When Spence and Bettina came out of Kiwi cottage, both boys scrambled out of the car and ran to their dad. Spence knelt on one knee to hug and kiss his kids, eyes locked on hers, full of tears he would not let fall. When they hugged her belly, Bettina bawled once, then stuffed it back inside. When Tommy patted her tummy softly and said, “Bye-bye, baby. I love you,” Chloe knew what it took for Bettina not to open her mouth and let her sorrow pour out.
They had to get out of this place. Now.
****
From the cab of his truck, Luke watched Chloe and the boys back out of Blue Heaven. None of them noticed him. They were going, they were gone, vanished down the highway. In a burst of clarity, he knew why people sometimes got addicted: the pain was too much and they wanted it to go away.
A knock on his window startled him. Ursula. “Come on in and have a cup of coffee with your mama and me.”
He didn’t want coffee. He looked toward where Chloe’s car had been parked just minutes ago, now there were just Spence and Bettina, holding each other up. With slow steps, he carried his heavy heart to Blue Heaven.
“Coffee, guys?” Ursula called.
Bettina shook her head no and walked to Kiwi cottage. Spence came into the bungalow with them. Luke wished he’d never gotten out of his truck.
“I think she’d come back for you,” Spence said. Ursula poured coffee into cups all around.
Spence. Luke wanted to spit at the guy. What the hell did he know?
Luke’s mother would not like it if he said what he was thinking, so he kept quiet.
“She loves you.” Ursula put sugar and cream in her coffee and stirred.
How does she know? He still had nothing he could say out loud.
“Do you love her?” It was his own mother this time. Well, they got what they wanted, but things didn’t turn out as planned.
“I do.” He shrugged. “All three of them.”
“I know it’s not my place to say, but I need this family to work,” Spence said. “Maybe it sounds stupid, but it seems like, here, we could really do it.”
“Huh.” Wanda’s short huff was the only response Spence got. Luke felt a little twinge for the guy. People didn’t ask to be addicts, they were just weak or something. Tommy and Josh had that same DNA. They could become addicts. It was possible. With a single working mom, and tons of spending cash, it was even more possible. Families could be effed up. But here, if they were all here…
“Do you know what a headhunter is?” Ursula asked Luke. He was glad to stop his mind from moving in the direction it had been going. Agree with Spence? A man who had put his wife, hell, two wives, and his children, through hell?
“Uh, secret agents?”
“No.” Wanda explained about what Chloe did and how she could do it online. “I’m no dummy. I figured this out and told her about it. I wanted her to stay just like you do. But I couldn’t get through to her.” Wanda got up, put her coffee cup in the sink, and gripped his shoulder.
“You’re going to have to go after her, son. Apologize. Beg. Lay out the Spence plan. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, maybe it takes this town to keep a family together.”
“She made her choice,” Luke said, standing so that Wanda’s hand fell from his shoulder. He stomped out the door. Two old busybody women and a basket case of a man were not about to tell him what to do. And yet, when he got to his turn, where he meant to pick up his equipment trailer and get on with today’s jobs, he didn’t stop. He kept driving. Thinking. She had asked him to go with them to Seattle, but he had not asked her to stay here with him in Blue Lake. He never for a minute thought she would. But he should have at least asked.
He wondered as the miles rolled by. Would she have stayed it he’d only asked her? What made him so afraid to hear the word no? Because it would kill him. Not literally, but he’d be dead inside. He was a one-woman man, and Chloe was the one. His car headed down the highway, following the only woman who mattered to him. He loved her a thousand times more than he had realized only an hour ago when he’d sat like a coward and watched her and the boys leave his life forever.
He could have at least put up a fight. Made a counter-offer. Hell, if she’d still have him, he’d accept hers. He didn’t want to. Seattle would suck so bad. But if it that was the only card on the table, he’d take it.
****
Chloe made it to Muskegon early in the afternoon. The boys had cried for a solid hour and then fallen asleep for two more. She distracted them with a fast food lunch, healthy snacks untouched, while Josh explained to Tommy that they were going to drive their car onto a big boat and it would take them to another state.
