Chapter 2
Swiftwater, Colorado. I hoped to travel farther before choosing a new hometown, but the bus stopped right outside the library here early this morning, and we’d run out of snacks and water overnight.
It’s surreal that the journey to our new life took less than twenty-four hours. What a difference a day can make.
The nicest woman saw us sitting on the sun-warmed lawn and invited us to join her at the cutest coffee shop—Bean & Brew.
I shouldn’t have spent the eight dollars, but I didn’t want the lovely blonde woman to know we’re currently homeless and start asking questions.
She ordered something called a dirty chai and I didn’t want to ask for just a water.
Homeless. A giggle bubbles up my throat. I never imagined I’d be so happy to be without a home. Specifically, his home.
I hand Everly her chocolate milk, which the barista so kindly topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings and take my green tea and the largest peach turnover I’ve ever seen.
I’m salivating like a hound dog—I haven’t eaten since the disastrous dinner.
I wanted Everly to eat all the snacks she packed, and I’m starving.
“Would she like to color?” the barista asks before I turn away.
“Yes!” Everly pipes up, fingers gripping the counter she can barely see over.
“Here you go, sweetheart.” Armed with her chocolate milk and an envelope filled with a coloring page and crayons, we move to find a table.
“How about we sit here?” The woman beams at us, gesturing to the empty chairs at a small bistro table by the window overlooking Main Street.
I’m hesitant to trust on principle, but there’s something about her that puts me at ease.
After Everly’s scooted in to the table, I take my seat beside her and enjoy the earthy scent of my tea.
She dives into her chocolate milk with abandon, whipped cream giving her a hilarious mustache.
Before I can take a bite, she leans over the turnover and takes a bite out of it without even picking it up.
I can’t help but smile at my tiny soulmate, and grimace at the soggy, chocolate-milky hole in the top of the turnover.
“What brings you to Swiftwater?” the blonde asks.
When I don’t answer right away, she chastises herself.
“Sorry. I’m Izzy. I’ve lived here all my life and it’s not all that often we get new faces. Sometimes I forget not everyone knows my name.” Her smile is warm, blue eyes crinkled behind pink cat-eye glasses.
She didn’t ask for our names, and I suppose why we came here’s irrelevant, since our fresh start can be whatever I want it to be.
“We just moved here, arrived this morning.”
Her brow furrows. “Where’s your luggage?”
Shit. “We were faster than the moving truck. That’s why we were hanging out waiting for the library to open.”
“I didn’t see any cars out front. It’s pretty quiet in town this early in the morning.” Her tone is kind, but skeptical. I don’t know what I’ll say if she keeps pressing me.
My lack of response is answer enough. I can’t help it when my eyes dart to Everly, needing her safe beside me.
“Well, the library usually opens around eight, or whenever the librarian moseys over to unlock the door.” She checks the time on her phone. “So, any minute now.”
“Mama, look!” Everly waves her coloring page like a flag in the wind, so fast I can’t make out the image, but I praise her profusely, nonetheless.
“Wow, that’s a beautiful unicorn!” Izzy coos at my daughter. “I wish the horses at the ranch were this pretty!”
“Horses?” Everly’s excitement’s so palpable, waves of joy pulse from her tiny body.
“Mmhmm. I live with my husband on a huge horse ranch just out of town. My sister and her husband live a stone’s throw away—so do my in-laws and my husband’s older brother.”
Sorrow suffocates my heart. It’s easy to forget how utterly alone I am in the world until I’m confronted with what I’ve always wished to have. A big, happy family.
“Holy cow! That’s so many people! You all live in one house?” Everly asks so rapidly I’m not sure Izzy will understand her chipmunk voice.
Izzy’s melodic laugh fills the cozy coffee shop. “No, we all have our own houses. The ranch is enormous, there’s plenty of space for everyone.”
“Mama, can we go pet the horses?” Everly asks, and I cringe.
Izzy meets my eyes and must see my hesitation. “Maybe sometime! But right now, let’s get you and your mom to the library!”
I mouth “thank you” to Izzy and she winks in reply.
It’s cooler here than in Missouri, being at a higher elevation, tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, but still warm enough to remember it’s the end of August.
“Are you looking to check out some books?” Izzy asks, as we stroll down Main Street back toward the library.
“Maybe…I also need to use the internet for a few things.”
Her frown is deep and doesn’t disappear quickly enough.
“We have decent cell service up here. Your phone should work just fine,” she says, growing wary of my odd behavior.
Everly skips ahead and ring-around-the-rosy’s the trees in the library lawn.
“My phone died, it’s okay. A computer will be easier anyway.”
“I should have spare chargers in my car, let me go get one for you,” Izzy says, turning back.
“No! I mean, no thank you. I have one, I can plug it in at the library.”
The old plastic sign on the door is flipped to OPEN, and I’m desperate to get us inside and away from the questions I’m not prepared to answer.
