Chapter 8
Fai
"Fai." A hand shook my shoulder. "Wake up. I need you to tell me where to go."
I pried my eyes open, a yawn spilling past my lips as I sat upright. We switched nine hours into the drive, when Sarah took over and I passed out in the passenger seat, taking quite the nap. The kind that left you more tired than you were before you fell asleep and oddly thirsty.
“Where are we?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep, my eyes adjusting to the late afternoon light. We were driving slowly down what looked to be a main street. Either side of the car was lined with shop fronts, the ones that looked like they belonged in a snow globe.
The street lights were lit, casting a soft glow over the walkways that were filled with a diversity of people.
There was an older couple walking slowly, hand in hand.
A family, a big family, was stopped in front of what looked to be a cafe, gawking in the windows at the desserts.
It looked too picturesque to be real, and if I wasn’t watching it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“We’re here,” Sarah explained, casting me a quick humorless glance. “I forgot how long it takes you to fully wake up.”
I stretched in my seat. “You’re just jealous of how well I sleep.”
“Whatever you say,” she mused, turning the radio down. “I don’t know where Gabriel lives from here, and you were right, there’s no signal to GPS it.” She handed me the map we had printed out before we left. “Can you navigate me to his house?”
I nodded, getting my bearings on the map, finding the town we were in, Willow Creek, and trying to catch a street sign as we drove. “What’s this street called?”
“Ummm…” She squinted out the window with me, catching a passing street sign. “Center Street.”
I hummed my thanks and found where we were on the map. “Turn up ahead,” I pointed to the off street in the distance. “It’s a pretty straight shot after that.”
She nodded in understanding, following my instructions.
The street we were on, while rather jovial, was short.
Just as soon as it started, we were at the end, turning onto a dirt road.
Willow Creek had only a few thousand residents, most of whom were local ranchers.
It was nestled in the Rocky Mountains, the surrounding peaks capped in snow.
I was no stranger to mountains and trees after living in Oregon for twenty years, but these were different.
The trees weren’t nearly as tall as the ones back home, and they thinned as the mountain grew, unable to exist at this elevation.
But the mountains… they were expansive giants, so large I couldn’t fully comprehend their magnitude.
It struck me as odd that humans had the whole world at their fingertips, but chose the top of the mountain to live.
It was harder to breathe here, the sun beating down with more intensity, the air thin and dry, yet many people were drawn to it.
I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t fault them.
If this was where home was, who was I to question it?
“He really is off the grid, isn’t he?” Sarah asked as we continued down the dirt road. There were a few houses in the far distance, and I found myself wondering whether neighbors out here ever crossed paths at all.
“What do you think they do in an emergency?” I asked. “With no signal to call for help, and no one living close by, what do you do?”
Sarah shrugged. “Hope there isn’t one?”
I laughed at her nonchalance. We were two city kids, and we both knew it.
Sarah had grown up in New York, I had grown up in Chicago.
While our home city of Eugene was much smaller than both, it was still a city.
We just had to drive down the street to find a restaurant or a laundromat.
Here, in these small towns, you really had to have plans made.
You couldn’t just pop into the grocery store because you forgot an onion on your shopping list. It was an entire trip just to get off your property.
“Up there,” I said pointing ahead. We were thirty minutes from the center of town and hadn’t seen proof of life in at least ten. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere… and maybe we were.
At the end of the road sat a cabin, nestled into the side of the mountain, surrounded by trees and bushes. It was one of those traditional cabins that existed only on Christmas cards. There was even a thin line of smoke reaching high into the sky coming from the chimney.
The sun was just dipping over the mountains, lighting the clouds and sky in a collage of colors.
"Is that him?" Sarah asked, leaning forward to get a better look. "Your brother?"
I followed her line of sight, seeing a figure on the front porch. He was standing steadily, his legs shoulder-width apart, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.
“Shit…” I felt my heart rate pick up, pounding against my ribs. “I can’t do this, I really can’t do this.”
Sarah glanced at me and reached across the center console, wrapping her hand around mine. “Yes you can, you’ve been looking forward to this day your entire life, and you know it.”
I held onto her hand like it was a lifeline. “What if I screw it up?”
She smiled and pulled next to an SUV in front of the cabin and shifted into park. “You won’t, but if you do, we’ll leave. We’ll go home and put this all behind us. What matters is that you at least try. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
She was right. Hell, she was always right.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and nodded to Sarah. She smiled and turned off the truck. I jumped out of the passenger seat, facing the cabin and getting a better view of who I assumed was Gabriel.
He smiled and waved from his spot on the front porch. The cabin was rather quaint looking. There were worn wooden shutters on each of the windows. It was two stories with a log gable roof.
Sarah saddled up next to me, taking my hand again, and stood on her tiptoes as she whispered in my ear. “I have my answer. It looks like most of your genes must come from your dad.”
