Sunset Bay Sanctuary

by Roxanne Snopek

  Olivia poured herself a mug, adding her customary half cup of cream to it. How the woman stayed so stick thin was a mystery.

  “Heard anything about our little value-added guest?” Daphne sensed that Olivia wasn’t up for the unwashed horde who would descend upon them shortly, so she arranged a slice of toast and some cut up fruit on a plate and handed it over.

  “Aside from her going AWOL from the hospital last night, no.” Olivia took the plate and sank into a chair. “Turns out she was just out for a smoke. God. They had to call me—I’ve got custody—but I lost ten years off my life.”

  “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “No need to get snappy. You’re walking around as if an entire weather system is packed up in the stringy body of yours.”

  She grinned at the venomous look Olivia threw her way.

  “Life’s too short to brood, Sweet Pea. Tell old Daffy what’s wrong.”

  Olivia chewed on the corner of her lip. “You know I’m the boss, right?”

  “The big kahuna, the head honcho, the major stinky cheese, yeah, yeah. But unless you want to scare off those already twitchy fancy-pants guests of ours, you’d better adjust the attitude. If that requires you laying your sins at my feet, well you go right ahead. I can’t promise absolution but I’m a damn fine listener.”

  Jamie returned with Tyler in her wake. “Jamie! Omelets. Tyler, you’re on hash browns. Feed the mouths when they show up. I’ll be on the porch. Ranch business. Very important.”

  She grabbed her own coffee mug, then took Olivia by the arm and led her to the porch. They leaned against the railing side by side and looked out over the sprawling hills leading down to the beach. On very still, clear days, you could hear the waves.

  There was too much noise now. But there was still the tang of salt in the air, salt and pine and horses and good clean dirt.

  Honest smells.

  Oh, the irony.

  “You’ve been broody for some time now,” said Daphne. “Though sometimes it’s hard to tell, you being prone to crabbiness.”

  “I am not.”

  “Oh, honey.” Daphne leaned sideways and nudged Olivia’s bony shoulder with her own soft one. “It’s probably menopause. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not menopausal!”

  Daphne took a step away. “It’s no insult. You’ll be thrilled to death to join the club. Take it from this old crone.”

  “You’re seven years older than me, Daphne.”

  “Enough distraction and redirection. I want to find out what’s shortened your trigger and got you woolgathering when you should be working. Or sleeping. You’re not talking, so that means I’ve got to guess. Near as I can figure, it started right around the arrival of that girl Sage, so I’m guessing she’s part of it. How am I doing?”

  Olivia lifted her eyebrows and took a sip of coffee but said nothing.

  Daphne waited a beat or two.

  “You went white as a sheet when you found her in the stable. Now, I’ve seen you pull foals and calves, sew horses cut up by barbed wire, hell, I’ve seen you put your own dislocated finger back in place. You could have delivered Sage’s baby right there in the straw, had it come to that. But no. You went all wobbly at the knees. So I asked myself, what could it be about this one little pregnant girl that could set the all-powerful Olivia Hansen aquiver?”

  That got her attention.

  “Leave it be, Daphne. This doesn’t concern you.”

  But if Daphne had learned anything in the past ten highly eventful years, it was that information trumped privacy. It was a policy that didn’t always endear her to others, but it had saved her skin more than once. Friends came and went. But you only had one skin.

  “I know you investigated me before you hired me,” she said.

  “You’re an ex-con,” said Olivia, without looking at her. “Of course I did.”

  “Then you’ll understand that I investigated you, too.”

  Olivia grew still. Her hands tightened on the mug. “You did what? Who gave you that right?”

  Daphne exhaled. “Oh, come on, Liv. I’d have been a dolt not to.”

  “Do you have a point, Daphne? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “Yes, which brings us back to little Sage and her bundle of joy. She’s got a remarkable resemblance to Haylee, doesn’t she? We don’t wallow in the past here, we’ve got too much respect for each other. But sometimes you’ve got to face facts. Here’s my theory: Sage is related to you. She could be your daughter, I suppose, but the secrecy and the timing leads me to believe she’s your . . . grandniece, I suppose we’d call her. I imagine the emotional attachments are complicated.”

