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Edwina couldn’t wait to get to the Orchard and relax under the newly budding apple trees. It was the first sprouting of Spring buds, and the remaining 30 minutes left of her 2-hour drive was killing her with anticipation. It was 8:30 in the morning and her family blessed her with a “have a good day at work”, as she left the house.  They had no idea she took the day off.  She knows she should feel guilty about her random escapes like this, but she had no remorse. None whatsoever.  She worked hard; the grocery shopping, house cleaning, running her mom’s errands, caring for her 14-year-old granddaughter, who came with a very energetic, yellow lab, all while holding a full-time job as a Physical Therapist.

Edwina had her daughter, Sidney, when she was 18 years old. Her boyfriend, at the time, got cold feet telling her that a baby was just too much reality for him.  Tom promised to stick around, come to the hospital, and help with the baby. All those promises fell short, and Edwina was too young to fight it. Her parents wanted her to push it and get an attorney, but they didn’t have the energy or the money to fight it either. Tom disappeared a year later and never kept in touch.  Edwina did the best she could with Sidney; she sent her to private school, made sure she was in a safe neighborhood, enlisted her in school activities, along with anything else she could do to make up for the fact that Sidney didn’t have a father figure. Sidney never acted like it was an issue, and they had a good relationship growing up. Somewhere along the way, Sidney started “looking for love in all the wrong places” as the song goes. She went from relationship to relationship, starting at age 15. At 18 years of age, she did exactly like her mom; she got pregnant.  Sidney’s boyfriend, however, insisted they stay together. Joel wanted to get married to Sidney; it was Sidney that pushed back. They were on again-off again for 5 years, until Sidney told him she didn’t want to pursue their relationship.  Joel stayed in town and pushed for parental rights so he could see Raney on weekends.  He would have been the perfect son-in-law, Edwina thought.

Joel was in Raney’s life until she turned 7 and then tragedy struck. Joel was diagnosed with a Glioma just shortly after Raney’s 5^th Birthday party. He made it almost 5 months longer than his prognosis after he was diagnosed. Raney was heartbroken and Sidney seemed to lose herself. She hadn’t wanted Joel to be her husband, but she was kind of used to him being around. Whenever he would come to pick Raney up for his visitation, he and Sidney would talk for an hour or so. Sometimes he would stay for dinner, or to play cards. It had become an odd routine.  Edwina was fond of Joel and grown quite close to him. After Raney was born, Edwina renovated the upstairs of the house so it would be an apartment for Sidney and Raney. She barely made Sidney pay rent; just enough to remind her that she was an adult. Sidney didn’t go to college, so her Medical Assistant job was how she supported Raney and herself. She was doing what she could to be a good mom, but Edwina could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She knew Sidney loved Raney, but something was off. Sidney had a blank look in her eyes that deepened after Joel’s death. Try as she might, Edwina couldn’t get Sidney to open up or go to counseling.   Sidney would get up, go to work, pick Raney up from school, and go to her room, leaving Raney and Edwina alone. Edwina started to feel more like Raney’s mom than grandma. This routine went on for almost a year before one day, Sidney just left and didn’t come home.

Edwina got a phone call one Tuesday from Raney’s 4^th grade teacher that Sidney didn’t pick her up. Raney was 9 years old. Edwina was supposed to have late clients but had to cancel them and go pick up Raney. Edwina was frustrated, she was cursing Sidney’s carelessness under her breath all during the drive. Sidney had always been a capricious child, but this was ridiculous. Edwina wondered what was holding Sidney up; shopping, drinking, visiting friends. Whatever it was, it was time to draw the line. Sidney could no longer hide in her room shirking her duties as a mom. Raney deserved better. Sidney never came home.

Edwina filed a missing person’s report after calling the clinic where Sidney worked and learning that she never showed up for work that day.  Of course, the police wanted Edwina to wait in case Sidney was just out having fun. Sidney was 27 years old; her days of taking off like a teenager were long gone. Nevertheless, Edwina waited the designated time and marched right back down to the police station to file the report. That was 5 years ago. Today.

One year after Sidney’s disappearance, she called home. Edwina was excited, frightened, angry, and ready to forgive all at the same time. Sidney, however, wasn’t calling to come home. She wanted to talk to Raney to apologize; to tell her she “just needed time to clear her head”. She had run off that day with no idea where she was going. She ended up driving across 2 state lines, sleeping in her car, and meeting a man name “Sly”. She said she never felt so alive, and they were moving to Alaska to live off the grid. She asked if Raney wanted to join them. Raney put her mom on hold and looked at Edwina.  “Do you want me to go?”  “No, honey” Edwina replied, “but if you really want to go, I can’t stop you.” She is your mom, and she has every right to have you. You have every right to be with her. This is your decision”.  At the end of the conversation, Raney forgave her mom, surprisingly, and turned down the offer to go to Alaska.  Edwina didn’t forgive Sidney. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Raney and wasn’t willing to raise her. It was the audacity of Sidney leaving her child, expecting to be forgiven, and not having balls to fight for Raney to go with her. It was like she didn’t feel the connection of having carried Raney in her womb for 9 months. She just didn’t understand it.

