Page 20 of In Every Lifetime
Fai
"Fai." A hand shook my shoulder. "Wake up. I need you to tell me where to go."
I pried my eyes open, a yawn spilling past my lips as I sat upright. We switched nine hours into the drive, when Sarah took over and I passed out in the passenger seat, taking quite the nap. The kind that left you more tired than you were before you fell asleep and oddly thirsty.
“Where are we?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep, my eyes adjusting to the late afternoon light. We were driving slowly down what looked to be a main street. Either side of the car was lined with shop fronts, the ones that looked like they belonged in a snow globe.
The street lights were lit, casting a soft glow over the walkways that were filled with a diversity of people. There was an older couple walking slowly, hand in hand. A family, a big family, was stopped in front of what looked to be a cafe, gawking in the windows at the desserts. It looked too picturesque to be real, and if I wasn’t watching it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“We’re here,” Sarah explained, casting me a quick humorless glance. “I forgot how long it takes you to fully wake up.”
I stretched in my seat. “You’re just jealous of how well I sleep.”
“Whatever you say,” she mused, turning the radio down. “I don’t know where Gabriel lives from here, and you were right, there’s no signal to GPS it.” She handed me the map we had printed out before we left. “Can you navigate me to his house?”
I nodded, getting my bearings on the map, finding the town we were in, Willow Creek, and trying to catch a street sign as we drove. “What’s this street called?”
“Ummm…” She squinted out the window with me, catching a passing street sign. “Center Street.”
I hummed my thanks and found where we were on the map. “Turn up ahead,” I pointed to the off street in the distance. “It’s a pretty straight shot after that.”
She nodded in understanding, following my instructions. The street we were on, while rather jovial, was short. Just as soon as it started, we were at the end, turning onto a dirt road. Willow Creek had only a few thousand residents, most of whom were local ranchers. It was nestled in the Rocky Mountains, the surrounding peaks capped in snow. I was no stranger to mountains and trees after living in Oregon for twenty years, but these were different. The trees weren’t nearly as tall as the ones back home, and they thinned as the mountain grew, unable to exist at this elevation.
But the mountains… they were expansive giants, so large I couldn’t fully comprehend their magnitude.
It struck me as odd that humans had the whole world at their fingertips, but chose the top of the mountain to live. It was harder to breathe here, the sun beating down with more intensity, the air thin and dry, yet many people were drawn to it. I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t fault them. If this was where home was, who was I to question it?
“He really is off the grid, isn’t he?” Sarah asked as we continued down the dirt road. There were a few houses in the far distance, and I found myself wondering whether neighbors out here ever crossed paths at all.
“What do you think they do in an emergency?” I asked. “With no signal to call for help, and no one living close by, what do you do?”
Sarah shrugged. “Hope there isn’t one?”
I laughed at her nonchalance. We were two city kids, and we both knew it. Sarah had grown up in New York, I had grown up in Chicago. While our home city of Eugene was much smaller than both, it was still a city. We just had to drive down the street to find a restaurant or a laundromat. Here, in these small towns, you really had to have plans made. You couldn’t just pop into the grocery store because you forgot an onion on your shopping list. It was an entire trip just to get off your property.
“Up there,” I said pointing ahead. We were thirty minutes from the center of town and hadn’t seen proof of life in at least ten. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere… and maybe we were.
At the end of the road sat a cabin, nestled into the side of the mountain, surrounded by trees and bushes. It was one of those traditional cabins that existed only on Christmas cards. There was even a thin line of smoke reaching high into the sky coming from the chimney.
The sun was just dipping over the mountains, lighting the clouds and sky in a collage of colors.
"Is that him?" Sarah asked, leaning forward to get a better look. "Your brother?"
I followed her line of sight, seeing a figure on the front porch. He was standing steadily, his legs shoulder-width apart, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.
“Shit…” I felt my heart rate pick up, pounding against my ribs. “I can’t do this, I really can’t do this.”
Sarah glanced at me and reached across the center console, wrapping her hand around mine. “Yes you can, you’ve been looking forward to this day your entire life, and you know it.”
I held onto her hand like it was a lifeline. “What if I screw it up?”
She smiled and pulled next to an SUV in front of the cabin and shifted into park. “You won’t, but if you do, we’ll leave. We’ll go home and put this all behind us. What matters is that you at least try. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
She was right. Hell, she was always right.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and nodded to Sarah. She smiled and turned off the truck. I jumped out of the passenger seat, facing the cabin and getting a better view of who I assumed was Gabriel.
He smiled and waved from his spot on the front porch. The cabin was rather quaint looking. There were worn wooden shutters on each of the windows. It was two stories with a log gable roof.
