The River of Love, Surfacing Book 1

Chapter One

Chapter One:  A New Life

Morgan Hills took what she knew would be one of the last looks out her bedroom window and sighed.  I won’t see the autumn leaves in Central Park this year, I guess, she mused.  Would the seasonal changes be as dramatic in Albuquerque as they were in New York City?  Probably not, she decided.  Just like every other thing related to her family’s upcoming move to Albuquerque, the many mysteries and open questions continued to pile up.

She shook her head (and her thoughts), the thick coils of her caramel hair muddying her sight for a nanosecond until they settled back upon her shoulders.  Her second sigh turned into a slight, playful smile.  It was true that she wasn’t thrilled with her parents’ decision to move when her father accepted a top management position at his company, but she didn’t really have that much of a life to lose either. Although she had spent all of the 16 years of her existence in the city, for some reason they hadn’t added up to a whirlwind of social activity or popularity. In fact, if she didn’t keep her distance and avoid certain cliquey groups at Grace Chaddingworth School, she’d probably end up would be a target of their gossip.   She had become a master at being almost invisible, politely blending in and out of the throngs of uniformed kids at the private school, making her grades just good enough to keep her parents and teachers happy but not so outstanding that the other kids would pick on her for her performance. She kept afloat, she guessed.

She walked up to the last bag that lay open on her bed and saw that she still had plenty of space to put in the last of her things. The movers had already taken all the furniture from her bedroom (except for her mattress) and most of her clothes, but she still had a few things in the closet that she had to sort through.  She turned to look at the narrow closet and her eyes quickly scanned over the scarce items hanging inside. Her gaze fell on the yellow sweater and instinctively her skin broke into goose bumps and she felt the familiar surge of cold, silent sadness wash over her entire body.

“Hey Morg Borg, whatcha doin’?” Her mother called playfully from the doorway. Her soft voice yanked Morgan away from her quick reverie much sharper than she would have expected. 

“Just trying to finish packing,” she explained almost sullenly. She turned her eyes from her mother’s open, sweet face to the bag on the bed and she said a quick prayer: Please don’t let this turn into a difficult conversation.

Rose Hills ventured into her daughter’s barren bedroom and smiled, looking around the walls that had been stripped clean of family pictures, paintings and the random pin-ups of Bruno Mars and One Direction. “Wow,” she said. “It looks so different!”

“Yeah, pretty empty,” Morgan agreed.  Her eyes dashed to the closet and she wished, uselessly, that she had kept the closet door closed.

That one distraction was enough to catch her mother’s attention. Morgan froze in place and watched her mother turn around and look into the closet.  She counted the seconds under her breath, knowing her mother would recognize the yellow cashmere, remember how it fit Robin so perfectly last autumn, bringing out the greens and grays in her eyes, making her glow like her favorite color always did. Morgan lowered her head and closed her eyes as she heard her mother’s quiet steps make their way to the closet. She heard the rustle of the clothes on the hangers, and knew her mother would reach out to touch her sister’s sweater.

“She really did love this sweater,” Rose said quietly. Morgan didn’t respond, just as she rarely did when anyone mentioned Robin.  What she did do was open her eyes and lift her head to look at her mother’s back. Rose turned around and gave Morgan her well-practiced brave face, but Morgan also knew how to read the sadness in her mother’s green eyes, which were so similar to Robin’s. “Are you taking this with you?” Rose asked.