“Come on in.”
He held open the door as Mac knocked the mud and dirt from her boots. Alice had diligently taken off her own by the porch stairs and placed them on the little rack that Kane had built for them. The little girl was ecstatic.
“Can she stay for dinner?! Will you stay for dinner?!”
“Well, I don’t know that I want to impose,” Mac answered.
“You saved us from the cat. She ran away so fast when you showed up.”
Her arrival still felt suspicious to Kane, but there was only so much he could do when his daughter was so excited. He also felt like if it came down to it, he could overpower Mac to protect Alice and get out of there. They would have to abandon the cabin, but maybe they could take the car and get far enough away before ditching it and starting all over again.
“You can stay,” Kane said hesitant and dismissively, trying to signal to Alice to calm down without being pulled into her warm embrace of the stranger himself.
“Thank you. I got some things at the store in town. I can help cook.”
Kane looked at her, a question nestled in his eyebrows.
“I used to come out here when I was a child. Not very often, but often enough that there were some small treats and snacks that I always enjoyed. I just got them for the ride home.”
Kane’s face relaxed a little, but he was still suspicious of Mac. How had she found the cabin? He had given her the number, sure, and though it wasn’t all that concealed, the road they lived down was off the beaten path enough that she shouldn’t have stumbled on it.
“If you’re wondering how I found the cabin, it’s because my grandma used to have the cabin here.”
Mac paused.
“I followed the flowers. I wanted to repay Alice here for her kindness on the road. It’s been a long time since I was greeted with something warm, so I wanted to give back.”
She dug through her purse to pull out a little brown bag folded neatly on top. It made a sandy sound as the bag moved, and he saw Alice perk up out of the corner of his eye. She had been by the fireplace changing her socks into the ones she had left drying the night before. Alice loved warm socks, so there were always two or three pairs next to the fire for her to rotate through during the day.
“A present?”
“Yeah. A little something for the for you, little gardener.”
Kane didn’t like how familiarly Mac was speaking with his daughter, especially with so cold a face; it made his unease return. He watched the woman for any sign of malice, trying to detect what her motive could possibly be in giving his daughter a packet of seeds. She looked over Alice’s shoulder as the little girl opened the brown bag to pull out two smaller packets.
“But-ter-fly w-weed?” she read from the handwritten label on the side of the bag.
“Yeah. It’s an orange flower. I bet you’ve seen it around. It’s one of my favorites. When I used to go out to my dad’s farm, it grew along the ditches next to the road.”
“Pretty. I love orange.”
“Is that your favorite color? I was trying to guess, but I don’t have the same keen sense you do.”
“Not orange.”
“Pink?”
“No, that’s your favorite, remember?”
Mac laughed. The crack in her reserved face gave Kane a small sense of relief.
“Green is my favorite color, but I haven’t seen any green snapdragons growing out there. The pink ones are the best, as you guessed before.”
Alice smiled at the little token of praise. Despite his hardness and defensiveness, Kane could feel himself softening to this woman as she interacted with his daughter. It made him miss the ease of having his wife around.
“Hmmmm. Purple? I hope it’s purple.”
Kane smiled, knowing that Mac had gotten it right while watching Alice trying not to bolt out of her seat with excitement.
“It is!”
“Well, these other seeds are going to be perfect for you.”
“Pur-ple cone-flow-ers,” Alice sounded out after snatching the next little packet from Mac.
“They’re also really pretty and grew in the fields by my mom’s house before I moved away. I didn’t see any of those growing out by the road either, so I figured you could right that for me.”
Alice beamed.
“Well, it’s too cold to put them in the ground right now, but I’ll save them for when I plant the other seeds I collected. Do you wanna see how many I have?”
“Sure. Are they here?”
“Hold on,” Alice called back, already running towards the stairs up to her small room above the kitchen.
Mac smiled, knowing any other response wouldn’t be heard anyways.
“So, Kane.”
“So, Mac.”
“Can you tell me why you and your daughter are staying in my family’s cabin?”
Kane swallowed. A day he feared had finally come.
“Well…” he sighed.
Mac smiled sympathetically as Alice crashed back down the stairs.
“Okay. Here are my favorites…”
Alice stopped when she looked up and saw both the adult’s faces. She recognized her father’s look and her energy dwindled. She looked at Mac for reassurance, and only got sympathy and confusion from the woman’s face.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Kane was staring intently at the woman across from him, waiting to see how she would react now that Alice was back in the room.
“No honey, daddy did something wrong. Can you go back upstairs while I talk to Mac for a bit?”
“But…”
“No buts, baby. Go add your new seeds to your collection.”
Crestfallen, his daughter turned and headed upstairs, occasionally looking over her shoulder through the banister at the frozen pair of adults at the table. Mac had turned her gaze back to meet Kane’s and the two were rigid and quiet. The little girl’s feet disappeared as she climbed the final stairs to stomp into her room. No doubt she was trying to listen at the floor, so Kane broke the silence softly.
“Look, I’m sorry. We didn’t have anywhere to go, and we didn’t know anyone else would come here. Not for the winter at least. When no one came in the spring, we just stayed and moved in permanently. If you let us, we will just pack up and head out. I can pay you for anything we’ve used or taken, but please don’t go to the authorities.”
Mac stared at the table for a second before catching his gaze, a soft pity welling up her in her eyes, her face crinkled into a beautiful form of guilt. Kane’s heart softened at the sight, and he had to catch himself from trying to soothe her. He didn’t know what this woman was going to do, but he really didn’t want to spend another winter in the mountains camping and keeping his daughter safe. He didn’t want to have to pull her from another home, from her flowers and trees and the lightning bugs. He didn’t want to have to run again. He felt the lump in his throat getting firmer as his grief crept up his spine and started to well in his own eyes. Mac’s expression changed to embarrassed shock before softening to a relenting resting place. Kane hung his head as the first tear rolled down the tips of his nose and crashed onto the leg of his jeans, his mouth pinched, intent on holding his cool.
“You can stay. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna kick you two out into the cold mountains, but I need to know how you got here and why you’ve stayed. Where’s my grandma?”
More tears ran down his cheeks as he stood and went to put his boots back on.
“Come on. I need to show you something.”
Mac looked puzzled, but shrugged her coat back on and followed the man outside. Alice watched from her window as her dad lead the woman in the direction of her little graveyard. She sighed quietly, as if readying herself to explain to a friend what was happening.
“Oh,” she whispered, “the old woman.”