Page 5 of Alive and Wells

“Morning, honey. Are you safe?” We’ve spoken every day for nearly six months and somehow I’ve never heard her before. She’s soothing and upbeat, despite the drowsy rasp.

“I am. Um, I wanted to check if it’s okay for me to come before I show up at your house. I’m calling you from a pay phone on the side of the highway… I think I’m about two hours away from Wells Canyon. I don’t have a phone to map it, but that’s what the cop told me.”

I wait with bated breath for her answer.

“Oh, Cecily, I’m so proud. If there’s one thing you’ll learn about me, it’s that I don’t go back on my word. Get on up here, honey.”

She gives me the directions to get from Wells Canyon to Wells Ranch and I repeat them back twice, ensuring they’re committed to my memory before I hang up. Somebody in the world knows I left. Now I need to follow through. That might have been the problem in the past. I didn’t have anybody to judge me for going back home to my abusive husband. Not that I think Beryl would judge me.

But how embarrassing would it be to turn around and go back after this?

I remember exactly one other phone number. Mostly because I gave it out freely as a pre-teen, hoping my friends calling often enough would make my parents cave and get me my own landline. I don’t take a single breath, punching in the digits with a trembling finger.

“Dad?” I croak upon hearing a wheezy, old man grunt into the phone. “It’s Cecily. Sorry for waking you up.”

We’re both aware it’s weird that I’m calling. Even weirder that I’m calling at five a.m., considering I haven’t spoken to my parents in over a year. Better now than never, right?

“Cece? What’s wrong? You’re calling from a strange number. Are you okay?”

My rapid heart rate returning to normal, I smile into the phone. Part of me expected him to get mad at me for calling this early in the morning.

“I’m okay. At least, I will be. I left KJ, Dad. And I thought somebody should know where I’m going, so if he reports me as a missing person, you can tell the cops to stand down. I broke my phone. Actually, no,hebroke my phone.” If I’m not going back to him, I need to stop defending him. “But I found a pay phone on my drive and—”

“A pay phone on your drive? Where are you going?”

In the background, my mother’s nasally voice says, “Just tell her to come here, Clark.”

“Your mother says you should come here.”

I sigh. “I have a friend up in Wells Canyon who offered me a job and a place to stay. I already told her I was coming. I’m fine though, honest. I’ll call you guys when I get a new phone.”

“Do you need money? Where the hell is—Margie, get on the Google and look up Wells Canyon. What do you need from us, Cece?”

“Please don’t tell KJ where I am. That’s all I ask.”

“I wouldn’t have told him, even if you didn’t ask me not to. Your secret’s safe with us, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry for not calling sooner, Dad. I—” Saliva builds in the back of my throat. “I’m sorry for not listening to you guys earlier.”

They expressed concern about our relationship over a year ago and have offered to help me in multiple ways. To repay my loving parents, I metaphorically slapped them in the face, gaslit them, and then cut them from my life. I don’t deserve for them to still care about me like this.

“Cece, we love you.Always. Your mom and I are always here for you. And I’m so glad you called now, sweetheart.”

Suddenly, my mom’s voice fills my ear. She must’ve picked up the office phone on the same line. “Cecily? It’s mom. I’m so glad you left that jerkoff. You’re a smart girl—too good for him—I’ve always said that. I’m going to talk to your Aunt Harriet—remember she’s a big time attorney over in Calgary. We’ll get this all sorted. Come here if you need a place to go, okay?”

“Okay, mom. I’m running on borrowed time with this payphone, but thank you. I love you both.”

I walk back to the car, feeling weightless. The kind of relief you get when you finally drop your grocery bags on the kitchen floor, after climbing three flights of stairs to your shitty college apartment. Sure, red and purple indents remain in your skin, but the heaviness is gone. Or, like when you take your bra off at the end of a shitty day.

Speaking of which…

Thank God for the duffle bag, so I don’t have to show up wearing pink pajamas with cartoon dogs. I rummage through and find a cute, ruffled top and black trousers to change into. Professional, put together… probably not suitable for a ranch, but it’ll do.

The peachy orange paint on the “Welcome To Wells Canyon” sign is peeling, and the hand-painted lettering faded. Yet, there’s something cute and charming about it—or I could simply be overtired. The rising sun peers over a dramatic mountain range, which makes the canyon part of the name very fitting. It’s hard to determine if the town’s sleepy vibe is due to a lack of residents or if everybody is still in bed. Either way, it feels like somewhere I can relax into like a cozy, oversized T-shirt.

My car lurches around a corner, the paved road turning to dirt at the far end of town. Am I actually ready to start over?With strangers? Thirty more kilometres may as well be thirty thousand, with the anxiety churning in my stomach. Something makes me think my sleep deprivation, and diet of Red Bull and chocolate, aren’t helping either.

The dirt road’s littered with potholes and hemmed by towering, sun-kissed pines. Tall grasses line the roadside, beckoning me onward with a gentle breeze. I roll down a window, allowing crisp mountain air to fill the car, and take a deep inhale. The pure oxygen pumped directly into my bloodstream wakes me back up like a caffeine injection.To set the mood, I switch from catchy pop music to a nineties country playlist; the music my grandparents always had blasting at their cabin. Maybe country life won’t be too bad. After all, I loved my summers spent at their cabin in the woods. Surrounded by nothing but crickets, the lake, and glorious thunderstorms. Plus, KJ will never think to look for me—a tried-and-true city girl—on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.

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