Free Firefly Island by Lisa Wingate

returning.
    I sighed, admonishing myself to let it go. “Want me to drive for a while?” I was hoping Daniel would nod off, then wake up in a better mood. This don’t-look-at-me-don’t-talk-to-me persona was unsettling. It reminded me that, like the mail-order brides in days of old, I was married to a man I barely knew, and headed into the mysterious frontier hundreds of miles from all that was familiar.
    We made a quick stop, and I took over the pilot’s chair. Daniel was asleep in less than ten minutes. Nick eventually crashed, too, and I sank into the quiet of my own thoughts, strumming a tune of self-assurances to calm my ruffled spirit. I was a DC girl. If I could survive in the city, I could survive here. I wasn’t some fragile little hothouse flower. I’d lived in six foreign capitols. I was . . .
    Something large and shadowy bounded across the ditch and walked into the road. I jerked my attention back to the driving. A dog . . . no . . . deer. A deer. Adrenaline zinged through my body, hot like a lightning strike. I gripped the steering wheel, hit the brakes, felt the Jeep begin to slide, the trailer protesting the sudden change in momentum, skidding side to side.
    Daniel bolted upright, blinking in confusion. Nick’s car seat buckled forward against the seat belt, then snapped back with a pop. Daniel grabbed the dashboard. “What in the . . .”
    Possible endings raced through my mind, rapid fire—overturning and rolling into the ditch, flying end-over-end, the trailer crashing through the tailgate, hitting Nick, the Jeep flying headlong into a tree. My parents getting the news . . .
    And then, just as quickly as it had sauntered into the road, the deer calmly moved to the opposite lane, leaving room for our vehicle to slide past before finally coming to a rest, the trailer cocked sideways across the center line.
    We sat in momentary silence, not a vehicle or a street lamp in sight, stressed pieces of metal in the car’s undercarriage letting out soft crackles and pings, as if it were catching a breath along with the rest of us.
    â€œIs a doe-deer like at Grampy’s house, Tante M!” Nick twisted to see out the side window. “And a baby one, too!” He pointed as a smaller deer scampered across the pavement to join the first one, unaware that tragedy had been only an instant away.
    â€œMan, that was lucky.” Daniel blew out a puff of tension, his hand resting on my arm, where the muscles were still trembling.
    â€œUh-huh.” In the fringes of the headlights, I noticed a small white cross in the ditch—the kind that people plant at the site of a tragic accident. It simply read, Blessing , with no further explanation. Suddenly that seemed to fit the moment. Not a random stroke of good fortune, a blessing. A reminder that time was too precious to be spent fighting.
    Daniel squeezed my hand and kissed me on the cheek, as if he were thinking the same thing. “I’ll take over the driving, if you want. Moses Lake can’t be much farther.”
    I didn’t offer any argument. I’d seen my life flash before my eyes in the last three minutes. My fiercely independent streak was ready to curl up in a corner and lick its trembling paws. I was happy to go back to being a co-pilot.
    We switched places, Daniel limping stiffly around the backof the car and me dragging my tired body around the front, and we were off again.
    â€œLast leg,” Daniel promised as the trailer righted itself behind us. “I’m ready to get there and get out of this car.” He laid his hand on the console, palm up, and I slid my fingers into his, then leaned back against the headrest.
    â€œThat sounds so good,” I murmured. “When we do get there, I vote we just grab the air mattress, Nick’s sleeping bag, and the sack with the pillows and blankets. Everything else can wait until