Free I Hope You Find Me by Trish Marie Dawson

take with us, but how would we get it
there?”
    “I left my Jeep on the outskirts of the City.
If we could find something here to drive we could try and leave
downtown by the streets and back-track parallel with the freeway.
The roads are congested mostly around downtown and the major
interchanges. We could probably drive more freely once we hit East
County.” I was excited now, just a little, at the prospect of
having a plan. Now we just had to put it in motion.
    We sat quiet for a while, chewing our apples
and as I nibbled around the core, I bit a seed off and tried to
discreetly spit it out of my mouth into my hand. Instead, it stuck
to my lip. I definitely could not eat an apple as sexy as
Connor.
    “Let’s do it,” he said, oblivious to my apple
seed incident.
    “Let’s do it,” I repeated. “I’m tired of the
warm weather anyway.” We smiled at each other. A plan. We had a
plan. Now we had to get out of the city with our supplies and drive
the hour and a half up into the mountains. It felt good to know
where we were headed, but it wasn’t the most forgiving of places to
venture into alone.
    As if to further support our decision to move
on, something across town exploded. Looking into the distance we
could see more smoke rising up from where the airport was. It was
still burning, which meant the fire had probably spread past the
tarmac.
     
    ***
     
    As I pulled the covers up around my ears, I
listened to the quiet of the hotel suite and wondered if Connor was
asleep yet. I let my mind drift a bit, thinking about Connor, the
trip out to the mountains and without warning, a memory I had with
my kids at the Zoo from the summer before blazed through my mind. I
fell asleep as I had every night since the day my children died,
with my eyes swollen and my pillow damp.
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE

     
    The lace curtains moved away from the
window, then settled back against the frame, and this happened over
and over as if the window itself was breathing and the curtains
were being expelled to freedom with each breath, only to be sucked
back in a second later. My gaze followed the curtains for what
seemed like hours until they just stopped, suddenly. The air had
stilled in the room, and I was aware of the warmth of the new day
working its way through the coldness. I watched as the sun rays hit
the window glass, making bright prisms sparkle like giant diamonds.
The light filtered through the lacey fabric, casting an intricate
pattern on the floor, full of swirls and different sized circles.
My daughter was an early morning person and now that I awoke in her
room, I understood why. Her view of dawn was glorious. The carpet
fibers lit up inch by inch as the rays of sunlight crept over them
and devoured the shadows.
    I watched, wide eyed and alert, as the
sunshine slithered up the side of her bed, and I could see the
pinks and yellows of her quilted blanket. I didn’t dare blink as
the light moved up and over our toes, showing our matching red nail
polish. Her bare feet touched at the ankles, and were tucked up
neatly against the side of my right foot and I focused on her
chipped and uneven polish for a moment. I finally blinked. The
blonde hairs on her skin glittered as the sun swallowed us up, legs
first. I couldn’t see above her shins, because I had covered her
with a fleece Winnie the Pooh blanket. The overwhelming urge to see
her knees came over me, so I shifted until the blanket moved,
exposing her right knobby knee with the bruise from her last tree
climbing adventure. I couldn’t smile, but it somehow made me happy
to see that bruise.
    I felt the warmth of daylight as it hit my
right arm, and rushed over my shoulder, exploding into my face,
causing my eyes to water. I closed them for only a moment and in
that instant I saw her big and round, bright blue eyes, her small,
perfectly puckered red lips that rested below her little button
nose, the curve of her jaw line that led to her slightly big ears,
and all her