Chapter 16

Micah

Three synchronized vibrations startle me from a dead sleep. Delirious, I shield my eyes against the amber haze slicing between the drapes and the wall and work to place where I am and why I'm lying on top of a mattress fully dressed. But my line of questioning halts the instant I eye the sleeping beauty at the foot of the bed.

Raegan.

At the sight of her dark curls cascading over the white pillowcase, the events of the last night flash through my mind like the flipped pages of a graphic novel: The nightclub. The mural. The mob. The bar rescue. The vomit hat. The cleanup. The intoxicated sister asleep on the sofa. The hours Raegan and I spent talking and reading journal entries and nearly ... I swallow.

I'd almost kissed her. In truth, I don't think it's possible to be any more kissable than Raegan Farrow. But unlike Sleeping Beauty, a kiss is not what she needs most right now.

I scrub a hand down my face and remind myself once again why it's imperative to implement boundaries. First, she's barely one foot out of a complicated relationship with her ex. Second, we're only hours away from being stuffed back into a tin can with her family, where there is hardly enough privacy to breathe much less figure out what this is between us. And third, and perhaps most important, she doesn't value open communication. The secrets Raegan is keeping are living on borrowed time, and seeing as I represent the collateral damage of such a secret-keeper, I can't affirm the stance she's taken.

Yet at the same time, I also can't ignore the way my blood turns molten whenever she's near.

The three phones go off again on the desk like an SOS, and I'm careful to navigate around her adorable socked feet without disturbing her and quickly silence each device. It's not until I swipe to unlock my phone that I read the red-lettered warning affixed to my home screen: Severe Storm Alert. There's a straight-line windstorm headed through Texas and Oklahoma, with winds upwards of seventy miles per hour and hail.

Adrenaline swamps my insides as I click into the report and then to the weather radar, which confirms our worst-case scenario for today's driving itinerary. According to this, chances are good Cheyenne's flight in Amarillo will be canceled, and whatever else Luella had planned there simply isn't worth the risk. We'll need to head north. I grip the back of my neck and track the oncoming hailstorm's predicted arrival time.

We need to get on the road. Soon.

But as I begin to calculate a new route for us, the logistics involved in rousing the troops for such an early travel time begin to read like a bad math story problem in my head: If it's currently 5:15 a.m. and there are five Farrow women asleep in three different hotel rooms, how long will it take to load a tour bus? Special considerations of note: one Farrow is a country music legend, another Farrow is furious at said country music legend, and still another Farrow smells like she spent the night hugging the toilet.

Answer: I'm screwed.

I glance over at Hattie on the sofa and recall the numerous times Raegan woke to assist her in the night any time she coughed or moaned or lost her blanket to the floor. Sometime around three, when Hattie had yet another retching episode in the restroom, I proposed we tag-team any future wake-ups. Too exhausted to argue with me, Raegan accepted my help the next two times her sister needed attention. I look between the two sleeping women now, torn at whom to wake first. Ultimately, I choose Hattie. A few extra minutes of sleep won't make much of a difference in her condition, and it will likely take her twice as long as the others to perform the basic function of walking to the lobby. At this rate, she'll need close to a day to recover, as well as a few gallons of water to drink. I had a college roommate who taught me all I needed to know about the cruelty of hangovers my freshman year.

I crouch down in front of her and repeat her name numerous times in a low voice until she makes a sound that's almost human.

"Hey, Hattie. We need to get on the road soon. Can you open your eyes?"

She pries her eyelids open and studies me for several seconds. "Micah?"

"Morning." I smile, careful to keep my volume low. "Did you hear me? You're gonna have to walk down to the bus in a few minutes." She starts to push up on her elbow, and I grip her arm to assist. "Not too fast," I caution. "When you can, place both your feet on the floor to ground yourself. It will help with your equilibrium and balance."

I wait for her to adjust her T-shirt and uncurl her legs from the sofa cushion. The instant her feet hit the floor, her hands fly to her head and she sways forward. I catch her shoulders and help her lean against the backrest.

