by Kay Bratt
“Beetles? Aren’t there prettier things to focus on? Like a rare butterfly or some exotic flower?” Sadie asked.
Lauren laughed. “The beetles are interesting. Huge areas of the forest have been destroyed by them. It’s like an army of murderous pine beetles are out to decimate Yosemite.” She began walking again, giving up her close inspection of the bark and branches.
Sadie was the first to notice the clouds gathering above them. She’d been prompted to look up when she felt a shadow cross her face. “Lauren, it looks like it might rain,” she said, her tone wary but hopeful she was wrong. It was only a ten percent chance, according to the weather report on the airplane monitor, but the sky was telling her otherwise.
“Probably just a spring shower,” Lauren said.
Just as soon as she mentioned a shower, the raindrops began.
“I hope you’re right,” Sadie said. “I’m not a fan of walking in wet shoes.”
The drops came faster.
“I’m sure there’s shelter down at the lake. If we hurry, we can make it,” Lauren said, picking up the pace. “Can you believe I have an umbrella and my rain jacket in my trunk?”
Sadie rolled her eyes. Of course she did. Along with everything but the kitchen sink, but there was no point in belaboring the fact now. Two seconds later, without even a strike of lightning or a rumble of thunder to warn them, the bottom fell out of the sky, and the rain poured down.
Sadie caught sight of Lauren’s phone peeking out of her back pocket.
“Oh no, Lauren! Your phone!”
Lauren stopped and reached for it, then unzipped her backpack and thrust it in. Sadie handed her the half-emptied bottle of water to add too. She was still thirsty, but if she drank any more, she’d have to squat in the woods, and she really didn’t want that experience.
“Maybe the rain didn’t get past the screen protector,” Lauren said, grimacing back at Sadie as she zipped her backpack back up. Lauren looked ghoulish standing there, her hair plastered to her face and mascara running from each eye.
“Great, Lauren,” Sadie said, completely exasperated now and no longer afraid to set her daughter off. “We shouldn’t have tried this today. Now we’re probably going to have to spend our evening getting you a new phone.”
“I’m sorry—but it’ll be fine when it dries out. Not much a bag of rice won’t fix. Look, there’s a bigger tree over there. We’ll get more cover from its limbs.” She pointed off the trail to a tree about thirty feet away.
Sadie gave her a gentle push. “Go, then!”
Lauren jumped over a fallen log and jogged into the denser trees. Sadie followed, holding her arms over her head as though somehow that would stop the onslaught of rain that was already drenching her clothes and turning her skin from a toasty warm to a corpselike cold.
She supposed it was a memory never to be forgotten. At least they’d have that. Years from now they’d laugh about this afternoon. It would be better in retrospect.
They huddled under a gigantic live oak, a refuge in the ocean of pine trees that offered little to no room to huddle beneath the limbs. Lauren kept her backpack between them, trying to keep it dry, but Sadie hoped it held nothing more valuable than her phone. Tom wouldn’t be happy that they might be looking at purchasing a new phone, though hopefully he had put insurance on it. He’d tell her how ridiculous they had been to leave the car without an umbrella and at best some rain gear if they were considering a hike.
Yes, he’d have a hundred things to say about how she’d screwed up and endangered their daughter. And he was right. She was a poor excuse for a mother. An irresponsible one.
She thought of Jacob.
That made her feel worse.
Then the thunder rolled in. A bolt of lightning struck way too close. Beside her, Lauren jumped.
Sadie put her arm around her. Lauren had always had a fear of thunder and lightning, but so far, she was taking it well. Other than the trembling, which was probably from the sudden rain turning their balmy afternoon into a chilly one, she was fairly calm.
“We aren’t supposed to be near a tree in a thunderstorm,” Lauren said, her eyes glittering with fear.
“That’s going to be a hard one to follow out here, don’t you think?” Sadie asked, spreading an arm out expansively. She looked up at a magnificent sequoia tree that felt as tall as a skyscraper.
