Chapter 11
Eight months ago
Acadia National Park
Ash Riley
“Please, Dads,” Hallie begged. “The rails are up and everything! It’s not like I’m gonna fall down.”
I was on the fence. So was Nate.
I checked the sturdiness of the rail on top of the RV. Dylan wanting to sleep on the roof didn’t worry us as much. He went bouldering with me in the summers, and he had coordination skills. Hallie could still trip over her shadow. Or, as today’s hike had proven, over a pebble.
We’d rented this particular RV this year because of those rails. Dylan had been quick to ask if he could sleep under the stars, and we’d spent a couple of sunsets up here already.
I went over to the ladder and climbed down, and I met Dylan’s gaze.
He shrugged. “I can keep an eye on her.”
Until he fell asleep. Then what?
Nate left the grill and came over to us. “Maybe we give it a try? We don’t know yet if it’s going to be too cold for her. She might climb down before midnight.”
We were having an awfully chilly summer vacation, and it wasn’t just the fact that we were in fucking Maine.
Hallie beamed. “Yes! We’ll try.”
She might climb down before midnight.
She might also fall down and break her neck.
God. What was it with this family and wanting to try? Had they no damn respect for the risks?
I released a heavy breath and put my hands low on my hips.
“All right, but on one condition,” I told Hallie.
“You and Dylan sleep head-to-head, not next to each other. I want you both at the center of the roof.” I looked at Dylan.
“Inflate the mattresses before you climb up, and bring the mosquito canopy. I can already picture her batting some critter away and falling off the roof.”
Dylan cracked up. “Yessir.”
Mikey came over to me and hugged my hips. “Can I also sleep on the roof?”
That was funny.
I smiled down at him and wove my fingers through his hair. “You get to sleep in the big bunk with me.”
“I’m not sleepy, Daddy!” Lily hollered over by the table.
I chuckled. “I know, princess. I’m talking about later tonight.”
“’Kay.” She returned to guarding the ketchup bottle.
“You don’t want to sleep up there anyway, sweetheart,” Nate told Mikey. “It’s gonna be cold, and there are mosquitoes everywhere.”
Mikey scrunched his nose. “Why do Dylan and Hallie wanna do it?”
We sent the two eldest warning looks, so they didn’t sell the idea to him. Hell, even I wanted to sleep up there, preferably alone with Nate, but life didn’t work that way.
Hallie shrugged. “I’ll probably come down in the middle of the night.”
“I want more space,” Dylan said. “You hog the bed.”
“Aw, the hell he does,” I replied. “He’s just a cuddler.”
“Yeah.” Mikey jutted his chin at Dylan.
If we ever went on another family road trip together, we were gonna have to rent a bigger RV.
So far, Nate had bunked with Hallie and Lily in the bed where two parents were supposed to sleep.
And I had squeezed my body up in the big bunk above the front seats with Dylan and Mikey.
It’d been…tight. Although, I’d appreciated having Mikey snuggled up against me.
He talked in his sleep, almost exclusively about food and animals. It was fucking adorable.
“Come on, let’s eat,” Nate said. “The hot dogs are done.”
At around ten-thirty, Nate and I helped Hallie and Dylan get settled on the roof. We sent up the air mattresses, two sleeping bags, the bug net canopy, a flashlight, binoculars, and a small cooler with drinks and snacks. Hallie dutifully stayed away from the edge.
Fingers crossed that the temperature dropped a fuckload.
“Here’s your camera, son.” Nate climbed up the ladder enough for Dylan to reach the camera bag. “Do you need anything else?”
“I think we’re good for a week,” Dylan chuckled.
“Seriously, how many snacks did you pack?” Hallie giggled.
“Well, in case you got hungry…” Nate climbed down once more.
I glanced up there. “Dylan, remember—if Hallie needs to come down, help her.”
“Oh my gosh, Daddy, I’m not a baby,” Hallie complained.
Right. “On that note, do you need another Band-Aid for your knee? You scraped it pretty badly on that pebble.”
Oh, she glowered.
I grinned.
“All right, Dad and I will be over by the firepit,” Nate said. “Holler if you need anything. And that includes if Micah or Lily comes outside.”
We’d still see the RV. We’d be maybe thirty feet away.
“Why are you going all the way over there?” Hallie wondered.
I pulled out the cigar from my chest pocket.
My little tradition for summer vacations.
“Ewww, that smell.” She made a face.
Hence, why I wasn’t going to sit at the table right below.
“Have a good night, kiddos. Love you both.” I sent them a two-finger wave before I started my short trek over to the fire. Luck was on my side, because none of the other camping enthusiasts were around.
