Sunset Bay Sanctuary

by Roxanne Snopek

  “Of course. I visited her in the hospital.” Haylee climbed between the wires Olivia held apart for her and stood overlooking the valley, out of arm’s reach but far enough ahead so that Olivia couldn’t see her face. Far enough that she could imagine spreading her arms and launching herself into the air, like an eagle, to fly up and away from all this earthly confusion.

  Olivia folded her long legs and sank to the ground. “But you haven’t talked. I mean, really talked.”

  “As in, address the woolly mammoth obliterating the sliver of our shared history? The part about how I gave her away and now she’s back to ask why? No. Haven’t gotten to that yet.”

  Haylee crouched to finger a spear of grass.

  Mammoths. Elephants.

  Sea lions. Aiden McCall flashed across her mind.

  Panicky laughter bubbled inside her, only to fizzle away as the image changed to Sage, on that gurney, crying out in fear and pain.

  Olivia was quiet, leaving the sarcasm of Haylee’s words to drift on the warm breeze. Liv was trying to help. Haylee knew that. She’d been trying to help since the day she landed at LaGuardia Airport to collect a shattered teenage niece she barely knew.

  Haylee hated to think where she’d have ended up, were it not for Olivia.

  She hated even more to think about what may have brought Sage to a similar place in her life.

  And no Olivia to save her.

  “Liv.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t even know where to start. I have so many questions. And I’m terrified to hear the answers.”

  “We’ll learn what we need to know when the time is right.”

  Haylee turned. “How can you be so easygoing about this? She could be . . . we have no idea what she could be. She’s got a baby. Is there an angry boyfriend chasing her? Is she on the run from the law? Is she sick? On drugs? Abused? Dangerous? What about the parents? Surely they’re looking for her. What if they find out we’ve got her? Isn’t that a violation of our agreement?”

  In truth, she’d paid almost no attention to the details of the adoption, letting Olivia handle all that. Initially, she’d given Haylee updates, but Haylee had put a stop to that. She needed for it to be over.

  Hearing about her baby’s first smile, holding up her head, reaching these insignificant yet momentous milestones only underscored how Haylee had given up the right to cheer.

  She didn’t want to know then. Couldn’t bear to know now.

  “She’s underweight and exhausted but she’s not sick,” Olivia said. “She’s not on drugs. The cops aren’t after her. She says there’s no boyfriend.”

  “And the parents?”

  She always felt awkward discussing the people who’d adopted her child. They’d seemed nice enough, though she could hardly remember now. Olivia had approved. The social worker had approved. Approval had flown around her like effluent from a sewer main break.

  She couldn’t bear tipping her toes in that mess again.

  “We always kept the channels open,” said Olivia,

  “so you and Sage could find each other one day, if you so chose.”

  “I didn’t choose.”

  “But she did.”

  “No one told me.”

  Olivia shrugged. “She didn’t tell anyone, it seems. There have been extenuating circumstances.”

  “Like what?”

  “A . . . complicated family history.”

  Haylee snorted. “You’re telling me.”

  “I mean with her adoptive family.”

  “Who else? That’s the only family she’s got. I mean, look at us, Liv. Look at this place. We’re like the island of misfit toys. What if she’s created some elaborate fantasy in her head, that I’m Suzy Homemaker or Princess Barbie or, or . . . someone interesting and capable, who’s always wondered longingly about the daughter she gave up? If she thinks it’s going to be all roses and sunshine, some kind of dreamy reunion—”

  “Haylee, stop it.” Olivia scooted closer to look her niece in the eye. “You’re overthinking this. She’s a kid in need. She’s found her way here. We’re not turning our backs on her. Is that understood?”

  Haylee pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, as if she could push back the hot flood of memories and fears now threatening to come pouring out.

