by Kay Bratt
This was the second time in her life that Sadie had felt completely out of control. Here, in the midst of the blackest of nights, she recalled those days—those long, terrible days after the accident, when she’d begged God to take her instead and bring Jacob back to live out a full and satisfying life.
Why had her prayers been ignored? Could it be she wasn’t allowed to be a mother of two? That she’d had to give up one in order to get the other? She knew it was a ridiculous thought. She was ashamed to admit that years ago, in her most private moments, she’d thought that if God had given her the choice between keeping her son or having a daughter, then Lauren wouldn’t be there with her. What kind of mother has those thoughts? She’d hated herself for it immediately. And after the comment she’d made earlier, it was clear Lauren had picked up on it.
But today, in this moment, she didn’t know what choice she would’ve made. All she knew was that she’d failed Jacob, but she would not fail Lauren.
She wished for Tom, suddenly needing him so desperately that she would’ve given her right arm to have him appear before them, taking charge to keep them warm and get them out of the wild and back to civilization, laughing at their face-to-face bear incident and the careless detour it had caused. She blinked, letting her eyelids close for a second too long in the hope that magic could happen.
When she looked again, he was still not there.
Taking deep, silent breaths, she told herself she would not cry. Tom would want her to be strong. She peered into the dark sky, feeling closed in by the trees that surrounded her, looming over them. The flames encouraged her night blindness, and she couldn’t watch for anything—bears, snakes, or whatever it was out there would never be spotted despite her vigilance. She could only listen, freezing at each sound until she was sure nothing or no one was coming to hurt them.
It all felt so—well, it felt sinister.
But was that feeling created by her own psyche? Boy Scout troops and avid hikers loved sleeping out in the woods, even on the bare ground. There was some sort of magnetic pull to nature for some people, so why did it make Sadie feel so vulnerable?
She supposed it could be the wet clothes and the gnawing ache of hunger that was blocking her from embracing the experience. Or it could be the absolute terror that her daughter might have a head injury and could go to sleep and never wake up.
Stop it, she told herself silently. Do not go there. Nothing good could come from those kinds of thoughts.
A familiar and haunting sound rang out, echoing through the trees, and Sadie sat up.
It was the owl.
She looked into the trees, straining her eyes as she tried to find it. The moonlight only cast slivers of light here and there, and Sadie almost missed it, but then she saw a glint.
It was him. His eyes glowed, darting around until they found hers, then blinked.
She caught her breath.
In her mind, she saw Jacob, fresh from a bath and dressed in his favorite pajamas, curled up in his tiny bed as they read the owl book, his hair still wet and his breath sweet from the bubble gum–flavored toothpaste. Tom had been standing over them, smiling as he leaned against the wall, waiting for his turn to snuggle after Sadie had read Jacob the last pages. She’d met Tom’s gaze, and silently, without words, they’d marveled over the miracle they’d created together in this utmost perfect little being who made their world complete.
Inhaling now, she closed her eyes and was rewarded with the familiar smell of his hair and his skin—a scent that she could never get enough of.
The wetness of the tear sliding down her face brought her back to reality, and she opened her eyes, putting them directly on the owl. He stared at her, his unflinching gaze penetrating down to her very soul.
Go away, she mouthed. Stop reminding me of him.
He hooted again, winking. Relentless to get her attention. The bird also reminded her of another time in her life when she’d faced a real live owl and wanted nothing to do with it either. His name was Oscar, and he’d been a baby owl—an owlet, Tom had called it—that Tom had found abandoned and brought home to nurse back to health. Jacob hadn’t been gone long at the time, and at first Sadie had tried to pretend the owlet hadn’t meant anything. Soon, though, it had completely monopolized Tom and his time, and Sadie had barely been able to stand looking at it. She’d known that having it would’ve meant so much to Jacob, and she’d wondered why fate had decided to deliver it only after her son wasn’t there to see it. Each time she’d peeked in on it, drawn to sneak out to the garage when Tom wasn’t home, she’d stayed back but watched to make sure it still moved. She’d almost been able to imagine the sound of her son’s laughter and his look of glee at seeing the way the owlet leaned back and opened its beak at the slightest sound, hoping someone would drop a delicious morsel into its mouth. She had longed to comfort it, but she hadn’t been able. She hadn’t wanted to feel responsible for another living thing.
