Chapter One (Dark Woods) *reworked*

Chapter One

There is a day, in everyone’s life, where suddenly – everything falls to pieces.  Either through heartache, nothing in your life going the way you wanted or hoped, something …someone…being taken from you without your control, or you do something horribly wrong.   There are so many variables to life and it is in that moment of shock and reflection that you realize that 98% of your life is completely out of your control. 

Life isn’t easy.  Life in itself, if one could say, wasn’t designed to be easy. 

What happens to your soul, to your psyche…when your whole life is filled with that kind of low?  What happens when all the people who are supposed to love you, who are supposed to gather around you and hold together the pieces as they fall apart, just don’t?  What happens if you are neglected, told you aren’t wanted, abused, raped and treated lower than the lowest?

Does that person then become a monster?

It is a logical question.

The answer is that some do become monsters, maybe bigger and darker then the ones that created them.  Then there is the answer that some are the exact opposite of the monsters that molded them, from one extreme to the other extreme to prove that their willpower is nothing like that of those people.  Or perhaps they turn into the type of unique person who only see the world differently. 

That’s what she wondered.  That’s what she was an example of.  She also wondered if she was the exception to the rule.

She stood at the large window in her den, pondering, and watching the birds around the bird feeder fighting for seed.  She had found some bad bread in her kitchen that morning when she was making some breakfast.  She had already taken that outside and broke it up, spreading around the bases of the feeders.  Feeding the birds brought her such joy and being able to see the wildlife from her windows made her heart sing. She felt the animals could be magical. It was the great thing about living away from town, and a small Mayberry type town at that.  She had seen a lot of deer, even a couple bear cubs, and lots of racoon from her windows.  There was even a family of racoons living under her back porch.

She watched a robin pop out of the birdhouse nailed into the big backyard tree.  That single tree was so big it shaded a good portion of her backyard all by itself.  She had set up a bunch of colorful, different sized birdhouses at different heights on the tree. 

It had taken two years, but birds did finally start using the bird houses she had gotten when she moved in.  The bird feeders they used right away, but the bird houses had taken longer. She imagined that they finally figured out she wasn’t planning on going anywhere when they started to finally use them. 

Moving was never in her plans.  She never planned on moving around or being a theoretical gypsy, but she would wake up some mornings and just know it was time to leave.  This was the place, though, she had finally decided to make a home.  The place where her roots had dug in.  This was home, she was done with moving.

She managed to find a small town that felt welcoming to her.  It was one of those older black and white television shows type of towns, where everyone knew everyone feel of it.  Of course, everyone’s business was discussed as entertainment over the white picket fences, or at the diner over the meatloaf special, and in every waiting room there was. 

This was where she believed she belonged.  Where she wanted to bury those roots.   This felt like “home” she realized.  Then the whole family had invaded making sure she would never moved again.

Though, she was still known as the girl so full of “mystery” around town, which she typically laughed off.  She habitually only let people in to the surface level, but never deep enough to figure out the skeletons she kept shackled in her closet.  The ones that she didn’t want anyone to ever find out.

She was lucky that she had come out of her childhood situation alive.  She couldn’t go as far as to say she had been unharmed, because she had been plenty harmed.  It had taken her years of therapy to work through fears and trust issues.   Nevertheless, she certainly wouldn’t call her issues “cured” or “gone” by any definition.
            After everything that had happened, she had only completely trusted four people in her life, until she moved here.  Four people!  Well, four people and various therapists, but the therapists she didn’t necessarily trust, she just paraded her skeletons around for them.  It was astonishing to her.  She couldn’t imagine her daughter living like that, like she had.  She had only known it as her “normal.”

She did, once upon a time, tell someone she thought she could trust, and it ended up blowing up in her face.  So she really didn’t like sharing her past with anyone.

She sipped her coffee as she watched the robin.  There was a chipmunk that came out and started to snack on the see that was falling to the ground.  A couple of humming birds swooped down to their feeders and then some other birds joined that big breasted robin at the bird feeders.

She loved this, just this, sitting and watching the magic of nature and all the fine creatures.  That’s why she loved living in a more rural part of the town where things were spaced out and more private.  Plus, she didn’t want to feel obligated to chit chat with neighbors, she liked the solitude.