“Wait—listen,” Lauren said, tilting her head.
Sadie heard nothing. Other than the rain hitting the canopy of leaves, then another lightning strike.
“I think I hear voices coming from that way,” she said, pointing farther into the trees. “If they’re camping, that means there’s a clearing. Or a shelter. But even if there’s no shelter, don’t they say there’s safety in numbers?”
“You want to go? Now?” Sadie asked, looking back at the trail they’d come from. They’d passed some massive granite slabs and rocks, but most of them were near where they’d come in, at Olmsted. She wiped at the rain falling into her eyes, trying to gauge Lauren’s expression.
Lauren didn’t answer. She threaded her arms through the backpack straps to keep it on her front and bent her head as she hopped through the trees and away from the towering oak. But she didn’t turn back the way they’d come. She went forward, deeper into the brush. “I’m pretty sure the voices came from this direction.”
Sadie had no choice but to follow.
They ran through the trees, hopping over fallen logs and around limbs, and Sadie blindly followed Lauren, who didn’t even run in a straight line. Her daughter zigzagged, changing courses when she came to obstacles, with no apparent attention to any one direction. A few times they barreled back, but then it felt like they had moved in a circle.
She wanted to tell her to stop, that they were getting too far from the marked trail, but the rain was loud and Lauren too far ahead to hear, her yellow shirt barely visible between the trees.
Sadie yelled once, and when her voice barely made a whimper in the wind, she tried to bridge the distance between her and her daughter. As she ran, she kept her hands out, bracing against the branches that slapped at her and slowed her down. A throbbing pain had invaded her limbs, brought on by not only the exercise but the cold rain. Slowly her body was revolting against her, turning her into the Tin Man. That was how she always thought of it when the fibromyalgia got its way, making her stiff and clumsy.
Yet Sadie continued, terrified she’d lose sight of her daughter.
Finally, Lauren stopped, turning in a full circle before coming back to settle her gaze on Sadie.
Another bolt of lightning struck, and Lauren’s eyes went wild. Gone was the confident young woman from the morning, and now Sadie saw only the little girl in her. It reminded her of more times than she could count when Lauren was young, of her coming to crawl in between them during a nighttime storm, settling in to finish the night tucked in like a worm in a cocoon. Sadie had fussed at her, but the truth was that she slept better with Lauren’s warm body between them. That was when they knew exactly where she was and could fully relax, knowing she was safe.
Sadie held her hands out, coming close enough to put them on Lauren’s shoulders.
“Calm down. We have to stop right now, Lauren,” she said, keeping her voice composed but loud enough to be heard over the thundering rain.
Sadie tried to think. The rain was more than a quick spring shower because in the last ten minutes, it had only gotten louder and heavier. The thunder was getting even closer. They were out there with no rain gear. No shelter. And standing in the midst of too many tall trees, a.k.a. lightning rods.
They were screwed.
She looked up, trying to see if the black cloud was moving. But it was no longer just one cloud. It appeared as though the entire sky had turned dark. Their innocent spring shower had turned into a raging thunderstorm.
“Maybe we should go back the direction we came from,” she said, peering around her. She wondered if it was possible for a national park
to have flash floods.
“Do you know which way we came?” Lauren asked, her eyes darting around.
Sadie’s heart fell. She’d hoped that since Lauren had been leading them, she was aware of her surroundings. But she knew that she’d just made a huge mistake. In her attempt to let Lauren be an adult, she’d also let her lead them into what might become a dangerous situation. Why had she allowed her to just take off running that way? Why hadn’t she just said no, that they absolutely weren’t prepared for a hike or even a walk, as she’d called it? That they should’ve turned back or stayed put until the storm passed? When had she begun to allow Lauren to call the shots?
“No, I don’t know which way. What about your phone? Can you check the compass?”
Lauren dug in her bag and came out with the phone, frowning as she tried to bring the home screen up.
