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The sass is strong in this one.
I smile down at her as she shuffles from foot to foot, obviously nervous about her first day of second grade. I still can’t believe that she’s eight already and in second grade. All my memories have her in them. I don’t know what I would do without her. She means everything to me. She has my dark curly hair, but her eyes are a stranger’s eyes, they are a beautiful sea blue with a golden circle surrounding the pupil.
Every time I meet a new person, I can’t help but study their eyes to see if I can find someone with her eyes. I haven’t found a single person with matching eyes, and it always makes me wonder if she gets them from her father.
“Alright, let’s go, sweet pea.”
I hold my hand out for her to take, and we head out to walk to her elementary school. Luckily for me, Willow Creek is a small enough town that we can walk everywhere we need to go. Our cabin is just on the edge of town, but there is a shortcut through a small patch of woods that has a trail leading straight to the town square. We’ve walked this road almost every day for the last nine years, back and forth from home to town and back.
The road is lined with red maple trees on each side, and since it’s September, the leaves are just starting to change their colors. It’s one of the things that I love about Willow Creek. The beautiful trees that change colors in the fall and how the town was built around nature and didn’t destroy it. I feel so much peace being here, and again, I have to wonder why I was headed here all those years ago.
Did its landscape appeal to me then as well?
It’s been hard not knowing who I am.
I had been terrified when I left the hospital. I felt like they were just sending me off into the world without a hand to hold. They expected me to take care of myself and the unborn child in me without having any understanding of what was happening.
I look down at Sophia skipping next to me now and wish that I could tell that scared, lost girl that everything would work out in the end. That we would make it through with our baby and be happy. That there was nothing to be scared of.
After dropping Sophia off for her first day of second grade, I make my way to the café for my shift. The bell over the door rings out as I open it, and everyone behind the counter calls out a hello.
I smile and wave at everyone as I make my way behind the counter and into the back area to put my things up and grab my apron.
“Happy ninth birthday!”
Laughing, I turn to face the owner of the café and one of my closet friends, Ms. Poppy. Over the years, it has become a running joke that my birthday is the day I arrived here and had my accident. Ms. Poppy said that if the people who had birthdays on leap day were able to claim being younger, then so should I. I tried to tell her years ago that it didn’t matter to me, but she’s been insistent that everyone should celebrate their own birth with the people they love. None of us really know my age, but we guess I’m somewhere in my late twenties or early to mid-thirties.
“Thanks, Ms. Poppy. Were we busy this morning?”
I would rather not acknowledge today if I could help it, I didn’t like all the attention on me, and it reminded me of everything I still didn’t know about myself.
Ms. Poppy tells me about the morning as I get started on some of the drink orders that are waiting; it seems that with it being the first day of school, we had more customers than usual, and it stays that way all day. I love days like this one. Where we have a constant flow of people coming and going. It keeps me busy and out of my own head.
On the walk home after I pick up Sophia, she tells me all about her first day. I lucked out with my kid; she loves school and hates when she has to miss even half a day.
“My new teacher, Miss Hale, says that we get to have both reading time and recess time during the week.”
“Really?”
I barely have to say anything as she prattles on, and I love nothing more than to listen to her talk. By the time we make it home, it’s time for me to get dinner started. I get her set up at the kitchen counter where I can help her with her homework if she needs it and start getting dinner ready for the two of us.
Some people may see how my life is and think that there has to be more to it. They may think that I should be doing everything in my power to find out about my past, but I don’t see it that way. I have no idea what I would find if I went looking for who I was before Willow Creek. I have no way of knowing if my life was a good one, if I was a good person, or why I was coming to Willow Creek.
Just as I’m putting dinner into the oven, my phone rings from where I left it in my bag by the door.
“Will you grab that for me, Soph?”
Sophia jumps down from her chair and runs to grab my phone for me as I get the timer started. When she brings me my phone, I see it’s Kayla, one of the nurses that took care of me. She has become one of my best friends over the years.
“Hey, you. I thought you were working the night shift tonight?”
I set the phone on speaker and start to clean up the dishes I used to make the casserole.
“I am. I’m here now, but I wanted to ask you something. Well, kinda, you can’t say no.”
I scoff in response.
“So, why are you asking me if I can’t say no?”