You ask most children, who understand what trust is, and they will tell you that they trust their parents, their grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, family friends, the list goes on.   Not with her.  She trusted the only girl who had befriend her, that she had ever told her secret to.  The girl who had become her sister for the last fifteen years of her life.  The one who had married ten years before, settled in one place and up-rooted her whole family to be where she had finally decided to settle.  The whole family had become her lifeline.  They had become her everything.  Her sister, her Mom, her Dad, and her brother.  They insisted on doing, and did, everything that they had to in order to keep her before the trials started and after.

 They were the ones who got up in the middle of the night, while she screamed out – waking the whole house – from nightmares that plagued her sleep.  They’d hug her, talk softly and soothingly to her, and let her cry until she couldn’t cry anymore.  They gave her allowances in her behavior, warning her more than they would worn Reed and Gabby.  It was Gabby who saved her when she had been contemplating killing herself.  It had been Gabby who had sat there and said that if she insisted on doing it, they’d both do it. 

She couldn’t take on that responsibility, she wasn’t that selfish.  It was in that moment, sitting on that bathroom floor, crying with her best friend and sister, when she realized how selfish that choice would have been.  She couldn’t do it, she didn’t do it.  All it took was for her sister and best friend to stand by her and tell her “if you jump, I jump” figuratively anyway.  They never spoke of it again. 

They made her their family.  They never let her forget.  She knew that they loved her like they did Gabby and Reed.  They supported her through the trials, the therapy, the nightmares, the fear, and the trust issues.  Now she called them her Mom and Dad.  If it hadn’t been for them, for that sliver of trust she had for them to begin with, she wasn’t sure what might have become of her. 

Then there was Gabby and Reed.  Gabby was so excited at the thought of having her best friend become her sister, they were both giddy with excitement over that.  Reed had been slightly harder to win over, but not all that hard either.  There was a moment, early on, that she thought Reed had liked her.  She had to admit, she had a slight crush on him too… but once she moved into their house, that avenue would never be crossed.  Relationships scared the crap out of her anyway.  It was hard enough for her to have regular relationships let along romantic ones.

She still had scars and she always would. Big huge mental scars that couldn’t heal all the way.  Big red, swollen ones with raw edges that threatened to tear open at the slightest wrong move. Physical pain, physical scars, they could heal and get better… but mental scars were the worst.  That’s the thing about scars, they never went away, no matter how they faded. 

The one thing she couldn’t do anymore was live in fear.   She was done walking around, looking over her shoulder.  She was done tip-toeing in the minefield of her own memories.      She needed to take control fully back.  She had been thankful for this place, this house, and her family, because of all of them, she finally felt more healed than ever.  She could no longer be that roaming gypsy she had been, even with a daughter in tow.

She had put her biological father and brother away for life, her father sentenced to death.  They had been found guilty of nearly eighty deaths, at this point, and suspected of so many more.  They referred to them as some of the worst serial killers in history.  It was discovered that they had traveled to neighboring cities to get victims, sometimes even crossing state lines. 

There were books written about them, movies made about them, about their story… about her story.   Some of the proceeds had been given to her, but she’s sure it was only a sliver of what had been made. The Johansons’ had put the money into a savings account for her, they wouldn’t take a penny of it.  Luckily that, coupled with the inheritance from her grandparents, she had a decent nest egg available when she turned 18. They might share her genetics, but they had never been her family.  

She sat down in the overstuffed chair she had placed next to the window.  Her coffee was still hot in her cup. Steam still rising from it, billowing in the air until it dissipated.  She sunk back, and relaxed, still watching the birds.   

Her black Huskey, Luna, got up from the dog bed and walked over to her, resting her head in her lap and she automatically started stroking Luna’s head.

Then she noticed the squirrels starting to come out.  There were three of them that lived in her yard that she regularly saw.  There was one that had a black paw and a black ear, she called him Willy.  The one with the chunk of ear missing, well, she called him Ulysses.  The normal gray one she couldn’t find any distinct markings on, she called Pudding.   She left a bowl of peanuts out for them every morning.  They would sit there and break open the shells to get the treat inside.  She always had fun watching them, even taking pictures of them for her blog.