“It got a little wet,” she said, not looking up at Sadie.
Sadie knew that expression well. Remorse and embarrassment. Worry too.
“Let’s just stop and think about it for a minute,” she said, trying to divert Lauren’s mood dip. “Look around. Do you see anything familiar?”
As Lauren tucked her phone away, then peered around them, Sadie realized that in her mounting anxiety, she didn’t even know where she’d taken her last ten steps from. Every angle looked exactly the same. Every tree a twin to the one beside it. Every fallen limb mimicking ten others.
“Nothing. But we should keep going forward, and either we’ll find more hikers, or we’ll run into the trail that leads to the lake,” Lauren finally said, seeming to capture her composure again.
Still, Sadie doubted the decision.
“I say we wait here until storm passes, then try again,” she said, swiping again at the droplets falling into her eyes and shivering at the rivulet that ran down her throat and between her breasts. And this time, she wasn’t asking her daughter. She was telling her. “Everything will be clearer when this rain isn’t pouring down our faces.”
The rain began to let up an hour or so later, falling in less threatening patterns rather than heavy sheets. They had huddled together, trying to avoid touching any trees, fearing the next strike of lightning. They were both completely pruned up. The mosquitos had decided to make an appearance too, relentlessly diving in for sneak attacks, drawing blood more often than not. As they waited, they swatted and compared fingertips. Though Sadie’s were older, Lauren’s were far more wrinkled. If only for a second, it took their minds off their misery and made them laugh.
Sadie was thankful for that, but she was shocked at the runoff that seemed to flow in every direction, down multiple paths like small rivers between trees. Sensing that Lauren was feeling responsible and therefore more miserable by the minute, Sadie led her to a huge fallen tree and urged her to sit.
“I guess we should’ve listened to the guy at the trailhead,” Lauren said, calmer now that the thunder and lightning were moving away.
Sadie groaned. She’d forgotten about him. But that made her remember something.
“At least when the rain stops, you can put his jacket on, and it will warm you up,” she said, hoping against everything that the backpack was waterproof.
“I thought you didn’t want me catching any cooties from him?” Lauren teased.
“I don’t. But desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Hopefully the extent of their dire circumstances would consist of only getting caught in a rainstorm, Sadie thought as she mentally calculated what time it was by now. By her count, it should be nearing late afternoon. She thought of her phone, sitting idly in her purse in the trunk. Another mistake.
“Lauren, we have to get back up to the car. There’s no time now to find the lake. You know that, right?”
Lauren nodded, then reached over and plucked a leaf from Sadie’s hair. She let go of it, letting it flutter to the ground in front of them, where it was quickly swept away by a small rivulet. “I guess my news will have to wait.”
“You can tell me now,” Sadie said.
“No, I wanted it to be a better setting. I don’t want to tell you in this.”
She turned away, worrying Sadie even more about what the news was and why she was so reticent to tell it. But she could sympathize. She didn’t want to tell her news either. Not when they were both cold, wet, and miserable.
They’d both have to wait.
“So what’s new at home?” Lauren turned, ready to initiate conversation again.
More than I can tell you right now, Sadie wanted to say. She was a coward. To be honest, this was the best time to tell Lauren. She couldn’t get mad and run into a room and slam the door, refuse to communicate. Sadie could lay it all out there and get it off her chest. Free herself from the burden.
“I heard from your grandmother,” she said instead. “Probably a week or so ago.”
Lauren raised her eyebrows. “And how did that go?”
Sadie shrugged. “She’s getting old. I guess I should give her a break. We talked for about ten minutes before I had to hang up and run for the bathroom.”
Lauren laughed. The joke in their house was that a call from Grandma could unclog anyone without them ever touching a box of laxatives.
Sadie had always had a difficult relationship with her mother. As far as she knew, most mothers and daughters battled at some time in their lives. But in their situation, the emotional distance between them had been compounded when Sadie had told her she would be adopting a daughter. Her mother lived alone, and losing Jacob had been hard on her too. He’d been her only grandson. So one would think that she would’ve been thrilled to hear that she’d get a granddaughter.
