by Cathy Lamb
I went home to my small, one-bedroom apartment in downtown Portland. The girls, six and seven years old, were in bed, my bed, as I was now on the couch in the family room, and I paid the babysitter. She has tattoos and piercings and is sweet and loves to do crafts with the girls.
I took a shower, unfolded the couch into a bed, piled on the blankets, and opened my computer. I had some savings. Not a lot. The attorney had cost a bucket of money. My car had broken down, too, which was expensive. I missed the truck I had had in Montana. I had to sell it to pay the attorney. I made another payment to the hospital. A few months ago I had had to spend four days there for a bleeding ulcer that hit an artery. My deductible was $6,800. I would be making payments for months.
I was a single mother. It was still hard for me to grasp that after six months. But I might not be their mother forever. There were complications, problems, issues. Terrifying things. And now I had no job. Fear, strangling and tight, curled around my entire being.
The next morning, early, I got another call. The woman’s words terrorized me.
And that’s when I knew we had to leave, to escape, immediately.
* * *
The car teetered on the edge of the icy road, as if we were on a multi-ton seesaw.
“What’s happening?” Stephi yelled.
“Aunt Olivia, what’s going on?” Lucy said.
The car wobbled, up and down, again. My windshield wipers were still on, but they were hardly making a dent in the snow coming down like a white, cold blanket, ready to smother anyone who stood too long in one place.
I knew what was below us. I knew what would happen when the car tilted down a few inches in the wrong direction. “Don’t move,” I choked out. “Don’t move.” The car stopped, the engine growling.
“Don’t move?” Stephi said. “Oh no oh no. Oh no.”
“Right. Stay still.”
“I’m scared,” Lucy said. “So scared. Help, Aunt Olivia! Help me!”
“I know, baby. But don’t move.”
I could hardly see. The wind battered the car. I didn’t want to open the door, because I didn’t know if I would drop down the side, between the road and the car, and disappear. But I couldn’t stay in the car with them and risk plunging down the cliff into the river. I had a vivid image of the car filling with freezing water and ice as I struggled to yank the girls through a window. I shoved down bubbling hysteria, knowing hysteria would not help this situation.
We teetered again, and I jammed my teeth together so I didn’t let loose a bloodcurdling scream. I opened the door to the car, slowly, so slowly, to see if my half of the car was still on the highway. If it was, I would carefully climb over the seat and haul the girls out. I would not think about how the three of us would survive in a blizzard once we were out. At least we would have a chance. The river offered no chances; the river snake would drown us.
Snow flew in when I opened the door, and the girls whimpered. I wanted to whimper, too. How far over the edge were we? How much pavement was on my side? Should I have the girls climb out on their own and stay where I was to balance the car out?
The wind whooshed through the car and the girls screamed, the noises blending together. Then the car rocked up and down. We were going down the cliff and into the river. At that cataclysmic moment, between life and death, I thought of her.
* * *
She had breathed into the phone the morning after I’d quit my job. Heavy. Deliberate. She lowered her voice. “I have a surprise for you, Olivia.”
I would not like the surprise, I knew that.
“Want to know what the surprise is?”
“No.” I hated her calls. I gripped the lid of the blender. I was making the girls a fruit smoothie with raspberries, bananas, and strawberries.
She giggled. “Surprises are fun.” She sang the word fun. “Fun and exciting.”
I waited, my throat tight.
“You’re going to lose, Olivia.”
I closed my eyes.
“You lose,” she singsonged. “I win, win, win.”
“Don’t call me again.”
“Why? I like talking to you.”
“I don’t like talking to you.”
She laughed and laughed. “Olivia, you have no idea what’s going to happen soon. None. But I know and I like it. You won’t like it. You won’t like it at all.”
“What are you talking about?” I walked away from the blender, passing a mirror I have in the nook. My green eyes, cat eyes I’m told, that tilt up at the corners, looked stricken.
“It’s a secret. I like secrets.”