“Well, thank you for the hospitality and the walk. Have a good day,” I say quickly, turning my back to Izzy, guiding Everly by her upper back to the entrance.
We disappear into a small building that’s always been a safe place. The scent is instantly comforting and nostalgic. Growing up in an unpredictable home led to countless hours spent in the library with Charlie.
The familiarity of the space calms my nerves. I’m able to see the kid section from the middle computer, so I set Everly free to enjoy herself.
I don’t have an email address, or social media, or the log-in to any of our joint accounts. Carter never allowed it.
Google will be fine for what I need. I spend over an hour scrutinizing bus routes and schedules, trying to decide if we need to keep traveling before we find a place to settle.
The longer I research, the more overwhelmed I become. I grew up just a few towns over from Kansas City, where I lived with Carter. I’d never crossed state lines until our honeymoon, and even then we only drove a few hours north and spent a weekend in Omaha.
We’ve already traveled over eight-hundred miles, zig-zagging on major interstates and local highways, to throw Carter off our trail, should he try to look for us.
In my mind, I wanted to make it to Phoenix. He despised the dry heat of the southwest and is narcissistic enough to assume I’d hate it as well. So, it was the perfect landing place to hide in plain sight.
Everly’s such a little trooper, but I could tell she was antsy and uncomfortable on the bus. She asked questions about the places we stopped but never asked why. I’m waiting for her to ask where her dad is—frankly I’m shocked she hasn’t yet.
But my baby needs to sleep in a bed tonight, not a creaking bus seat. I’ve been awake for…over forty-eight hours. A full day of cooking and cleaning through my grief bled into a sleepless night on the floor of the guest bathroom two days ago.
I forced myself to stay alert and awake the entire duration of our multi-state tour. I couldn’t risk falling asleep and missing a stop or something scaring Everly. I’ve never been so wired but exhausted at a cellular level. Hysterical giggling or crying is imminent.
A quick search online and on the community board yields no free lodging like a women’s shelter.
The town’s so small they don’t even have a recreation center for us to shower.
We could go to the market I saw down the road, but we’d have to buy and eat things that’re already prepared and don’t need to be cooked.
“Mama, where’s the park? You promised there’d be a park.” Everly tugs on my shirt sleeve. “Did you bring my chocolate milk?”
“Uh, no, baby. We left our drinks at the coffee shop, we aren’t allowed to bring them to the library.”
The bottom lip starts to tremble, and if I don’t get control over the situation, I’m going to have a mega meltdown on my hands, in the silent library. She’s already in a foreign place, without the comforts of home, and now disappointed.
“I’m almost finished on the computer and then we can walk to the park, okay?”
“Can I check out a book?” she asks, lip still wobbling.
Damnit. I didn’t think this through. We always check out a bag’s worth at the library. I can’t risk a paper trail, and we aren’t staying here anyway.
“No, baby. I’m sorry.”
Cue the tears.
Everly’s a mild-mannered child, but when she has a tantrum, I have no doubt folks a mile away know about it.
“Shh, shh, shh, baby, let’s go to the park! Mama’s done on the computer.” I wasn’t, but I am now.
“Is everything alright?” the librarian asks gently, patient empathy in every wrinkle on her face.
“Yes, I’m so sorry. She’s just a bit upset. Everything’s fine,” I try to assure the woman.
I hoist a thrashing Everly up my hip but quickly have to switch to the mom-patented football-carry. I hook the backpacks around my free wrist and rush toward the exit.
My search history is plain as day on the computer screen, but I have to get Everly outdoors and find the freaking park, stat.
Outside, the summer sun has intensified, and the later morning hour has Main Street bustling with people. Everly thrashes and accidentally knees me in my bruised hip. That does it. The last straw breaks me.
We slump to the lawn in front of the library in a tangled heap, both hysterically crying. Everly because she can’t check out a book, because I’ve taken her from her home. Me because I’ve destroyed our lives.
How is this my life? What did I do to deserve year after year of increasing suffering? Was this a mistake?
If I go back to Carter, there’ll be catastrophic consequences, and I’ll surely be housebound. But at least Everly would have her home, and her things, and normalcy. Maybe I should—
“Hi.” A sweet voice cuts through our racking sobs.
The morning sun creates an iridescent halo around Izzy through my tear-blurred vision.
She sits on the grass beside us and softly rubs my back. I’m distantly grateful she’s not touching Everly.
“It’s going to be okay,” she soothes.
“How?” I sob.
“I don’t know.” Izzy chuckles. “But we’re going to figure it out together.”
“What’s your name?” she asks.
I open my mouth to say Amelia, but the only people who’ve called me that were cruel and spared no love for me. Carter. His family. My parents.
So instead, I say, “Mia.” What my sister always called me.
Her smile fills me with a feeling I’ve grown unfamiliar with.
Hope.