AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Back at the beach I'm surprised to see Flint is upset.
"What's wrong?" I ask. He's packing our entire camp.
Over the years we've made wooden crates and other bins to keep our food and supplies safe, but I don't understand why he's packing up our dining room set, our forks and cups and knives.
"What's going on?" I ask.
He runs a hand over his beard. "Babe, I'm sorry, but we have to move out."
"What do you mean?" I ask, looking around our beach. "This is our home. I've only been gone 90 minutes. What changed in such a short amount of time?"
Flint points to the sky in the distance. The last few days have been stormy and since there was a slight break in the rain this morning, I took the girls swimming. But there's worry in his eyes I'm not expecting.
"Flint, what's going on?"
"Look," he says. "I don't want to worry you or the girls, but I think a hurricane is on its way. Those waves are getting wild. I was a few miles north of our beach and the entire shoreline is ruined from yesterday’s storm. We stay here a few more nights and this place will be wrecked. I can't let us be here when that happens."
"What should we do?" I ask. "Where should we go?" I shake my head. "Five years is a long time to call this place home. Flint, what are we going to do?"
"Well, we're not going to stand around and wait." He points to the ocean. "Look, in the distance, you can see a cyclone growing.”
The skies are dark and full of lightning, and not the magic kind that brought our dinosaur to life. This is lightning that could wreak havoc that we are not prepared for.
Tears fill my eyes and Pebbles starts to cry. "It's okay," I say. "Pebbles, we're going to be fine. Daddy won't let anything happen to us."
"I sure as hell hope we’re okay." Under his breath I hear Flint's words, and they cause a shiver to run up my spine.
Bracing myself for the worst, I set to work. "All right, I'll help you pack. We'll go. We'll start over. I'd rather that than..."
Flint pauses. Seeing the fear etched in my heart, showcased in my eyes.
"Fancy," he says, cupping my cheeks with his hands. "We got this. Together we can get through anything. We made a baby and then another. Hell, we brought a dinosaur to life. There's nothing the two of us can't do. All right?"
I nod, bracing myself for whatever comes next, and set to work packing as the rain begins to fall.
A few hours later we're saying goodbye to the only home we've ever known. This is where I gave birth to the girls. Where I taught them to walk, say their first words. Where Flint and I made love for the very first time. Where we fell in love too.
This beach has been our beginning and I'm not ready to see it end.
But the storm is wild. The kind of wild I've never seen here in the jungle. And it would be foolish to wait to see what happens.
"Listen," Flint says. "We can come back in a few weeks’ time and check the beach to see if our home is still standing."
I take one last look at the pergola he built for me, our dining room table and chairs. The crib for Eva. We've loaded up A.B. with everything we own and Pebbles is in a sling on her dad's back. I have Eva on mine. A.B. is bearing the weight of our lives as we say our final goodbyes.
"It's going to be okay," Pebbles says. "It's an adventure, Mama. An adventure for our family." She claps her hands, so happy, delighted to go on a trip.
Flint gives me a kiss. "We got this, baby, we got it."
I choose to believe him. As we begin walking through the jungle, the storm only intensifies. We can hear it, the howling wind and the lightning cracks, and I'm glad we're already moving away from it.
"Flint," I tell him, "you were so wise in the decision to leave now."
"It kills me," he says, "to make you leave our home."
"But we'll start a new life," I say, wanting to find optimism in this heartbreak.
We camp out at night under an old fallen tree. Flint builds us a protective cover, and A.B. keeps watch while we sleep. We set out on foot again the next day, wanting to get further and further from the coast, and also wanting to find the right spot to settle.
It's hard to choose. The jungle is so vast and it’s important to find a large, dry cave. Even though A.B. is our bodyguard, we still need to have shelter from the elements. A lean-to or a hut only protects you so long. A stone wall feels more permanent.
