Peace

She rushed through the store ready to be on the road already. Quickly she grabbed a couple packs of propane fuel and charcoal. Heading to the self check out she started pulling out her wallet, and full out ran into him. She went down along with the rest of her groceries. She glared up at him, “the least you could do is apologize”, she muttered angrily. “Catty? Is that you?” he asked. Oh great she thought to herself, to him she responded “Hi Cole, gotta go see ya later.” She finished checking out and was putting the groceries in the back of the car when little arms wrapped around her waist. She smiled and said “it can only be one person,” she turned around “Nick! How are you?”. He just smiled as a response. “Still not talking huh? Where's your mom?” I asked. He pointed to their van. I took his hand and we walked over, I knocked on the window and she slowly turned her head to look at me. She’d clearly been drinking her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. I sighed and wrote out a note on the back of my receipt. I have Nick. Call me when you’re sober. Love Catty. I opened the side door and took his car seat and replaced it with the note. “Come on Nick we’re going camping.” I said excitedly. I got him buckled into the car and we we’re on the road. I handed him one of my sisters old unused coloring books and a box of crayons. We stopped just to get dinner and then we we’re off again. When we got to the cabin the sun was just setting so we walked to the edge of the clearing and watched it. As it faded away and left us in the dark we went inside the cabin and got ready for bed. I was tucking Nick into bed when he spoke the very first words I’ve ever heard. “I don’t want to leave here it’s so peaceful and quiet.”, he whispered. “Okay” I whispered back, “We’ll stay here forever.”

I got this idea from an ad for camping items.