Page 3 of 15 Summers Later

She smiled, rose from her stool and carried the handheld scanner around the counter so she could capture the codes on the large bags of food without Madi having to lift them onto the counter.

“Um. That will be a hundred sixty-five dollars and fifteen cents. I’m sorry.”

What exactly was she sorry about? That the price of quality dog food was so high? Or that Madi had caught her reading That Book?

Madi decided not to ask. She swiped the rescue’s credit card and felt a burst of pride when it went through easily.

A moment later, the register spit out her receipt, which Jewel handed over with a smile.

“There you go,” she said, handing it to Madi.

“Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

She hadn’t even walked away from the checkout counter before Jewell pulled the book back out and picked up where she had left off.

Was she reading about their mother’s car accident and the raw, visceral pain their family went through afterward?

Or their father’s steady but inexorable downward spiral into obsession, depression, mental illness?

Or those final horrible days when she and Ava, fourteen and sixteen respectively, had escaped a grim situation that had become impossible, only to find themselves in even worse circumstances?

She didn’t want to know.

Madi hurried out to her pickup, the classic, if dilapidated, teal 1961 Chevrolet Stepside pickup she called Frank that she had inherited from her maternal grandfather.

A few months ago, she had ordered a vinyl-lettered sign for Frank’s side, with the stylized teal-and-yellow logo for the animal sanctuary. Now she only used Frank for sanctuary errands and for social media purposes. It photographed wonderfully and helped raise awareness for their mission.

She had considered driving the pickup in the town’s Fourth of July parade in a month, maybe with a few of the animals in crates in the bed, but now the idea made her slightly ill. She could imagine how everyone would point and talk about her now.

There goes poor Madi Howell. Did you read about what happened to her?

I knew she was odd, with her perma-smile and that limp and her curled-up hand. I guess now we know why.

Renewed fury at her sister broiled under her skin. She did her best to push it away as she maneuvered the big cart to her pickup and opened the tailgate.

Though there were several vehicles in the parking lot, none of them was occupied. At least she didn’t have to fend off more offers of help.

She loaded the bags by herself into the back of the truck, then paused a moment to breathe away her stress, trying to focus instead on the glorious early June day, with the mountains green and verdant and still capped with contrasting white snow that had yet to melt at the higher elevations.

She dearly loved living in Emerald Creek. This small community a half hour from Sun Valley was home. She could never forget how warm and supportive everyone had been when she and Ava moved back to live with their grandmother Leona after everything that happened.

She had wonderful friends here, a job at the vet clinic that she had loved for eight years and now her passion project, the animal sanctuary.

She had never seriously considered living anywhere else.

But sometimes she had to wonder what it would be like to make her home in a place where she could be a little more...anonymous.

Did that place even exist, now that her sister had spilled their secret trauma to the whole blasted world?

She climbed into the cab of the pickup, fighting a headache, then drove away from the farm supply store, heading through town on her way toward the sanctuary.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon. A couple of older men sat on a bench, shooting the breeze outside the Rustic Pine Trading Post, and she saw a healthy line of tourists waiting for the always-busy Fern & Fir Restaurant to open.

As she turned onto Mountain View Road, she slowed down when she spotted a trio of girls on bicycles ahead of her. Four, she realized. One bike held two girls. She was aware of a quick, sharp ache. How often had she and Ava ridden together through the streets of their own town in eastern Oregon like that? Too many to count, but that was in the days before their mother died and everything changed.

She waved at the girls as she passed, recognizing Mariko and Yuki Tanaka as well as Zoe Sullivan and Sierra Gentry. Sierra and Zoe both volunteered at the animal rescue a few hours a week.

She pulled the truck over ahead of them, and the girls rode up beside her. “Hey, girls. What are you up to on this beautiful day?”

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