Embark
ON A HIKING
adventure and explore the beauty of nature’s best…
In the
WOODS.
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PART 2 I hadn’t heard my daughter’s voice in eleven years. She was older. Her hair was shorter. But she still tilted her head exactly like her mother. Rosie looked from her mom to me.
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PART 2 I called 911 again. This time I didn’t ask for a welfare check. “My name is Lena Strand,” I said. “I’m a pharmacy technician. The man across the street is 88, on a blood thinner and heart medication that haven’t been picked up in five weeks. I have the records. And someone is signaling SOS from his basement right now.”
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PART 2 I was at the blue crib in two seconds. A little girl, maybe ten months old. Pink onesie. Pale lips. I put my cheek next to her mouth and watched her chest.
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PART 2 I pushed the door open. Grady was on the couch with a plate of wings. When he saw me, the color left his face. “How did you—”
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PART 2 I stood up. I walked to the front of the room, where the slideshow of Dad’s railroad years was still playing on the big screen. “Mom,” I said, “may I borrow the microphone?”
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Right after my husband’s funeral, my in-laws froze my bank accounts and locked my kids and me out in the cold. “Give up the children to foster care,” my father-in-law sneered. My mother-in-law violently stripped my wedding ring off my finger. They thought I was just a broke, helpless widow. They had no idea about the hidden envelope my husband had left me. When I finally opened it, their entire world collapsed.