The tailpipe popped. Exhaust smoke drifted by her open window, temporarily masking the fresh piney smell of the woods.
Lia breathed deeply anyway. They’d made it. Thank God.
“We’re here,” she announced.
The children stared in total silence.
“It’s not so bad.”
A protest burst from Sam. “We can’t stay here! It’s abandoned.”
“It’s not abandoned.” But the only signs of occupancy were the truck, limp curtains that fluttered in an open window of the stone house and a fishing pole and a rake leaning against a rail by the front door.
“Can we get out?” Howie asked.
“I’m not,” Sam said, crossing her arms across her chest and sliding even lower in the seat until only the blue-tipped spikes of her bangs showed. “I want to go home.”
“Then you’ll have to push the Grudge, because its engine won’t make the return trip.” Lia put on her cheery voice as she reached for the door handle. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home. Rose said there’s a river nearby. Can you hear it?”
“I do.” Howie’s door creaked as he pushed it open. He was small for his age, still a little boy despite the anxious personality and smarts that made him seem older than his years. One of Lia’s greatest wishes was to see Howie relax. To run and play, to learn how to be a boy without responsibility.
He looked eagerly at Lia across the hood, light reflecting off his glasses.
She stretched the kinks from her back. “All right. Go and explore.” She held back warnings about snakes and poison ivy and deep water. Howie didn’t have to be told. His caution was even stronger than his curiosity.
“Come on, Krissy, baby.” Lia took her youngest child’s hand as the girl slid out of the back seat. Sticky. Kristen’s lips were stained with orange soda pop. Lia grabbed a packet of wet wipes from the glove compartment and squatted to apply one to her daughter’s hands and face. Kristen blinked sleepy eyes as she looked up at the trees and sky. She was a slow riser.
Lia rubbed at Kristen’s small, plump mouth until only a faint orange shadow remained. She smoothed the girl’s rumpled T-shirt. “Want to knock on the front door for me?”
Kristen stared at the gloomy stone house. “Who lives there?”
“Rose Robbin does.” Or did. “Her mother, too. You probably can’t remember Rose—the dark-haired lady who was our neighbor? She used to babysit you when you were just a tiny little baby.”
“Uh-uh.”
“She babysat all of you kids.” Surly Rose had been a loner who’d gradually warmed up to the Pogues. She’d become Lia’s friend and confidante, the only person she could rely on. But when Rose’s father had died several years ago, she’d gone home to Alouette in Michigan’s U.P.—Upper Peninsula. They’d lost contact for a long while, until Rose had mailed a Christmas card the past December. Since then, they’d written and called a number of times. When Rose had first learned that Larry was still causing trouble, she’d offered Lia help any time she needed it.
Misgivings nibbled at Lia’s conscience. At the moment of crisis, with Larry threatening to sue her for custody of the children and even hinting that he’d snatch them away if he had to, she’d latched on to Rose’s offer as her only option. She and the kids had needed to disappear. According to Rose, Alouette was the type of place where you could do that.
Not the end of the Earth, the welcome sign had read on the way into town, but we can see it from here.
As much as Lia appreciated the isolation, she hadn’t expected to feel quite so stranded and alone. Maybe she’d thought Rose would greet them with an apple pie. Even though she had no idea they were coming.
Lia tried the cheery voice on herself. Won’t Rose be surprised that we’ve traveled hundreds of miles to land on her doorstep?
“Hey, Mom!” Howie called from the trees. “There’s more little houses over here.” He’d found a path. Through the thick stand of evergreens, Lia caught glimpses of him running from cottage to cottage. “Four on this side.”
Kristen looked up at Lia, her eyes glistening. “I don’t wanna live here, Mommy.”
Lia stroked Kristen’s hair. Her girl was usually more adventurous. The completely unfamiliar landscape must have thrown her off-kilter. “Let’s wait and see how we like it.”
“See?” Sam said peevishly from her slumped position inside the car. “Nobody wants to stay here.”
Lia took Kristen’s hand. “Would you like to join us, Sam?”
A huffy exhale came from the back seat. “Hell no.”
Lia’s mouth tightened. Samantha was fourteen and getting more rebellious every day. Their neighborhood in Cadillac hadn’t been the greatest, and if they’d come north for no other reason, Lia was relieved to get Sam away from the crowd of teenagers she’d taken up with back home. Sam might actually be correct about one of her litany of complaints—there’d be nothing to do in a small town like Alouette. At least nothing that her mother wouldn’t know about.
Lia was counting on that. She wanted her bright, lively daughter back—or some teenage semblance, anyway.
She shrugged. “Suit yourself, Sam.” Maybe she was copping out on her responsibilities as a mother, but now wasn’t the time to engage her eldest in a battle over language and attitude. Sam could sit in the car and stew. If they stayed in Alouette, she’d adjust to the idea. She’d adjusted to worse.
The thought was little comfort.
“Howie?” Lia finger-combed her own hair as she and Kristen walked to the front door of the stone house. She felt rumpled and creased, like a grocery bag that had been used too many times.
His voice drifted from the trees. “Yeah, Mom.”
“Just checking.”
“I’m over here. I found mushrooms.”
“Don’t eat them. And don’t wander off.”
There were three steps up to the front entry, a weather-beaten plank door with a placard that read Office. No doorbell, except for an old-fashioned dinner bell that hung from a rusty bracket. Lia knocked.
And waited.
She knocked again, looking around the run-down property. The cottages were placed in random order, tucked here and there in groves of pines, maples and birches. Chickadees and nuthatches hopped among the pinecones that littered the ground. Sam watched owlishly over the edge of the car seat, showing the whites of her eyes. Still no answer.
“Look, Mommy.” Kristen pointed to the bell suspended beside the door. “Can I ring it?”
“I guess so.” Lia lifted the girl, showing her how to tug on the short rope attached to the gong.
The sturdy metal bell rang out deep and loud. Kristen laughed at the sound and