Things happened in her life, the courts had allowed her to change her name so that she could try to have as normal of a life as possible.  Her life would never be normal though.  She would never be rid of the nightmares and the things she saw and experienced.  Seeing a bloody naked woman in a cage, tied up, was something someone could never get over.  She had been alive when the police got there, she survived, but during the trial – after she had testified, she had tried to kill herself.  Bella remembered feeling so heartbroken when she had heard about it.  Thankful she didn’t succeed, but sorry she was having some a hard time.  Although, she could understand that feeling that she’d be better off no longer alive.  They had kept in touch, though.

“Mom,” she heard from behind her.   She turned around and saw her daughter with her fiery red curly hair falling around her face, down to about the middle of her back.  She was blessed with blue eyes that contrasted her own green eyes.  She looked just like her Mom but for the color of her eyes.  She dressed in a long sleeved white shirt and a jumper. 

“What Emma?”

“What if we were living on someone’s face, and the mountains were really pimples.  The mountains would just disappear when people popped them, and it was like our volcanos spewing lava pus all over killing everyone on that part of the face?”

“Emma,” she couldn’t help but to laugh.  “That’s pretty gross.”  She encouraged her daughter to be creative and use her brain.  “Creative,” she added, “but gross.”  Sometimes, she really wondered about her daughter’s pre-teen mind and if it was a danger to anyone.   She watched her daughter smile and skip out of the room.  “I think you do that to try to get reactions out of me,” she yelled after her.  She couldn’t help but to chuckle and know that no one is in danger from that girl.  She wouldn’t hurt a spider, literally, she catches them and takes them outside. 

Emma laughed loudly from another room, and she found herself snickering as she turned back to her window, seeing the squirrels trying to figure out how to climb the pole to the main bird feeder she has just filled up that morning when she had spread the bread around the base.  The squirrels, who had tried it a thousand times already, were not getting anywhere.  They did gobble up whatever seed the birds would push over the edge that fell to the ground, and whatever bread was left.  They also ran back and forth to the bowl of peanuts in the shells she kept outside. 

It was only a few minutes before Emma hopped back into her office.  “Mawm-mee” she said drawing out the word that was the absolute best nickname and the worst she had, all at the same time. 

“What has crawled into your bonnet this morning Emerson?”

“Well,” her daughter hopped across the room and wrapped her arms around her mom’s waist.   “Hannah, Cicaly, Harper and I were wondering if we could have a sleep over.” 

Her daughter was referring to the children of her two best friends, Gullia and Catrina.  When she had moved here, she had joined the elementary school PTA and met Gullia and Catrina who had both come up to her and started carrying on conversations like they had known each other all their lives.  It was a feeling she had only ever had one other time, and that is when she met Gabby. 

The PTA was something she was part of but she wasn’t heavily involved.  It was a dare to herself to get out of her introverted comfort zone.  She just sort of blended into the background while her two best friends ran the show.  She wished Gabby had kids her daughter’s age, but she loved all of her nieces and nephews so much.  She loved that Gabby was there now, and that Reed and his family were in Seattle, just a couple hours away, or an hour by boat, and their parents were just south of them by about an hour. 

They were her parents, in every way she had never had until they surrounded her with love and support and didn’t even let her think twice about them not being her parents.  She had never met two people who were more loving than Phillip and Rose, though, these days they were just naturally Mom and Dad. 

They had fought so hard to keep her with them.  Luckily Rose’s sister worked in the Family Welfare department and had pulled some strings back then so that they could take her home that night from the police station.  They had supported her, loved her, stood by her while she battled the demons of her past, and cheered for her for every single accomplishment she made.  She got the opportunity to be adopted by them, and to change her name.

Gabby had given her the nickname of Bella.  It was the first time, other than her biological mother, that anyone had given her a nickname.  It was important to keep Bella as her nickname.  So, becoming Isabella was an easy choice.  Then Rose had suggested Grace as a middle name after the grandmother she loved dearly.  Of course, she took their last name as her own, and she officially had become Isabella Grace Johanson, Bella for short.  A name she hoped the evil monster whose DNA was used to create her, and the brother she shared DNA with, would never know. 