"My head is pounding," she complains.

"Do you have any more of those crackers Raegan gave you last night?"

"I think so."

I search the table and hand her a few before giving her a couple of ibuprofen. "Take these with a full glass of water. Slowly." She sways again, and I realize moving her is going to be much more difficult than I anticipated. "Where's your room key? I'll grab the rest of your bags and come back here after I wake the others. How 'bout you just focus on drinking your water, okay?"

She blinks at me several times without answering, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to repeat myself all over again when she shocks me with "You're like her, you know?"

"Who?"

"Your mom. She was my favorite person when I was a kid."

I'm rarely without a response, but Hattie's groggy comment stuns me. "You remember my mother?"

She closes her eyes as if to pull up something in the recesses of her mind. "She used to read to me on the bus, and whenever she stayed over at the house, too. She called me ‘Wild Thing.' That was my favorite book."

"Where the Wild Things Are?" I ask. I know the book well. Mom kept it in her music room.

A tiny smile plays on Hattie's ultra-chapped lips, and she takes another small sip of water. "I cried myself to sleep for weeks after she left us, and I kept our special book under my pillow until we had to move out of that house."

The surprising revelation tangles with my own raw grief, and it takes me a moment to secure my composure. Never once had I imagined how the two Farrow sisters would have felt at the sudden abandonment of an adult who'd been a huge part of their lives, never to be seen again. I've counseled students and families on how to heal from this kind of traumatic event more times than I can count. Parents, friends, favorite aunts and uncles, etc. Absence by death is one thing, but the absence of someone we love by choice is a different kind of pain. A different kind of heartache.

"She sent me a postcard once, on my tenth birthday. It was the last time I heard from her." The curve in her lips is slight. "It was of a river someplace in Idaho. I ... I can't remember what it was called. I think it had a man's name."

"The Saint Joe." It was my mom's favorite river near our home and the place where my brother and I have fished with our dad since we were boys. It's also where we were baptized as young adults.

Her eyes pop open. "Yeah, that's the one."

"Do you remember what the card said?" I ask, careful to keep my voice hushed for the sake of her hangover and the sleeping sister on the bed behind me.

"It was only two words." Hattie exhales slowly. "Stay Wild. I still have it in my jewelry box at home."

With her head resting against the wall, her eyelids close again, and I rise to look for her room key on the desk when her groggy voice says, "She'd be so disappointed in the way my life turned out."

I rotate to see Hattie's features pinch with a distinctly different variety of pain. Not from the aftereffects of a night spent trying to escape by way of a beverage that can only numb for so long, but from a far more insidious kind of torture. The kind that weaves its way around every tendon and fiber in a person's body.

"No, she wouldn't," I contend. "She'd empathize with your struggles, and then she'd look you in the eye and say something along the lines of: ‘Nights always feel the darkest right before you switch on the light.'"

Hattie blinks. "Did she used to say that to you?"

"Often."

"Why?"

"Because the idea of walking across my dark bedroom in search of the light felt scarier than staying awake, fearful of all the things I couldn't see. Until I did it." I smile at her. "You'll get there, Hattie. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But you will."

I can feel her gaze trail after me as I swipe her key card off the side table and stride out the door into the hallway beyond.

The answer to the day's math story problem of how long it takes to load five Farrow women and their luggage into a bus: twenty-four minutes. Not too shabby.

Once parked at the side exit of the hotel, I race down the bus steps with an energy that shouldn't be possible after so few hours of broken sleep. But by the bedraggled look of my passengers this morning, it would appear none of us got our recommended amount of beauty sleep last night. The collective energy level of all five women combined can't be much higher than that of a geriatric sloth.

As Luella's recently knighted bus driver, I feel it's part of my duty to remedy this. I stand near the bus entrance like an overenthusiastic church greeter and welcome each of the ladies by name as they step aboard Old Goldie with a clap. "Great way to hustle this morning. Should be a smooth drive once we head north."

