24. Jesse
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jesse
Thursday
There’s a specific kind of madness that only exists when children are trapped indoors with too much adrenaline, too many snacks, and exactly zero understanding of why the adults keep using words such as “containment” and “evacuation” as if they’re supposed to mean something reassuring.
It’s not the fun kind of insanity. Not the “snow day” fun or the “rainy Saturday” havoc where you make pancakes and build blanket forts and call it a memory.
This is feral.
This is cabin fever with tiny humans.
I hear furniture scooting where furniture should not be scooting. Chair legs shrieking against old wood floors and a table being dragged three inches to the left for absolutely no discernible reason.
The rhythmic thud thud thud of feet that should not be running in a building this small, accompanied by the unmistakable crash of something that was absolutely not meant to be climbed on.
It smells of peanut butter, wet socks, and moral defeat. As if someone opened a bag of trail mix, spilled half of it, stepped on the raisins, and then tried to fix the problem by adding more snacks instead of fewer.
There’s also a faint undercurrent of smoke that won’t quite leave, no matter how many times I crack a window and let the rain air in.
All while my twins are turning the fishing cabin into what I can only describe as a raccoon run obstacle course.
A couch cushion is balanced vertically against the wall as if it’s auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. A stack of books has been converted into stepping stones across the floor, because apparently, the carpet is lava now.
One of my boots is on the kitchen table. The other is missing.
I don’t want to know where it is.
“Eliza,” I call from the kitchen, trying to keep calm and failing, “why is there a pillow on the light fixture?”
“It’s a cloud!” she yells back.
I peer around the corner and confirm that, yes, she has somehow wedged a couch pillow between the ceiling beam and the hanging lamp. I have no idea how she got it up there. I’m both impressed and deeply concerned.
“Daddy,” Caleb adds helpfully, standing on the arm of the couch, “I’m a storm.”
Of course you are, buddy.
The couch creaks ominously under his feet. The cabin creaks in solidarity.
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose the way the parenting book I never finished suggested. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Picture a calm place. Picture a beach. Picture literally anywhere that doesn’t involve crumbs in my socks.
The rain taps steadily against the roof, a soft, relentless drumming that should be soothing but isn’t quite there yet. The kind of rain that sounds hopeful, doing important work out there, but hasn’t fully convinced my nerves that the danger has passed.
The walls feel closer than they did yesterday. The ceiling lower. Even the air feels crowded, buzzing with noise and movement and energy that has nowhere to go.
I love my kids. I would absolutely commit crimes for these kids.
But if I don’t get them outside soon, one of us is going to snap, and statistically speaking, it’s probably going to be me.
I open my eyes just in time to see Eliza leap from the couch toward the bookshelf stepping stones, arms outstretched, shouting, “Wheee!”
“Okay!” I say brightly, because I’m nothing if not committed to pretending I have control over my life. “New rule! Feet on the floor!”
They freeze. Look at me.
Then both of them lift one foot and hover it an inch above the carpet.
I stare at them.
They grin.
I sigh and lean back against the counter, rubbing a hand over my face.
I haven’t been this tired in a long time. Not physically (though yeah, that too), but the kind of tired that comes from being on edge for days, from sleeping lightly, from listening to wind and wondering if it’s going to change its mind again.
And underneath all of that, threaded through everything as a live wire, is Abilene.
Her face. Her voice. The way she looked last night, all firelight and softness and heat that I absolutely should not be thinking about while my kids are reenacting weather patterns six feet away from me.
Cabin fever isn’t just about the walls closing in. It’s about your thoughts having nowhere to go.
And mine keep circling back to her, over and over again. A place my mind wants to rest, even when I won’t let it.
I push off the counter and clap my hands once. “Alright, storms and clouds. Who wants to help me make lunch?”
They cheer as if I just announced Disneyland.
And just like that, the noise shifts shape instead of disappearing.
Which, honestly? Feels about right.
I’m elbow deep in peanut butter when my phone starts vibrating on the counter.
I glance down and see Wyatt’s name.
My chest tightens on instinct before it loosens, because if Wyatt’s calling, it’s either bad news or the kind of news that requires actual sentences instead of frantic yelling.
I wipe my hands on a dish towel that is already a lost cause and pick up.
“Wyatt,” I say, “please tell me you’ve got either really good news or a tranquilizer dart for children.”
He exhales on the other end, and I swear I can hear the rain behind him.
“Good news,” he says. “No darts required.”
I sag against the counter. My bones just remembered they don’t actually have to hold me upright anymore. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“The wind shifted overnight,” he continues. “Rain stuck around. Fire crews are calling it non-threatening now. Containment’s holding.”
I slide down into the nearest chair, phone pressed to my ear, and let my head drop back against the wall. The cabin doesn’t feel quite so small anymore.
“Say that again,” I murmur, because I need to hear it twice.
