Free Safe With Me by Amy Hatvany

Devin’s infidelities damaged her ability to trust to the extent that she can’t fall in love. Once bitten, forever shy.
    Her father hugs her next, and after getting their bags into the trunk, Hannah starts to drive them toward Isaac’s house. “I thought you might want to get freshened up before the party,” she says, after telling them where they’re headed. “I’ll come back to get you in a while.”
    “We’re just fine, honey,” her father says from the backseat. “It’s only an hour flight.”
    Hannah glances at him in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure? I’m going to be pretty busy. You might get bored.”
    “We’ll help,” her mother says, reaching over from the passenger seat to pat Hannah’s arm. She notices the back of her mother’s hand, the skin creped and veined, a sharp, painful reminder that her parents won’t be around forever, either.
    Hannah tries to keep from sighing, knowing that they mean well, but that their “help” might add an extra fifteen minutes to each task. “Okay,” she says, attempting to sound cheerful. “Great.” She directs the car to I-405, heading north to Bellevue. Her father hums a nameless tune, a habit Hannah grew accustomed to years before. Wherever her father is, whatever he is doing, he is likely humming. That, along with the rooster’s crow each day and the buzz of crickets at dusk, made up the sound track of her youth. She misses it sometimes, the simplicity of that life, but she also loves the quicker pace of living in a bigger city—the restaurants, the theater, the museums. She also loves having the mountains on one side of her and the ocean on the other; if she wanted to, she could ski and go swimming on the same day. She’s not sure she could give that all up.
    “Have you thought any more about moving back to the farm?” her mother asks as they pass through the Renton S-curves. Last year, her mother had campaigned the hardest for her to make the move. “You can open a small salon here,” she suggested. “The women of Boise could use a little glamour.”
    Now, Hannah grits her teeth before speaking. “No, Mom.” Really? She’s here less than twenty minutes and already pushing the subject? Hannah realizes it’s getting harder for her parents tohandle the heavy labor on their property. Her father hired a foreman to manage the dairy business, and several laborers to take care of the two hundred acres of potatoes and corn. They have always wished for one of their children to someday take over the farm, but neither Hannah nor Isaac has any inclination to live in the country. Still, they are her parents, and Hannah feels guilty knowing that if she or Isaac doesn’t move home, as her parents age, they’ll likely have to sell the farm off, parcel by parcel, in order to survive. At the very least, they will have to fully turn its operations over to someone else, relinquishing to a stranger what they poured their hearts and souls into through the years. Hannah knows that, because he built the success of the property out of ten small acres he began with over forty years before, this prospect breaks her father’s heart.
    “A change of scene might be good for you,” her mother says, wringing her hands together in her lap.
    “Marcy . . .” her father says, a hint of warning in his tone.
    “It’s okay, Dad,” Hannah says, gripping the steering wheel more tightly. She glances over to her mother. “I have a change of scene. I already moved—remember?”
    “I’m just worried you did that to avoid your grief,” her mother says. “Packing away all of Emily’s things like that, pretending she never existed—”
    “That’s not what I’m doing,” Hannah snaps. Her voice is raw. She clears her throat so she won’t cry. How can she explain how she feels to them? How can she tell them that she’s worried if she is surrounded by Emily’s things, the weight of the memories might crush her? If she goes through Emily’s clothes, her toys,