“And you’re recommending the child be placed with his grandparents?” Ivy said, her voice soft. Hopefully it came off solemn and not as if a cleaver sliced through her chest.
“Yes. There will be an emergency hearing in seventy-two hours to determine further action.”
Ivy just stared at the complaint, listening to the roar in her ears, seeing Darek’s eyes when he’d emerged from the woods and seen her with Tiger.
He might not live through this.
“All you have to do is sign it, Ivy. Jodi can notarize it, I’ll fax it to Judge Magnusson’s office, and they’ll add it to her docket this morning.”
Ivy didn’t move.
“Ivy—”
“He’s not in danger,” Ivy said softly.
“And you know that because . . . ?” Diane asked, her voice soft despite the words. “You know you have to recuse yourself because of Darek. And because you were there this weekend when Kyle responded to the 911 call.”
She closed her eyes.
“Kyle mentioned it in church yesterday. I’m sorry, honey, but this is a small town.”
So small it just might strangle her.
“If you don’t sign it, I’ll have to bring this to someone who can—and will—in Duluth. And then Tiger might not end up with his grandparents, but in an emergency group home. Who knows what will happen after that.”
“This is wrong.”
“This is the system. And if Darek deserves Tiger, he’ll get him back. Don’t let your emotions cost you your job. Or cost Darek his son.”
Girlfriend. The word lodged in Ivy’s throat and cut off her breathing as she signed the petition.
Jodi notarized it and handed it to Diane. The social worker stood at the door for a moment. “Go get cleaned up. You have to represent your petition in court in an hour.”
Not if Ivy left town first.
The air thickened the farther north Darek drove on Forest Route 153, like a fog descending upon the land, blotting out vision even as his headlights cut through the smoky layers. Only late afternoon and it looked like nightfall.
Just ten miles north of Evergreen Lake, the northern boreal forest resembled a war zone—and smelled it, too, the acrid, sooty air pricking his nose, stinging his eyes.
How easily the misery—and triumph—of working on the hand crews returned to him. The gritty, bone-tiring work that seemed endless as crews assaulted the forest, cutting down shaggy conifers, maple and myrtle, scouring the earth down to the mineral soil and then drip-lighting the once-towering forest, back-burning to quench the assault of the fire. He effortlessly conjured the buzz of chain saws, the rattle of bulldozers chewing away the forest, the crackle of the fire, burning just beyond the edge of trees as an occasional drift of spray from the hose line drenched hot spots that jumped over the line.
It always felt like righteous work, backbreaking but honest, and seeing Jed methodically map out the fire line every morning on the lodge kitchen table stirred a military camaraderie inside Darek.
But Casper’s words about additional crews had finally made him climb into his Jeep for an updated incident report. Especially since Jed had moved to the camp, leaving the cabins for the pilots and supervisors who either headed out to the airport or down to the forest service office in Deep Haven every morning.
His mother held Tiger’s hand as Darek drove away, and for a moment, he’d seen Felicity, Tiger at her shoulder, watching him exactly the same way.
He’d left three messages on Ivy’s phone yesterday, and frankly if she didn’t call him back soon, he intended to head to town, track her down.
See if he’d scared her off with his use of the word girlfriend.
He let it settle into the hollow places and discovered it didn’t sting. Girlfriend.
And maybe, someday, mother. Wife.
Okay, wait—he breathed away the tightness in his chest but let the word linger just a bit.
Wife.
Yeah, maybe.
He turned left onto a now-well-carved fire service road. Traces of recent use scarred the trail—broken tree limbs, the tread of hotbox trucks hauling equipment into base.
The road opened into a meadow the size of a couple football fields, an old pasture now turned into a small city of two- and four-man pup tents lined up in rows against the edge of the forest. A row of porta-potties on the opposite edge evidenced the nod toward sanitation, as did the makeshift showers set up with tarps and five-gallon hanging bags of water warmed only by the sun. The showers weren’t meant to soothe but to scrape off a layer or two of the ash and soot embedded in a fire bum’s skin after a week on the line. Real clean came only on R & R away from camp.
A lineup of grimy yellow-shirted men and women stood outside a window cut into the tractor-trailer-size mobile kitchen unit, looking miserable, exhausted, and battle worn. They carried plates of food to mobile picnic tables under a giant military-style tent that suggested a modicum of protection and relief from the blazing sun.