Even if Peter Morris no longer lived under the Heartland roof, his soon-to-be ex-wife had really not noticed anything being different. The man had spent so many years traveling between place A and place B, that this weird separation phase between the decision to break up and eventually signing the papers to finalize the divorce felt the like the same old thing.
Lou Fleming-Morris did the house chores, saw her kids off to school, ran her businesses, took care of the errands, and if she was lucky, curled up on the sofa at the end of the day with a glass of red wine just to listen to the silence that was rare occurrence during days.
Even at night, things were the same, but in a more profound and sad way. The bed felt too big for one and Lou woke up seeking Peter's body to wrap herself around, only to realize that she was alone and the man was miles away in Vancouver. Lou hardly let her raw emotions come through around other people, but at nights, she cried herself to sleep and felt like disappearing completely.
But when the sun rose again, she was back to the business of running the house and looking after everyone.
"Katie, take your hobby-horse, we are gonna go outside", Lou instructed as she took two cardboard boxes with Peter's things in them with her. She was planning to store them in the Quonset hut for the time being, right next to her strawberry jam, because she didn't want them as a reminder in the house and didn't feel comfortable putting them in the attic room that now belonged to their older daughter, Georgie.
Lou put on her boots and saw that Katie was with her. The little girl was astride her hobby-horse, prancing around and mimicking hoof sounds without a care in the world.
If there was a silver lining to almost everything being like it had always been, it was the fact that Katie couldn't see much difference either. There were occasional questions about her father's whereabouts, but usually she got distracted soon enough by something and continued playing with her toys and her great-grandfather, or "GG" as she so lovingly called Jack Bartlett.
"Stay in my sight, okay?" Lou asked Katie when they headed toward the Quonset hut. She waited till she got a response, just to make sure that Katie had heard what she had told her.
"Yes, Mommy", Katie assured her as she rode around the yard, her pigtails bouncing along to the rhythm of her make-believe galloping stick horse. Lou smiled as she opened the door and worked her way into the hut. The place was in chaos and as soon as Lou set the boxes down she put her hands on her hips, and knew she could not just leave it be.
It wasn't unusual for Lou to clean up a whole house when she had something on her mind, so knowing that she was soon facing a heartbreaking divorce, it wasn't hard to guess what was going to happen to a messy hut that so desperately needed organizing.
Minutes later, she was elbows deep in the cleaning process. The boxes with Peter's things in them were still in the middle of the floor and everything else was being neatly arranged. When Jack arrived and stuck his head in the doorway and watched Lou at work, he wondered why no one had ever named a hurricane after Samantha Louise Fleming-Morris, because the way she was cleaning up the place reminded him of the said natural disaster.
"Uh… Lou?" Jack interrupted her.
"Yeah?" Lou asked, not even pausing as she was in the middle of the process and was not stopping for anything or anyone.
"I was thinking I could cook tonight, if that's okay with you", Jack suggested.
"Sure. – Does this has something to do with the fact that Lisa's coming over tonight…?" Lou had to ask.
The girls and Lou had stayed behind to live with Jack for the time being, while Amy had moved to Ty's trailer after they had gotten married late last year. Lou didn't mind Lisa being around, as she was very helpful with the kids and house chores and let Lou have a well deserved breather every once in a while.
"Maybe…" Jack smiled shyly. "Just wanted to make her favorite meal, that's all."
"It's okay, Grampa. I don't mind. It might actually be nice to get a night off for once. Besides, I'm kind of in the middle of something here, so…"
"Seems like it. – So, where's Katie? Did you leave her inside the house all by herself?" Jack asked.
"She's outside playing. Isn't she…?" Lou stopped what she was doing and turned around to face her grandfather as the fear crept up her spine and reached her neck causing it to tingle.
The old man looked over his shoulders few times and shook his head.
"I don't see her."
"What…?" Lou panicked and rushed pass Jack to get outside. She began to survey the whole yard and looking for Katie. No blonde pigtails, no pink summer dress or violet hobby-horse anywhere. There was absolutely no sign of Katie. "Oh my God… Katie!" Lou started running around aimlessly, desperately calling out her daughter's name. "Katie! Oh my God, oh my– Grampa, where is she?!" Lou brought her hands to her cheeks in horror.
"Just breathe. When was the last time you saw her?" Jack said as he tried to keep Lou calm. He was worried about the little girl too, of course, but they were no use to her if they couldn't remain reasonably calm.
"Uh, I don't know", Lou said, unable to think straight, "maybe like 15 minutes ago… It's hard to say, I was cleaning and I lost the track of time– Oh my God, Grampa, what if something's happened to her? – Katieee!" she screamed out her daughter's name again.
"She can't be far. I'll go look over there, you search that way", Jack said giving her strict orders by pointing out directions.
Lou nodded and started to run around, her eyes scanning the area behind the Quotient hut. The grass was tall, so she could clearly see a little pathway heading deeper into the meadow. Lou decided to follow the only clue that she had, all while hollering Katie's name, hoping the girl would show up soon and make her worry go away.
But when Lou saw a violet plastic stick sticking up from the pond and a small lifeless body, face down in the water, she knew why Katie had not responded to her repeated frantic calls.
She had fallen into the pond.
"Oh my God, Katie!" Lou screamed as she ran to the shore and waded out to where her daughter floated motionless in the water. She laboriously pulled the girl out from the water and saw that her face was already blue.
Katie was cold and limp in her arms when Lou gently laid her on the shore.
"Katie, can you hear me?" Lou cried as she tried to shake her carefully, hoping to see some signs of life in her small body, but it appeared like she wasn't breathing. "It's Mommy…" Lou continued as she checked her vital signs.
Now she knew that Katie wasn't breathing and there was no pulse.
"Somebody help me!" Lou cried out loudly. Her body was trembling as she carefully caressed her little girl's cold cheek. "It's okay, honey…"
Jack had heard Lou's scream and was making his way to the pond. Lou sensed the rustle of the grass and shot her teary eyes up after tilting Katie's head up.
"Grampa, call an ambulance, tell them to come right away! Please…"
"Is she…?" Jack asked when he saw Katie on the ground.
"She's not breathing…" Lou said and started to perform CPR. "Katie, come on, don't go… Please, don't die on me…" she chanted between the chest compressions.