“Last time, what are you talking about?” I felt my whole body clench, as if waiting for a blow.
“What am I talking about?” she whispered. “What am I talking about? That’s easy.” She giggled again. “Revenge, Olivia. I’m talking about revenge.”
I hung up on her laughter. She thinks she’s so funny.
I don’t find her funny at all.
Her sick rage echoed in my ear.
Her harsh words cut through my heart.
Her hissed threats clogged my throat until I could hardly breathe.
I gripped the counter in front of me, the silence a sickening contrast to the evil conversation I’d had. Outside my apartment the gray clouds rolled, the rain pouring down, blurring everything.
I had to get out of Oregon.
I had to go where she could not find me, find us.
I knew exactly where to go.
I called my attorney.
In two weeks, with permission, with hands that trembled, I began to pack. Then I gave away our furniture.
I would keep them safe. I would hold them close.
I would never let her come near them again.
* * *
That’s why I had to survive this car accident. Because of her. For them.
Through the open door, I could see that my car, on my side, was still on the pavement. How much pavement I didn’t know, the snow near blinding. It couldn’t be much, as we were rocking back and forth. “Unlock your seat belts, Lucy and Stephi. I’m coming to get you.”
The car tilted forward again. “Stop! Don’t move. Wait!” The car leveled out.
“Aunt Olivia!”
“Wait . . . wait . . . okay. Do it now! Unstrap.” My voice was sharp. They unbuckled, and I started to crawl over the seat. “Wrap your arms around my neck. Stephi, over here. Lucy here. Hold on. Do you hear me? Hold on as tight as you can.”
They sobbed, but they did it, brave girls, their blond curls in my face. “Don’t move!” I snapped as the car moved again. I closed my eyes. When we stopped moving, I swung them onto my lap and opened the back door. The door opened so easily, too easily. The snow blew in, cold prickles on my face.
“Give them to me.”
I jumped at the man’s voice, not two feet from me. Through the blur of white I saw him. A tall man, huge shoulders, thick black jacket. He reached in and grabbed us, all of us, his arms long and strong.
Our eyes met, now inches away, over the girls’ blond heads, and for a second, only a second, as we had no more time than that, I saw his utter shock. I felt the same shock. I knew him. Knew that body. Knew that voice.
“Let’s go.” He lifted us up.
I put a boot down on the icy pavement, then the other one, as he pulled us out of the car, away from the edge of the road, the blizzard whipping around us. My car groaned behind us, shifting forward, then back, then toward the river. The girls screamed as the car tumbled over the side, smashing into the roiling river snake below.
I let him pull the girls from my arms.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he told them.
“Aunt Olivia!” They reached for me, their expressions scared as this huge man took them away.
“Hold on to him! I’m coming with you.”
“Grab my jacket, Olivia.” We bent against the snow and headed toward his truck, his lights on. He opened the back door and dropped the girls in,
shut the door, then opened the driver’s door and pushed me in, gently. I scrambled over to the passenger seat as he got into the driver’s seat and shut the door against the blizzard. The warmth, the feeling of safety, was immediate for me. I was with him. All would be fine. We would be fine. I collapsed against the seat and tried to breathe. That was a miracle. He was a miracle. He returned my gaze, calm, reserved.
“Who is that?” Stephi whispered to me, but loudly, staring at him with her huge, dark eyes.
“What’s going on?” Lucy said, pushing her blond curls back. Her eyes were the same as her sister’s: chocolate brown.
“Strap in. Everything’s okay, girls.” I reached my hand over the seat and held their hands. Tears of utter relief rolled down my cheeks as I looked at their sweet faces. I turned back around to face him, wiping my tears off. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” He put his hand out, and I held it with my other hand, all of us now linked. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” So not fine. I was horrible. I was in shock. We had almost plunged into a river, in a blizzard. We had almost died. “I’m fine.”
“Aunt Olivia. That man. Who is that?” Lucy asked, pointing.
