Page 74 of The Midnight Hour
Can I risk it? Do I want to?
I decide to put it to everyone else. We gather in the cabin, everyone looking as serious as if I’m about to read a will—and, in a way, I am. This is Daniel’s legacy, I know it is.
We can make a life for ourselves here…
He always had more vision than I did. Then, back at the cottage, when he saw us homesteading and I dismissed it as playing at pioneers, and now, when I’m facing something that terrifies me but that he believed I could do—and he told me so. This is as much about Daniel as it is about me.
“Mom,” Mattie asks, sounding urgent. “What is it?”
Haltingly, I tell them about Mackinaw City, North Dakota, these new settlements that will form the bedrock of a new America. About the idea, the hope, of helping to build something bigger than ourselves. I tell them about the schools that will be starting, the towns that have already been founded. It’s not what we once knew, but it’s an approximation of it. It’smore.
For a few seconds, all I get back are silent stares. No one looks particularly impressed or enthused by all I’ve said, and I can’t blame them. We’ve faced so many unknowns in the last year. Do we really want to face another one, and one as big as this?
“What do you guys think?” I ask uncertainly.
“It’s not going to be like the NBSRC but just…bigger, is it?” Kyle asks, sounding distinctly unhappy about such a possibility.
“I don’t think so,” I reply, “but the truth is, I really don’tknow. I think, at least I hope, it will be more an attempt at—at living real life again, but…in North Dakota.”
“This is real life,” Mattie shoots back, sounding fierce. “This is very much real life, to me.”
“Of course it is,” I murmur. “I just mean…more the way things used to be.”
“We can never,” she declares, “go back to the way things used to be.”
Inwardly, I sigh. When Mattie is in a fighting mood, it is impossible to say the right thing. “You’re right,” I tell her, and even that makes her glower.
“I think it’s worth a shot,” Sam ventures after a moment. “I mean, it’s pretty great here in some ways, but it feels…like summer camp.” He glances around at all of us, caught between guilt and excitement. “Or, I don’t know, like a time out of reality. I’m not…I’m not sure I want to spend the rest of my life at Red Cedar Lake.”
Mattie looks like she wants to argue, but Ruby gets in there before she does. “I want to go with you,” she says softly, staring at me. “Wherever you go, I want to go.”
Mattie is glaring at me accusingly, like I’ve turned everyone against her. “Mattie?” I ask gently. “What do you want?”
She gathers Phoebe to her, holding the little girl closely, her expression both defiant and afraid. “I want to stay here,” she declares, her voice trembling. “I’mgoingto stay here.” She glances at Kyle, and I watch as some silent communication passes between them, and then he gives a little nod.
“I’m going to stay here, too,” he says.
I deflate, a little; I realize I’m disappointed. As scared as I feel, I know by my reaction now that I wantedto go to North Dakota. I wanted to try this. For Daniel’s sake, but also for my own. But I can’t go without my daughter, and I of all people know when Mattie won’t be moved.
“Okay,” I say after a moment. “Then we won’t go.”
Sam deflates, his breath leaving him in a defeated gust, and Ruby tucks her knees up to her chest. I realize then that I am not the only one who feels disappointed.
Then Mattie lifts her chin, her eyes flashing as she gazes steadily at me. “This doesn’t mean, Mom,” she states, “that you can’t go.”
I stare at her blankly. “What are you talking about, Mattie?”
“You can go,” she reiterates, her voice coming out stronger now. “All of you. You want to, and you should. But Kyle and Phoebe and I…we’re staying here.”
I let out a huff of disbelief. “I’m not going without you.” I’m certainly not leaving my sixteen-year-old daughter alone, living out some romantic fantasy with her maybe-boyfriend.
“I’m sixteen,” she tells me. “An adult.”
“No, you’re not?—”
“In this world, I am.” She cuts me off, sounding very certain. “I can make my own choices, and so can you. And Sam and Ruby can, too.” She glances at both her siblings. “If that’s what you want, you should go. I mean it. I get it, there’s a life for you out there, and you should take it. But I’m staying here.”
I shake my head slowly. The Mattie I know and love would have been up for it, I realize. The challenge, the adventure. What has changed?