She didn’t talk about them anymore, not one word.  It was like a silent rule these days.  Just not to think about them, or talk about them, but every now and then, they crept into her thoughts hanging onto memories mostly.  He daughter would never know them, or of them, if she could help it.  That’s what she wanted.  She knew it wasn’t realistic.  One day she’d have to have that conversation with Emma.

“Sleep over where?”  She asked turning her back to the window for the moment and facing her daughter.  She pretty much knew what was coming.  The girls loved to come over to her house for sleepovers because both Hannah, Harper and Cicaly had other siblings.  At least at her place, it was just the four of them.  Plus Bella usually ordered out and they could do whatever they wanted with in reason.

“Here,” she said giving her mother her best pleading look.  “Indy won’t leave us alone and Dakota and Hayden go and burp and fart wherever we are, it’s gross!  Anna is always coming in where we are, plus Matt and Micha are just brats, Mom!”

Indiana was Hannah’s older brother, Dakota and Hayden were her younger brothers, and Annalisa was Hannah’s younger sister.  Harper and Cicaly were Irish twins. Matthew and Micha were their younger brothers.  Indy was in the grade ahead of the four girls.  Bella suspected he liked Emma, but she wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about that.  It was a matter of the way he looked at her sometimes that caused her to have that suspicion.  Dakota and Hayden were seven and five respectively and typical little brothers. Annalisa was only four years old and looked up to Hannah and all the girls.  She was a little girl who wanted to do everything the big girls were doing.  Matthew was seven and Micha was three, those two did everything they could to make their older sisters scream, especially Matthew.  Anytime the girls were all together over there was best time to make all of them scream.  It was actually amusing if you were a witness to it, and she had on occasion.  Matthew had a very mischievous mind and some of the things he came up with were pretty genius.  Of course, Micha just wanted to be cool like his brother. The stories that were told.  She didn’t envy Catrina and her husband Greggory in the slightest. 

“Have they talked to their parents?”

She looked around innocently, “Not yet,” she muttered.  “I wanted to see if it was okay with you first.”

Good call, she thought.  “When are you thinking?”

“Tonight?”

“Short notice, there, Emma Rose.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said going back to giving her the best pleading look she had.  All the girls were in drama club, all of them had been in some of the community plays.  They all knew how to bring out those acting skills when and if needed.   She stood up and went to her desk, sitting back down in her computer chair.

She was thinking about asking Gabby, Gullia and Catrina over for a wine night.  They could all shoo the three dad’s and little boys for a poker night, she loved hosting poker night, but the girls really wanted to be just the four of them.  It was a thought.   “I will talk to their moms, okay?”

“Really!?!” she squealed. 

“School is getting out soon, we’re headed into summer vacation.  So if this plan doesn’t work out, just remember there will be plenty of other opportunities, okay?”  She told her daughter. 

“But Moooooooooooooommmmmm,” she was a very dramatic child.  “It’s a four-day weekend!”

“I know, I’ll see what I can set up.”

Emma ran across the room to her and squeezed her extra hard in a hug and skipped back off to finish getting ready for school.  Bella just shook her head.  She had no idea where that child got her dramatic flair from, but it certainly wasn’t her. 

She debated on shooting her sister and friends an email, a text message, or a phone call.  Figured it would be easiest to pop on Facebook and shoot them all a message at the same time in their group message they kept going.  It was someplace where they only had to say something once instead of having to repeat it ten times, plus share photos and gossip. 

She walked around to her desk chair and sat down.  Putting the coffee cup on the quilted little coaster, she quickly worked past her computer security measures and got onto Facebook.  She shot them all off a message in one shot.

Interested in a movie and wine night tonight?  Emma wants to have the girls over for a sleepover.  Dads could play poker and have their own guys night with the other kids.  Would be such a full house though – where ever it would happen.  Girls could stick around until the campout on Sunday, it’s fine by me. 

While she was sitting at her computer, she glanced at her email.  Her editor was bothering her for her newest finished book.  Problem was, it wasn’t finished yet.  She needed to get it done, but she was having a hard time feeling it.  She shot her off a reply explaining she was having a little bit of a block.  She didn’t understand what the rush was, they already had a book that hadn’t been released yet.  She always liked to have that “buffer” book though.  It was her own fault.  The first few years she wrote, she was getting two or three books done in one year, now that she was twenty books into the series – it was a little bit rougher to find the brilliance that seemed to flow out of her fingers so easily before.

