30. Sloane
Sloane
You’d think that once you make a life-altering decision, there’d be a moment of triumphant music, a roll of credits, and then everything would cut to the next phase.
What no one tells you is that after you decide to uproot your life and move to the UK, time does not, in fact, fast-forward.
Instead, it drips like sap, and every day is a slow spiral of “Did we really say we’d do this?
” and “Do we actually tell anyone, or do we run away in the dead of night?”
It’s been a month since I told Eden I’d go anywhere with her, including Northumberland.
Since then, our household has devolved into a closed-circuit committee meeting, three times daily, sometimes at two a.m. if one of us has insomnia or the baby projectile-vomits herself awake.
We’ve drawn maps. Made lists. Cried a little, but mostly in the good “this is insane, but I love you” way.
Olivia is nearly a year old now, which means she has developed the coordination of a drunken raccoon and the emotional range of a hurricane. She’s become the sort of toddler who laughs as she destroys things, but then immediately points to the cat as the responsible party.
Eden is different. Not in a bad way, just…
sharper. Lighter. She’s been texting her sister every day, plotting how many rooms we’d need to keep everyone from killing each other, and she’s started painting only seascapes, all violent blue and stormy grey, as if to prepare herself for the weather.
I’m pretty sure that if I said, “Hey, let’s move tomorrow,” she’d have the house boxed by noon.
I’m excited. I am. But I also know my own brain, and I know that if we don’t break the news to the rest of Eden’s family soon, my anxiety will mount like a Jenga tower and topple into catastrophic overplanning. So today is The Call.
Olivia is napping—miracle of miracles. I take the opportunity to wrangle my hair into something that can, with kindness, be called a presentable bun, and I put on the only collared shirt I own that isn’t streaked with milk, paint, or some other liquid I don’t want to know about.
Eden sees me from the studio and cracks up.
“You look like you’re about to be interviewed for a position as a headmistress,” she says, gesturing with a paintbrush. “What, you’re afraid my gran will judge your pant selection?”
“She absolutely will, and you know it.”
Eden slides over, still in ancient sweatpants and a t-shirt, her hair flecked with splashes of white acrylic. She does a slow, unfiltered scan of my outfit, then snorts. “You’re nervous.”
“Of course I’m nervous. We’re telling your family I’m dragging you and their only grandchild halfway around the planet.”
“They’ll be thrilled,” she assures me, planting a painty kiss just under my jaw. “It means they get to force-feed you real tea and weird British biscuits for the rest of your life.”
I try to keep my heart rate under 200 as I dial into the group call. First, Liz and Rick pop on—their video background is a mosaic of succulents, books, and pottery.
“Hi, loves!” Liz beams. “Sloane, you look…very professional. Is this a job interview?”
Eden makes a face at me. I resist the urge to flick her on camera.
“Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad,” Eden says, sliding into frame and—goddamn her—wiping a paint hand across my shoulder as she does.
The next square fills with Milly and John, both perched in a sunlit English kitchen, mug in hand. Milly’s dressed like a pirate queen, heavy silver jewelry at her throat and an air of “I could out-drink all of you if not for the statins.”
“Hello, dears,” she says, then fixes her gaze on me. “Sloane, is that a collar? You look like you’ve joined a convent.”
Before I can respond, the fourth window appears—Jenna and Kiera, side by side at a cafe table, both eating enormous scones.
“Hey, losers!” Jenna shouts, then squints. “Is this a baby announcement? Did you make a new one already?”
Jenna already knows what’s coming, so I applaud her acting skills.
Eden’s face contorts in horror. “No. God, no. Olivia is enough for us. This is about something else.”
“Is it about the move?” Kiera says, mouth full. “You told me, like, a month ago you were thinking about it.”
Jenna digs her wife in the ribs and scowls. Kiera’s eyes go wide and look at Eden and me with apologies.
So much for the big reveal.
Eden huffs. “Well, we’ve decided. We’re coming. To England. For good.”
Jenna lets out a piercing whoop. Milly just raises her eyebrows, seemingly unsurprised but obviously pleased. Liz starts crying almost instantly, and even Rick seems to lose some of his “British stoicism” as he claps a hand over his mouth.
“Are you actually going to live in Seahouses, then?” Rick asks. “Or are you making a go at London?”
“Seahouses to start,” I say, proud that we’ve even narrowed it down that far. “Jenna says there’s a place for us, and I can work remote for the transition.”
Jenna nods, victorious. “Called it. I told Kiera you’d crack by summer.”
