The same name on the gate that Hope drives under, safely returning her to our refuge after a successful trip out into the world.
Somewhere in the Gulf Islands, my brother’scontact is watching a compound. Danger lurks in the future.
Let him come, I think.
Let him come and find out what this family does when someone tries to take what’s ours.
Chapter 22
Hope
The next few days fly by with so much lightness and laughter that it’s hard to remember how fractured I felt when I first arrived on the ranch.
Zane quickly becomes Bellamy’s favourite person, and every morning she wants him to pick up chickens for her. She’s getting closer to wanting to hold the feathered demons herself, but only if he helps. When he shows up in the greenhouse, she grabs his hand and tugs. And he goes with her, every time.
When I watch them go, Luna watches me.
She has to know I’m kissing her son, but she hasn’t said anything to me, and she has very carefully—maybe too carefully—not changed a thing about how we work together during the day.
We have a new crop in the high tunnel. A row of haskap berries is ripe and ready to pick. Some of them make it all the way to the house, but many are devoured right off the bush by Bellamy—and Luna, who encourages her to try the honey berries, as she calls them.
Because we’re busy, it takes me days to realize that Luna is mothering me, in a way. Giving me space to explore but also watching like a hawk. Or maybe she’s mothering Zane. Once upon a time, he was her baby, after all.
It’s startling to think of Bellamy growing up one day. Of the tiny hope of a baby in my belly being allgrown up one day, and picturing myself in Luna’s stage of parenting.
My own parents had no interest in the complicated stage of watching their adult kid make grown up mistakes.
I will never give up on them, I swear to myself.
We don’t fight our way through pregnancy and labour and sleepless nights and toddler tantrums just to give up at eighteen. Loving them means loving them forever, even when it gets rough.
I’m thinking of that resolution mid-day when the chicken adventures go awry, and it’s clearly time for a nap for Bellamy.
I scoop her up and she sobs against my shoulder as I carry her away from Luna and Zane.
“Okay, Bellaboo, let’s go to the house.”
“No…” she wails.
But by the time we’re inside, she’s nuzzling her face into my neck, and her sobs have quieted to soft hiccups.
“Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head.
No, of course not. She’s gorged herself on berries, and Zane made her a big breakfast.
“I’ll have a snack for you when you wake up, okay?” I kiss her temple and carry her upstairs.
I love how quiet and calm the house is mid-day when I put her down for these naps. It feels so luxurious to have such a solid lodge around us, and having it all to ourselves for these two hours.
Bellamy loves it, too. She burrows in the blankets on the bed and conks out fast.
It hurts my heart that she didn’t know this kind of comfort before, never had this peace in her entire life. But we’ve found it now, and no matter what,the Kincaids have lifted my standards for my daughter.
I know how good life can be. I will always try to provide something like this for her. Even if things don’t work out between Zane and me, I can give her this in more modest ways. But it will be this clean and sweet and calm. That’s the part of Zane’s family that I will always carry with me in my heart.
Because the house is completely still, a few minutes later I hear the quiet click of a door opening somewhere down below.
