“So, no,” she said gently. “Where are you? I know you put that tracker on my phone, but I can never find it.”
“I’m at that cabin where the woman was found. Just looking for anything that might give us a clue as to why she was held out here.”
“Did you find anything?”
Nothing but his past. And he hadn’t been left in the wilderness. Except it had felt like that. He’d been raised in cities throughout the Pacific Northwest before his mom had brought him back to the Navajo Nation. The reservation was small compared to the cities he’d lived in. Too much open space and vistas that he’d never seen before. He’d felt like a foreigner.
“Chay, yazhi talk to me.”
“I’m lost in the past, and it ticks me off because I can see a future where…”
No way was he sayingI could be happy. But that was what he felt. Yet there was a thick iron chain around him, keeping him stuck where he was. Isolated and alone.
“The past is the foundation of who you are. You’ve grown out of the broken foundation that you were born into. You are strong today. Part of this community and a protector of our people. And of all people. That’s who you are.”
All things he knew, but when he was in a spiral it was hard to believe it. “Thanks, Masani.”
“You’re welcome. Why is that charred house affecting you?”
“I don’t know. Part of it isn’t going to make sense to anyone but me. But Gracie’s mom was also found out here wandering, and it is making me remember how lost Mom was. How I couldn’t help her.”
“You were a child.”
He wasn’t anymore. It should be a case like any other, but this one, probably because he’d invited Ava and Gracie into his life, felt very different.
The stakes were higher and though he never wanted to fail, this time he knew that he couldn’t. He needed answers.
Chay finally responded to say he was busy with work but his grandmother would love to see Gracie. It took her about a minute to get over being hurt. He’d told her he was in new territory. She should give him some grace. But it felt like her heart was on the line, so she struggled.
She texted Chay back asking for his grandmother’s address and then headed toward the Navajo Nation. She’d spent a lot of time hiking and snowshoeing in the Dark Canyon National Park but hadn’t visited the Navajo Nation until recently. She was starting to like it.
Gracie fell asleep on the drive, leaving Ava alone with her thoughts. One positive to Chay semi-ghosting her was that she was no longer feeling like she was being watched. Her mom always said the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Everything had balance in life.
Her clients, like Fern, found it as they slowly recovered from the anxiety and trauma that held them prisoner. Slowly they replaced one thought pattern with a new one. She had been doing that for a while now. Finding her place in the world as a single woman.
She liked it. Though her parents were happily in love, they’d never pressured her to only view herself as someone’s wife, and she never had. She had loved Greg, and being his wife would have been deeply fulfilling, but after his death, she hadn’t thought she had to find another man.
Not until Chay.
It was more that he fit her than that she needed a man. She felt like it was Chay she wanted. But he wasn’t sure.
So she needed to give him some space. She’d keep up contact with him for Gracie’s sake, but otherwise she’d be cautious.
Except, how was she going to do that? Now that she’d startedliking him and had slept with him.
Sex had never been casual for her, and if she hadn’t felt like there was a future with Chay, she wouldn’t have invited him into her bed and her life.
Ugh. She was in a spiral. Luckily, she was almost to the reservation. Glancing down at her map for a second to check the directions, her truck must have swerved, because she almost hit a car overtaking her. The other vehicle honked, driving her off the road, scraping by her as it kept on going.
Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking as she slowed her truck to a stop. The other vehicle kept going.
Ava couldn’t. That had scared her so much her hands were shaking.
She checked on Gracie. The baby was fine and hadn’t noticed anything. Reaching back, Ava tucked her blanket closer to her.
Doing some box breathing helped to slow her racing heart, and as she saw the headlights of another vehicle coming in the other direction, she got herself back on the road. She was surprised the other vehicle that had brushed her hadn’t stopped. People in these parts tended to.
Putting on her upbeat music playlist and blasting “All Over the World.” Forcing herself to sing along although a couple of times she almost lost control and started crying. Finally she made it to Aponi’s house. Pulling into the driveway, she felt like she could breathe a little more easily.
