Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

Still, each flash of lightning resonated through us like a gunshot, every roll of thunder like an explosion. I could only imagine what everyone else was thinking and feeling. I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t subdue the waves of chills. My heart was pounding in my chest, ears and seemingly even in my feet—I was clearly more scared than I’d ever been. The tension was surreal—unlike any I’d felt before. I was riding in the back seat, head against the cold window, fading in and out of my parents’ conversation. Staring out into the cold, dark rain, my thoughts drifted back through the last few years. My mind took me back to Sophie.

We’d buried her at the lake, six hours north of our home in Pine Island. Okay, maybe I should say, I did. I buried her there. I did it because I never planned to leave there again, which is ironic because I’d always hated living in Minnesota. For me, hell froze over annually from October to April. It sucked. But Sophie loved Minnesota and her stupid Vikings. And Sophie loved the cabin. We bought it six months before her death, and we had planned to retire there—someday. When she died, I was good with “someday” starting immediately. I put our house in southern Minnesota up for sale, and moved up north a few days later. I did what I apparently do quite well. I left the kids. Again. Only difference was, this time I took Sophie with me.

Cameron’s parents took Danny in. He lived above their garage his last two years of high school. He and Cameron had been like brothers since they were five or six anyway. They’d fished, hunted, snowboarded, raced motorcycles, and played virtually every sport together since then. They held each other in check and pushed each other competitively in everything. Danny was already a driven kid, with all of Sophie’s incredible athletic genes, but losing Sophie drove him even harder. I don’t think living with his best friend those two years hurt Danny. It was clear he still wanted nothing to do with me, and even more clear he blamed me in some way for what had happened to her—for what happened to our family. I couldn’t fault him for that.

Danny, like his grandfather (my dad), was a natural born leader. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, handsome as hell, and about six foot three or four. He was one tough kid. A modern-day MacGyver and Eagle Scout (also like his grandpa), and an expert marksman with most any weapon, backed with a decade of mixed martial arts; you’d want Danny with you when the crap hit the fan. He was certainly the ideal travel companion for a situation as far fetched as this one.

Cameron was similarly appointed, and the two of them had joined the Marines together straight out of high school. No doubt, for Danny, it was the perfect means to get him even further away from me. While their friends were binge drinking, smoking pot, and getting girls pregnant, Danny and Cameron were off challenging each other and transforming themselves from skilled duck and deer hunters into some of the world’s most elite snipers.

That first year away did wonders for rebuilding our relationship. I would never forget his first day back home, at the halfway point of their Special Ops training. Hayley and I went to meet them at the Minneapolis airport. I barely recognized Danny with his short-cropped hair. It had been long as far back as I could remember. I definitely didn’t recognize the smile he gave me as he actually sought me out and hugged me first. First! I hadn’t counted on a hug at all. I sure had missed him. I had honestly only hoped to see him. That hug was so much better than expected.

We spoke that night for hours, for the first time in years. He apologized for some things. I apologized for much more. He cried a little. I cried a lot more. He didn’t even yell. Once. Man he had a lot of his mother in him . I wouldn’t say he forgave me, but he seemed to be intent on giving me a second chance. Or tenth . It was probably for his mother’s sake, but I was thrilled to take it any way I could get it. Better still, at his insistence Hayley agreed to move up to the cabin with me for her senior year of high school. “It’s time to put the pieces back together,” he’d said.

The military completed the conversion of my boy into a man, and I was grateful for the results. Their Special Ops training was a gift to us right now. Without them, we knew we’d have no chance against this army. With them, we knew we had as much of a chance as Jim Carrey did getting that girl in Dumb & Dumber . But it was at least a chance.

The boys’ girlfriends were very much their complements. Cameron had been seeing Jenna steadily for about two and a half years. She was a pre-med student and one of the brightest kids I’ve ever known. Danny and Kate had been together nearly five years now. Danny had tried to break up with her after Sophie’s death, but Kate wouldn’t let him. She gave him space, but never left him alone. She didn’t want him to repeat his father’s mistakes. Smart girl . Though Danny had distanced himself from the romance side of their relationship, it was clear how deep his love for her remained, and to Kate’s credit that seemed to be good enough for now. While Danny was away at Scout Sniper training in Quantico, Virginia, Kate was working on her education degree, which suited her enduring patience and diverse skill set rather well. Danny was lucky to have her.

I was equally thankful for Kate. She and her mom took Hayley in for the first three years after Sophie passed, before Hayley moved up north with me. I might not have done the right thing by leaving Hayley—definitely debatable—but living with the Beckers gave her someone in Kate and Mrs. Becker (who’d lost her own spouse), to help her adjust to life without her mother. Kate had always been around our family and had a great head on her shoulders. Hayley had forever trusted her like a big sister. Kate kept Hayley out of trouble and focused on academics like I wouldn’t have been able to. I was so self-absorbed I might not have noticed Hayley getting a Mike Tyson style tattoo across her entire face. Okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration.

Hayley was now eighteen. Dark complexioned with shoulder-length brown hair, she was tall, athletic and beautiful like her mother. She was additionally blessed with Sophie’s intelligence and selflessness, and Danny’s “street smarts.” Boys would have considered her the complete package, but she hadn’t yet found one that met her expectations or interests. Or they couldn’t keep up with her. That was most likely the case. A straight-A student since fifth grade, she had recently accepted a full academic/archery scholarship to Michigan State. I’m sure I had Kate, her mom, and probably even The Hunger Games to thank for that. Most people would kill for Hayley’s archery skillset. Probably not the best choice of words, I know .

I could second-guess a billion decisions I’ve made in my life, but some of them, despite my worst efforts, turned out pretty well. I can’t take any of the credit for the kids and their successes because I wasn’t nearly as involved in their lives as I should have been. I was selfish. I was wrong. I know that now, but at the time nothing else seemed right. If I’d been half as committed to Sophie while she was alive as I was after she passed, a lot would have been different between us. You can’t make things up to a dead person, but I tried anyway.

That’s not to say I didn’t know how lucky I was before I lost her. Fortunately, I’d woken up in time. Sophie was amazing in so many ways. Her ability to forgive me being one of her most ridiculous or admirable traits, depending on which side you saw it from. I missed every part of her a little more each day. Her beautiful laugh, her shy dimpled smile, and the glow of a proud mother around our kids—I missed it all. I could still see her holding each of our babies in her arms at the hospital, pushing them in the swing, dancing with them in the living room, swimming with them in the lake. Every thing. Any thing. But man, her laugh.