Chapter One:
If it were possible to move as slowly as a sloth, Serenity Rivers was accomplishing it. But she wasn’t proud of it. How could she have let this happen?
The predawn bird chorus was singing so loudly she could barely hear herself as she berated herself for being so out of shape. Were they mocking her? She wouldn’t blame them. This was all her fault.
Every step was a struggle. Her knees ached and her hips hurt. But it had to be done. Being a sloth was not an option anymore because now simply walking what would be only a few blocks if she was in a town was so hard she wanted to sit down and cry. She yearned to stop. Perhaps sit down and enjoy the sensations of being in nature. Pretend that she didn’t hurt all over. Listen to the birds sing and watch the wind flip the leaves on the trees.
But even though it was unlikely that a car would pass here so early in the morning, she still was not going to allow herself to stop now. If she sat down, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get up again. So she walked and tried not to moan with each step.
As she took one step forward at a time, Serenity knew she needed to stop the bad self-talk. It’s how she got here in the first place. She had fallen into the habit of beating herself up for everything she was afraid to do and was hiding from. But then, it was so much easier to spend time alone. Once her paintings had started to sell, she only had to deal with a few people, and as time went on, she had isolated herself more and more.
Living within her imagination was wonderful, but it had been a mistake to think that she could forget the rest of the world. And it was definitely wrong to forget that she was human and needed to take care of herself.
Even now, in the state she had let herself fall into, Serenity tried to rationalize that she had valid reasons for her choice. But with each step, harder than the last one, Serenity knew she had been wrong.
She had to admit to herself that she had made a mistake. Her cowardice had led to laziness and self-pity. If she went anywhere, she drove, never walking, for heaven’s sake. She might see someone and have to talk to them. Which meant that now, in the middle of her life, she found herself in this predicament, barely able to walk down a country road without groaning with each step.
However, despite how much she was tempted to continue berating herself, Serenity knew that being mad at herself for what she had done and where she was now wouldn’t help.
Acknowledge it and move on, she said to herself. It was time to put on her big girl pants and grow up. She couldn’t afford to be a coward or lazy anymore. Her mother needed her. And like all the dutiful daughters of all the Rivers women before her, she had answered the call and had returned home.
She supposed someday her daughter, Samantha, would come home to care for her as she lay dying, but that better be a long time in the future. And it was also possible Sam wouldn’t come. Sam just might choose to let her mother die alone, and Serenity knew she wouldn’t blame her for that choice. Why should daughters have to come home to care for their mothers?
In fact, it was entirely possible Serenity wouldn’t tell her daughter she was dying. She would free her from the responsibility and let her break from the tradition of daughters caring for mothers. As Serenity walked, she allowed her thoughts to drift to her daughter. It had been a few years since she had seen her. They texted occasionally and even less often spoke on the phone. Each time they spoke, Serenity imagined what Sam looked like now.
That wasn’t hard to do. She could simply look in the mirror and see herself twenty years younger. Just as she could look at her mother and see herself twenty years in the future. All Rivers women looked alike. If time stopped and they were lined up in a row at the same age, it would be hard to tell them apart. Except for the color of their eyes and hair.
Her daughter Samantha had eyes the color of dark green moss and long shiny dark straight hair that Serenity had spent many hours brushing as they laughed and sang together. But that had been years ago. It had been a long time since they had laughed and sang together.
Serenity’s eyes were a startling shade of blue, a blue that contrasted with her bright red hair and made people look twice, which had never made her happy. She had always wanted to fade into the background and had tried dying her hair and wearing contacts. But in the end, she opted to stay out of sight as much as possible instead.
People said beauty was a gift, but it was also a burden. Just one more burden that the Rivers women had to bear. It was not something they could change, just as they couldn’t change the other gift that they shared.
Even as frail as she was, Elizabeth, Serenity’s mother, was still beautiful. Yesterday, when she saw her, Elizabeth’s long white hair was spread out on her pillow-framing eyes that were still a deep shade of blue that was almost purple. If there was such a thing as having purple eyes, then that’s what Lizzy had.
When Serenity had stepped up to her mother’s bed, having driven ten hours to be there, Elizabeth had smiled, reached out and held Serenity’s hand, and thanked her for coming. As if I could refuse, Serenity had thought. Holding her mother’s hand, a pang of guilt had run through her. She should have come sooner. She should have stayed home instead of leaving her mother alone all these years. She should have not been such a coward. So many shoulds.
But it was not just her fault. Her mother had never once asked her to stay, and then once she was gone, neither one of them had reached out to the other. Both of them were retreating from life, unwilling to deal with the burden of what people called a gift.
But it wasn’t a gift if it meant you spent your entire life hiding from it. From the power of it. But her mother had, and she had followed in her footsteps, and her daughter in hers.
It was going to have to be Serenity that accepted the gift and used it. Her mother had confirmed it for her last night.
As Serenity held her mother’s hand, Lizzy had taken deep breaths and told Serenity that she had been wrong. Their gift of seeing other people’s memories was to be used, and Serenity would have to be the one to figure out how to change generations of hiding and to use their gift for good.
“No,” Serenity had replied. “Not me.”
Her mother, appearing as frail as someone could be and still be alive, had pierced her with a look that had drilled into her soul and said, “Yes. You. And Samantha.”
Which is why she was out walking at 5:00 in the morning, down a back road lined with trees, with hay fields in between, trying as hard as she could to avoid people as she always had. As with every Rivers woman, every person could be dangerous to her because they could trigger the so-called gift and send Serenity into their world of memories.
Serenity thought about the first time that had happened to her. It had brought her to her knees as if someone had punched her. She had run home to her mother crying, her red hair tangled in the tears on her face.
Elizabeth had taken one look at her and knew. Wrapping her arms around her, she had whispered, “It’s a gift, Serenity.”
It didn’t feel like one.