Since that call, Carol, Edwina’s 81-year-old mom moved in with them. Carol and Hank, Edwina’s dad, were married for 46 years before Hank died from a heart attack. Carol and Hank had tried for almost 6 years to have a baby before they finally had Edwina. She was their one and only child. Carol had been widowed for 10 years, and in fairly good health, until recently. Nothing major; just severe arthritis that was debilitating on most days. Carol asked if she could move in with Edwina and Raney to be of some help.  Edwina didn’t have the heart to say no, so she moved her mom into her room on the main level and turned her office into her bedroom. Edwina didn’t want to do anything to Sidney’s room; she was holding out hope that her daughter would be like the prodigal son and return home to them. She knew it wouldn’t happen and part of her was okay with that, the other part was angry.

Carol wasn’t able to help much around the house; she made breakfast once in a while but was usually too worn out to do the dishes. If Raney woke up on time, she could be coerced into doing them, but that didn’t happen often.  Edwina was left to do the dishes before leaving for work, cooking dinner at night, and usually doing most of the dishes due to Raney’s excuse of homework.  Edwina knew she needed to put her foot down, but she just couldn’t. She found herself getting frustrated, but then guilty for feeling that way. Her parents gave her a wonderful life and didn’t chastise her for having a baby so young. They never made her feel like she had to move out at any particular time. Raney lost her dad and her mom; that had to weigh heavily on her. Still, Edwina was getting worn down taking care of her mom and Raney, taking care of a house and a dog, and working anywhere from 45-50+ hours a week.  That is why she didn’t feel guilty walking out the door to work, when she wasn’t going to work.  To top it off, however, Raney had a day off school for some teacher’s meetings.  This would be a good time for her to bond with her grandma and take Charli, the rambunctious Lab for a walk, but too bad Edwina had to “work”.  Raney promised to take Charli out for a long walk by herself. That dog: the constant chewing, barking, playing, and desire to play was overwhelming. Plus, the dog got into everything and had gas. Bad gas.

Edwina smiled as she walked out of her car. She took her backpack out, grabbed her coffee cup and donut, and headed over to her favorite shade tree to spread the picnic blanket out.  She grabbed her phone and headset and got recumbent. As she folded her arms up under her head and gazed at the bright morning sky, she turned her audiobook on and smiled. This was bliss. It was 9 in the morning, and she planned on being here for the next several hours, before going on a long walk. She wasn’t going to head home until 4 p.m. She told the family she would be late. They just assumed she had late patients, and that was fine with her. She pushed back the guilt that tried to nag its way into her head and watched the birds flying freely, untethered.  She wondered what that felt like. 

Edwina woke to the sound of a crow cawing at the end of her blanket. Apparently, it wanted to snatch up some of the donut she left behind. Due to the amount of her left-over donut and coffee, she figured she must have dosed off shortly after lying down. “Shoo”, she said to the bird. It looked at her as if it was indignant and hopped backwards a few steps. That’s when Edwina remembered an article, she read about crows remembering faces when they’ve been mis-treated and getting revenge.   She tossed the leftover donut to Jeckyl and said, “nice bird, have a snack, and get out of here”.  The bird eyed her cautiously as if waiting to see if it was a trap.  It hopped over to the donut, cawed again, scooped the donut up and flew about 50 feet away to munch on its treasure. She decided to pack up and find a trail on which to spend the rest of her day. It was almost 12:30; she had been asleep for quite a while.  She grabbed the trail map from her backpack and loaded everything else inside.  She would get the sandwich out once she was on the trail.

Edwina found her favorite trail; it was a two-to-three-mile trail that she hiked in about 4 hours. She loved to site see along the way, take pictures, look at the indigenous plants, and just enjoy her alone time.  She would probably need to speed it up a bit if she wanted to get on the road at 4.  She knew she could always say “it” was a longer day than she planned, which wouldn’t be a lie, but she did want to be a little conscientious.  Edwina grabbed her sandwich and started on the trail. It wasn’t much of an ascending trail, just enough to get a good view and relax before descending.   Edwina had been on the trail for about an hour and a half when she felt the first drop of rain.  “Oh, for pet’s sake, not now” Edwina said to no one in particular.  As luck, or bad luck, would have it, it started to rain harder, and harder, and harder.  “What in tarnation am I going to do now” she declared. She recalled taking her poncho out of her backpack as she exited the car, thinking that it was supposed to be clear skies all day. Edwina turned around to begin the descent and picked up as much speed as she dared. The trail floor was a little “slickery” as she liked to say.  She held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the rain, while the other arm made an odd back and forth, swinging-type motion to keep her balance.  Finally, she could see the trail end in sight.  As her luck would have it, she looked up a little too long at the trailhead. Her foot caught a twig and went splattering face down in the mud. “Oh fo peeths thake”, she yelled out with a mouth full of mud.  She popped up as quickly as her body would let her and hustled down the rest of the way, spitting and spewing mud from her mouth.