  “One day at a time, honey.” Olivia put an arm across Haylee’s shoulders and pulled her tight. “I know this is your journey, but it’s Sage’s, too. And it’s mine. I still believe it was the right thing to do, but I regretted letting Sage go the minute you signed the papers. It hurt you, Hay, in ways I’m not sure you’re even aware of. And it’ll keep hurting you until we find a way to make peace. This is a second chance. For all of us. You’re not a kid this time, Haylee.”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  Olivia looked at her steadily. “I’m a family member as well as an approved home. I’d like your agreement but Haylee, I don’t need it. She sought us out. I won’t turn her away. Not again. Not now.”

  Olivia’s weathered face looked suddenly a decade older, the lines around her eyes deeper, etched with unexpected pain. Haylee hadn’t thought much about how her decision sixteen years ago might have affected her aunt. Olivia had allowed Haylee to make the decision. Her body, her right.

  But now she realized Liv had paid at least as high a price as she herself had.

  “Are you sure you’re not doing this out of guilt?”

  Haylee refused to feel guilty. She’d done the best thing she could for her baby girl. The very best thing. Whatever happened after was not her fault.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Olivia said. “It’s the right thing to do. Her name’s Sal, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “The baby. Sage is calling her Sal.”

  “Short for Sally?”

  “Who knows. But I think she wants to keep her.”

  Haylee let her arms flop down at her sides. “We’re not set up for a baby. How will we manage? It’s not fair to our guests. It’s really not fair to the staff.”

  “Everyone’s on board, Haylee.”

  Betrayal cut deep. “You’ve already talked to everyone else, before me?” Liv must be serious, to marshal that kind of support.

  “We all love you, Haylee.”

  Haylee jerked her head away, the softness in Liv’s voice undoing her. She would have to face this. Not just reopen the short chapter she hoped not to read again, but be part of the ones not yet written.

  “Daphne went all gooey-eyed and threatened to skin you alive if you didn’t agree,” continued Olivia.

  Daphne must have been torn, having to choose sides. But not torn enough.

  “What will she do?” Haylee asked finally. “Won’t she be bored?”

  Olivia exhaled and some of the tension left her mouth. “She’ll be busy. She has to take parenting classes in town. The community center offers them. I signed you and me up for them as well.”

  “You did what?!”

  “Parents come in all shapes and sizes, kiddo. I didn’t do so shit hot with you. Neither of us knows what to do with Sage. And none of us have a clue about a newborn. Well, except Daphne. She’s practically lactating.”

  Haylee heard the guilt in Liv’s voice but she wasn’t sharing it. She felt like she’d had the ground ripped out beneath her, like when she’d first found out about her own pregnancy. She’d escaped responsibility then, only to have it come around full circle.

  “And she’ll have chores, like all my kids. We’ll figure out a work schedule that she can manage with the baby. Daphne can use some help in the kitchen now anyway, since it’s high season in the garden and Jamie’s spending most of her time there. We’ll make it work.”

  * * *

  Haylee couldn’t put it off any longer. Olivia refused to discuss how long Sage and the baby would be staying, only that Sage was to be made welcome and accepted, just like Tyler and Duke or any of the other residents.

  Haylee stood at the sliding door to the dec
k off the kitchen, the part that perched on the rise overlooking the ranch’s distant beach access. When the wind was right, you could hear the surf.

  The wind wasn’t right tonight. Plus, her heart was pounding too hard to hear anything else. Her daughter was in front of her, looking out at the beach.

  “Hey. You’re here.” The girl started but didn’t turn around. She had on the same getup she’d been wearing when she’d arrived in the hospital last week, oversize gray sweatshirt, baggy khaki-colored cargo pants, red high-tops, the dusty laces trailing in the dirt.

  “Is your room okay?”

  They’d put her in the main house, near Daphne’s quarters. The room wasn’t large, but it was big enough for a foldable crib, a twin bed, and a change table.

  “It’s great,” said Sage. “I already told Olivia I’d pay her back for the baby stuff.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the state will reimburse her.”

  Sage bristled at that. “I’ll get a job. I’ll make sure my kid has what she needs.”

