Page 11 of Stranded on the Prairie
The door flies open before we reach it, and a woman stands there before us – around my age, maybe a little younger, with blonde ringlets that reach her shoulders and wide blue eyes that look consumed by panic.
She is gasping for air by the time we reach her, so much so that, for a second, I think she must be the one suffering. I drop Wyatt’s hand and rush to her side.
"Are you alright?" I murmur, as she slumps against me, her chest heaving. She shakes her head.
"I feel as though I can’t catch a breath," she forces out, even though I can tell she’s struggling to so much as talk. "Momma’s upstairs, Cade, and she’s-"
"Hey, take a second," I insist, as I guide her into the house. I can tell from the clamminess on her face and the stuttered nature of her breath that she’s having some kind of panic attack.
"Lucy-" Wyatt begins, and Cade catches his arm.
"She’s been like this all morning, she’ll be okay," he assures him. "You need to see Mom. She’s not got much time left..."
Cade eyes Lucy for a moment, and I squeeze his arm slightly.
"I’ve got this," I murmur to him. "Go, Wyatt. Go."
He pauses, but then, seemingly sensing no better way to handle any of this, he makes for the crooked stairs that lead to the second floor of the house. I turn my attention to Lucy, steering her in the direction of a wooden seat next to the door.
"Here, sit down," I tell her softly, as I kneel down at her feet, looking up at her. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes red with tears, and she tries to heave in another breath but fails.
"I don’t know what’s happening to me," she whimpers in a panic. "I – it's not the same thing Momma’s got, it’s just-"
"You just need to breathe," I assure her. "I know it feels hard right now, but it’s just a panic attack."
She scrunches her forehead at me.
"A panic...?”
"A rush of the vapors," I correct myself, trying to find something that might pass for sense in this world. "Here, put your hands on your knees and lean over, get some blood to your head..."
I guide her for a few minutes, talking her through the breathing exercises that I usually used to help people wind down before we dove into a yoga session. It took a good few minutes, but I manage to get her to draw in a few real breaths, and by the time she lifts her head once more, I can tell that some of the weight has begun to lift from her shoulders. Her cheeks are still teary and stained, but she looks a little less distant now, a little more settled.
"You want me to help you upstairs?” I offer her, and she nods, her brow furrowing as she rises shakily to her feet. I offer her an arm, and the two of us make our way up the stairs, to the room where Cade and Wyatt seem to be waiting for the worst.
I can tell at a glance that their mother isn’t doing well. Her eyes are closed, her breathing uneven and stuttering. Cade kneels at one side of her, and Wyatt stands at the end of the bed, his shoulders tense, his eyes fixed on her. Lucy rushes to her side, dropping down to take her other hand, and I hang there in the doorway for a moment, not sure if it’s my place to get any closer.
But then, Wyatt reaches back for me, and our hands find each other once more – I cling to him tight, letting him know that I am still here, that I am not going anywhere. The room is filled with a heavy silence, broken only by the sound of his mother’s breath, and it suddenly strikes me just how delicate life is out here – just how common loss is, as common as it was for us back in 2025. All that time has passed, but the weight of grief and the loss of someone they care about still hits just as hard as it ever did.
Except they don’t have the same tools to navigate that pain and grief...
By the time she lets out her final breath, her chest rising and falling one more time before the heaviest sense of nothingness settles over the room. Finally, it’s broken by the sound of Lucy’s sobbing – she sinks her head down to her mother’s hand as though trying to force a little life back into her, but it’s no good.
I reach out to touch her shoulder, doing what I can to comfort her, as Wyatt and Cade stand there, too shocked to react.
"I must go," Wyatt mutters, as he draws me to him once more. "We have furs to sell. And-"
"Wyatt, you can’t leave, not just like that!” Lucy protests desperately as she rises to her feet, clutching at his hands. "We need you here. We need-"
"You’ve been doing just fine without me for a long while now," he retorts gruffly. "You don’t need me any more now than you did then."
"Wyatt-"
He pulls away from her, striding to the door. Lucy gazes after him with an expression of such pure and complete pain that I can’t just turn my back on it.
"We’ll be back, I promise," I tell her, before I hurry after Wyatt. I might not know if that’s a promise I can keep – but what I do know is that I’d do anything to make the pain a little less for her to bear.
Even if Wyatt seems unable to get out of here fast enough.