There was an email from an address that she didn’t recognize marked “Urgent.”  She was about to click on it when she heard the chime from Facebook meaning that someone had replied to the message.  She switched tabs of her browser and saw that Gabby had replied. 

I’m in!  I will have to bring the baby because I cannot even think about leaving him for a few hours without bawling like a crazy person. Hormones are swell.  Plus, I figure you all will love taking him from me every moment you can. 

She smiled.  She couldn’t wait to hold her nephew and smell him.  She just held him two days prior, but twenty-four hours was way too long.  She longed to have another baby, someday.  Sadly, she’d never have another baby.  Just the hand that life had dealt her.  Didn’t mean she couldn’t spoil all her nieces and nephews.

Emma had been such an amazing gift to her.  It happened her freshman year of college.  Her and Gabby were lucky enough to share a dorm room.  They had been taking different paths, but still were the best of friends.  Just then, they needed to spread their wings more independently.  Gabby was really interested in the Greek aspect, and pledged a sorority.  Bella still had issues, hard core issues, about large groups of people and trusting anyone. 

There was this guy named David in her creative writing class.  He was charming and handsome.  He would look at her during class and he’d smile at her, but she would always shy away, figuring that he wasn’t looking at her but past her at someone else.  Until he confronted her after class one day.  She heard him saying “Hey” from behind her but it wasn’t until he caught up to her and tapped her shoulder.  She had spun around and seen that it was David, and he had in fact been talking to her. 

He started talking to her, and at first, she was almost feeling panicky.  Like a scared deer stuck in headlights.  He asked her if she wanted to catch a movie with him, or dinner, sometime.  She said sure, because she wasn’t sure what else to say.  She had never had a boyfriend before, never even gone out on a date.  Gabby had a boyfriend in high school and there was a lot of group outings and activities as their core group of friends, but she had never had an actual boy be interested in her before.  She wasn’t sure what to do. 

Regardless she met up with David and he took her out to a nice sit-down restaurant.  She had barely eaten, did the classic order a salad crap because she wasn’t comfortable eating in front of this guy.  As the night moved forward he was making her laugh and she was becoming comfortable around him.  He made her forget about her fears and anxiety and all those demons in her closet.  She felt pretty and smart and like she was valuable.  She fell in love with him, or at least, what she thought was love, first love kind of love. 

Then small things started to happen, and she’d dismiss them or try to talk her inner voice out of the panic that sat on the edge of her soul jumping at saying what was going on was wrong.   Her inner voice was screaming and she brushed it off as being silly.  He’d make rude comments and he’d see the look of confusion, or that it upset her, and he’d laugh about it and claim he was joking. 

Then he started to show up at the restaurant that she was waitressing at for spending money.  He’d show up when she wasn’t working and he’d demand answers from the people she worked with on if anyone was interested in her, if anyone was flirting with her, including customers.  Then he’d start sitting at the bar and drink while she was working, and he’d give her this angry stare the whole time she went from table to table to take care of her customers.  Waitressing was a huge step for her out of her comfort zone, it was a big deal to her.  Luckily her boss wasn’t mad, more so concerned about her safety, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get in trouble.    

The first time he punched her in the face was after work one night.  She had closed, and she was so angry because he had made a scene and almost gotten her fired.  She had come out of the back door and he had started in on her right away.  She had swung around on him and yelled at him about how he almost got her fired.   It was the first time she had actually ever stood up for herself.  She was rewarded with a black eye.  One of her co-workers and friends came out as his fist met her face and she fell to the ground.  He ran off, like a thief in the night, and when her co-workers had asked if she had known who had done it, she lied, and said no. 

He had punched her one other time.  It was about a month after the first time, they had been dating about six months at the time.  They were sitting at her dorm room having pizza and watching a movie. Gabby was doing stuff with her sorority and she was staying at the sorority house.  She had done something, and spilled a glass of Coke on him.  He just punched her in the head a second time.  She demanded he leave between her crying hysterically and him apologizing profusely. 