  She didn’t want charity. Haylee respected that. But what did she want, then?

  “I hear you’re calling her Sal.”

  Sage gripped her elbows and looked out over the horizon again. “Yeah, so?”

  “Is that short for something?”

  Her head twitched. “Salvia. Another plant name. It’s related to sage.”

  Haylee caught the connection immediately. The forethought surprised and impressed her.

  “Yours means a hay meadow,” added Sage. “I figured I’d stick with the theme.”

  Haylee was thunderstruck this time. “You know what my name means?”

  Sage rolled her eyes. “The clue’s right there in the first syllable. My parents never hid it from me that I was adopted and that my ‘real’ mother was someone named Haylee. I guess that’s one thing they did right.”

  Haylee floundered. This conversation was full of surprises.

  “Do your, uh, parents know you’re here?”

  Sage snorted. “They know I’m somewhere. I call them now and then. It makes them feel involved.”

  Haylee thought of the thin ice covering the horse troughs on winter mornings, easily shattered by a firm tap from a thirsty muzzle.

  “Do they know about . . . the baby?”

  She gave a derisive sniff. “I didn’t even know about the baby until a few months ago.”

  Like Haylee, her nose was dusted with freckles. Unlike Haylee, Sage’s freckles stood out starkly on her washed-out, chalky complexion. Her cheeks were thin, her eyes veiled. Beneath those eyes, dark smudges stood out like bruises. Her choppy bootblack hair was tied up in a series of elastics, but at the roots, a soft brown was emerging.

  “Sage, we have to let your parents know that you’re safe.”

  Sage turned her gaze back to the view. “They’ve been told.”

  “What? Well, are they coming to get you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t go with them anyway. They can’t make me do anything anymore.”

  “But why, Sage?”

  “Why do kids run away from home?” She lifted a pierced eyebrow. “Is that a serious question? Do you live under a rock or something?”

  Haylee thought about the bruises Tyler had worn when he’d arrived with them. How Duke preferred working with Olivia, instead of Gideon or Huck. She thought of the sisters who’d joined them for a few weeks in spring, how neither one would let the other out of her sight. She thought of the dark spells that came over Daphne from time to time.

  “Relax, Ma,” said Sage. “Mommy didn’t smack me around. Daddy didn’t visit my room late at night.”

  Haylee flinched, from the suggestions as well as the name.

  “You don’t mind if I call you Ma, do you, Haylee? Everyone knows I’m your blast from the past.”

  It could be worse, Haylee supposed. “Regardless of whatever went wrong between you and your parents, they must be out of their minds with worry. You’ve been on the streets. That’s so dangerous.”

  “A little late for the concerned mother act, wouldn’t you say? Besides, I was fine. I had friends.”

  Her face darkened and she looked away.

  The baby’s cries sounded as Daphne’s heavy footsteps approached. She stuck her head over Haylee’s shoulder and addressed Sage, patting little Sal’s back.

  “Someone’s hungry in here and what I’ve got won’t satisfy her.”

  “I just fed her,” said Sage. “They told me every four hours in the hospital.”

  “If you have round-the-clock staff and a soundproof nursery, that might work,” said Daphne. “Here, it does not.”

  Sage peeled herself away from the railing and sidled past Haylee without looking at her.

  Haylee watched her go, then looked at Daphne. “They won’t let her keep the baby, will they? Given that she’s basically homeless. I mean, she can’t stay here forever, right?”

  Daphne tipped her head to look at Haylee over her glasses. “That’s for you and Olivia to decide, not me. What does she say?”

  Haylee walked out onto the deck. She didn’t feel like being under Daphne’s microscope right now.

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  Daphne snorted. “Life’s complicated, chickie. Or should I say, Granny. No one’s cornered the market on misery.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Haylee Hansen is a visionary in the world of dog training. I recently spent 3 days on this amazing ranch to learn more about the traits that make good service dogs and will return a better pup-raiser. Maybe I’ll be a trainer myself one day!”