“Is he a stranger? Is he stranger danger?” Stephi said. “We’re not supposed to get into cars with people we don’t know, Aunt Olivia.”
“No, it’s bad.” Lucy leaned forward. “Are you a bad guy?”
He turned around and smiled at the girls. “No, I’m not a bad guy. I’m Jace Rivera.”
Yes. He was.
Jace Rivera.
Definitely a good guy.
He smiled. I smiled back. I tried to catch my breath, tried to stop trembling and envisioning my girls drowning in the life-sucking river snake.
Hello, Jace.
* * *
“Thank you again, Jace. It’s not enough to say thank you, I know it isn’t.”
“No problem. Glad I was there.”
“Me too.” I shivered, one of those whole-body shivers. A shock shiver. I knew I was probably as white as a ghost. A ghost who had almost pitched forward down a cliff into a river filled with snow and ice.
He looked slightly pale, too, in his jeans, cowboy boots, and black sweater.
Jace and I sat in front of the two-story fireplace in my grandparents’ log cabin. I had been so happy to see that red door and my granddad’s lasso wrapped around one of the wood beams, so happy the girls and I were alive, that I made a strangled sound in my throat when we arrived.
My grandma had moved in with my mother to our two-story blue farmhouse, which also had a red door, where I was raised, about a half mile away, after my beloved, smart, brave granddad died two and a half years ago of multiple strokes.
Jace and I both clenched coffee mugs between our hands, a fire roaring. Rock from our property had been used for the façade so it had a true Montana-y look. We sat across from each other, in the wood furniture my grandparents built, the cushions wrapped in light blue denim, thick and comfy. We used the black trunk with gold buckles, which belonged to my grandparents’ grandparents, between us as a coffee table.
We’d brought the girls in, fed them, and I put them to bed with a hug, a kiss, and an “I love you.” I was grateful my mother and grandma had stocked the fridge for us. They had gone right to sleep after Lucy said, “He looks like a giant. Is he a giant?” and Stephi said, “Is he a superhero? I always knew they were real. But he doesn’t have a cape, only cowboy boots. He needs a cape.”
“You saved all three of us, Jace. I couldn’t have gotten them out of the car if we hit the river, and even if we didn’t go all the way in and I did get them out, we would have frozen out there.”
A muscle was moving along his jaw, and he became whiter.
“Are you okay, Jace?”
“Olivia, unless you want me to have a heart attack, I don’t want to talk about what happened.”
“Right. Okay. Please do not have a heart attack.”
“It’s going to give me a nightmare tonight. In fact, I’ll probably have nightmares for weeks, so let’s let it go.”
“Are you sure I can’t get you a drink? I, personally, feel like having eight drinks. I feel like swimming in scotch.”
“No, thank you.” Those dark eyes held mine. Jace had a hard face. Hard jawline. Thick, black hair. You wouldn’t look at him and say he was handsome in a model-like sense. He had a scar on his left temple. He had another small scar on his chin. He’d spent years outside in Montana. His face showed the weather, the sun, the snow, the wind. He was solid, strong, brave. Jace was sexy. He was huge. Six four, built like a tractor, strong shoulders, grippable and muscled. He didn’t talk a lot, but he always had interesting things to say.
He smiled at me, a small smile, filled with what wasn’t being said between us, and I could feel myself tumbling backward into that familiar despair. The guilt rushed in. I was ashamed of myself for what I’d done to him. He hadn’t deserved it.
I was an awful person.
He saw me tumble, I knew it. He knew me so well. Too well.
“How have you been, Olivia?” His voice was low, quiet.
How had I been? Pretty much all over the spectrum, from floundering around on the bottom of life to finding hope and joy and love in Stephi and Lucy, then back to numbing grief, then to absolute terror from the calls I was getting from her and what the future would hold. “I’m . . . I’m fine. I’m good and fine. Good.” All lies. “How are you?”