Dylan and Hallie would be preoccupied for a while. Dylan with his camera, Hallie with…her phone. And Lily and Mikey were watching a movie on Nate’s iPad—if they hadn’t fallen asleep.
Four logs formed a framework around the fire, and I sat down on one of them and inspected the construction. I could totally build this, a smaller version anyway, the day I bought a house. A day I was getting increasingly ready for.
I needed a place that felt like home. I missed it.
At this point, I felt more at home in a rented RV than in that shitty little apartment.
Hell, I felt at home right here. Surrounded by forest and RVs and mountains in the dark. With millions of stars up above.
“Damn.” I’d forgotten. I stood up again and pulled out my whiskey flask, and I took two quick sips before I placed it on the rocks close to the fire. Let’s get that fucker warm.
Oof, that was a good blend. The strong flavors flooded my senses and burned a weirdly smooth trail down my throat.
I’d mixed an Irish whiskey with caramel notes with a spicy bourbon, and no regrets.
Then I sat down again and dug out my lighter and the cigar.
Nathan joined me soon enough, and he’d brought our National Parks Passport.
“That time of the year, huh?” I asked.
He smiled indulgently and took a seat next to me. “I don’t even know if there’ll be a next trip, but I’m going to pretend for a moment.”
I took a puff from the cigar and side-eyed him.
I’d become a pro at pretending. Every once in a while, I did it so well that I believed, for a hot second, that we were still together.
“We never made it to Biscayne,” he murmured, flipping through the pages.
I hummed. We’d talked about it a couple years ago, then decided it was best to go there when the youngest were a little older. So that they could enjoy it more. We’d wanted to go scuba diving and snorkeling.
We hadn’t made it to Yosemite either.
When Nathan went back to the beginning of the little book, I felt like I could read his mind. Stamp after stamp, sticker after sticker. Some doodling by the kids too.
Out of all the treasured memories we’d collected over the years, I knew that passport was going to be the one thing we’d both want in the divorce.
Countless weekends had been spent on shorter road trips and checking out nearby sites, like Shenandoah, Harpers Ferry, New River, Fort Monroe, and the list went on.
And then every summer, we’d driven off. A week, ten days, sometimes two weeks.
Three weeks once, when we’d done the West Coast. Redwood, Mount Rainier…
“Remember when we thought we’d lost Dylan at the Mount Rainier visitor center?”
“Oh God,” he muttered. “Those thirty seconds probably took ten years off my life.”
Yeah, same.
He flipped through a few more pages, brushing his fingers over the stickers we’d bought and some of the anecdotes he’d jotted down. Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Then he stopped at our only stamp in Georgia.
“Or when he tried to pronounce Chattahoochee,” he chuckled quietly.
“And when he succeeded, he wouldn’t fucking stop saying it.”
He laughed at that.
I smiled, even as heavy grief struck me. It wasn’t often I saw a genuine smile on his face anymore.
I rubbed at my chest and took another puff from the cigar.
The whiskey should be ready soon. I needed it.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of the forest, the fire, the cigar, and the soil.
I desperately needed something to ground me, because I’d spent months and months floundering now. Always on edge, always uneasy, always lost.
Nate exhaled and closed the book, and he stared into the fire.
“I had it all figured out a few years ago,” he murmured.
“This year, we were gonna do Maine and Vermont. Next year, we’d visit Big Bend in Texas—so you could climb or boulder, and Micah always wants to see new beetles and lizards.
The year after, we’d finally get to Yosemite, and I guess…
My big worry at that time was Dylan and whether he’d want to come with us once he started college. ”
I swallowed hard and decided the whiskey had to be warm enough now. I went over and grabbed it, then instantly dropped it. Fuck. Yeah, it was hot. I used the sleeve of my flannel shirt to hold it instead, and I returned to my seat.
I was careful at first, testing to see if the bottle was too hot to put my lips to, but it was okay. The first swig went down so warm and smooth that I went for a second right away.
Fuck me, I needed that.
Nate held out his hand, and I extended the bottle.
“It’s hot.”
He winced a little and used his own sleeve when he drank from it.
He didn’t cough like he sometimes did.
“Jesus, Ash. This might be your best blend yet.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded and took another sip.
I didn’t know why that made me wanna fucking cry, but my eyes stung and my chest swelled with emotion.
We grew quiet for a while and just passed the flask between us.
The fire was like a magnet. When I didn’t allow myself to look at Nathan, it was so easy to stare into the flames and get lost in our memories.
They’d become my steady companion on lonely nights in an empty apartment.