Chapter 6 - The Sanctuary of the Woods
To protect Ellie from the media storm and the quiet, toxic gossip at her school, I made the decision to pull her out of classes a week before the summer break officially began. We packed up our SUV with hiking gear, sleeping bags, and three crates of Legos, and drove five hours north to my grandfather’s old timber cabin in the deep woods of northern Wisconsin.
The cabin was a simple, rustic structure of white pine and fieldstone, sitting on the edge of a crystal-clear glacial lake that reflected the pine trees like a sheet of dark green glass. There was no internet, no cellular service, and no luxury catering.
For the first three weeks, our life became beautifully primitive.
We woke up with the sun, caught trout off the old wooden dock for breakfast, and spent the afternoons clearing fallen branches from the trails behind the property. Ellie’s pale, stressed face slowly began to regain its color, her bright blue eyes losing that guarded, watchful look they had carried since the wedding day.
One evening, as we sat by the stone fireplace roasting marshmallows, Ellie looked up from her sketchbook, her fingers covered in charcoal dust.
"Daddy?" she asked softly.
"Yes, sweetheart?" I said, turning the wooden skewer over the embers.
"Do you think Mommy is mad at us?"
The question caught me completely off guard. I lowered the skewer, looking at her small face in the firelight. "Why would Mommy be mad at us, Ellie?"
"Because we tried to bring Vanessa into her house," she whispered, her eyes filling with a quiet, lingering guilt that made my chest ache.
"I thought... maybe because I wanted a new dress for the wedding, and because I liked the cake we picked out... maybe Mommy thought I forgot about her. Vanessa said Mommy was gone, and that dead people don't keep spots open for anyone. She said I had to stop talking about her paintings because they smelled like old dust."
I slid off my chair, kneeling on the rug beside her, pulling her small, charcoal-stained hands into mine. The anger I felt toward Vanessa bloomed again, hot and vicious, but I forced it down, keeping my voice as steady as the stone fireplace behind us.
"Look at me, Ellie," I said, waiting until her bright blue eyes locked onto mine.
"Your mommy could never, ever be mad at you. She loved you more than her own breath. And she didn't leave you a spot that could be closed up by Vanessa or anyone else. Your mommy’s love isn't a room with a lock on it, sweetheart. It’s the air we breathe in this house. It’s the way you draw, the way you smile, the way we remember her together. Vanessa was wrong about everything. She didn't understand us. And she never will."
Ellie stared at me for a long, quiet moment, then buried her face against my shoulder, her small chest rising and falling in a deep, cleansing sigh that seemed to release the last of the poison Vanessa had planted in her heart.
As I held her in the quiet cabin, the distant, muffled sound of an engine echoed through the pine trees outside. A pair of headlights cut through the dark woods, bouncing down the dirt driveway toward the cabin door.
May you like
My muscles tensed. No one knew we were here except my mother and Ryan.
I stood up, gently placing Ellie behind the stone hearth, and walked toward the heavy timber door, my hand reaching for the old iron poker beside the woodbox.