When not one woman responds to my encouragement, barring a slight smile from Luella, I observe their limited interactions with one another and realize that perhaps the high-wind warnings aren't the only issue we'll be up against today. I may have rerouted one storm only to have taken another along for the ride.

Luella is uncharacteristically withdrawn when she steps aboard, and it's clear from the wide berth Adele gives her that the tension from last night hasn't thawed between them. Cheyenne, on the other hand, might as well be sleepwalking. Thankfully I don't require her help to confirm her flight out of Amarillo back to California has been canceled due to the weather. I suggest she try to rebook from Denver this evening, even though I know the chances of her getting a flight out west today are slim. She might be delayed until tomorrow. Her barely perceptible nod is followed by a downward tug of her pink baseball cap.

Hattie, whose arm is looped through Raegan's, takes a bit longer to reach the bus. Her movements are slow, and her sunglasses are affixed to her face. When I offer her the same cheery greeting as the others, she slaps her hands over her ears, which knocks her dark sunglasses to the ground. "Please. Stop. Clapping."

"Sorry." I bend and retrieve her sunglasses before guiding her to the top of the stairs where she promptly collapses onto the sofa with a groan.

Raegan climbs the steps after me into the front lounge and yawns. "If you're looking to change career paths, I think you'd make a good cheerleader."

I take her in with a smile and find that she's changed into fresh travel clothes, but I also notice the dark half-moons under her eyes. "You should try and get some sleep while we drive this morning. There shouldn't be too many curves in the road. We'll be on the interstate for a while."

She shakes her head. "I already offered my bunk to Cheyenne today."

Surprised by my lack of foresight at the number of bunks versus the number of passengers, I ask, "So where will that leave you until she can secure a flight out?"

"I'll be fine on the couch."

"No way," I counter. "You can take my bunk. If she ends up staying with us overnight, I'll take the couch."

"Micah, your sleep is far more valuable than mine—no one else can drive this thing, remember?"

"Shhhh." Hattie says draping an arm over her eyes. "Can you two fight over sleep later, please? You sound like new parents."

Raegan shrugs as if to say, Guess that solves that, only it absolutely does not solve anything. There's no way I'm sleeping in a bunk while she takes the couch in the living area. Not happening.

She touches my arm, and my skin ignites. "I'll make us some coffee."

"Then consider yourself my new favorite person."

"Shhhh," hisses Hattie again. "It feels like a woodpecker is breaking through my skull."

"What happened to you?" Adele asks in a tone that reflects no grace.

Hattie groans and flops an arm over her eyes. "Too many vodka tonics happened to me."

On her way back to the bunk hall, Cheyenne places her hand on Hattie's head. "You should drink a Pedialyte and eat some saltines, Aunt Hattie. It's the best cure for a hangover."

"And you would know that how?" Adele chirps. "Last I checked you were still nineteen."

Cheyenne's eyes are definitely wide awake now. "I'm in college, Mom."

"Oh? Are you back in college again? I can't keep track of your ever-evolving future."

Cheyenne huffs a frustrated sigh and keeps walking. "I need more sleep before we start this up again."

"You know who else sleeps during the day, darling?" Adele calls to her daughter while Hattie cups her hands to her ears. "People who drop out of college and have to work the graveyard shift just to pay their electricity bill."

"Everyone. Please. Stop. Talking."

I look to the back bedroom door where Luella has unceremoniously closed herself inside and wait to see if she'll come out and offer to pray for the day the way she's done every time we've started on the road, but she stays put. Perhaps Raegan comes by her avoidance tendencies naturally.

I scan the rest of the passengers in the lounge and wonder if they all do. "Mind if I say a prayer for our drive? I'll make it quick, Hattie."

Raegan stops fiddling with the coffeemaker and bows her head. I do the same and then offer up a prayer for the safety of those traveling in the direction of the oncoming windstorm. It's not until after I say amen and take my seat behind the wheel that I realize I should have prayed for the safety of those in the eye of the storm brewing inside this rig, as well.