Anne laughed and shook her head. “It’s okay. I got her back and shoulders before we left the house.”
“She’s just like you,” Oakley said, exasperated.
Her silver eyes flashed wide. “I was never that fiery!”
Oakley burst out laughing.
“I wasn’t!” Anne insisted. “She’s more stubborn than I ever was.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Anne gave her a playful shove, and she nearly stumbled into the pool.
“Hey!” Oakley protested. “This sunscreen needs five minutes to dry!”
She rolled her eyes and dove in.
Five seconds later, she pulled herself back out again.
“That’s freezing!”
Oakley peeled off her sweaty dress and laid it out on a sunny rock, then finished meticulously reapplying her own sunscreen.
She glanced thoughtfully at the girls but let them be. Her daughters’ birth parents had blessed them with more melanin than her own body could have ever conjured up, and she was grateful for that; they never burned.
“Swim with me, Mom!” Harper waved at her from the top of the rocks.
“Three more minutes!” Oakley called back.
“I can’t jump without you!”
“I can!” Hayden launched herself past her little sister and off the top of the waterfall. She disappeared into the water with a splash, and Oakley moved to get a better view of her swimming through the water. She made it almost all the way back to the edge of the pool before surfacing with a gasp.
Anne gave her a high five. “That was awesome.”
“Mom!” Harper shouted. “Come on!”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” Oakley scampered up the rocks behind Hayden, who was already halfway to the top. She pulled herself up, stood, and walked across the miniature cliff that held the waterfall.
The view from there was breathtaking. To one side, she could see the waterfall at the back of the valley. It was nearly two hundred feet tall, and it filled the air with a white noise that seemed to banish all her quotidian worries. On her other side, the river meandered through a series of pools before finally plunging off a much larger cliff. The waterfall at their feet ran with a gentle steadiness.
Between the sound of the water and the epic view, there was no room in her head for the mental load that usually filled her thoughts.
“Later days, dudes.” Hayden strode past them and launched herself off the cliff, somehow managing to salute them as she spun through the air and plunged down towards the pool. Oakley laughed and watched her as she swam through the deep, calm water back to shore.
“Do you want to jump with me?” Harper asked.
“Absolutely I do.” Oakley held out her hand, and Harper took it.
“One…” She hesitated, peering over the edge.
“Two…” Oakley grinned at her daughter.
“Three!” Harper’s hand tightened on hers, and she didn’t move.
“What are you counting to?” Pete asked from behind them.
“Um…” Harper blinked at him for a moment. “Five?”
