Exodus

“Did you know that I planted these trees?” Stephanie asked, looking up. She and a little girl were sitting on a blanket having a picnic.

“Yes Mom, you told me a thousand times. You planted them with Grandma. You slipped plastic sleeves over them to protect them from the deer. You watched them grow. You used to come down here with Dad when you were teenagers.”

Stephanie held her hand to her forehead to block the sunlight. “They were only a foot tall when we planted them, and now look at them.”

Her daughter looked down and popped a snap pea into her mouth. “Are you going to miss them?”

Stephanie didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Come on, it’s getting late, and we have a long way to go.”

They gathered their things off the ground and stuffed them into the truck bed between the boxes.

That night, the flames turned the sky orange. The smoke was visible in the distance when the sun rose, but Stephanie never looked back.