“We set a six-month deadline,” I add. “I need to wind down the practice here, get my licenses sorted, and then we’ll go.”
There’s a pause. Everyone seems to be digesting, waiting for someone else to react first.
“I’m just happy you’re coming home,” Liz says, dabbing her eyes with a napkin. “And you’ll let me watch Olivia. All. The. Time. Oh, the things I’ll teach her…”
Eden blanches. “We’re never getting her back, are we?”
“No,” Rick says, “but at least she’ll know the backlist of every rock band in the last hundred years!”
I realize then that the real move is less about leaving something behind, and more about finally catching up to the people who’ve been waiting for us on the other side.
We field as many questions as possible until we finally run out of answers. I’m just happy the news is out there now. Everyone knows, including our friends. It’s been a rough few weeks of conversations, but we did it. Maybe now we can actually get some organizing done.
When the screen finally goes dark, Eden collapses into the crook of my arm. “We did it, Bishop. We made them all happy at once. I hope you realize this is a statistical impossibility.”
I rest my chin on her head. “Are you okay with it? Really okay?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I’m more than okay. I want this. All of it. With you.”
I believe her.
Olivia chooses that moment to wake, howling. We retrieve her and I bounce her on my hip, showing her the still-open laptop screen.
“See, kiddo?” I say. “You’re about to have the most chaotic family in two hemispheres. Good luck with that.”
Eden laughs and takes a photo, probably to send to Jenna or Bella or maybe the whole internet. Then she turns to me, serious for just a beat.
“Six months,” she says. “Do you think we’ll be ready?”
“We’re never going to be ready. But we’ll be together.”
“So corny.” She laughs. I roll my eyes, causing her to give me that grin, and it’s the first time in ages I see the girl I fell in love with—the one who wore Doc Marten boots and swore she’d never run a second in her life.
“I think I want to paint our new family portrait,” she says, staring off into the middle distance. “I want to capture the pace of us. From the starting line to the end.”
“It’s not the end, baby.”
She nods. “I don’t mean it in, like, a morbid way. I just mean this particular race we’ve been in. England will be a brand new one for us to run together, ya know.”
“I love you so much,” I tell her.
Six months. It’ll go fast, or it’ll go slow, but either way, it’ll go.
And then we’ll be off, chasing another new thing together, just like always.
The day of the marathon dawns like the start of a disaster movie: pink Colorado sunrise, ominous wind, and a sense of impending doom.
I wake up before the alarm, hyper-caffeinated on pure adrenaline, and immediately regret volunteering for anything that requires both spandex and social interaction before noon.
Eden is already up, triple-checking the diaper bag in case Olivia spontaneously combusts during the five hours we’ll be away.
“Are you nervous?” I ask, watching her struggle to pin her bib number to her shirt.
She shrugs, making a show of indifference, but the way her hands are shaking tells a different story. “If I die on the course, just let Pia make the speech at my funeral. She’s got a list of my most embarrassing moments ready to go.”
I want to say something sweet, like, “I’ll drag your corpse over the finish line myself,” but Olivia chooses that moment to empty her breakfast all over my running shorts.
Eden snorts. “You’re the one who said parenting builds character.”
“It builds laundry,” I mutter.
The marathon starts downtown, where the buildings cast long shadows over the start line, and the city has been transformed into a sprawling party of nervous runners and spectators.
The air tastes like sunscreen and stale bagels.
The race emcee yells motivational platitudes over the loudspeaker—“You’re all winners!
” “Pain is temporary, pride is forever!”—while a DJ plays an inexplicable mashup of Queen and Doja Cat.
Eden and I find our group by the biggest inflatable frog balloon in the crowd.
Bella is there, stretching with dramatic, ballet-style flourishes.
Becca, in a fanny pack big enough to hold a toddler, is double-fisting energy gels and ranting about the lack of ethical electrolytes.
Pia arrives last, her hair in a riot of tiny braids, flanked by a sheepish-looking Todd and a newly-buff Bryce.
Todd’s wearing a novelty “I’m Only Here for the Snacks” t-shirt.
Bryce, naturally, has the event’s merch shirt—already cropped and custom-logoed—over actual running tights.
They both look so “Holcroft Dad” it hurts, but they also brought, inexplicably, a foam finger and a vuvuzela. I decide to love them for it anyway.
“Can’t believe we’re all here,” Becca says, voice soft for once.
“Speak for yourself,” Pia snipes. “Some of us would rather be dead than run twenty-six miles.”