  She’d long been aware of the bones of the relationship. When Olivia’s distant brother died suddenly, leaving teenaged Haylee an orphan, Olivia had stepped up. They’d moved around a fair bit before settling in the southern part of Oregon and starting the ranch. That was all common knowledge.

  What she hadn’t known, and was trying not to be offended about being kept in the dark about, was that Haylee had given up a baby for adoption, a baby that would now be the same age as this Sage girl. That fact had been slightly harder to uncover, but Daphne still had resources.

  Olivia was still for a full minute. Then she turned, her face rigid.

  “Haylee hasn’t had a chance to process this yet. I can barely process it. I don’t know where to begin. What does Sage want? How much does she know? What happened to her adoptive home? I’ve got more questions than answers and I’m running almost entirely on my gut here. And I’m terrified for Haylee. She’s been doing so well the past few years.”

  “Take a breath, Livvie. Haylee’s tougher than you give her credit for.”

  The underpinnings, the motivations, the whys and wherefores, were another story, the human story and the one that Daphne was most interested in. She’d been at Sanctuary Ranch for four years, almost as long as she’d been in prison, and any peace of mind she had, she owed Olivia. And she understood Olivia’s love for Haylee. Daphne felt like a mother to the girl, herself.

  “I noticed the resemblance the minute I saw her, but told myself it was a coincidence and the name was a distraction. I tried to talk to Haylee a couple of times, but in Gayle’s words, I’m too chickenshit cowardly to follow through.” Words poured out of Olivia now, softly but relentlessly. Daphne understood. Liv wanted to be discreet, but the weight of the secret threatened to take her down.

  “Sage was acting weird from the minute she arrived, suspicious, twitchy. Obviously, her life hasn’t been easy. I was going to talk to her myself, see if I could learn anything without tipping my hand, but then the baby came and everything was crazy.”

  She took a deep breath. Her shoulders bunched up like she was about to hoist a wet alfalfa bale into the back of her truck.

  “Her real name was on her health insurance papers, Daphne,” Olivia continued. “There’s no question about it. The girl who came to us pretending to be eighteen-year-old Sage Lafleur, the one in Sunset Bay Memorial’s maternity ward right now, is actually Sage Welles, the baby Haylee gave up for adoption, sixteen years ago.”

  Daphne patted Olivia’s hand. “It’s a biggie, no question. But there are worse discoveries. Haylee’s going to need support to handle this but it’s going to be okay.”

  “I have a ton of questions that need answering before I can believe that, Daphne. Thank you for understanding.”

  Daphne slapped her hands on her thighs and pushed away from the rail.

  “Well, then. A new day awaits and we each have our own mountains to climb. How about some waffles?”

  * * *

  Sage lifted the metal lid on her tray and wrinkled her nose. Hospital food sucked. It was even worse than the meals at the homeless shelter. And that was saying something. She looked up as a nurse bustled into her room, a comfortable, slightly overweight woman with a kindly face.

  “Good morning! I’m Ellen. How are you feeling to
day?”

  “Like someone blew a watermelon through my hoo-hah.”

  She’d given up calling herself Lafleur. That game was over. That cowboy woman, Olivia, hadn’t been surprised to learn that her real name was Welles, but Sage figured that a lot of foster kids used aliases. Hell, half of them were hiding from someone and too scared to use their real names.

  Sage wasn’t hiding. Sage wanted to be found.

  Here she was, right under their noses, and did anyone notice?

  Story of her life.

  “Then you’re right on track.” The nurse took out her stethoscope and rubbed it on her sleeve to warm it up. “Let’s see how your little munchkin is doing today. Have you decided on a name for her yet?”

  She had, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet.

  “I’ve got a short list.”

  Ellen unwrapped the baby in the bassinet beside her bed, clucking and cooing while Sage bit the rough skin on her thumbnail. Why hadn’t they put the baby in the nursery? Didn’t they realize that she didn’t even know how to pick her up? They couldn’t expect her to take care of the baby herself yet. Did they?

