Page 4 of The California Dreamers

3

The back of beyond

2002

LeClair Family Lavender Farm

I got no sleep. I kept looking at the window, imagining Griff out there somewhere on the farm, sleeping on the ground and hating me. He probably thought he had me all figured out, the way he’d said “Ava LeClair” and “money,” not hiding the judgment in his voice. He thought I was happily married, the past neatly tucked away. Rich, content… That my life was so easy I could slip away for Cap’s memorial, then slip back in like it was nothing.

When just living this life, not letting the past swallow up Ava LeClair, sometimes felt impossible.

I tried to focus on Jack and Bear, in their room nearby. On their sweet, open-mouthed faces. But those pictures wouldn’t stay. They fled, replaced by images of my siblings, my parents, Charlie. The pictures I’ve carried in my mind for a decade.

Lying in bed, the window open, I heard a whisper on the wind:

You owe them.

You owe them.

You owe them.