The last straw happened when she was avoiding him, because she was truly fearing being around him.  All those feelings of living with her biological family was flooding back and she couldn’t go back there.  He got mad about being ignored.  She was trying to figure things out in her head and asked him for space.  One night, after a party she had been invited to by Gabby.  It had been on Greek row and there were fraternity brothers there.  He found her starting to walk back to the dorm and started to accuse her of sleeping with another guy and various other horrible things.  She started to go back to the sorority house out of fear.  In that moment, she decided, it was clear they couldn’t be together.  It was such an unhealthy relationship and she was beating herself up internally while she was breaking up with him outwardly.   She didn’t see it coming.  She just remembered screaming at him it was over, and next thing she knew she was waking up in the emergency room with an IV bag, bruised and swollen face, Gabby was crying.  She couldn’t open one eye and two ribs were broken. 

The doctor came in with the police.  She gave them all the details.  After the police left, the doctor came back in and started going over test results.  Then he said five words that forever changed her life.  “Did you know you’re pregnant?”

She was three months along already and had no clue.   She’d been pregnant for almost half of the relationship with David and hadn’t known. 

She didn’t tell him. She pressed charges and got a 90-day restraining order.  They went to the same college though and unless someone was going to change colleges, it was hard to truly avoid each other.   When she started showing, really showing, there was one day where she was walking to her next class and out of the corner of her eye she saw someone walk into a pole.  She turned to look and it was David, and he was still staring at her and her large pregnant belly.  

            He had asked a mutual friend to give her a message after the restraining order was up.  He asked if she would meet with him, with Gabby, in a public place just to talk.  He didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable and he promised he wouldn’t hurt her.  She agreed and told him to meet her at a coffee shop that evening. 

            When she had gotten there, he was already waiting.  She got in line first and got herself a hot tea before she went and sat with him.  She hadn’t even told Gabby she was going to meet him.  They exchanged some small talk and then he decided to address the elephant in the room, because that’s what she felt like, an elephant.  She didn’t lie to him, she was honest about being pregnant with his child.  Other than what had happened to her before her escape, she hadn’t ever been with anyone that way but David. 

            He said he was very remorseful for what had happened. He’d gone to anger management and had even started to volunteer at a woman’s shelter where abused women and kids came in all the time.  He didn’t expect to mend things with Bella but he hoped they could be tolerable towards each other.  He had told her he wouldn’t make excuses about how growing up in a family where his father abused his mother had damaged him, because what he had done was beyond wrong, but he did want to say he was truly sorry.  It did feel like he was being sincere. 

            He told her about how he had sought out help after that night he put her in the hospital.  He is seeing a therapist, went to anger management and was in some group therapy.  He was honest about wanting to change because the last thing he wanted to become was his father.  What he had turned into with her had truly scared the crap out of him and he was actually happy she called the cops.  It forced him to reflect inward and admit things that were manifesting outward. 

            The most important thing was that she truly felt he was being one hundred percent authentic. 

            She had given him her cell number and he stuck to his word.  He didn’t push anything with her and they were forming a bit of a friendship again.  He wanted to be involved in the baby’s life, but he didn’t want to push anything either.  So, she agreed to play it, basically, by ear.   Her feelings hadn’t changed for him, there was still love and part of her did want to work things out with him.  She was considering asking him out on a date towards the end of her pregnancy. 

            He actually surprised her and asked her out on a date.  Dinner and a movie and whatever happened happened.  So she said yes. 

            The night had come for Bella and David’s date.  They had debated on if they wanted to see The Omen or The Break-Up finding it funny that The Break-Up had a bit of play on their own situation.  They decided on the The Omen but turned around and went to see The Break-Up right after anyway.  She’d never forget that night.  They had gone to a twenty-four restaurant after.  They ordered an appetizer, meals, and dessert and just stayed there and talked and talked and talked.  He had moved next her, he kissed her and put his hands on her belly to feel the baby kick. 

            He tearfully apologized again, told her that he loved her so much and he regretted all the things he did.  She told him she knew he was sorry, she understood, but still making it clear that if he ever did anything like that again, it was over.  She’d never be put in that position again.  He had no idea about her past.  It was something she wasn’t planning on sharing with him either.  Though, he did asked her why she didn’t talk much about her childhood. 

            It was 6 A.M. when they left that restaurant.  They went back to her room and they fell asleep with him spooning her and his hands on her belly just enjoying feeling the baby move. There was no sex that night.  Just reconnecting.

