A Ready-Made Family. Carrie Alexander

his curiosity.

      “Come on, Krissy, baby.” Lia took her youngest child’s hand as the girl slid out of the back seat. Sticky. Kristen’s lips were stained with orange soda pop. Lia grabbed a packet of wet wipes from the glove compartment and squatted to apply one to her daughter’s hands and face. Kristen blinked sleepy eyes as she looked up at the trees and sky. She was a slow riser.

      Lia rubbed at Kristen’s small, plump mouth until only a faint orange shadow remained. She smoothed the girl’s rumpled T-shirt. “Want to knock on the front door for me?”

      Kristen stared at the gloomy stone house. “Who lives there?”

      “Rose Robbin does.” Or did. “Her mother, too. You probably can’t remember Rose—the dark-haired lady who was our neighbor? She used to babysit you when you were just a tiny little baby.”

      “Uh-uh.”

      “She babysat all of you kids.” Surly Rose had been a loner who’d gradually warmed up to the Pogues. She’d become Lia’s friend and confidante, the only person she could rely on. But when Rose’s father had died several years ago, she’d gone home to Alouette in Michigan’s U.P.—Upper Peninsula. They’d lost contact for a long while, until Rose had mailed a Christmas card the past December. Since then, they’d written and called a number of times. When Rose had first learned that Larry was still causing trouble, she’d offered Lia help any time she needed it.

      Misgivings nibbled at Lia’s conscience. At the moment of crisis, with Larry threatening to sue her for custody of the children and even hinting that he’d snatch them away if he had to, she’d latched on to Rose’s offer as her only option. She and the kids had needed to disappear. According to Rose, Alouette was the type of place where you could do that.

      Not the end of the Earth, the welcome sign had read on the way into town, but we can see it from here.

      As much as Lia appreciated the isolation, she hadn’t expected to feel quite so stranded and alone. Maybe she’d thought Rose would greet them with an apple pie. Even though she had no idea they were coming.

      Lia tried the cheery voice on herself. Won’t Rose be surprised that we’ve traveled hundreds of miles to land on her doorstep?

      “Hey, Mom!” Howie called from the trees. “There’s more little houses over here.” He’d found a path. Through the thick stand of evergreens, Lia caught glimpses of him running from cottage to cottage. “Four on this side.”

      Kristen looked up at Lia, her eyes glistening. “I don’t wanna live here, Mommy.”

      Lia stroked Kristen’s hair. Her girl was usually more adventurous. The completely unfamiliar landscape must have thrown her off-kilter. “Let’s wait and see how we like it.”

      “See?” Sam said peevishly from her slumped position inside the car. “Nobody wants to stay here.”

      Lia took Kristen’s hand. “Would you like to join us, Sam?”

      A huffy exhale came from the back seat. “Hell no.”

      Lia’s mouth tightened. Samantha was fourteen and getting more rebellious every day. Their neighborhood in Cadillac hadn’t been the greatest, and if they’d come north for no other reason, Lia was relieved to get Sam away from the crowd of teenagers she’d taken up with back home. Sam might actually be correct about one of her litany of complaints—there’d be nothing to do in a small town like Alouette. At least nothing that her mother wouldn’t know about.

      Lia was counting on that. She wanted her bright, lively daughter back—or some teenage semblance, anyway.

      She shrugged. “Suit yourself, Sam.” Maybe she was copping out on her responsibilities as a mother, but now wasn’t the time to engage her eldest in a battle over language and attitude. Sam could sit in the car and stew. If they stayed in Alouette, she’d adjust to the idea. She’d adjusted to worse.

      The thought was little comfort.

      “Howie?” Lia finger-combed her own hair as she and Kristen walked to the front door of the stone house. She felt rumpled and creased, like a grocery bag that had been used too many times.

      His voice drifted from the trees. “Yeah, Mom.”

      “Just checking.”

      “I’m over here. I found mushrooms.”

      “Don’t eat them. And don’t wander off.”

      There were three steps up to the front entry, a weather-beaten plank door with a placard that read Office. No doorbell, except for an old-fashioned dinner bell that hung from a rusty bracket. Lia knocked.

      And waited.

      She knocked again, looking around the run-down property. The cottages were placed in random order, tucked here and there in groves of pines, maples and birches. Chickadees and nuthatches hopped among the pinecones that littered the ground. Sam watched owlishly over the edge of the car seat, showing the whites of her eyes. Still no answer.

      “Look, Mommy.” Kristen pointed to the bell suspended beside the door. “Can I ring it?”

      “I guess so.” Lia lifted the girl, showing her how to tug on the short rope attached to the gong.

      The sturdy metal bell rang out deep and loud. Kristen laughed at the sound and reached out again, but Lia stopped her. “Enough. If anyone’s home, they ought to have heard that.”

      Kristen slid down. “Can I go with Howie?”

      “All right.” Lia stepped away from the door and aimed her daughter toward the path through the overhanging trees. Kristen took off like a shot, much braver now that she was fully awake. Lia smiled at the enthusiasm, wishing her courage was as easily reinstated. “Howie, please watch out for Kristen.”

      Lia waited until she heard their voices before giving in to her own curiosity. With one more glance at the Grudge, she walked around to the back of the house. Sam’s head had sunk below window level.

      Lia inhaled. The sharp, spicy scent of pines filled her lungs. God, the air was fresh here. The house had no lush suburban lawn, only ragged patches of grass poking out from beneath a thick blanket of coppery pine needles. Inside a sagging wire fence, a patch had been cleared for a garden, the rich earth freshly overturned and planted with seedlings. The level area near the house became a slope that steepened down to a reedy riverbank.

      Lia shielded her eyes. The dark river swirled and eddied, rushing white where submerged rocks had been worn silky and smooth by the constant flow. Cattails nodded in the breeze.

      Despite the shabbiness, the setting was idyllic. A piece of paradise. Lia began to understand why Rose had returned despite her less-than-idyllic childhood. If Lia had grown up in a place like this, she might not have been in such a rush to leave home that she’d latched on to her first real boyfriend and mistaken his intense feelings for true, deep love.

      Rose had told her own tale, those long evenings when they’d sat out on the small lawn of their apartment building, sharing a pack of cigarettes and the sad tales of their lives while the kids played Kick the Can. According to her, paradise wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be. But Rose had found a happy ending here all the same.

      A happy ending was more than Lia dared to dream of. Even though a piece of paradise might be nice, she’d gladly settle for simple peace.

      She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Had she made a mistake becoming a fugitive instead of trying to work things out within the law, even if that had already taken years and every cent she earned? It seemed so now, when she was tired and broke, but in her gut she knew that fleeing was the only way she and the kids had a chance at a normal life. If they’d stayed, Larry would have never let up.

      Lia turned back to the house. She’d suspected Rose might be gone, but what had happened to her mother? And there’d been a brother, too, back from the Army. Or maybe it was the one who’d been in prison.

      At