Past
My pounding heart felt like, at any moment, it was about to come right through my chest. This was it. For months, I had been planning for this moment. Everything had fallen into place earlier that morning and we were finally on the move. But despite the euphoria of being free, I still held on to a strong sense of fear that, despite all my efforts, Lance would refuse to ever let us go. I’d lost track of how long I’d been building up everything I needed to ensure he’d never come after us, but I knew I wouldn’t feel completely safe until the phone call. The phone call that would hopefully be the very last time I ever heard from Lance.
“Mommy, I’m tired,” Callie called from the backseat. A quick glance in my rearview mirror showed my babies both fighting to keep their eyes open. Thankfully, a neon sign ahead showed a hotel only two exits away. Truthfully, I was also having trouble keeping my eyes open.
I’d been driving for the past twelve hours straight, only stopping long enough for bathroom breaks and to grab something we could all eat on the road. But traveling long distances nonstop, with two four-year-olds in the back seat, wasn’t humanly possible. And I’d have given my left arm for a bed right at that moment. No doubt about it, sitting in a car for half the day was a literal pain in the ass.
“Okay, guys, we’re here,” I said over my shoulder as I pushed the gear into park and unbuckled my seatbelt.
“Are we going home, Mommy?” Callie asked as her wide eyes stared out the window toward the lights of the motel lobby.
I reached back and stroked her tiny leg. “No, baby, I told you. We’re moving somewhere very special. A place Mommy hasn’t been to since she was a little girl.”
“Cloberfield?” Cameron asked.
“Cloverleaf,” I answered with a smile at my two little reasons for living. Nothing about my life had ever been easy, but giving birth to these two perfect little hellions was the very best thing I’d ever done. And I’d do absolutely anything I could to protect them.
“Yeah, Cloberleaf,” Callie repeated in her little toddler voice before sticking her tongue out at her twin brother.
“Mommy,” Cameron whined. “Callie stuckeded her tongue out at me! Tell her that’s ugly.”
The anxiety induced migraine churned behind my eyes as the two of them went at it. “Play nice, the both of you, or I won’t let you sleep in a super cool hotel room tonight.”
Yeah, so a Super 6 Motel wasn’t exactly what I’d consider high end, but to two toddlers, sleeping anywhere other than their own beds was an adventure so I was successfully able to con them into thinking the motel was a five-star resort.
“Sorry, Mommy,” both of them told me with sullen expressions.
“It’s okay. Now, how about we go get a room so we can get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day!” I exclaimed, hoping my enthusiasm would rub off. Thank God, it did. “Tomorrow, we start our new lives in Cloverleaf. Y’all are both gonna love it so much.”
Or at least that was what I hoped. To be honest, I’d only been to Cloverleaf once in my life, and it had been when I was just a little girl. My father had grown up in the small Texas town before moving away to Ohio for college where he met my mother, an Ohioan, born and raised. Dad had all too happily shucked his roots and stayed in Ohio so he and my mom could start a life together.
When I was six, my dad’s mother passed away and he’d taken us back to his home town to attend the funeral. I still remember the sheer wonder when I saw the view from her tiny house on the lake. It was mesmerizing, and at that very moment, I’d fallen in love with the town. Growing up, I’d created fantastical images of how wonderful life in Cloverleaf could be. Those fantasies helped me through some very lonely, cold times in my life.
Even though we never went back, I still held such fond memories of the little town that when I made the decision to leave Lance, it was the only place I ever considered going, made even more perfect due to the fact that Lance knew nothing about it.
“Mommy, how come Daddy’s not coming to Cloberleaf with us?” Callie asked sleepily.
“Because, baby, Daddy had to stay back home for his job, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Desperate for a subject change that didn’t include discussion of Lance, I pasted a cheerful smile on my face and asked, “Who’s ready to sleep in a super special hotel bed tonight?”
As hoped, my little guys cheered enthusiastically, all prior thoughts forgotten. As I wrangled everyone from the car and into the lobby, I made a promise to myself that everything I did from there on out would be for the two people hanging off my arms. I’d messed up a lot in my life, made some unbelievably bad decisions, but it was my second chance to make things right. And so help me God, I was going to do just that.