  —Amanda Chandler

  Aiden spent his afternoon off in a folding chair on a stretch of beach near his cabin, with his tablet and a stack of magazines and newsletters. The late summer sun beat down warm and soporific in the sheltered cove. It was tempting to snooze, make up for yet another disrupted night, but instead, he was reading up on what Gayle Chen had told him about service dogs for the disabled. If he was going to refute her suggestion, he had to understand everything about it.

  A Frisbee landed in front of him. He picked it up and looked around. A kid who was about ten years old, with bright red board shorts and sun-burned shoulders, waved at him.

  He grinned and sent it sailing back.

  “Want to play, mister?” yelled the kid.

  He shook his head and gestured to his reading material. “Sorry.”

  The kid walked off to look elsewhere and Aiden went back to work.

  It was interesting stuff. There were dogs for the blind, of course. There were dogs that alerted deaf owners to sounds. Some could anticipate seizures, so people with epilepsy had time to get to safety. They could be trained to pull on handles, fetch telephones, carry keys, and keep strangers from getting too close. It was remarkable, in fact, how many ways dogs could be trained to help people.

  But Aiden wasn’t disabled. He’d run five miles that morning. He did weights at the community center. His stamina, his reflexes, his strength and flexibility were all spectacular. He didn’t even wear glasses.

  No, his problems were all in his head, and not from being in a war zone, which would be understandable, but from being burned out and paralyzed by grief. How was a dog supposed to help with that?

  He clicked through to another Web site.

  “When someone is suffering from anxiety or depression,” he read, “it may seem like there is no hope, but the unconditional love of an animal can provide a powerful grounding, connecting, and healing force for a new way of life.”

  A new way of life. He dug his bare toes into the sand and looked out at the sparkling water of Sunset Bay. So far, all he’d accomplished was to feel the same old pain in a new setting. He wasn’t hopeless or depressed and he deeply resented being slotted into the patient category. He wasn’t a veteran carrying wounds that would last a lifetime. He was a trauma surgeon going through a temporary rough patch.

  Temporary, as in ending soon? Or temporary, but potentially permanent?


  The kid in the red suit tossed his disc into the waves, then dove in to retrieve it. A couple of preschoolers dug holes nearby, under the casual supervision of their mother. They faced away from each other, tossing sand over their shoulders, each scoop from one landing to refill the hole dug by the other. The mother caught his eye and smiled. An effort in futility, like throwing a toy into the ocean, but bringing so much joy.

  He smiled back, and then looked away.

  He wanted to change. He’d been spinning and spinning, waiting for his mental tires to catch traction but maybe what he needed was a tow truck.

  Gayle’s words kept ringing through his memory.

  Maybe a dog won’t help. But what if it does? What have you got to lose?

  His career was circling the drain. His marriage was over. His son, gone.

  Haylee Hansen catching him at the vending machines had pretty much decimated his pride, too.

  He’d never had a dog. Always wanted one growing up, but it had never happened. Too much mess. Too much work.

  But some breeds were easier than others. Spaniels were nice. He could picture in his mind what his little boy would have looked like, his arms thrown around a small dog with big eyes and long, silky ears.

  Or throwing a ball back and forth, while a bandy-legged little terrier that Michelle was always complaining about barked happily before stopping to dig up her garden.

  He and Michelle would have been sitting on a back deck, with a glass of wine, holding hands, maybe swinging them back and forth between them while they watched their son. The nattering they’d do about how he hadn’t done his homework, how he left his room in a mess, how he didn’t like poop patrol but wasn’t it great how he and Trigger or Lady or Spike got along? How happy he was, as an only child, to have a dog of his own?

  They would congratulate themselves on yet another good decision.

  The perfect life.

  The perfect lie.

  He thought again of how it felt to have Jewel’s big warm body against him that first night on that cold black rock.

  She didn’t do anything. Yet she’d still helped him.

  Maybe he should consider Gayle’s suggestion. He didn’t have to tell Haylee his whole sad story.