The Great Escape

“You already told me that.”

“Watch the change box.”

“You told me that about a thousand times.”

“Sorry, I …”

“Go,” Lucy ordered, gesturing toward the highway.

With one last worried glance, Bree reluctantly stepped on the gas.

Lucy hadn’t come into town since she’d cut her dreads from her hair and scrubbed off her tattoos, and Bree automatically took the chair that looked out into the dining room so Lucy could face the wall. But it had been almost three months since her wedding, the story had died down, and Lucy couldn’t bring herself to care whether or not anyone recognized her.

They ordered grilled portabellas and a barley salad sweetened with peaches. Lucy gulped down her first glass of wine and started on her second. The food was well prepared, but she had no appetite, and neither, it seemed, did Bree. By the time they drove back to the cottage, they’d given up the effort to make conversation.

The farm stand came into sight. At first they didn’t notice anything was wrong. Only as they came closer did they see the destruction.

Toby stood in a sea of broken honey bottles—far more bottles than had been out on display. He turned in a jerky, aimless circle, the honey-splattered quilt Bree tossed over the counter hanging from one hand, his game player in the other. He froze as he saw the car.

Bree jumped out, the motor still running, a scream ripping from her throat. “What happened?”

Toby dropped the quilt into the mess. The Adirondack chairs lay on their sides near the splintered remains of the Carousel Honey sign. The door of the storage shed that jutted off the back gaped open, its shelves emptied of several hundred bottles of next year’s crop Bree had stashed there to give her more working room in the honey house. Toby was streaked from head to toe with honey and dirt. A trickle of blood ran down his hand from broken glass. “I only left for a minute,” he sobbed. “I didn’t mean—”

“You left?” She charged forward, her shoes crunching in the glass.

“Only for a minute. I-I had to get my N-Nintendo. Nobody was stopping!”

Bree saw what he was holding, and her hands fisted at her sides. “You left to get a video game?”

“I didn’t know—I didn’t mean—It was only for a minute!” he cried.

“Liar!” Her eyes blazed. “All this didn’t happen in a minute. Go! Get out of here!”

Toby fled toward the cottage.

Lucy had already turned off the engine and jumped out of the car herself. The wooden shelves hung askew, and broken honey bottles were everywhere, even out on the highway. Shattered lotion jars spattered the drive; the luxurious creams and scented potions smearing the gravel. The cash box was gone, but that wasn’t as devastating as the loss of hundreds of bottles of next year’s crop. The glass from the bottles mingled with the silver shards of Bree’s precious, fragile Christmas ornaments.

Bree knelt, her skirt trailing in the muck, and cradled what was left of a delicate globe. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

If Lucy hadn’t insisted they go out this evening, none of this would have happened. She couldn’t think of anything comforting to say. “Why don’t you go inside? I’ll deal with the worst of this.”

But Bree wouldn’t leave. She stayed crouched over the debris of goo, glass, and ruined dreams.

With guilt hanging over her head like a shroud, Lucy fetched a pair of rakes and a shovel. “We’ll figure out something tomorrow,” she said.

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Bree whispered. “I’m done.”

LUCY MADE BREE CALL THE police. While Bree told them what had happened in a flat, listless voice, Lucy began scraping the worst of the glass back from the highway. Bree finished answering their questions and hung up. “They’re coming out tomorrow to talk to Toby.” Her expression hardened. “I can’t believe he let this happen. It’s unforgivable.”

It was too early to plead Toby’s case, and Lucy didn’t try. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I’m the one who insisted we go out.” Bree brushed away her apology with a shaky hand.

They worked in the ghostly illumination of a pair of floodlights mounted on the front of the farm stand. Cars slowed as they passed, but no one stopped. Bree dragged away her splintered sign. They righted the chairs, tossed the damaged candles and ruined note cards into trash bags. As night settled in, they began attacking the broken glass with rakes, but the ocean of ruined honey made the glass stick to the tines, and a little after midnight Lucy pulled the rake from Bree’s hands. “That’s enough for now. I’ll bring a hose out in the morning and spray everything down.”

Bree was too demoralized to argue.

They walked back to the house in silence. They had honey everywhere—on their skin, on their clothes, in their hair. Clumps of dirt and grass stuck to their arms and legs, along with slivers of glass and other muck. As Lucy peeled off her sandals, she saw a square of pale blue cardboard stuck to the heel.

I’m a one-of-a-kind Christmas ornament.