At first Tom had fed it baby food through a dropper, but when it graduated to pieces of mice carcass, it had horrified Sadie. Tom would do the carving away from the house, but Sadie had known what went into the process, and it had turned her stomach. Admittedly, when it wasn’t eating, the owl had been a cute little creature, and more than a few times, she’d felt a maternal instinct toward it. She’d wanted it to survive; she really had. But with it around, she had not been able to stop thinking of Jacob.
After a few difficult exchanges, Tom had taken it to a wildlife rehabilitation center, even though he’d claimed he could do for the small bird exactly, if not more than, what the center could. He’d been really disappointed in her for weeks, but he’d never brought up the subject again.
She still felt guilty that she’d denied him the joy of caring for it. Just one more thing she’d taken from a man who asked for nothing.
Now this owl was making her relive that guilt, and she wasn’t feeling too appreciative of it either.
She glared up at him.
He blinked in response.
“Stupid, stubborn critter.” She no longer wanted to look at his eyes, so she studied the branch he perched on, noting the way the bird sat so casually, so safely, regal and protected from—
Protected.
Yes! She needed to build them a shelter. She didn’t know how or with what, but they needed a shield from the elements. That item would probably be in the manual of Lost in the Wilderness 101, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t already thought of it already.
A hoot sounded out, making her jump.
She refused to look back into the tree. There was no time for immersing herself in a pity party. Jacob was gone, and she had to focus on Lauren. Standing now, she kept her eyes on the ground as she tried to decide the best spot for a shelter and what materials were available.
Without a tent or tarp, she honestly had no idea how to build a shelter—or anything of value, really—but as she stood there looking around, she realized that nature could provide her with tools if she’d only calm down and think.
Once the idea kicked in, Sadie worked fast, wishing now that she’d been a part of Tom and Lauren’s nature walks and camping weekends.
She started by finding the best tree as their base. The bottom branches of the pine that she chose didn’t go all the way to the ground. There were about two to three feet from the bottom branches to the soil beneath it. By the light of the fire, Sadie pinpointed the strongest bottom limb; then, using it as the base, she began to gather long sticks and branches, standing them from the limb to the ground, side by side, to use as a wall. It would be sort of a lean-to, but she’d tuck Lauren in beside the makeshift wall so that if it rained again, she would stay dry.
Using each stick to support the next, she kept it up, circling around their camp. With her flashlight to guide her, she went a little farther each time but never far enough that she couldn’t see Lauren as she searched for the longest and sturdiest sticks.
When she had the wall built, she used a stick to d
ig under boughs and logs, gathering the driest leaves and then dumping them on the wall of sticks as she went.
After the outer layers of the shelter were covered with leaves and brush, she got on her knees and, using her hands, scrounged in the dark as she scraped all the wet ground matter out of the inside. Then she went for more dry leaves and, tearing off the weakest pine boughs, she brought them back and put them inside, making a barrier against the cold, wet ground.
When she’d claimed every random stick, branch, and pile of leaves within sight of their camp, she stood panting over the lean-to she’d made.
It wasn’t half bad.
Then some of the branches began to fall, causing a domino effect that toppled at least half of what she’d done, making it useless as a shelter.
She cursed under her breath. Again.
How could she make it stable?
She realized that the branches needed to be tied on to the main branch.
But she had no rope.
She shined the flashlight around, stopping the beam on a few small saplings. The trees were young, barely as big around as her wrist, and not even as tall as she stood. They were so insignificant that she’d failed to notice them before.
