each other until we're all soaked to the skin.
Eventually, we clamber back to the shore. It's a warm night, and thankfully, I brought plenty of towels. We huddle together around the bonfire and roast sausages over the flames, the fat dripping down and hissing in the fire.
And then, without intending to… we sleep.
Ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding…
I stir in my slumber.
What is that annoying noise?
A fly?
A wasp?
Why won't it go away?
Ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding…
I try to ignore it, but something's tugging at the edge of my mind. Something important.
Something about my mom and dad…
Something about the summer solstice…
Ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding…
Oh my God!
"Wake up! Wake up! Everyone, wake up! It's nearly sunrise!"
Thank goodness I thought to set my alarm.
It's half past five in the morning—and sunrise here is at precisely five-forty-two.
Twelve minutes.
After reading my mom's third letter, I'd shown it to the boys, and we'd discussed it at length.
The vase was clearly buried somewhere nearby.
And—or so I was certain—we'd be able to discover exactly where if we watched the shadows climb the third pine tree when the drum stops.
Which, I'm convinced, means sunrise on summer solstice.
Right now.
As the boys and Grace slowly wake up, yawning and stretching, I picture the scene as it must have looked more than twenty years ago.
The Ute, gathered along the shoreline, their wickiups nestled near the trees, bonfires blazing.
The great pole erected at the center. Drummers encircling it.
Dancers weaving in and out of the firelight.
And there—my mom and dad, standing side by side, part of the sacred ceremony.
Me, just a baby—even younger than little Grace is now—passed gently from arm to arm, kissed, blessed, smiled at, stroked with reverent hands.
The drummers beat their rhythm.
The dancers whirl and leap in feathers and fur—eagles, bears, wolves.
Sound and motion swell in a wild crescendo, rising until…
Stillness.
The drumbeat stops.
And the sun rises.
Its first golden rays creep across the horizon, stretching out across the lake… climbing… climbing… until they touch the three pines standing alone and majestic on the rise above the water.
As the sun lifts higher, a shadow moves with it—ascending the first pine, then the second, then the third.
And as the shadow reaches the very top of the third pine ? —
"Look! Look!" Grace cries, pointing towards the lake.
But we're all already staring.
A single shaft of light spills between the trees like a spotlight, illuminating a solitary rock at the tip of a narrow promontory that juts into the lake.
That's where we gave it back to the land , I whisper.
And just like that, the light is gone.
"Come on, come on!" Dean is already grabbing a shovel and a pickaxe from the tools we'd prepared for this exact moment. He breaks into a jog toward the rock, the spot marked by the solstice sun.
The rest of us follow, breathless and giddy.
My mom and dad's wedding vase—it must be there.
The five of us stand together at the spot on the ground that we had seen the shaft of light touch down upon. There is big rock—a massive rock indeed—sitting in the ground at this exact place.
"This must be it."
"Have we got it wrong?"
"Surely this can't be it?"
But Dean has spotted something. "Look at this." He points to a spot on the top of the rock, and sure enough, we all see it. Inscribed painstakingly into the surface of the stone are three pine trees, and behind them, the sun.
"I knew this had to be the right place." Relief washes over me. "But… however are we going to move this stone? It's huge."
Reed nods towards Lennon. "Lucky, we brought along a big bastard, then, eh? I think this is a job for you, Lennon."
Lennon grunts, sizing up the rock. Lennon's a big guy, but the rock is almost as big as I am. How ever is he going to move it?
"Go on, Daddy, you can do it." Grace is jumping up and down in her excitement.
"Be careful, darling, don't pull a muscle." I want the vase— of course I do—but I don't want Lennon to get injured in the process.