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“Theo, no,” Jim says. “It’s too dangerous. You need to leave this to the professionals.”
“Would you leave it to the professionals?” I ask. “If it were Gigi?”
Gigi is Jim’s wife. They met when he was an exchange student in rural France as a teenager and wrote love letters for years before they were finally reunited after Gigi graduated from university. They’ve been married for twelve years, have three gorgeous kids, and can still regularly be seen making out at the Bad Dog beer garden in the summer after a few too many lagers.
He knows all about young love. First love. The kind of love that changes you forever and that you can’t quite put in your rearview, no matter how hard you try.
“You haven’t seen her in years, Theo,” he says, but his heart isn’t in the protest. I can tell.
“It doesn’t matter. You know it doesn’t.”
“Right.” He sighs. “At least share your location with me before you go, okay? I’ll keep an eye on you and get someone out to get you guys as soon as I can. Take water, food, and medical supplies. And stay away from the river near the Grange Bridge. That’s where the current seems to be the worst so far.”
I promise him I will and am about to hang up when he adds, “And Theo?”
“Yes?” I ask.
“I’m rooting for you. Both of you. I know how much you loved her. Sounds like you two were great together.”
“Thanks,” I say, my throat going tight as I end the call.
Weweregreat together. We were fucking magic, until we weren’t. Until she left and blocked my calls and didn’t send me a single postcard.
But I could never hate her for it, not for a second.
I loved her too much.
And I understood. At least a little…
Macy didn’t have the kind of family I did, with a grandmother who doted on me and a huge extended family that made sure I never felt alone, even though my parents had passed away in a car crash when I was just a baby.
It hadn’t seemed like Macy’s parents wanted a child at all, and they certainly didn’t want one like Macy. She was too curious, too independent, too alive for people whose one goal in life seemed to be maintaining the status quo. Or, more accurately, taking the “quo” back to the 1950s, when gender roles were clearly defined, women knew their “place,” and ten-year-old girls didn’t decide to become vegetarians or toss all their frilly skirts into the donation box outside the Salvation Army.
Macy had to get out from under them before they smothered the spirit right out of her. She wasn’t choosing between me and the open road. She was choosing between life and death. This town, her family, the old-fashioned church she was forced to attend as a kid…they were killing her.
And leaving Gram when she’d just broken her hip and needed me to care for her the way she’s always cared for me would have killed me.
It was an impossible situation, but I still think we could have figured it out, if we’d only been able to hold on to each other.
Fuck…all I want to do is hold her.
All the way out to the boat launch near Pearson’s dam, my best shot at getting to the cabin without crossing the river, all I can think about is my arms around her, her sweet Macy smell, and that little sigh of relief that always escaped her chest when we were finally alone.
Back then, I was her safe space, her refuge from the storm.
All I want to do is be that again, even if it’s just this one last time.
Please, let me get to her. Let her be okay. Give me the chance to tell her that she’s always been it for me, too.
I’ve tried to move on, to date, to find something like what I had with Macy, but every connection falls flat. There are a lot of wonderful women in Bad Dog, but they aren’ther, and none of them ever will be.
By the time I reach the edge of the woods, the sun has set behind the storm clouds and darkness is taking hold beneath the trees. Visibility is limited to the glow of my floodlight penetrating into the gloom about twenty feet ahead, and I’m navigating on instinct now that all the familiar landmarks are underwater.
I’m starting to think I’ve made a wrong turn, in fact, when I pass the smaller, faded blue cabin Macy’s grandfather used for his hunting camp before Uncle Clint built the new one in the 70’s.
My heart leaps into my throat, throbbing there as I weave around the trees, heading south. The water is already nearly up to the second story of the old cabin and still rising. Her uncle’s place is bigger, but notthatmuch bigger. I may not be able to get in through the ground floor and there’s a chance the entire structure has already been swept away.
I tell myself that isn’t the case—if the shack is still standing, the newer, bigger structure will be okay—but I don’t draw an easy breath until I hear the sound of rain on the metal roof.