She went to one and pulled at the bark. Just as she’d hoped, it came away and allowed her to keep pulling until she’d removed a strip—green as grass on the inside—about an inch wide and six inches long. The next one she pulled more carefully, resulting in an even longer strip. When she’d gathered half a dozen, she took them back to her shelter and used them to tie some of the biggest sticks to the main branch. She came back for more and then used them too.
Finally, she’d done all she could, and though not every branch was tied, if a big wind or storm came, she felt confident that at least half of the shelter would remain standing.
She paused, scrutinizing the shelter to see if there was anything she could do to make it better. There wasn’t, and now that she’d stopped, the pain running through her body screamed at her, reminding her that she wasn’t an outdoorsman—that she needed to be at home behind the safety of her strong pine door. She needed to take something for pain and indulge in a hot bath, then sink into a welcome slumber.
But she’d done it, she told herself.
Her body could go screw itself. She wasn’t as incapable as it wanted her to believe, and she was going to savor the sense of accomplishment that building the shelter gave her. She also felt hope, pinning it on the possibility that someone would come along the next day, and they’d only have to spend one night out in the elements.
Just one night. She could keep her daughter safe for one night.
She went to Lauren, squatting down beside her.
“Lauren, I made you a better place to sleep,” she said softly, putting her hand on her shoulder.
Her daughter didn’t respond. Sadie felt her heart lurch.
“Do you hear me, Lauren?” she said, pushing her panic back so that it wouldn’t come out in her voice. “We have to get under the shelter.”
Lauren stirred, and Sadie could see her eyes flutter open, though it was too dark to tell where she was looking.
“Fine, Mom,” Lauren mumbled, turning over and getting to her knees. “If you’ll stop bothering me.”
Sadie helped her up, then guided her to the shelter as Lauren limped along. When they got there, Lauren resisted. “No,” she said, leaning forward to look closer at what appeared to be a huge pile of sticks and leaves. “I’m not going in that thing.”
“Yes, you are,” Sadie said firmly. “If it rains, it’ll at least help keep you dry. And if the dew is heavy in the morning, we’ll be protected from that too. Use the backpack for a pillow.”
Sadie slid the backpack in first and then nudged Lauren to follow. She hated to even think about what it was going to feel like when the temperature dropped later that night and in the wee hours of the breaking dawn.
Lauren still hesitated, then turned to Sadie. “We’ll freeze if we leave the fire.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll move the fire closer,” she replied, silently wondering how one went about moving fire. But first things first—she had to get Lauren into the shelter, safe from the elements and anything else that might come along during the night.
Finally, her daughter bent to her knees and crawled in, muttering her disappointment and her fear of what insects the lean-to held as she went. But at least she was in.
Sadie breathed deeply, tasting triumph. For the first time since they’d started their wilderness trek, she felt capable. And she was on guard. If tragedy thought it was going to slink in and steal another one of her babies, it had better think again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As the hours passed, Sadie’s mind played tricks on her. Several times she thought she heard voices drifting in from far away, only to sit up and hear nothing more. Lauren was tucked into the shelter, and Sadie lay squeezed in beside her, as much as the small space would allow.
After she’d carved off more shards from the stick of heart pine, it hadn’t been that difficult to relocate their only source of warmth. Sadie had quietly gathered more rocks for protection against flying embers, tucked kindling in, and then layered it all with bigger branches. Using another sliver of heart pine, she let a page of the book be the torch as she brought the flame over.
For a change, something had gone smoothly. Sadie had even found it easier to see, as though she’d suddenly been given night vision.
Her fingers burned from pulling some of the bigger sticks from their old fire to add to their new one. And unless that heart pine was truly a miracle, she didn’t think the kindling was enough to last the night. But to get more would mean moving farther from camp, which meant losing sight of Lauren.