Nope. Not the case.
The hysterics from that afternoon were still memorable, all these years later. It set Sadie on edge to think of it, to go back to that time when all she’d wanted was a mother’s support and understanding but instead had been forced to walk away crying.
It wasn’t that her mother didn’t believe in building a family through adoption. She just couldn’t get her head around Sadie and Tom’s choice to go international.
“Why China?” If she’d asked it once, she’d asked it a dozen times.
“Because that’s where our daughter is,” Sadie would remind her.
Her mother would shake her head. Roll her eyes. Even come up with some far-fetched story of how she’d heard of a child adopted from an orphanage who went on to wreak havoc in the lives of the new family, their behavior completely uncontrollable.
Sadie had tried to tell her that not every child was the same—that many matches made from international adoptions worked out beautifully—but her mother had balked at every part of it. From that moment on, her old-school stubbornness had set in, and she’d refused to embrace the idea of Lauren as her granddaughter while they waited for the day she’d join the family.
“Did she ask about me?” Lauren said.
“She actually did. She’s already trying to figure out what to buy you for your graduation present.”
Lauren smiled. “Did you tell her she has a few years to decide?”
“I did,” Sadie said. “But she’s already shopping.”
“Tell her a new Jeep Cherokee would make a great present.”
“Sure, if that falls into the one-hundred-dollar category,” Sadie joked. Her mother was on a fixed income and usually acknowledged birthdays and Christmas with a fifteen-dollar check. But she’d told Sadie that her granddaughter would only have one college graduation, and she was splurging with a Ben Franklin this time.
“I know. I’m kidding. Whatever she wants to get me will be fine. She could use it as gas money to come visit when I get home. Tell her that.”
Sadie shook her head. “Be careful what you ask for.”
“Mom, come on. You’ve got to invite her sometime.”
She’d probably accept too. At nearly eighty years old, her mother got around well. She particularly liked to visit the flea markets and antique stores, pili
ng up even more objects that someone—most likely Sadie—would have to deal with after she died. Some things she passed along to them, items that more often than not ended up in the attic or stored in the garage. Unwanted gifts that held the memories of strangers, something Sadie wanted no part of. Tom said they were tokens of affection from a woman who couldn’t articulate her love.
Sadie didn’t think it was that simple.
“She’ll probably still make me up an Easter basket, but that’s fine with me,” Lauren said as she stood and crossed her arms, holding herself tightly against the chill.
No doubt. And it would be stuffed full of chocolate, plastic eggs, and Peeps.
Her mother had missed most of the first year that Lauren had come home. In a way it had been a blessing, because Sadie couldn’t have taken any looks of sympathy as she’d tried in vain to bond with her daughter. Her mother would’ve been unable to stop the train of unsolicited advice she was prone to offer in all aspects of her daughter’s life.
Sadie could only imagine what she’d have to say about the upcoming changes when she found out. She thought Tom was perfect.
After Lauren had settled in and they’d begun to really feel like a family, Tom had worked on Sadie, prodding her to end the estrangement with her mother. Finally, she’d relented and invited her for a visit, anxious for her family to see what an amazing gift the universe had granted them. Sadie had been shocked when she’d accepted, but she’d known not to expect much. Her mother had simply wanted to see with her own eyes this child who had come from halfway across the world, who still broke out speaking in her first language when she was upset, and who was now taking up all of Sadie’s time.
At first her mother had been guarded, barely taking part in the conversation around the table or the evening activities they did with Lauren. Other than criticizing Sadie’s housekeeping skills and lack of discipline when Lauren didn’t do what she was told, she’d been standoffish. She had acted almost afraid, like she’d never interacted with a child before. But Tom had been patient with her, telling Sadie to give her time, to let them get to know one another naturally, without forcing it.