Ripple Effect

Chapter Thirty-Six: ...ginger snaps.

Elizabeth

2005

Stars. It was easy to forget how many there were after living beneath the light-drenched skies of towns and cities. But out here they didn't just dot the sky, they speckled it and smeared it and whipped it into a Jackson Pollock, stipples of white and gold that shimmered across midnight blue. Had it been like this all those years ago? At once enough to snatch her breath away and set her head in a counterclockwise spin, until it felt as though she could fall upwards and land back in time, back in a place where others, or perhaps just a different version of herself, had seen this scene before.

Moving to the horse farm was meant to be a fresh start, a new beginning, the next chapter in their lives. That, and any other cliché she cared to throw at it. And it had been the right decision: she would make it to every soccer match, every ballet rehearsal, every school play—even if the kids were only ever in the chorus; she would be there for every bowl of cornflakes, for every breakfast burrito on the fly, for every plate of mac 'n' cheese, and who knew, maybe one day she'd even learn how to cook; she would have time to spend with Henry, time that didn't involve fighting about whether or not her job was dangerous, whether or not this was the life they'd both signed up for, and whether or not her priorities were skewed. Yes, it had been the right decision.

Or at least that's what she kept telling herself.

But perhaps, the real truth of the matter was that moving to the horse farm wasn't a case of pushing forward, but instead a yearning to go back, to reconnect with a time when her biggest worry was getting an A on her next assignment, when bad things only happened in dreams and could be cured with a graham cracker and a glass of ice-cold milk, when love was something that just was, as intrinsic as the cardiac rhythm—not something that palpitated, and skipped a beat, and sometimes felt as though it might stop.

...

It was about coming home.

Only she'd had a home, a family, a purpose: The CIA.

And she'd left. For this.

For pushing forward, for an expanse of stars, for chipped white paint on the slats of the split-rail fence, for wind gushing through the bitternut hickories that lined the gravel track, and for Henry, mostly for Henry—If you go to Baghdad, I don't know what things will look like when you come back.

She'd had a home. She'd lost a home. She'd had a home. She'd quit.

Elizabeth snatched up the bottle of beer that nestled between her feet on the second from top step of the porch. She raised it to her lips and tipped her head back until bitterness burned down the back of her throat. The cold stung her, and she gave a shudder, one that wasn't entirely unwelcome. Perhaps it would help her to shake this off.

"There you are." Henry's voice came from behind her, followed by the light slap of the door against the frame. The wooden boards creaked beneath his feet, and a moment later, he sank down onto the step next to her and a heavy sigh rushed out. "So, most of the boxes still need to be unpacked, but I think I've found all the essentials. The kids are in bed, though I don't know if all the excitement will keep them up. I'm praying it's worn them out."

Elizabeth took another sip. She ignored the way his gaze tickled her cheek, whilst the grass in the fields before them juddered, electrified by the breeze. The silence here was deeper too, a cavernous sound, not filled with the blare of car horns and the soaring tides of vehicles passing by, nor the soft snorts and whinnies of childhood. A hush that itched with anticipation, as though it were waiting for something to rush in and cancel it out.