Blue

IZABEL

IZABEL

As Izabel and Rosie made their way along the winding roads between the Andersons’s

place and Deer Harbor, Izabel tried to let the exhaustion of the previous day and

night drift away. She tried to use her visualization techniques to imagine that her

melancholy thoughts were like the passing scenery, here one moment and gone the next,

but the method was only a stark reminder of the rattling sensation she was trying

to loosen.

Cruising along the two-lane road, wavy hair flying behind her and strong legs maintaining

a steady rhythm both uphill and downhill, she looked like a modern-day storybook

character: Little Red Riding Hood without the cape, perhaps, or Snow White floating

through the forest in capris and Keds. One almost expected birds to land on her shoulder

or deer to rise up and wave good morning as she passed by.

Izabel was known throughout the island for her calm presence and bold artistic flair.

In many ways, she’d become an urban legend (even though Orcas Island could scarcely

be called “urban”) since she’d arrived out of the blue nearly twenty years earlier.

Tourists visiting the island had been known to inquire at local establishments about

the ethereal creature they’d seen pedaling through the rolling countryside and on

deserted beach roads.

While Rosie was a new acquisition, Izabel had used a bicycle as her primary form

of transportation for as long as she’d lived on the island. Even though the local

doctor and sheriff often reminded her of the dangers of riding helmet-free, she couldn’t

bring herself to strap on one of those confining contraptions. She loved the way

the breeze blew through her hair and tickled the tips of her ears. It might have

been only in her imagination, but she was quite certain that her thoughts flowed

more freely when they weren’t trapped inside a hard plastic dome. So why aren’t they

flowing today? she wondered.

Since becoming a doula nearly fifteen years ago, she had helped deliver more than

a hundred babies, and nothing like this morning had ever happened to her. During

those final minutes of labor when Shannon shouted, “Put yourself in my place and

then tell me it’s beauty!”, Izabel had felt as though she had switched bodies with

Shannon and become the one giving birth.

Even though she was childless, she’d felt her womb tighten along with Shannon’s,

experiencing a mirrored urge to grimace and growl like a banshee. For a brief moment,

push had been the only thing she could think and feel. The impulse lasted less than

a second, so briefly, in fact, that she hadn’t remembered it until she’d climbed

onto Rosie twenty minutes ago and started up the hill.

Weird, she thought. I must be starting to over-identify with my birthing mothers.

HOOOOOONNNNNNKKKKKKKK!!

Izabel realized, too late, that she had moved off the shoulder of the road and drifted

near the yellow dotted line in the center of the thoroughfare.

“Geez, Izzy. Are you trying to get yourself killed?” yelled Hank, the island handyman,

as he pulled his old beater truck to the side of the road.

“Sorry, Hank. I must’ve drifted off.”

“You gotta watch it around here, Iz. I know to keep an eye out for cyclists and deer

and stuff, but if I’d been a rubber-neckin’ tourist coming ’round that corner, you’d’ve

been a goner for sure.”

“I know. I know, Hank. I’ll be more careful. I guess it was a longer night than I

thought. Hey, did you know the Andersons have a new baby girl? She’s a real beauty.”

“Another girl? This island’s gettin’ overrun with those little beauties you keep

deliverin’. Where ya headed now?”

“Oh, I was going to Deer Harbor for some coffee, but maybe I’ll just head home and

get some sleep instead.”

“Let’s put Rosie in the back and I’ll take ya home. Not sure it’s safe to keep you

on the road this morning.” Hank winked.

Too weary and shaken to pedal all the way home, Izabel nodded and let Hank toss her

bike in the back of his dilapidated Ford.

“Be careful with Rosie now, Hank. She’s not much for lying on her side,” she teased

him, with a wilted smile.