Edwina finally got to her car, soaking wet, muddy, and flustered.  She grabbed the tarp out of the back to put on the front seat so as not to ruin it.  As she sat in her car, frustrated, she began to laugh as she exclaimed out loud “Well, Edwina, this is a fine mess you got yourself into. How are you going to explain the way you look when you get home?”  She shook her head and grabbed the towel from the back seat. She thought to herself that at least she had the good sense to put a towel back there, although she didn’t remember putting it there. As she dried her hair off, she smelled the towel. She quickly threw it in the back seat as she realized that Raney must have brought it with them, the last time they had taken Charli to the park. Charli had gotten in the pond and that had been her towel.  Ugh.  She drove off, smelling like a wet dog and looking like the creature from the black lagoon.

As she was driving home, she remembered a small town that sold scrubs. She had gone there when they had a huge close-out sale.  She drove the 10 minutes out of the way and pulled into the lot.  As she sheepishly walked inside, she tried to look discreet, but it was impossible.  The sales lady walked over to her very slowly and even more slowly asked “may-I-help-you”. It almost wasn’t a question about scrubs; it felt more like it was an invitation to escort her out the door.  Edwina looked at the sales associate and explained what happened, every detail.   They both laughed together, and the lady offered to give her some baby wipes to use in the bathroom and agreed to let Edwina put the new scrubs on at the store.  That was when Edwina looked down and realized that she had been so shaken by the crow that she didn’t change into her hiking shoes.  She looked over at the rack and saw some tennis shoes. She bought her size, paid for her outfit, and changed in the dressing room.   The baby wipes helped a bit, but her hair was still quite a mess.  She left the store and got back onto the highway towards home. 

She pulled into the driveway and into the garage at 6:20; not as late as she thought it would be since the rain cut her hike short.  She threw her dirty scrubs in the corner of the garage as she got out of the car.  She didn’t have to worry about her mom or Raney finding her scrubs; it’s not like they did laundry anyway.  She took a deep breath and walked into the house.  “Hey Gramma, what’s for dinner.”  Edwina wanted to tell her that she could have a mud cake that she scraped from her scrubs and shoes, but instead asked why they hadn’t eaten yet.  “Great Grams and I wanted to eat with you; it’s not the same without you.”  Edwina agreed that it would be nice to eat together and asked what they wanted. At that, her mom and Raney started snickering. “We surprised you Gramma; we made some spaghetti. Great Grams browned the meat, and I cooked the noodles. We both spiced up the jar of sauce.  What’s up with your hair, it looks all cakey.” Raney asked.  “Oh, do you like it? One of my friends said I should try some new hair gel and get with the times.”  Raney said she actually did like the way it looked. Edwina didn’t know if she was being a wise-cracker, or if she was serious, but she didn’t have to explain anything and that was good.  She escaped being discovered.  Maybe she shouldn’t try to sneak away again, she wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings, besides they hadn’t even noticed that she was in a totally different outfit than when she left. She’d better not depend on them for accuracy in filing a missing person’s report.

They all finished the meal and talked for a few minutes about the day and school. It was nice having dinner made for her. It choked her up that the two of them bonded and surprised her with dinner. Soon her mom exclaimed how tired she was from being on her feet too long and went to the living room after Edwina excused her.  Raney looked at Edwina and said she would help with the kitchen. The two cleared away the dirty dishes and started on the mounting pile of dishes Raney and Carol used. Edwina wondered how in the world they could have used so many dishes for spaghetti; it’s not like they rolled their own noodles and simmered the sauce from scratch. Still, it was nice to have dinner made and it was surprising that Raney was helping.  “How was Charli today” asked Edwina.  “She did great, I walked her two miles and played ball. She ate before you got home and went to lay down.”  Edwina smiled at that; maybe there was hope after all for Raney to become responsible without too much prodding. 

After dishes and a brief stent of television, they all retired to their rooms. Carol wanted to read her large-print readers digest version that came in the mail today, Raney had a touch of homework to do, and Edwina threw a load of laundry in first and then retired to her room to a hot bath before bed.  As she reached to turn out the light; she looked at the last family picture of her mom, her, Sidney, and Raney. It was a long time ago and it had been a good day.  Edwina still resented the choice Sidney made but she was glad she could be a positive influence on Raney. Sometimes her life seemed so hectic, and others it seemed just right.  She turned the light out and began to think about the next several weeks ahead. She recalled several of her referring doctors telling her that they would be out for a few days next month. Maybe she could take Raney out of school and take her and her mom on an adventure. Only one day though, because she didn’t want to make a bad impression by taking her out both days. Maybe, just maybe the other day she’d sneak away again, with better planning of course.