“Oh, Seattle?”
“No, dummy, we still have to go through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. Then we’ll be in Seattle.”
“Mom, is he telling the truth?” Tommy didn’t mention that Josh had called him a dummy.
Chloe nodded, eyes on the road. The distance was ridiculous. Why did she decide to drive? She could have had her car shipped, taken the boys on their first air flight. They could have gotten those little wing pins. Did airlines still give those out? Her neck hurt from continuously peeking in the rearview mirror to check on the boys and then back at the road ahead. “Josh. My phone is dead. Can you plug it in?”
“Not with my seat belt on,” Josh said with a fake smile on his face. She had a feeling he was going to hate her for a while.
She pulled into the next rest area they came to and connected the charger to her phone. “Anybody want a candy bar?” She knew bribing them with chicken nugget lunches, soda, chips and candy couldn’t be good, but this drive was so much worse than she imagined. She berated herself again. Why hadn’t they flown? They didn’t have a ton of luggage. She’d planned to buy pretty much everything new. New life, new clothes, new house. Why did she want to cry?
She wanted her mom. So strange. They’d lived in each other’s pockets for a long time; she’d taken it all for granted. Now she knew the rip of kin from kin, and it hurt.
Instead of a candy bar, Tommy wailed that he wanted to go home. Josh turned his face into his elbow and wept silently.
All at once she knew that the physical pain inside her was what her boys felt, but theirs worse, because they’d lost their dad, too.
She’d never really had Luke to lose. She couldn’t blame him for any of this agony, but she still did.
Finally, they were heading toward the ferry on Lakeshore Drive. There was the water. The enormous sleek boat. There were the five lanes, three to drive aboard, two for departing. She slotted her car into the queue.
When they saw cars pulling onto the ferry, both boys began screaming. They were terrified, tired, and sugared out. Her ears rang, and she put her car in park, since the line was not moving, not at all, and put her hands over her ears. “Please stop.” Near tears herself, the last thing these boys needed now was for their mom to break down. The line finally moved an inch, so she crept forward. This was far more difficult than she’d ever imagined.
“Mommy, please don’t do it. What if the boat sinks? Those cars weigh a lot and all the people, too, we might drown.”
At least they’d stopped screaming, but their whimpers broke her heart. She explained that this ferry was specially built, that it crossed over to Wisconsin several times a day, every day, and it never sank. Ever.
****
Luke pulled into Muskegon and found Lakeshore Drive. He spotted Chloe’s car, next to board. He looked around for a place to park. Full public lot, roadside curbs jammed tight with parked cars. Tourist season on this side of the state was just as busy as on their side. He had no way to get to her except through the outgoing ferry lanes, which were empty. But what if a vehicle did depart? And he crashed? Should he try her cell again? The last time he’d called her, the phone had gone directly to voice mail. She’d likely seen his name and didn’t pick up.
She was angry. He’d been cruel. She didn’t trust him anymore. Probably excited about starting her new life, not thinking about him at all.
What was he doing here anyway? He’d traveled all this way, and he hadn’t planned any speech. Oh, God, a dock worker waved her onto the ferry. Without thinking, he sped through the exit lanes and stopped at an angle next to her. Ten guys in fluorescent vests with big flashlights rushed toward them. Angry drivers blasted their horns. Luke opened the door of his truck just as the cops pulled up, sirens wailing, behind him. He got out of his truck.
The boys turned their heads and went wild with joy when they saw him. They ran from the car to him just as a cop and a ship person approached. The boys each grabbed one of Luke’s denim legs.
“Please don’t arrest him, ocifer,” Tommy begged.
“Officer,” Josh corrected. “We can explain.”
Luke turned from the boys to the cop to that first car in the ferry line being instructed to turn out of the double line full of holiday-types. Every car backed up a few inches so Chloe could accomplish this. Lots of kids, and a few grown-ups, had their heads out windows, rubbernecking.
Chloe drove as directed, headed away from the ferry. Many gesturing officials made it obvious that she had been made to do this, and without the boys. They all three waved at her and Luke gave her a thumbs up. Meanwhile, the ferry people and policemen conferenced while one officer asked for his license and registration. “Have you been drinking, sir?”