I held back a laugh and closed the distance between the truck and the porch. She was right, Gabriel and I shared very few features. While we both had caramel skin and brown hair, that was where our resemblances stopped.
While I was tall and rather lean, he was shorter.
I would guess around 5’10” with a stockier build.
You could tell he was strong, his corded muscles straining against the long-sleeve shirt he was wearing.
His hair was cropped short in what resembled a military cut.
Most notably were his green eyes, matching the trees and grass surrounding us.
“You must be Gabriel?” I asked as we finally made it to the porch.
Gabriel looked between myself and Sarah before smiling wide and coming down the steps, a hand outstretched. “So this is surreal as shit,” he greeted, breaking the tension.
Both Sarah and I laughed. “You could say that again,” I mused. “This is Sarah.”
Gabriel turned to her, his eyes lighting up. “So you’re the wife?”
Sarah shot me an uncomfortable look and I winced. We were diving straight into the deep end.
“Uh,” I looked at Sarah, who nodded, urging me to be honest. “Ex-wife actually, but also a good friend.”
Sarah was taken aback by the term ‘friend’. We had never been just friends, but she had always been my best friend. It was a confusing limbo we were now in, and she seemed to agree, but smiled at me gratefully.
“We were never the best at doing things traditionally,” she said and turned to Gabriel. “But it’s a pleasure to meet you, truly.”
I couldn’t quite make out Gabriel’s expression. It seemed to be a mix of disappointment and curiosity.
"It seems we have even more to talk about," he said, gesturing toward the door. "Come on, I'll show you around."
Sarah and I followed him past the front porch and through the living room.
The cabin was bigger than I had expected.
To the right of the front door was an office with two glass doors and a window that faced the front of the house.
On the left was a formal sitting room with a couple of well-loved leather sofas and a fireplace that wasn’t lit.
Straight ahead, and where Gabriel led us, was an expansive room with a living room, dining room, and kitchen.
“Down that hall is the guest room and bathroom,” he explained, pointing down a dark hallway to the right. “I’m upstairs. Just a primary room and bathroom there.”
Sarah looked around in awe. “It’s stunning. You really have an eye for design.”
Gabriel smiled kindly. “Thank you. I've worked hard to make this place a home. I’m glad to see it paid off.”
Make it a home he did. The whole space had the quality of rooms you saw in magazines, the kind that were styled to look lived in but somehow remained immaculate.
The fireplace crackled warmly, filling the room with an amber glow.
On either side of it stretched floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed with well-worn books.
“You a big reader?” I asked offhandedly as I perused the spines. There were countless genres, ranging from historical nonfiction to romance.
“What?” Gabriel asked and turned to me. “Oh, yeah. With the lack of internet out here, it’s a good way to pass the time.”
“You haven’t put in internet yourself?” Sarah asked, settling onto the large sofa facing the fireplace.
Gabriel shook his head. “Never found a reason to. Speaking of,” He pointed to the same wall that held the fireplace, where a rotary phone was mounted, the kind you had to wind in order to dial anyone.
I didn’t know they still existed. “This is the only phone on the property.
If you need to make a call or need anything while you're here, that's your only option. "
"What do you do in an emergency?" Sarah asked, echoing the exact question I had wondered aloud on the drive up.
Gabriel shrugged. “Hope there isn’t one.”
Sarah and I looked at each other, and that was all it took.
We both dissolved into laughter, the kind that was entirely disproportionate to the moment but impossible to stop.
Whether it was Gabriel's answer matching Sarah's word for word, or the fact that we had been confined to that truck together for far too long, something had pushed us cleanly over the edge.
"Sorry," I managed, pulling myself together. "Long drive. I think we're both a little delirious."
Gabriel looked between the two of us, an amused expression painting his face. “It’s all good. You know… it’s not my place, but you two really don’t seem like a divorced couple. I feel like most in that situation can’t even be in the same room as each other.”
Sarah turned in her seat on the couch, resting her arms on the back and facing Gabriel. “That was us for a while, but we managed to talk through it.”
Gabriel nodded as he processed her words. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions, but I could see them brewing under the surface. It was bound to be an interesting week here.
"Can I use your phone? I promised my roommate I'd check in when we arrived." Knowing Goldie, if I didn't call, she would drive out here herself just to confirm we hadn't gone off a cliff.
“Of course.” He gestured toward the phone and turned to Sarah. “Want to help me wrap up dinner while he’s on the phone? I assumed you two would be hungry after such a long day and started a roast. I just need help plating everything.”
“I would love to help,” Sarah said as she stood and followed him into the kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Do me a favor and call Will while you’re at it?”
I gave her a thumbs up and picked up the phone, dialing Goldie’s number, and gazed out the windows that faced the back of the property.
The forest line was close to the property, within walking distance, where a dense collection of trees began and wound around and up the mountain.
It was a spectacular view from the house.
I could see why Gabriel had chosen to live here.