  She hadn’t really thought things through.

  But as she watched the nurse manipulate the tiny limbs, lifting the minuscule hospital gown to expose the pink chest, the size of a sea shell, and heard the startled, outraged cry, she found herself reaching out. The baby would be cold. She wouldn’t like that metal thing on her chest. She shouldn’t be uncovered. Her arms and legs were going off in all directions. That must be a little scary.

  She wanted to tuck the blanket tighter around the little body and wait for it to go back to sleep.

  “She’s a trouper,” Ellen said. “How’s breastfeeding going?”

  Sage made a face. “Torture, embarrassment, and failure.”

  “Also par for the course. Congratulations, you’re hitting all the high marks for a brand-new mother.”

  Sage wished people would stop calling her that. She wasn’t really a mother. This was all a mistake.

  But Ellen lifted the baby out of the plastic bin and placed her on Sage’s lap.

  “Oh,” said Sage. “I don’t know. I’m not ready for this.”

  “No one is, love. Lift up your gown.”

  Sage felt her face burn as the nurse exposed her chest, grabbed her boob, and yanked it this way and that. As if squeezing a human through your vagina wasn’t bad enough.

  Then the baby grabbed on with her mouth.

  “Yikes!” Sage yelped.

  The baby jumped back, her eyes widening. Then she let out a shriek.

  “Now, see, you’ve scared her,” Ellen said. Gentle disapproval was still disapproval and Sage steeled herself to ignore it.

  “Can’t you give her a bottle or something?”

  She didn’t want the kid attached to her boob, but she didn’t want her to starve, either. And obviously, there was nothing there.

  “There’s this stuff called colostrum.” Ellen lifted the baby and patted her. “It’s a kind of miracle food. All mothers produce it in the days immediately after birth. It provides immunity and special nutrients that protect the newborn. There’s nothing to replace colostrum.”

  “I don’t think I have any of that.”

  “You do. You can’t tell. It seems like nothing. But this period of time, before your milk comes in, is also precious practice time. Teaches you and the baby how to do this.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be natural? You know, maternal instinct or some crap like that.”

  “Oh, it’s as natural as walking or talking. But everyone learns to do that with a helping hand from someone. So here, let’s try again.”

  Ellen put the baby back up against Sage’s boob and this time, when the kid bit down, Sage winced but didn’t yell. It felt like she was going to tear it right off. It didn’t feel magical or miraculous and it certainly didn’t feel natural.

  But she didn’t want to disappoint Ellen again.

  And if this was something her baby really needed, that was only available now, from her, well that seemed like something she should do.

  It might be the one good thing she’d ever do for her baby, give her this special miracle food, this mother’s milk.

  Before she handed her over to the real parents.

  Then baby opened her eyes and stared straight at Sage, her irises as blue as glass. Stared and blinked, as if as shocked to see Sage as Sage was to see her.

  She looked so . . . real.

  “Sal,” she whispered, when Ellen’s back was turned. “Your name is Sal.”

  She’d figure the rest out later.

  * * *

  Haylee watched the nurse leave the room. She took a deep breath. She could do this. She would do this. She tightened her grip on the bag containing the tennis shoes.

  She knocked lightly on the open door. “Hello? May I come in?”

  The girl on the bed looked so much smaller than she had a day earlier. And not just her stomach. Everything.

  “Yeah, what now? I just fed her. Oh.” Blue eyes, free of mascara today, met Haylee’s. “You’re not . . . it’s you.”

  Haylee got to about two feet from the bed and stopped. The warm, musky scent of newborn life wafted over her, telescoping her back sixteen years, to another hospital room.

  “Yeah.” She swallowed. “I’m Haylee. And, you’re Sage. I never thought they’d keep that name.”

  Five minutes she’d had with her, before the nurse had gently pulled the infant from her arms, but she could still recall the squirming weight of the swaddled bundle, the smell of her baby’s hair, the soft, sucking sounds she made with her mouth.

  “Mom said I came with the name,” Sage said warily.

  “Suits you.” Haylee winced. She had no idea what to say.