            Mom and Dad were worried when she told them, and Reed was out of his mind mad, making threats he’d never follow through on.  She asked them to please respect that she wasn’t some dumb girl, especially with her past, and she knew people could paint a pretty picture and never follow through, but she truly wanted to see if things had changed, and if they did it would be worth it.

            She moved into an apartment with Gabby after college ended for the year.  They were pretty much just off campus and very close to Greek row since Gabby would be highly involved with all of that.  Bella had joined the staff of the college newspaper and the photography club.  They had gotten a three-bedroom place so that the baby could have her own room.  She knew Gabby probably wouldn’t be there a whole lot but it would be nice when she was.  She had decided against living in the sorority house because she said she felt that with the baby coming, she needed to be living with Bella.  Even after Bella had insisted she move into the sorority house, Gabby wouldn’t.

            Gabby had started dating a guy, and they were head over heels.  His name was Callum and he had been the sweetest thing.  Bella actually loved Callum to death and he ended up staying with Gabby a lot, or Gabby staying with him. 

            Callum and David had both helped them move into the apartment, especially since Bella was so pregnant.  David helped her get the nursery set up.  He put together the furniture for her, and they’d laugh at him not reading the directions and putting things on upside down or backwards.  Not once did he get angry and she felt the “old” him would have.  It felt good. 

            She went into labor on June twelfth that year, just about a week after moving into the new apartment.  She had called him, panicked, to tell him her water broke.  Gabby was there and she was going to take her to the hospital.  While she labored, he was rushing to the hospital.   On the way there he ran a red light at a high rate of speed and he ended up hitting a semi-truck.  His car ended up getting wedged under the truck’s cargo area. The top half of the car was completely ripped off.  David’s head was decapitated with it, as his body remained seat belted into the car.

            She found out that his car had hydroplaned through the red light on the very wet blacktop.  It had been raining hard that day, sometimes causing visibility to be less than a few feet.  It didn’t help matters that he was talking on his cell phone, which had been found still clutched in his hand.  She had gotten so mad when he had told her he was coming and he didn’t show up. 

She didn’t find out until the following day that he had died on the way there.  She kept trying to call him, and kept getting his voicemail.  She left one message.   The last time she called, a detective had picked up the phone.  He informed her that he had been in an accident.  The detective had come to talk to her.

She was distraught.  Here she had this beautiful baby girl and the life she had imagined was suddenly gone.  Things felt so good, and so right and now she was heartbroken on what should have been one the of the happiest days of her life.  He died before his daughter was born in the very early hours of the thirteenth.  His family had come to the hospital and they had no idea that she was upstairs holding their granddaughter and niece. 

            She had attended his funeral a couple days after she went home with the baby.  She didn’t know his family, had never been introduced, but she had gone and hung back.  There were a lot of people there that she knew, from the college, and so she tried to blend in. She didn’t take Emma.  She didn’t go tell his family, didn’t interact with them at all.  From what she understood, based on what he had told her while they dated and after when he was explaining to her why he reacted the way he had, she didn’t feel like she wanted them involved in her daughter’s life. 

            “Mom!” Emma slid through the door in the fast pace she moved at.  “I’m headed out for the bus,” she said crossing the room in only a few steps.  She hugged and kissed her mom and rushed back out as quickly as she had come in. 

            She was like a whirlwind, that one.

            She wanted to think that David was watching over Emma, wherever he was.  She found comfort in that.  Her daughter’s own personal guardian angel.  She had told Emma about him.  She left all the bad stuff out, just saying they got to love each other for a short time.  Luckily, she did have some photos of David, so Emma could see what her Dad looked like.  Bella had put together a collage of all the photos they had taken together, hanging it on Emma’s wall, and a photo album with more. 

            After she was done with college she moved around the United States some.  She’d be here a few months, there a year.  Once Emma had started school, she had to stay in one place for the school year, at least.  Then it got to the point where it was really weighing on Emma, all the moving around.  Her own gypsy heart needed to settle down and plant some roots.   So one summer she had gone to visit Reed and his wife in Seattle.  Emma had just turned 7 years old.  She would be starting Second Grade in the fall.  Reed and Natalie had three kids at the time.  Jacob was 8, Sawyer was almost 5, and little Katie Marie was a could weeks old.  They were there to cuddle the baby and spoil her and they were there for family too.  Everyone had descended onto Reeds gorgeous waterfront house in Seattle.

