The night we left my mother, we were just over the border when I started to burn. Sweat covered my body; my father said he touched my forehead and it was like putting his hand on coals. There were no hospitals, only highways and forests, and by the time we got to Canada, he was pretty sure I might die.

Tofino was pitch-black, pure forest, but somehow he found the ocean and doused me in the cold water. We slept without a tent, under the shade of the towering trees, and in the morning my fever was gone. He said I ran laughing across the beach, happy with the shells and sand castles, the seaweed and the abalone, happier than I’d ever been in Oregon. That was why he felt so grateful for the forests. He thought the trees saved my life. And I let him believe the myth. It probably made him feel less guilty about severing me from Everly.

Now my father fiddled with the straps of his overalls. I’d never seen him so tense and fidgety.

I stared at his dark brown eyes, the stubble on his cheeks. My dad’s got the truest smile; people always trust him right away.

He took out his rolling papers.

Here we go. Oh God.

Sara, listen. You’re so—this—just—you know—I—

He wasn’t even high yet.

My father’s problem is that he feels too much. Feeling fucks you up. You get hurt; you have to get high to stop the stress, the pain.

Don’t care, I wanted to tell him. Just shrug your shoulders. Don’t love your daughter so much. Don’t be so moved by scenery.

I went and sat beside him. He used to braid my hair, and I was hoping he’d do it now, but he never did that anymore. Maybe he stopped when I turned sixteen; maybe he stopped because I looked too much like Everly.

He moved away from me.

He kept his eyes on the homegrown weed in his hands; he licked the seal. Rolling papers fell from his trembling hands.

He toked, talked about the house he would build in the forests with his hands. Solar panels, no electricity. He asked me when my last day of school was.

Twelve days, I said. I can hardly wait. I hate—

Look, darling, you—I—I’ve got to—to Eden. The moment is now. You can come up when you’re done. That’s what I think is best.

I can go with you now, I said, though I didn’t want to go to the forests.

I’ll get in trouble if I take you out of school.

No one cares. They don’t even know I’m there.

Well, that nosy social worker knows. You raise your daughter alone, believe me, they’re always watching you.

He rambled on about how the Trees in Eden were calling out to him.