“No. I…there was nowhere to park. I need her—” The ferryman once again motioned Chloe to turn out into the street. A police officer—man, there were three cars here, slow day in Muskegon—waved her on. Not letting her stop. He was adamant. He didn’t know Chloe. She stopped in the middle of traffic and got out of the car.
****
Chloe started to head toward her boys, but an officer stepped up to her and told her to move her vehicle or be towed. “Those are my boys over there.”
The officer looked to where Luke and the boys waved. Luke had a ticket in his hand. His face had a huge smile covering it anyway. “We can do two things, ma’am. One, I can escort your sons over to you, or two, you can leave them with their dad until you find a place to park.”
“Oh, he’s not their dad.” She blushed. She wished he was their dad. And he’d come. Had he changed his mind? Would he travel with them to Seattle after all?
****
“Officer, she’s moving across the country, and I’ve driven clear across this state just to beg her not to go. I know I’ve broken a few rules. If you just let me bring the boys to her—”
The cops gestured to each other and to the enthralled crowd. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” the officer told Luke.
“Buddy, you can’t leave your car there like that,” a loudmouthed buttinski driver yelled, honking a long, constant tone. Anger came off the cars in the queue in waves, just like the hot sun.
Luke rubbed the boys’ heads. “No problem. We’ll sort this out.”
Chloe turned back to her car. She got in. His heart fell to the bottom of the harbor. Then the boys were jumping up and down beside him, talking excitedly, explaining to the police officer that Luke was their friend and he was only trying to find them and bring them home. The frazzled cop kept the boys with him while directing Luke to back out of the illegal parking spot.
The cop pointed to a shady spot with grass, well out of the ferry traffic, where the boys should sit.
“Are we going to jail?” Tommy began to cry. “We weren’t breaking the law.”
“Yeah,” Josh said, “explain what law we broke and why we can’t go with our Mom. Or Luke.” When Luke heard this typical big brother defense, he wondered how he ever thought he could live without these three people. His people.
Some complicated shifting went on with the vehicles and even as the line began to move again some guy flashed Luke his middle finger. “Wait for me!” he yelled to the boys. He carefully backed, then drove ahead, slowly. At an ice cream shop, a car pulled out. He pulled in, parked, and grabbed his keys.
He headed back to the harbor, but saw Chloe’s car there in the road right beside him, the boys safely tucked in the back seat. She smiled at him.
****
There wasn’t another parking spot, and Chloe couldn’t stop traffic again, not with all the police around. But the congested street made the boys beg to get out and go to Luke at the ice cream stand, so she stopped just long enough for them to hop out. Luke was there at the car door and scooped them up, one in each arm.
Chloe’s eyes locked with Luke’s for a minute until the horns started up again. He would know she was coming back. She’d left her most precious collateral. It took two turns around the long block before she found a spot to park. Then she stopped the car, pocketed her keys, and took off at a run to find Luke. Why was he here? What could it mean? Had something happened to her mom? To Bettina and the baby? Or was it the other thought? Her first thought? He was here for them.
When she got to the ice cream shop, the boys were already licking cones, their sweet faces turned up toward the sunshine. Luke saw her and smiled. He didn’t run to meet her, but stood guard over the boys.
She flipped her sunglasses up, all her questions in her eyes. Then she was in his arms.
“I can’t let you go,” he said.
“I don’t want to go.” She put her head down on his shoulder and rested in the comfort of his arms.
He hugged her tighter. “What about that fancy job waiting in Seattle?”
“It’s too far away.” She lifted her face, and he kissed her right there in front of the ice cream stand. When she opened her eyes, the boys were bumping fists and slurping melting ice cream. Her heart slowed and she stayed in Luke’s embrace, grateful and amazed that he had found them.
An interview with Cynthia Harrison
1. You said that your husband gave you the idea for this book twenty-five years ago. Why didn’t you write your true love story?
I’m a fiction writer. I like making things up. I also wanted to protect the privacy of the real people involved in this story. Not just my husband and sons, but their father, their other mother, and their siblings.