Page 21 of Big & Lily

“You are awake. Good, let’s go.”

“Oh my God, fine.” I wasn’t going to make it through the night let alone to Anchorage anyway. “Grab the frying pans.”

It’s time for the Ackerman sisters’ first wilderness adventure. Down a narrow dirt path, lined with tall brush and shrubs, all thick enough not to see a bear coming, carrying our towels and sauté pans. I walk hesitantly, as if I’m in a haunted house and bracing myself for whatever will pop out at the next turn. Lily is hiding behind me, perfectly happy to let me be the sacrificial lamb. We follow the path, taking a few turns, until we come upon another cabin with two entrances—an M and a W on each door. I sigh with relief that I don’t have to share the bathroom with Dane and Ian. Inside, I’m also relieved to find showers, toilets, sinks with hot and cold taps. I imagined a hole in the ground.

When we are finished, we racewalk back to the cabin with quick, stiff-legged strides like two kids who are trying to beat each other to the candy counter as their mom yells,slow down!We are only halfway there when we hear pans clanging on the other side of the camp. In a panic we start to run. My sister elbows me out of the way.First born, first to get eaten, I’m sure she thinks.

We reach the cabin out of breath and laughing until I remember I’m still mad at her. I climb back into bed and turn out my light. Fatigue finally settles behind my eyes, and all I want is to pass out. I hear Lily continue to fumble until the squeak of her bedsprings tells me she’s tucked in, and I start to fade. Moments later, something or someone pulls my covers back. There’s a chill on my arm, exposed to the air after having been swaddled in the blanket, but I can’t rouse myself. Then there is a weight at the edge of the bed, the cool spot on my skin is replaced with a warmth and a pressure that run the length of my body. I feel breath in the hollow of my neck. Only then do I realize Lily has crawled into my little bed with me. And she’s crying.

Chapter Ten

I stroke Lily’s hair as she quietly cries into my neck, her arm and leg flung across me as if I were a body pillow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I whisper into the top of her head.

“No,” she says in a small, strained voice.

When she was very young and had bad dreams, Lily always ended up in my bed, never my mother’s. She’d stand in my doorway, the light from the hall casting a tall, thin shadow onto my comforter, which I’d throw back, knowing full well I was in for a night of wriggling and kicking and cover stealing.

Tonight, my sister is having big-girl bad dreams. Carefree Lily was ditched at the threshold of the cabin, and she’s left with the demons she came here to escape. I understand if she’s not ready to talk about it. Really talk about it. Start the process of building up the muscles she’ll need when she’s home. That’s fine. I will try again. I’m not going anywhere now. How can I?

Sleep never came. Or if it did, it snuck up on me and didn’t stay long enough to prove it ever existed. Now I hear voices outside the cabin. Luna and Mimi chatting and giggling as they pass by our window on the way to the bathroom. Brick and Jace and something about trail conditions and weather. Then I hear a motor coming closer, brakes squeaking to a halt, and Brick shouting a greeting. My luggage!

I wriggle out from under Lily’s octopus grip and fling open the cabin door. Skipping in bare feet across the lawn, wearing the same black leggings and chamois shirt that I’m now going to burn, I get to a pickup truck in the driveway to find Heidi pulling a box of groceries out of the back.

“Morning,” she says. “Breakfast will be up soon.”

I peer into the truck bed as if I’m Dorothy looking into the Wizard’s bag, but it’s empty—except for a very large husky dog with a bandana around its neck who barks at me and sends me stumbling backward.

“Oof, I got ya,” says Brick as he grabs me under my arms before I go down. “Sorry about Koda. His bark is worse than—”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly, dusting off my leggings despite them not having hit the ground. “I don’t see my bag. You said today.” I try to keep the whine out of my voice.

“About that, Bridget. Looks like it hasn’t made it to Anchorage yet. In fact, Heidi called the airline with the information you gave me, and it looks like your suitcase is in Cincinnati.”

My heart sinks. Brick reads my face. “We’ve got you, Bridget. Come back to the storage room with me, we’ll find you everything you need for today.”

I doubt they’ll have my Estée Lauder face cream, and my new wool hiking socks—guaranteed to prevent blisters—my periwinkle Tencel walking jacket with extra zipper pockets and matching quilted vest, and my pajama set with the little purple flowers in a lost and found box in the barn.

“Just like a cruise,” I mumble under my breath as I follow behind him.

“You look ridiculous.” Lily is up and at the breakfast table, a steaming mug of coffee wrapped in her hand, looking no worse for wear after stumbling into the cabin last night and then melting down as soon as the door was shut. In fact, she’s back with the boys,Dane, Ian, and Xavier, leaning in to wait for my sister’s next words. “Whatareyou wearing?”

Now the whole cohort swivel their collective heads as I step into the barn wearing an oversize sweatshirt that reads,it’s always sunny in alaskaover a cartoon polar bear in sunglasses, and a men’s windbreaker over my day-old leggings. I can feel the athlete’s foot chewing into my toes from within these hand-me-down hiking boots.

“Best we could do for now,” Brick says behind me. “Bridget is a good sport, and she’ll be warm and comfortable out there on the trail, for now.”

“It’s not a fashion show,” I say to Lily.

“Clearly not.” She laughs.

I sit at the opposite end of the table, away from the cool kids and my sister, and join Luna and Mimi. Luna pours me coffee from a carafe near her elbow, and I almost cry with gratitude at the very smell of it. “I think you look adorable,” she says as she passes me the creamer.

“Okay, folks, eat up,” says Brick, clapping his hands. “Make sure you have one of Heidi’s homemade scones, and then we’re hitting the trail,” Brick continues. “I’m recommending bug nets and spray for the first section in the woods, poles for a long stretch of river rocks. If you don’t have your own, come see me. We’ll also be handing out bear spray for the top. We’ll go over wildlife protocol again, but I’ll have you covered.” He places his hand on his chest, and that’s when I notice the harness he’s wearing—with a pistol tucked inside. Firearms were also left out of Lily’s sales pitch to get me out here.

“Are you going to shoot an animal?” asks Xavier, his eyes wide.

“I haven’t yet, and I’ve been doing this a long time,” our guide says. “It’s more of an insurance policy than anything else.”