He stared back at me for long seconds. He knew I was lying. “I’ve been fine, Olivia.”
“I’m . . . yes, I’m . . .” Gall. I could hardly concentrate around Jace. He had always done that to me. “I’m . . . uh . . . er . . . happy and glad.” What?
He nodded, and I studied my hands. The fire crackled and we listened, waiting for the other to talk. Jace had been driving home when he saw my car ping across the road like a pinball, then watched it spin and crash. He hadn’t known it was me, as I’d sold the truck I’d had when I was here.
“So. Lucy and Stephi,” he said. “They are?”
“My daughters. I’m in the process of adopting them.” I wrung my hands. “That sounded too hopeful. I want to adopt them, but things aren’t going well.”
I saw his colliding emotions fly across his face before he shut down: Shock. Pain. Disbelief. Acceptance. We sat in that silence, then he cleared his throat.
“You want to adopt them from foster care?”
“I want to adopt them through the state, but I can only if their mother’s and father’s rights are terminated, which they have not been. The girls were living with their grandma. She passed away. Annabelle and I were friends.” I wrung my hands. We were still friends. It was as if Annabelle was still with me. She was in that place in your soul where friends go who die but you still love them and talk to them and think of them.
“I’m sorry about your friend, Annabelle, Olivia. I really am.”
“Thank you.”
“Why would their parents’ rights be terminated?”
“It’s a long story.” It’s a miserable and chilling story.
“I’d like to hear it when you want to tell it.”
“Okay.”
“Too much for tonight?”
“Yes. It’s complicated.” It’s an epic disaster.
“They seem like nice kids.”
“They are. They are such nice kids. I adore them.”
“You’ve always had a big heart.”
“Big heart.” I tapped my head. “Screwed up here, but I’m trying.”
“You’re not screwed up, Olivia.”
“Oh, yes, I am.”
I could tell what I said upset him, but his eyes stayed steady on mine. “How long are you here for?”
“I don’t know.” I’m hiding. Holing up. Escaping. And seeing you is breaking me in half.
“You’re not staying, then?”
“No.” Probably not. Maybe. I don’t think so. How
could I? Yes. I loved it here. But it wasn’t possible. No.
He was waiting for more information. Evaluating. Listening. Patient. Kind.
“Okay.” He sighed. I wanted to cry. The fire crackled again, sparks flying.
He stood up. I stood up, too.
“Jace—”
“Yes?”
I didn’t know what to say. So I said what I’d already said before, many times. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome, Olivia.” He pushed his black hair back, then ran his hand over his face. “I cannot believe that happened.”
“Me either.”
“I may not sleep for years.”
“I may be up for years, too.”
He had aged a little, not much. It was in the creases by his eyes, the older expression that he wore, the reserve. He was even tougher, that I saw with no doubt.
“Call me when you want to talk,” he said.
“I will.” He should have been furious at me. He had every right.
“Should I expect a call?” Jace towered over me. He stood too close. I wanted to reach out and hug him. Wrap my arms around him and squeeze and feel safe and warm. It wouldn’t be fair to him, so I didn’t.
“I don’t know.” Voice weak, small. I am such a mess, and he makes me messier. We have an insurmountable problem.
“Whenever you want to talk, I’m here, Olivia.”
I couldn’t say anything else because my tears were tight in my throat and throttling me. He turned, broad and tall, black haired and harshly handsome, all man.
“’Night, Olivia.”
I couldn’t say it. It reminded me of too many nights when he had said the same thing to me.
The door closed behind him, and I collapsed on the couch.
I should have apologized to him. Again. I should have. I couldn’t. I’d done it already, but another apology was due, and I knew it. I felt lower than a slug for what I did to him. I always would.
* * *
After Jace left, I crawled into the king-sized bed in my grandparents’ bedroom on the first floor. My granddad, Oliver Martindale, was six three and needed a large bed. He used to say all he ever wanted was a twin-sized bed so he could be close to my grandma, Gisela, all night long.