The blueberry pancakes woke the teenagers—or maybe that was the bacon—and they made adjustments and repairs to the stick house while they crammed maple-syrup lumps in their mouths so fast they had to be swallowing them whole.
For the next two days, we ate, built, walked, and then started the cycle over on repeat. We scrapped our plans to go hiking along the Buffalo River. Everyone was content to stay in with the project and go on occasional forest excursions for more twigs, nuts, and forest scraps. It was the most thankful Thanksgiving I could remember.
Saturday night, our last at the cabin, we packed most of our things, pretending all the while that it didn’t really mean we were going back to our house. I climbed into bed feeling completely safe for the first time in years. The curtains and shades were all tucked down tight, the door was triple-locked, and the newspaper was still taped over the kitchen window. But hey, whatever it takes.
I sank into the too-soft mattress with a smile while the idea of being all the way safe wrapped around me. In the morning I wouldn’t have to tiptoe around any man, or test his mood. I no longer had to weigh each word or send warning looks to the kids: Careful, it’s one of those days. Stay clear. Don’t rock the boat. I could sleep straight through until morning. No one would wake me with telltale breathing, wild yelling, or frantic whispers about the corporations pursuing his patents. No hands around my neck.
I rolled onto my side, covering my ear with the blanket like my mom had when I was little. She had tucked her dad’s wool army blanket between two thinner, softer ones, telling me that wool was not only the warmest sort of blanket but the only sort that made people dream brighter dreams. I still slept under a wool comforter in the winter, and now more than ever, I believed in dreams.
Only a few experiences in my life felt so profound while they were happening that I consciously tucked them away as a permanent memory. This was one of those moments, feeling safe in my bed for the first time in … Geez, how long was it? Eleven years? More? For the rest of my life, I would pull out this moment every single night when I climbed into bed. I would smile and remember that I was safe, that I could sleep straight until sunrise without fear, and I would also remember the thousands of women and children who hadn’t made it that far yet.
I would remember that I was a very fortunate girl.
Sunday morning started with the last of the peppered ham and pancakes—or pancake cookies if you were two and a picky eater. We had learned to call all meat chicken and tack the word cookie on to just about every other food. As every ad exec and mom knows, it’s all in the packaging. But no amount of catchy packaging was going to smooth the scowls away from the older kids. The three of them looked like they were eating sand cakes, and calling them sand cookies wasn’t going to do the trick.
I pretended that a couple of happy nights knowing I was safe would hold me for a long time, but in reality it was just enough to tease me into wanting that sort of thing full-time. Don’t be greedy, I told myself. Be patient. But I wanted to dropkick that patronizing voice into next week. I was sick and damn tired of being patient. If wanting to sleep without fear was greedy then I was damn well ready to accept the label. I smiled and squeezed the nail in my pocket. Already I felt more like the woman who had hung the red curtains, my imagined Caroline, than I had a few days ago.
Drew practically growled when he caught me smiling. He had been wrapping our stick house with pages torn from the yellow pages. I hadn’t yelled at him for destroying the phone book. Not many people bothered with yellow pages anymore, and our house—our dream—had to be protected.
“We’ll get it home safe,” I told him, “even if we have to leave one of your siblings behind.”
“Not me!” Jada yelled, poking a broom under the sofa to scoop out her socks.
“Me!” Roman yelled. “Pick me!”
I scooped him up and buried my face in his tummy, blowing raspberries. “I’ll pick you for the tickle-monster attack. That’s what I’ll do!” When he’d giggled himself into the hiccups, I put him down and he ran down the path three steps ahead of me. The first load to the car was the heaviest. The kids followed, slow and quiet.
Despite the fact that we’d eaten most of the food we’d brought, and the food the girls picked up for our feast, it looked like we were taking back more than we had brought.
The stick house fit in the trunk as long as three shopping bags of laundry rode on the floorboards around the kids’ feet. With a final walk-through to collect all the things Jada had left behind, we said a sad good-bye to Hickory Haven.
Per usual, the kids conked out quickly, or at least I thought they did. When we were about a mile from my tornado house, I got a better look at Drew in the passenger seat and realized he had probably been faking it for the whole hour. “I’d like to show you a house,” I whispered.
He sat up, eyes open behind his sunglasses, not even bothering to fake a yawn or stretch. His left earbud dropped to his shoulder.
Come out, come out, wherever you are! I wanted to sing. It had worked when he was Roman’s age and hiding from something he was afraid to look in the eye.
When I pulled into the drive, I could see it was like coming home for him, too. He wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was a teenager who had seen more of the harsh realities of life than a lot of grown men. Before I had the car at a complete stop, he opened his door and his right foot skimmed over the leaf-cluttered driveway.
I stayed in my seat, twirling the nail between my fingers. The house had already given me what I needed, even though I couldn’t put that thing into words. Courage, that was part of it, but also vision. Hope?
Drew rounded the side of the house opposite the master bedroom. I had no idea what he would find, but I was sure it would be exactly what he needed. The girls needed things, too, but I didn’t think they were going to find them here at the edge of the storm damage. Their healing would take more time. They would need to travel a lot closer to the eye of the storm. I was afraid for them. But we had lived under a dark cloud for so long that I wasn’t as frightened as I should have been. I was desensitized in the same way as a child who grows up next to an artillery range and doesn’t go inside when he hears thunder, dismissing every warning boom as just another background explosion.