            One day, Reed suggested they take a drive, enjoy the peninsula and the Olympic Mountains.  So, she and Emma got in the car and did just that, just the two of them.  They took the ferry over from Seattle to Bremerton and drove around from there.  They’d stop to take pictures.  They went across the Hood Canal, just to say they did it.  They found a little town called Port Gamble which had this tiny part of the town that was quaint and lovely to walk around.  Little stories on plaques in front of houses of who had lived there and their connection to the town. They even found the Point No Point light house.  They walked the sandy beach there and dug their toes in the sand.  They could see Seattle from the beach. Huge cruise ships floating past going to Alaska, or that’s what they were told by a beach dweller.  They found sea glass and put it in their pockets. 

            They had stopped in the small town of Sable Thicket to eat.  The diner they stopped at, Lizzy’s Diner, was really good food. The staff had been so friendly, they commented on and interacted with Emma like they had known her since she was born.  The waitress, Candice, had even given Emma a small stuffed unicorn, and Emma had carried that thing around with her for a couple years. 

            After they ate, they had gone across the street to the park and hung out there for a little while.  She watched Emma play with the other kids at the park that day.  They kids welcomed her and she had met a couple of girls her age.  They were running around, laughing, playing, giggling.  Local people were welcoming her, seeing she wasn’t a local person.  They’d ask where she was from and what she did.  Eventually she had asked if there were any houses for sale in the area that they knew of, and they had said they knew of a big house with beach access just on the edge of town, kind of secluded. 

            One gal even offered to have her follow them, they’d show her were it was at.  That gal was one of her best friend’s now.  She had even called the realtor and had her meet them there.  She fell in love with the house immediately.  The back yard was huge and all fenced in.  The wrap around porch was something she loved.  There was a porch swing by the front door and a tire swing on a tree in the back yard.  It had a lot of bedrooms, so she knew she could set some up as guest rooms, and still have an office, her room and Emma’s room all on the main floor.  The rest of the main floor was open concept.  Then there was the screened in three-season porch, which had glass windows that could be put up in leu of the screens so it could be a porch all year round. 

            Fire places all over the place, a gorgeous kitchen, and the trail leading through the woods in the very back of the yard, to their own private beach that was part of the land that came with the house.  It was already a fenced in property and she could improve on that if she wanted, making it completely secure if she chose to do so. 

            She could also get animals, if she wanted.  She knew Emma wanted, she’d been begging for a pet.  She nodded, looking around.  She was getting emotional.

            This is it, she thought.  This is it.

She just had this feeling that this is where she belongs.  This is where she needed to plant those roots with Emma.  This was home.

            She ended up going back to New York and packing up their stuff, she hoped, for the last time.  The whole process was quick.  Before she knew it, she had planted roots.

            Her sister Gabby had quickly followed.  She bought the house on the spot, and Gabby had immediately gotten on the realtor sites and found a house in the same town.  The funny thing was that Gabby’s husband Callum had already gotten a transfer to a Seattle hospital.  By ferry, it was about an hour commute.  So they were going to get a home in Seattle near Reed, but now Gabby said she wanted to be in the same town as Bella.   Mom and Dad were both retired and ended up moving up to a town just south of them, by about an hour.  Dad wanted to be close to the bases in case they ever had a job for him, once a military man, always a military man.  The whole family ended up being within an hour of each other.

            She sipped her coffee and opened her writing program.  She got up, to get more coffee.  As she made her way to the kitchen, putting her cup on the counter, she decided to open the windows in the house to let the breeze of cool air come in.  She walked to the front door, disabled the security for the house, and opened all the windows, and the heavy front door leaving the screen door secured.  She walked back through the kitchen, grabbed more coffee, and walked around continuing to open the windows.  When she made it back to her office, she flipped on the security monitor that showed the various views from the numerous security cameras.

            Then she sat down at her desk, with the window open so she could watch the birds in her back yard, and got to work on her book.  She wanted to get what she could done before she had company that night. 

            The silence in the room was almost deafening except for the heavy punching of the computer keyboard at such a quick pace.