Chapter 11 - The Orcas Island Retreat
By the first weekend of May, the weather in the Pacific Northwest broke into that rare, crystalline perfection that made you forget every month of gray rain that preceded it.
We packed the trunk of our new hybrid SUV with hiking boots, a cooler full of fresh fruit, a stack of sketchbooks for Maisie, and Grandpa Jonathan’s leather-bound journal. We drove down to the Anacortes ferry terminal, our tires rolling onto the steel deck of the Washington State Ferry as it pulled away from the mainland and cut through the deep, sapphire waters of the Salty Sea toward Orcas Island.
Standing on the outer observation deck, the salt wind whipping our hair into a cheerful tangle, Maisie leaned against the railing, her face upturned to the sun.
"Mom, look! Porpoises!" she shrieked, pointing toward a trio of sleek gray shapes breaking the surface of the water a hundred yards off the starboard bow.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, resting my chin against her dark hair. "I see them, bug. Isn't it beautiful?"
"It’s better than the big house," Maisie declared solemnly, her dark eyes shining with absolute certainty. "Nobody yells here. And nobody tells us where to sit."
"Nobody ever again," I promised her.
The cabin on Orcas Island wasn't a sprawling, sterile architectural monstrosity like my parents' suburban colonial. It was a rambling, rustic cedar-shake lodge tucked deep into a dense grove of Douglas firs and madrona trees, perched on a rocky bluff that overlooked the roaring swells of Haro Strait.
When we unlocked the heavy oak front door, the scent of aged cedar, old books, and wood smoke instantly enveloped us.
It was exactly as I remembered it from my childhood. The stone fireplace in the center of the living room still had the notch where I had tried to carve my initials when I was eight. The bookshelves were crammed with dog-eared paperbacks, field guides to Pacific Northwest wildlife, and board games with missing pieces.
We spent the entire weekend exploring. We hiked the winding trails up Mount Constitution, skipped flat stones across the frigid waters of Cascade Lake, and sat on the wooden deck at night wrapped in thick wool blankets, watching the stars wheel across a sky untainted by city light pollution.
On Sunday evening, as Maisie drifted off to sleep in the cozy loft bedroom upstairs, I sat by the stone fireplace with Grandpa Jonathan’s journal open in my lap.
The fire crackled, casting dancing golden shadows across the timber-framed walls.
May you like
For the first time in my life, the ghosts of my childhood weren't haunting me. They were gone, dissolved into the smoke and the sea spray.
I picked up my pen and opened a fresh, blank notebook I had brought along—not to track lawsuits or forensic ledgers, but to start writing the first chapter of a life that belonged entirely to us.
