The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall

lifelong hopes—a tree to climb. This one did seem perfect for climbing—large but with a thick branch within five feet of the ground.
    Cara looked across the land, wondering if she’d used what little money they had on absolute foolishness. She should be somewhere looking for work, not chasing after shadows of things that once were.

    She knew the reality—all children raised in foster care harbor the belief that they have a relative somewhere out there who loves them. She was no exception. Each night after her mother had died, she’d gone to bed hoping a loved one would stumble upon the truth of her existence and come for her. At first she’d been foolish enough to hope her father would come. But as the years passed, she realized that he’d never wanted her. So the fantasy changed into the dream that a relative she’d never met would show up for her one day. By the time she turned fourteen, she refused to give in to that longing. Life hurt less that way. But the desire to have one relative who cared never truly went away. She wished it would. Maybe then the ache inside would ease.
    “Look, Mom. It has a spot to ride it like a horse. And that knot thing looks sorta like a horse’s head.”
    Cara glanced. A dip in the branch where Lori sat made a perfect spot for straddling it and pretending she was riding a horse. “It does, doesn’t it? All you need is a set of reins.”
    “How’d you know, Mom?”
    Cara turned from looking at the field. “How’d I know what?”
    Lori held up a set of rusted chains. They were small, probably from a swing set.
    “How’d ya know there were reins here?” Lori tugged at the chains that were wrapped around the part of the branch that looked like a horse’s head. “Parts of them have grown into the tree, but they work.”
    Cara returned to the tree, running her hands over the mossy bark. She recalled the pieces of memory that came to her when Mike had showed up at her workplace—an old woman, rows of tall corn, a kitchen table filled with food, sheets flapping in the wind. As she studied the tree and the land around her, she began to sense that maybe her fragmented thoughts weren’t her imagination or parts of an old movie she’d once seen.

Deborah held her father’s arm, guiding him up the gentle slope. Their home sat just beyond the ridge of the field, but maybe this wasn’t the easiest route to take. “You’re pale and shaking. What possessed you to go for such a long walk today?” He didn’t answer, and she tried again. “Kumm, let’s go home.”
    He pulled back, stopping both of them. “Did you see that woman and child coming out of the Swareys’ home?”
    “No.” Deborah slid her arm through his, trying to encourage him to keep moving toward home. “Do you know her?”
    Her father’s feet were planted firm, and it seemed she couldn’t coax him into budging.
    He looked to the heavens before closing his eyes. “But it can’t be her. She’d be much older by now, and her daughter is seven or eight years older than you.”
    “Who, Daed?”
    He massaged his shoulder as if it ached from deep within. “Your mother loved her so. Never once believed the ban against her was fair—not even when she came back eight years later with a child. When she returned with her daughter, I’d been a preacher only a short time.” He gave a half shrug, rubbing the area below his collarbone.
    “Daed, what are you talking about?”
    He turned and headed for the cattle gate. “It can’t be her. A ghost… a mirage—that’s all it could be. Or”—he quickened his pace—”another one sent in her place to finish destroying what little she left intact.”

    “Daed.” Deborah took him by the arm again, gently tugging on him to go the other way “You’re scaring me, talking such nonsense. Let’s go home.”
    He pointed a finger at her. “I may suffer under a chronic illness, but I’m not a child.”
    Feeling the sting of his correction, she nodded and released