“Mama, how long do you think we’ve been walking?”
“Shush, baby, and let me think.”
“But my legs are sore, and I’m freezing.”
“Stop whining, and hush for a second.” Jade paused to study the mountains. She’d been certain that as long as she kept them to her back, she’d end up at the Glenn, but it was twilight now, and there was still no highway in sight.
“Listen, baby, when those bad people brought you to their cabin, how’d they get you there?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you walk or take a snow machine or a car or what?”
“It wasn’t a car. It was a truck.”
“Okay. And when you were driving in the truck, before you turned to get to the cabin, where were the mountains? Were they on this side of you or were they somewhere else?”
Dez pouted. “Which mountains do you mean?”
“The big ones, baby.” Jade noted the irritation in her voice and tried to soften it. “The big mountains,” she repeated more gently. “I want you to think. Were the mountains over here like this?”
Dez shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Jade let out her breath. It wasn’t her daughter’s fault. None of this was her daughter’s fault. In fact, if Jade had been more open in talking to Dez about her biological father to begin with, none of this would have happened.
“Mama, are you mad at me?”
“What? No, baby.” Jade leaned over to give her daughter a comforting hug. “Mama’s just trying to figure out which way we need to get to. That’s all.”
Dez scrunched up her nose. “Are we lost?”
Jade mulled over her next words. “No, baby. I just need to get us to the highway. That’s where we’ll find some help.”
“Well, how long until we get to the highway? I’m hungry.”
“I know, baby. This is all gonna be over real soon. And then we’ll stop for something to eat. I think there’s a lodge in Eureka. We’ll get nice big bowls of hot soup. Doesn’t that sound good?”
“I want a burger,” Dez announced with a pout.
“Fine. You can get a burger and a bowl of hot soup.”
“Will they have ice cream?”
“Too cold for ice cream, baby.”
“Yeah, but last night you said you’d get me ice cream.”
Jade had forgotten all about that. “Fine. Tell you what. Once we get to that lodge, we’ll ask if they have ice cream and if they do, you can have as many bowls as you can finish off.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Dez revived a little at the prospect of food and sweets, and she walked for a while without complaining.
“Hey, Mama?” Dez finally said as the sun made its last faint glimmer on the horizon.
“What, baby?”
“Is anything that lady said true? Was my daddy really a pastor in Palmer?”
Jade could think of a thousand other topics she’d rather be discussing. “Well, baby, he called himself a pastor, but he wasn’t.”
“Then what was he?”
How was Jade supposed to answer that? Was she supposed to tell her child that her own father was a criminal? A serial rapist and child molester? “He’s someone God loves, but he did a lot of bad things and hurt a lot of people, so I don’t want you to worry about him none, you got that?”
Dez seemed to consider her words. “Did you love him?”
The question surprised her. Where did her child come up with these crazy notions? “No. I didn’t love him. I trusted him, but it turned out I shouldn’t have. He was dangerous.”
“Kind of like Auntie Sapphire?”
“Right. Like Auntie Sapphire.”
“She isn’t my real auntie, right?”
“No, baby. She’s nothing to you. Nothing at all.”
“I didn’t think so.”
They kept on walking, and Jade let out a silent prayer for help. She was doing everything in her power to stay calm and composed for her daughter’s sake, but she had no idea what she’d do if the sky went black while they still were out here lost in the woods.
“Hey, Mama?” Dez finally asked.
Jade sighed. “What, baby?”
“Was my daddy handsome?”
Jade tried hard not to laugh. Pastor Mitch handsome? “I suppose some people thought he was.”
“Did you?”
“No. No, I didn’t. But I think his daughter’s the most beautiful out of all of God’s creations.”
Dez wasn’t deterred by the flattery. “Was he black like you or white like Auntie Sapphire?”
“He was white, baby, but it doesn’t matter, okay? God made you just the way he wanted you to be.”
“Is that how come you didn’t like him? Because he was white?”
Jade needed God’s help to get her daughter out of the cold woods alive, but she also needed his help to keep her patience. “There’s lots of white men I like. Color of their skin has nothing to do with it. Your father did some bad things, things that you don’t need to know about. But God loved him, and that’s all that matters, okay?”
“Will I ever meet him, do you think?”
“I don’t think so, baby,” Jade answered. “I don’t think so.”