So she waited. And the silence gave her a lot of time to think. And to cherish the moment. As brutal as the situation was, they hadn’t been so close physically since Lauren had been a child. It had taken more than six months of having Lauren home with them before Sadie had finally felt like Lauren was hers. In the adoption community, it was talked about in hushed conversations, in private Facebook groups, or within the trusted circles of close friends: the adoption journey didn’t always end with a happily ever after. The well-kept secret was that not every adoption was an immediate love connection. Sometimes the child one had waited for this long felt like a stranger even long after they were officially adopted. Some mothers even felt like they didn’t love their new addition—possibly would never love them. Some children rejected their adoptive family in the beginning and for months and even years afterward.
But all of their initial problems had been because of Sadie, not Lauren.
The veterans all counseled the newbies to fake it till you make it. And that was what Sadie had done. Now she knew it had been because she’d put up walls, but in the beginning, Lauren hadn’t automatically gravitated toward her as she’d expected. As she’d hoped. That had made the bonding even more difficult. Combined with the crushing ongoing grief of losing Jacob, Sadie had struggled maybe more than some.
But then the moment had come. Lauren had come down with an especially vicious strain of the flu, and in the wee hours of her worst night, when it had been Sadie’s shift to tend to her daughter, she had prayed that God take the sickness from Lauren and give it to her, if need be. Her own prayer had astonished her as soon as the words had been muttered. She’d known then. Lauren was her daughter, and she’d give her life for her in a minute.
She couldn’t say from that time on that everything was wonderful and normal and all those things you wanted a mother-daughter relationship to be. Her grief over Jacob continued, and she had no doubt that it kept her from fully enjoying many childhood moments with Lauren. But after that, she’d worked to hide or at least postpone her sadness for an afternoon or a few hours at a time and simply relish her daughter.
Lauren was a gift.
She brought a new burst of life and energy to their bleak home. Other than the initial obsession
with eating, she hadn’t carried any post-institutional behaviors that Sadie could see. The orphanage personnel had said she’d never been in foster care, but Sadie thought otherwise. After meeting many children adopted internationally, Sadie had witnessed the emotional scars they carried in their behavior that were common to adoptees. For some of those children, their reluctance to show affection or even accept it was one of the biggest obstacles. They hoarded food and toys as though they thought either could disappear in an instant. Some lacked empathy or a conscience. Many were angry and defiant, unable to form a close relationship with their new parents. It took years of understanding and therapy to help them through the hell their early abandonment and life in an institution had caused.
Yet Lauren hadn’t been that way. It was like she’d been a part of a family unit of some sort. Sadie thought of the little-girl version of Lauren and how she’d been so cheerful and thankful. Even generous, always finding the most joy in giving gifts, using whatever excuse she could come up with.
There was one time a few years after Lauren had come home that Sadie had woken up to find a small rectangle wrapped up in toilet paper and tied with a hair ribbon sitting next to her pillow. Beside it was a half-torn piece of notebook paper with hearts drawn all over it and the words I LVE YU, MOM scribbled in purple.
It was Mother’s Day, Sadie remembered now, smiling slightly.
At the sounds of Sadie’s movement, Lauren had emerged from the doorway, all wide-eyed and ready to greet the morning, a cup of orange juice in one hand and a plate of buttered toast in the other. The sleeves on her furry robe had been rolled up as though she’d been hard at work making the simple breakfast.
“Happy Mother’s Day,” she’d said in her adorable childlike lilt, smiling from ear to ear, the gap from a recently lost front tooth making her appear like a little dark-haired jack-o’-lantern.
Lauren had urged Sadie to open the gift.
Sadie had feigned surprise and delight when she’d peeled off the toilet paper to find a bar of her own scented soap. Lauren had searched the house and found something she could give her mother. The joy on Lauren’s face when Sadie had held up the bar of soap and exclaimed over it was something Sadie would never forget. But the moment had been shadowed when a memory of Jacob had arrived, reminding her that there should be two children at her bedside, smiling and clapping over their cleverness, not just one.