“It’s safe to bring the kids back,” Wyatt repeats. “You can head back here.”
I close my eyes.
I don’t even care about the mess, or the snacks, or the way my nerves have been vibrating fast as a plucked string for days. I just let the relief wash through me, heavy and slow, settling into places I didn’t realize were still clenched.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Okay. That’s… that’s good. Really good.”
There’s a pause. Then, gentler, “How are they holding up?”
I glance toward the living area, where Eliza is now attempting to balance three cushions on her head while Caleb supervises with the seriousness of a foreman.
“They’re… adapting,” I say. “In ways future historians will never understand.”
Wyatt chuckles. “Sounds about right.”
“And Abilene?” I ask before I can stop myself.
There’s another pause, longer this time.
“She’s okay,” he says. “Shaken. But her bees made it. That helped.”
My chest eases a fraction more at that.
“Good,” I say. “I’m glad.”
I am. Genuinely. Even if I don’t know what to do with the rest of what that means.
“Drive safe,” Wyatt adds. “Roads are wet.”
“Always do,” I promise, which is mostly true.
I hang up and stare at the phone for a beat longer than necessary. Then:
“Kids!” I call, pushing to my feet. “Good news!”
Two heads snap toward me instantly.
“We’re going home,” I say.
They erupt.
There’s cheering. There’s jumping. There’s certainly no helping me tidy up the mess or packing up, but I don’t mind.
I just need a break.
When we’re done, I herd them as best I can.
Shoes go on the wrong feet. Then the right feet. Then somehow come off again.
Eliza insists on packing her “emergency backpack,” which turns out to be a book, three crayons, and a rock she’s named Gregory. Caleb tries to bring the pillow cloud with him “just in case the sky falls.”
I veto the pillow. Gregory makes it into the truck.
By the time we’re buckled in, the cabin has survived us, and I’m sweating as if I just ran cattle instead of wrestled six-year-olds into car seats.
The rain has eased to a drizzle, the kind that slicks the road and turns everything green and dark and alive again. I pull onto the road, wipers swiping back and forth, and for the first mile or so, the kids are too busy narrating the departure to talk about anything else.
“Bye, cabin!” Eliza waves dramatically out the window.
“Thanks for not burning!” Caleb adds.
“Polite,” I say. “I like it.”
Then, inevitably, the conversation shifts.
“Daddy?” Eliza asks, sweet as sugar and twice as dangerous.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you think Miss Abilene’s bees missed us?”
I glance up at the rearview mirror. She’s serious. Dead serious.
“I think they were very busy,” I say carefully. “But I’m sure they’re glad everything’s okay.”
Caleb leans forward as far as his car seat will allow. “Miss Abilene says bees can remember faces.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. “She does?”
“Uh-huh,” he nods. “She said they remember people who are kind.”
Eliza gasps. “Do you think the bees remember us?”
“I…” I start, then stop, because I don’t actually know the answer, and lying to children is a slippery slope. “Maybe.”
Both of them beam.
“I liked when she braided my hair,” Eliza continues. “She didn’t pull. Uncle Marshall pulls.”
I keep my eyes on the road. “Yeah?”
“She smells nice,” Caleb adds. “Like flowers. And honey.”
Eliza nods solemnly. “And she listens. Like when you talk, and she doesn’t interrupt.’”
I swallow.
The rain taps steadily against the windshield, the world blurring into gray-green streaks as the road stretches out ahead of us. My kids keep talking, their voices overlapping, stacking up memories.
“She makes the good tea.”
“She lets us ask a lot of questions.”
“She didn’t get mad when I spilled the sugar.”
“She said it was an accident, not a mistake.”
Each comment is small.
Together, they’re devastating.
I don’t say much after that. I let them talk. I let the road unwind. I let it settle in.
Because it’s one thing for me to want her.
That’s dangerous enough on its own.
But my kids?
They’ve already made space for her without hesitation. Without fear. Without the baggage I drag behind me in an overpacked trailer.
They adore her.
And that realization sits heavy and quiet in my chest—not panic exactly, but closer to awe.
When Colter Creek finally comes into view, smoke thinned to a distant haze and rain-darkened trees lining the road, standing guard, I slow automatically, eyes scanning.
And then I see it.
Abilene’s place.
The house is still standing, but it’s not untouched. Mud smeared up the siding. A porch step warped. The yard looks… bruised.
My jaw tightens.
“Daddy,” Eliza says softly. “Is Miss Abilene’s house okay?”
I pull over for longer than necessary, engine idling, and take it all in.
“It will be,” I say finally. “We’ll help.”
They accept that instantly. No doubt. No hesitation.
Of course they do.
I pull back onto the road, already making a list in my head. Tools, lumber, time. Things I can fix. Things I can do.
Because I might not know how to handle feelings. But I know how to build.
And tomorrow morning?
I’m bringing my toolbox.