  “I always wondered why you bothered naming me, since you weren’t planning to keep me.” Sage shrugged, as if she didn’t really care. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m not really asking. I’m just . . . talking.”

  Haylee realized this was as hard on Sage as it was on her.

  “I suppose we both have a lot of questions.”

  Like why was she here? Who was the father of her child? Where were her parents? How did she end up in the system?

  How had she found them?

  The social worker at the hospital had discovered through exhaustive phone calls that Sage had been couch-surfing in Salem, where her adoptive parents lived, then hitchhiked south to Eugene and Springfield, where she’d stopped at shelters and soup kitchens, lying about her age, and finally made her way to the coast, where she’d landed in Sunset Bay.

  Bare facts with no context.

  Haylee gestured vaguely to Sage’s lower body. “How are you feeling?”

  The girl twitched the heavy black bangs on her forehead. “Like I’ve been invaded by aliens.”

  Surprise made Haylee laugh. “That’ll go away.”

  “When? My whole body is stretched or stitched or floppy or leaking. I smell like sour milk. And I’m tired.”

  Haylee crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t want to remember it, the exhaustion, the pain, the breasts swollen with unwanted, unneeded milk. She’d tucked it all away in her memory, closed the lid, and pushed it to the back of her mind, and now, Sage had returned to tear it all open again.

  And in case Haylee needed further reminder, Sage had brought with her a living, breathing visual aid.

  The baby squawked in the bassinet beside Sage’s bed and Haylee jumped. A tiny pink fist waved in the air.

  “She’s hungry,” Sage said. “Again.”

  Haylee took a step back. “I’ll give you your privacy then. I just wanted to . . . say hi and . . . If there’s anything you need . . .”

  “Really?” The barbell in Sage’s eyebrow twitched. “You mean that, Mom?”

  The venom in her tone shouldn’t have shocked Haylee. It certainly shouldn’t have hurt. “You get some rest. I’ll see you later. Oh.” She set the pl
astic bag onto the chair. “I got these for you. I hope they fit.”

  She dashed out of the room, hoping she hadn’t just made everything worse.

  * * *

  Sleep deprivation often made Aiden’s nightmares worse but daytime napping messed things up, too. By the time he crawled into bed that evening, he hoped he’d be too exhausted to run his subconscious movie reel.

  He was wrong.

  This one began like all the others, with a sense of dread. Warm yellow sunshine on tall green grass, sheltering trees and white picket fences, beyond which lurked something dark, unseen, hidden.

  Waiting.

  Garret’s bubbling laughter, his plump legs pumping, chasing. A butterfly. A ball. A silvery globe of dish soap blown dripping from a red wand, fluttering, bouncing, drifting into the grass, where Aiden couldn’t see, couldn’t reach, couldn’t save.

  His throat clogged shut, a snake with a bunny inside, nothing going in but a squeeze of air, nothing out but a strangled whisper.

  Where are you? Where are you?

  The dark thing approached, sleek, smooth, shining, only the friendly smile revealing rotting teeth and appetite.

  Garret! He pushed through the molten air, dragged leaden limbs through the sea of grass, whispering his choking cry, begging for someone, anyone, to help slay the monster.

  Aiden awoke with a ragged cry, gasping for air, his chest bursting, his heart pounding. He threw the sheets back, stumbled out of bed, and ran to the door of his little cabin, desperate to get away.

  He gripped the post by the steps, shaking in his boxers, sweat running down his temples and back.

  Breathe, dammit. Breathe!

  An owl hooted softly from a cedar tree and between his ragged breaths, he heard the sound of the surf, slow and rhythmic. Gradually, his pulse returned to normal and the tall green grass faded away, taking with it the brightness of a small boy’s laughter.

  He bent low over the railing, his throat aching, his chest constricting again, only not with dread now but with old pain made fresh.

  Tears filled his eyes and he welcomed them, an acceptable price to pay for the sound of his son’s voice.

  “Is that you, Aiden?”

  The quavery voice made him jump. He froze, hoping the neighbor would go back into her own cabin and leave him alone.